Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Our Xue Dong Isn’t Simple
Little Nan nodded at Teacher Gao—head and body together—then dove into Eldest Sister Li Jin Zhu’s arms, trembling like a thread about to snap.
“Brother’s exhausted,” Li Jin Zhu blurted, already bending to hoist her up. “I’ll carry him back first. Tonight I’ll have him come to Teacher and explain.”
She ran.
“Go back and rest!” Teacher Gao hurried after them a few steps, waving like he could fan them all the way home. “Don’t come tonight—let him rest properly! No need to come!”
Teacher Gao watched them go, his heart pinching. Xue Dong was so thin, so weak. And these past days he’d pushed himself so hard he looked wrung dry.
Those siblings… life had not been kind to them.
He lingered there a moment longer, eyes catching the patches on Li Jin Zhu’s clothes—patch upon patch—before he finally turned back to wait for his other two students.
Li Jin Zhu didn’t stop until she reached the little woodshed behind the inn. She stumbled inside and collapsed onto the ground, legs shaking.
Second Sister Li Yu Zhu had been sitting at the shed door mending clothes. She sprang up so fast the old garments in her lap spilled everywhere.
Nearby, the real Li Xue Dong—dressed as Little Nan—was hunched over an old little jacket, unpicking stitches. Li Yu Zhu’s sudden movement startled him so badly he tipped backward.
Li Yu Zhu lunged forward. Before she could even reach Little Nan, Li Jin Zhu’s strength gave out completely and she slumped onto the floor.
“It’s fine,” Little Nan said at once, voice low and quick. “Nothing happened. It went smoothly—everything.”
Li Yu Zhu let out a shaky breath and sat down hard, wiping cold sweat from her forehead. All day her heart had felt like it was being fried and boiled at the same time.
Li Xue Dong crawled close and whispered, “Teacher didn’t recognize you?”
“No.” Little Nan craned her neck, checked left and right, then shoved him deeper into the shed. “Hurry up and change back!”
The sisters moved like they’d practiced it a hundred times. One handled hair, one handled clothes, hands flying. In moments, the disguises were reversed.
Little Nan exhaled so long it felt like her ribs might crack. “All right. Eldest Sister, keep watch. I’ll go over the prompts with Brother.”
Li Jin Zhu took up her needle and thread at the doorway, eyes scanning the yard while her hands kept stitching. Li Yu Zhu went to the kitchen to heat water.
Little Nan and Li Xue Dong leaned their heads together. She told him everything—every question, how she’d structured the two essays, how she’d forced the poem into rhyme, what she’d considered and discarded, and what the exam hall had been like minute by minute.
Li Xue Dong listened until he understood, then kept reciting deep into the night, drilling the two essays and the poem until they rolled off his tongue.
—
The next morning, the results were posted; in the afternoon, the candidates were summoned to the hall.
Just after sunrise, two yamen runners came out beating gongs. They pasted a bright-red notice onto the white wall outside the County School. The crowd surged.
Teacher Gao was tall. He stood back from the crush, calm and steady, watching over the commotion.
He’d brought three students to test, but he’d carried no hope.
He knew his students too well. None of the three were especially clever; their studies were ordinary. And the Gao Family School had never once had a student named on the list.
He was still replaying the errand list he’d been handed when someone shouted, “Li Xue Dong!”
Teacher Gao froze. He snapped his head toward his other two students. “Did they just call Li Xue Dong?”
Both students nodded at once.
“I’m going to look!” Teacher Gao threw the words over his shoulder and ran, grabbing the front hem of his robe.
By the time he forced his way through, his hat had been shoved crooked. He spotted his students and burst into laughter before he could even speak. “It’s really Xue Dong—sixth! Not simple, not simple! Where is he? Quick, find Xue Dong!”
Li Xue Dong had placed sixth in the inner circle. Teacher Gao’s other two students had fallen outside the outer circle.
Magistrate Huang posted a notice: even those outside the circle could still sit the remaining sessions if they wished.
That single sixth-place rank lit a fire in Teacher Gao. He decided immediately—his other two students would continue through every session, even if only to gain experience.
That afternoon, Magistrate Huang met the inner-circle top twenty and the outer-circle top thirty in the County School’s main hall. By rank, Li Xue Dong stood in the front row.
Magistrate Huang didn’t spring random questions on them. Instead, he selected one stylized essay from each of the top ten and lectured through them carefully—what was strong, what was lacking, and why—so detailed it felt like he was carving the lessons straight into the air.
Teacher Gao stood outside the hall, craning his neck, listening with open admiration.
Magistrate Huang was a Presented Scholar twice over. Of course his level was different.
When the lecture ended, Magistrate Huang looked over the top ten one by one. He stopped in front of Li Xue Dong, smiling. “Li Xue Dong, lift your head. Don’t be afraid.”
Li Xue Dong’s throat tightened. He raised his head and met the magistrate’s eyes.
Magistrate Huang’s face was lined with deep wrinkles, but his gaze was bright and warm. “Your explanation of ‘Hui’s way of being a person’ from The Doctrine of the Mean was well done—very well done. Keep at it. Keep testing.”
He patted Li Xue Dong and moved on.
Only then did Li Xue Dong feel his lungs work again. Cold sweat soaked his back.
For a terrifying instant, he’d thought Magistrate Huang had discovered A Nan had taken the exam in his place.
Impersonation was a grave crime.
—
The following day held three more sessions: one in the morning, two in the afternoon.
The morning was a half-day: one stylized essay, one classical essay, and a recitation of over a hundred characters of statutes.
When it was time to submit, Little Nan followed her rule—neither early nor late. The moment she stepped out, she sagged into Eldest Sister Li Jin Zhu’s arms as if her bones had turned to water.
Teacher Gao looked at the “Xue Dong” before him—pale, trembling, seemingly drained—and his worry doubled. He urged Li Jin Zhu again and again to carry Xue Dong back. There was still an hour and a half before the afternoon sessions—enough time for a nap.
The afternoon held two sessions of one hour each. The candidates could choose freely among stylized prose, poetry, classical essays, or parallel prose—one piece per session—then recite the first two lines of the morning’s statutes.
For the fourth session, Little Nan chose stylized prose. For the fifth, she chose a five-character poem with eight rhymes.
When she finally emerged, she kept up the act: limp, exhausted, slumped on Li Jin Zhu’s back as they hurried back to the inn.