Chapter 45: Shock in Lin'an (Part Two)

The entire venue fell silent once more.

Among the tens of thousands of Lin'an locals, quite a few had seen Chen Xiaofu before.

Everyone knew what kind of person Chen Xiaofu was.

For so many years, the impression of Chen Xiaofu had been deeply ingrained in their hearts—

The illegitimate son of the Divine General's Manor!

An idiot who could barely recognize a few basic characters!

A cowardly, inarticulate… good-for-nothing!

Today, he was actually standing upon the high platform!

He was actually holding the hand of An Xiaowei, the greatest talent of Great Zhou and one of the four great beauties of the realm!

He and An Xiaowei had actually been childhood sweethearts…

What the hell?

One was in the imperial capital while the other was in Lin'an, separated by a thousand miles, and you dare call that childhood sweethearts? He really is uncultured; does he have some profound misunderstanding of what a childhood sweetheart means?

Yet, absurdly enough, they were betrothed!

This rumor of a betrothal was clearly true, because An Xiaowei's hand was right there in Chen Xiaofu's grasp.

She offered no resistance, and her eyes seemed filled with utmost joy.

Such an absurd thing was happening right now, right before everyone's eyes!

Before they even had time to digest this absurdity, Chen Xiaofu was now going to recite a poem in public…

Chen Xiaofu reciting poetry?

Even if someone wrote a poem for him and told him to read it aloud, he would probably stumble through it because he only knew about thirty characters!

He had mentioned his first poem!

Could he possibly recite a second one?

Chen Xiaofu on the stage looked just as he always had in their memories, but at this moment, everyone felt he had somehow become unfamiliar.

Today's contest had been provoked by Chen Xiaofu.

He had loudly proclaimed his intent to challenge all the scholars of the Ning'an Academy, as well as the twelve gifted youths of the Qi State. It was precisely because of this that so many people had been attracted to spend ten silver taels just to watch.

These people had expected to see the illegitimate son of the Divine General's Manor make a fool of himself.

They never imagined that Chen Xiaofu would actually ascend the high platform and actually intend to recite poetry.

Since there were two poems, except for the first one which might have been ghostwritten by An Xiaowei, the second one surely had to be written by himself.

What was that first poem like?

Right under the gaze of everyone,

Chen Xiaofu continued to hold An Xiaowei's hand as he spoke:

"The first poem composed by this young master is titled *Spring Chamber*. 'Chamber' as in boudoir, not 'Chamber' as in return."

He chanted in a loud voice:

"Painted pavilion, lowered curtains, painted curtains lowered;
Thoughts and yearnings, tied to whom, to whom tied?
Flower branches play with shadows, shadows play with flower branches;
Willow threads pull silk, silk pulls willow threads."

Upon hearing this, Yu Fu and the others were already filled with shock.

The four elder Confucian scholars on the stage all stood up at once, staring intently at Chen Xiaofu's back!

Down below, Hongxiu stared in disbelief at Chen Xiaofu's handsome face, her complexion flushed with excitement!

An Xiaowei's face, hidden beneath her veil, was wreathed in joy.

She turned her head to look at Chen Xiaofu, her eyes brimming with tenderness.

Chen Xiaofu chanted loudly once more:

"Wavy face crossed by tears, tears crossed by wavy face;
Eyebrows dense with sorrow, sorrow dense with eyebrows.
Night is eternal, cold lamp, cold lamp, eternal night;
Dreams return to the time of homecoming… time of homecoming, dreams."

With the recitation of the poem finished,

the entire audience remained dead silent.

Thus it lasted for five breaths, until a voice suddenly exploded from behind the stage:

"Impossible!"

A group of twelve people rushed onto the high platform.

Behind the twelve scholars walked a bearded man of about forty years of age.

They were none other than the twelve scholars of the Qi State!

The bearded man carried twin swords on his back and silently stepped behind Yu Fu.

Elder Scholar Xu was startled and was about to scold them when he saw Yu Fu wave a hand at him—

Yu Fu was a pseudonym.

His real name was Qi Yufu!

He was the sixth prince of the Qi State!

Born of the empress, upon returning from this trip to Great Zhou, he would enter the East Palace to become the future emperor of the Qi State!

Elder Scholar Xu naturally knew the wish of this disciple of his.

