Chapter 48: The Beam-Stealing, Pillar-Swapping Literary Heart (Part 1)

Waiting for her three taels?

Shen Tang’s mind sprinted. With the kind of imagination that never knew restraint, she spun up a dozen wild theories in a heartbeat.

Was she some fated chosen one?

Please. She’d been tripping over bad luck since the day she got here.

She tried to keep her voice from sounding too smug, but she couldn’t stop a small, curious lift at the corner of her mouth.

“So there’s a story behind it,” she said. “Does it have to be me who gives the three taels? Or can it be anyone, as long as it’s exactly three?”

Chu Yao’s answer caught her off guard.

“I don’t know.”

Shen Tang blinked. “You don’t know?”

“This is a long story,” he said. “And I’m not completely sure myself.”

“I’ve got time,” she said at once. “Tell it.”

Qi Shan always used “long story” as a way to slam a door in her face. She wasn’t letting Chu Yao do the same.

Chu Yao glanced back at her. “Wu Lang is truly curious?”

“Very.”

“Then we have to start from the year I began learning to read—”

“What happened that year?” Shen Tang cut in immediately.

Chu Yao paused, then said dryly, “Nothing happened.”

Shen Tang stared at the back of his head, speechless. The silence must have painted itself on her face, because he gave a small, helpless chuckle.

“I only sensed heaven-and-earth qi that year,” he said, “and in the same year, I condensed a literary heart.”

Shen Tang’s interest sharpened. “What rank?”

“Second-rank upper-middle.”

She sucked in a breath. “That high?”

Qi Shan strutted like he owned the world and he was only sixth rank, mid-lower. A second-rank upper-middle literary heart was just below the first-rank upper-upper—sage rank, void grade, something only a feudal lord with a state seal could possess.

Second-rank upper-middle was as high as ordinary people could get.

A hand like that, and he’d still ended up washing dishes in a brothel’s back kitchen?

It made no sense.

Chu Yao’s voice went dull around the edges. “High? Yes. Too high.”

He kept walking, eyes on the road. “If I could choose, I’d rather it were lower. Fourth rank. Fifth. Even ninth-rank lower-lower.”

He let out a breath. “To me, that literary heart was a curse.”

Shen Tang frowned. “Isn’t it proof of talent? Why would anyone want less?”

Chu Yao gave a bitter smile. “Wu Lang. Didn’t your teacher tell you that a scholar’s rank doesn’t represent everything?”

“Yuan Liang said it,” Shen Tang admitted. “I thought it was just his personal opinion. I didn’t think… everyone capable agreed.”

Chu Yao’s gaze slid to her. “Everyone capable?”

Shen Tang coughed. “It’s just a phrase.”

He didn’t press. Instead, he said, “So—Brother Yuan Liang. The young scholar I met on the street earlier?”

“Yes,” Shen Tang said. “That’s him.”

“A good teacher,” Chu Yao said, and there was something genuine in it. “Then did he ever tell you about literary heart talents?”

Shen Tang froze. “Literary heart… talents?”

The list of strange terms in this world never ended.

“No,” she said honestly. “He never mentioned it. He only talked about the feudal lord’s path. And—don’t laugh—my understanding of the literary heart isn’t deep. When I ask him questions, he always brushes me off. Either ‘later,’ or ‘you don’t need to know.’”

Chu Yao fell silent for a moment, as if weighing it.

“Brother Yuan Liang may be doing it for your sake,” he said at last. “Some things—the more you know, the worse it is for you later.”

Shen Tang’s curiosity spiked hard enough to hurt. “That’s a real thing?”

“It is.”

Then Chu Yao, as if deciding for her, continued, “Literary heart talents are divided into two kinds. One is the feudal lord’s path. One is the scholar’s path.”

He spoke as if reciting a rule everyone should have been born knowing. “Even the names tell you what they represent.”

“As for the feudal lord’s path,” he added, “you’ve heard it from your teacher. I won’t repeat it.”

“What I’m talking about is the scholar’s path. It’s a rare ability unique to some Wenxin Strategists. It can be used without relying on a word-spirit.”

Shen Tang absorbed it quickly. “You had it too?”

Chu Yao’s answer came after a pause. “I did.”

His voice dipped. “But before it could grow, my literary heart was beam-stealing, pillar-swapping.”

Shen Tang’s eyes widened. “Beam-stealing, pillar-swapping?”

Chu Yao looked ahead, the road reflected in his eyes like cold water. “Yes. Didn’t your teacher tell you a literary heart can be taken?”

Shen Tang’s throat went dry.

Qi Shan had never said a word.

“My second-rank upper-middle literary heart was replaced that way,” Chu Yao said, calm as if he were talking about someone else. “One night, at the age when I was most full of ambition, I fell into the mud. I never had a chance to climb out again.”

He spoke again, quieter. “Your teacher may not mention the scholar’s path because it isn’t only an ability. It’s a scholar’s answer to the self.”

“It’s tied to who you are, what kind of person you are, what you seek.”

He gave a faint, humorless curve of his lips. “Even a sage wouldn’t want that exposed under everyone’s stare.”

Not every Wenxin Strategist had a scholar’s path. But among those who did, most hid it.

To speak it aloud was like being stripped bare and shoved into a crowd.

Shen Tang’s gaze drifted, a flicker of understanding forming.

No wonder Chu Yao called it a curse. Something that valuable, on a man with no background, was like walking through a busy market with a fortune in your arms—begging to be robbed.