"Lady Xu…"
As the singsong girl announced the name, the Dragon's Roar Pavilion's great hall hushed for a moment, and the talents and the great scholars alike knit their brows—plainly none of them had ever heard of this 'remarkable woman.'
Song Baiqing blinked, peering dubiously at the singer across the hall; once he was sure she had not misread the signature, he looked rather at a loss, then turned his gaze back down to the many talented ladies below:
"Buling—'without orders, yet it is done'… that name… happens to be the very same as the Heir of Prince Su's. Hmm… this Lady Buling—who is she?"
At that, everyone turned peculiar looks to the side; a shared name was nothing so rare, but a man and a woman sharing one made for a fine bit of amusement.
What no one expected was that Heir Xu, who had been sitting off to one side of the hall with his tea, rose to his feet, tugged his fox-fur cloak snug, and let his gaze rove about with the haughtiest air, brimming with smugness from the bottom of his heart:
"That's right—it was yours truly!"
"Pfft—"
Xiao Ting, seated beside Xu Buling, spat out a mouthful of tea. He thumped at his chest, choking so hard it hurt:
"Xu Buling, you… you… I'm dying here… ha ha ha…"
Xiao Ting alone was laughing. Everyone else was dead silent, their eyes full of shock and incomprehension.
The rich young masters in Xiao Ting's circle had money, but they were not fools; each knew exactly how much he was worth, and if they were going to buy a poem, they would never buy a masterpiece for the ages like this.
Even if a man wanted to show off, he would at least buy a poem by a man—something he could just about bluff his way through.
This was plainly a poem written by a woman weathered by hardship—and it had come from the brush of a prince's heir? Lines like 'At day's end, too weary to comb my hair' and 'I too thought of drifting in a light boat'?
Was this the sort of sissy stunt a prince's son would pull?
Song Baiqing and the others knew Xu Buling's martial skill was exceptional and his letters poor, but they had never imagined he could not even copy a poem properly. How was this any different from copying the name on the exam paper along with the essay at the Imperial College's great examination?
The hall stayed silent as death for a long while; had Xu Buling's station not been what it was, plenty of the talents and beauties would already have started in with the mockery.
A poetry gathering was a place of refinement, and for the sons of princes to buy poems was shameful in itself. Small-scale dabbling to borrow a little fame was one thing, but this barefaced about it—that was a first since the creation of the world!
Prince Yan, Song Yu, rubbed his forehead and mulled it over for a long while, and still did not know what to say.
Song Baiqing, as Grand Libationer of the Imperial College and Xu Buling's own teacher, for all his aloof temper, went red in the face with shame and slapped the table:
"Xu Buling! As the Heir of Prince Su, you ought to keep your mind on court affairs and the army. What are you doing crashing a poetry gathering?"
The words were meant to tell Xu Buling to get out before he disgraced himself further—a step down offered, a way out.
But Xu Buling had come today precisely to be cursed at.
Wearing the look of a man utterly unrepentant, Xu Buling strode to the center of the hall, spread his hands, and swept the room with his eyes:
"Anyone may enter a poetry gathering. I wrote a fine lyric—why shouldn't I come?"
You wrote a fine lyric?
The talents and beauties of the hall nearly choked to death on that sentence, and it took tremendous self-control not to start swearing aloud.
There were several hundred people present, and not one of them was blind.
Who could fail to see that the lyric was written by 'a down-and-out woman poet weathered by the world'?
You, Xu Buling, Heir of Prince Su, a peerless prodigy of your generation—the only thing you have in common with 'a down-and-out woman poet weathered by the world' is the word 'of.'
If a man must buy a poem and copy it, at least copy a believable one. As it stood, he had plainly been played by that woman poet without even knowing it.
To be caught out buying a poem in open court meant infamy for ten thousand years; it was only reasonable that Xu Buling would deny it to the death and insist he had written it himself.
But to refuse the step down Song Baiqing had offered and insist on leaping out to serve as a target—that was going too far in not knowing his place.
Does he really think that because he's Prince Su's eldest son by the primary wife, no one here would dare speak?
Behind the desk, Qi Xinghan, whose temper had always been explosive, slapped the table and came to his feet, saying furiously:
"Nonsense! Do you take everyone sitting here for three-year-olds who can't read a single character? If you wrote this lyric, then have you been a woman dressed as a man all these years?"
"Ha ha ha…"
Snickers kept breaking out, and more than a few young ladies from official families stole glances at Xu Buling in his fox-fur cloak, murmuring to themselves, "He's prettier than most women—who's to say he isn't a woman dressed as a man…"
The moment the words left Qi Xinghan's mouth, his face stiffened; he studied Xu Buling a few times over, as though trying to determine whether he was male or female.
Prince Yan, Song Yu, wore a very odd expression; he raised a hand: "Buling is a man. This lyric… hmm…"
He hmmed for quite a while, at a loss for how to put it without wounding anyone's feelings.
Laughter kept rippling through the hall.
Seeing that the heat was about right and things were going exactly as planned, Xu Buling naturally put on a red-faced, flustered air and spoke with stubborn defiance:
"I wrote that poem—this Heir wrote it! None of you are allowed to laugh! All of you shut up!"
Qi Xinghan had never seen a student of the Imperial College so utterly unrepentant; he slapped the table and said furiously:
"You say you wrote it—who can prove it?"
Xu Buling was momentarily at a loss for words; he put on a speechless look and stared off elsewhere, every inch the man who simply would not admit to copying a poem.
At the sight, Qi Xinghan's anger flared; he slapped the table again:
"Who can prove it?"
Xu Buling still had no answer.
Just as the crowd was enjoying the spectacle, a voice ringing with righteousness suddenly sounded from the raised platform:
"I can prove it!"
The hall went abruptly still.
Xu Buling's die-hard, unrepentant expression froze.
The great hall of the Dragon's Roar Pavilion, ablaze with lanterns and bustling a moment before, fell utterly silent as that faint voice of righteousness rang out.
Every gaze went to the platform where the great scholars sat, and there stood a gentle-looking young woman, upright and proper, a note of indignation still in her eyes—plainly she felt the men of letters present had no business smearing an innocent man's good name.
Song Baiqing frowned: "Yufu, prove what?"
Song Yufu made a proper little curtsy, then faced the many watching talents and beauties:
"This lyric was written by Heir Xu to begin with. He simply doesn't care for empty fame and can't be bothered to argue with you. You shouldn't measure a gentleman's heart with a petty man's yardstick."
The talents and beauties glanced at one another, unsure how to explain matters to this young lady; she was probably some girl bewitched by Heir Xu's pretty face, raising a ruckus without looking at the facts.
Could they really not tell whether Xu Buling had copied it?
And Xu Buling, the hero of the affair, stared in horror at this Cheng Yaojin who had sprung out of nowhere, and wished he could go up and silence her for good.
I finally get the name of a poetry thief pinned on me, I'm about to pull it off, and you have to come barging in?
Seeing Song Yufu raise an objection, Qi Xinghan knit his brows and spoke:
"Conniving and covering for him will only ruin your own good name. How do you mean to prove it for him?"
Song Yufu, with nothing to fear, was just about to spill every last thing she knew about Xu Buling and prove that he was no brainless brute with more muscle than sense, but a great talent—'master of both pen and sword, mature beyond his years, deep as a well, with a future of limitless promise.'
But Xu Buling was thoroughly skilled at reading faces; one look at Song Yufu and he knew she had hold of something on him. He acted at once, stepping forward to say:
"Enough! Miss Song speaks up for justice, and I am grateful from the heart—but this lyric really was copied by this Xu, and I would not dare drag your spotless reputation down with mine."