He was utterly obsessed with marrying An Xiaowei as his wife!

He was immensely talented and destined to be the future ruler of the Qi State, so Elder Scholar Xu had believed this would be no difficult task.

He simply had never anticipated that An Xiaowei and Chen Xiaofu had long been betrothed.

Even less did he expect that An Xiaowei would reveal this matter outright, and that Chen Xiaofu would immediately take her hand and announce it once again before so many people.

He knew that His Highness the Sixth Prince no longer had any chance.

He had thought that this would not be an insurmountable hurdle or a big deal for Qi Yufu—

As the emperor of the Qi State, what wife could he not have?

Yet now it appeared that the Sixth Prince harbored a deep obsession, and he was actually signaling him not to interfere…

Elder Scholar Xu sighed inwardly, only to see Shang Qianwen already take two steps forward to stand beside Chen Xiaofu.

With a cold sneer, he said:

"Chen Xiaofu, do you still dare deny that this *Spring Chamber* was not written by Miss An?"

"This poem is clearly written about a woman longing for a man; you couldn't even grasp the meaning within the poem..."

Before he could finish, Chen Xiaofu interrupted him:

"You're right!"

"This very poem was just written for me by Xiaowei in the library just now. She said it represents her yearning for me all these years."

An Xiaowei was taken aback.

Liang Jingru was startled.

Chen Xiaofu had already turned his head to look at An Xiaowei: "With a wife like this, what more could a husband ask for?"

An Xiaowei's face flushed slightly as she intended to defend him: "Jie'an..."

Chen Xiaofu smiled slightly, squeezed An Xiaowei's hand, and turned his gaze back to Shang Qianwen:

"Didn't you accurately deduce just now that this poem was written by Xiaowei?"

"Making such a huge fuss… could it be that you want to fight?"

"I am a civilized man. Aside from knowing a thing or two about fists and kicks, I also know a bit about poetry and prose."

"Our wager was that I could recite two palindrome poems… This is the first one, so next, this young master will recite another."

*“Surely you won’t claim this one was written by Xiaowei again, will you?”*

Shang Qianwen choked back his words, gritting his teeth as he said:

"Fine! Then let's hear your second poem. Please!"

The audience below was completely baffled, wondering if the drama today was getting a bit too rich.

Chen Xiaofu went on stage to answer the challenge, and the answer was a poem written by An Xiaowei… No wonder that poem was so marvelous!

Now the scholars on stage seemed to have made some sort of wager with Chen Xiaofu, and Chen Xiaofu was about to recite a second poem. Even if An Xiaowei's talent reached three stories high, it would be virtually impossible for her to compose two poems back-to-back in the span of half an hour.

Therefore, this next poem must surely have been composed by Chen Xiaofu himself.

Could he… write poetry… that actually made sense?

"Ahem,"

Chen Xiaofu cleared his throat and spoke loudly to the crowd once more:

"Everyone, this young master will now recite the second palindrome poem."

"This poem is titled *Mutual Longing*."

Everyone was startled. The youth earlier had said that *Spring Chamber* was about a woman longing for a man; could Chen Xiaofu now be reciting a poem about a husband longing for his wife?

Surely this couldn't be dismissed as ghostwriting by the talented Miss An anymore, could it?

Didn't they all see Miss An shyly lowering her head?

Amidst the anticipation of the crowd, Chen Xiaofu recited with deep emotion:

"Dry eyes gaze at distant mountains separated by water, coming and going, how many confidants have we seen?
The pot is empty, fearing to pour a single cup of wine; beneath the brush, it is hard to complete a harmonized poem.
Roads block people, separated for long; news has no wild goose to send a delayed reply.
A solitary lamp guards the night, long and desolate; husband remembers wife, and father remembers child."

When the poem was finished,

once again, the entire venue fell into a pin-drop silence.

The palindrome structure of this poem was completely different from the first. When the scholars and literati in the audience read the poem backwards in their minds, every single one of them wore an expression of utter horror!

An Xiaowei also widened her eyes in shock!

At that moment, Hongxiu let out a gasp of astonishment:

"This poem… read forwards, it is a husband longing for his wife; read backwards, it is a wife longing for her husband…"

"Good heavens! Young Master Chen's talent… who else in this world could possibly match it!"