The early summer breeze, brimming with the fiery sweet fragrance of pomegranate blossoms, swept past the General's Mansion's hanging gate, striking the bronze bells hanging from the eaves with a series of clear jingles. Chuntao, standing on tiptoe, was tucking a silver magnolia hairpin into Shen Weiwan's hair. The delicate white magnolia on the hairpin had barely touched her temple when the old steward from the front yard stumbled through the moon gate, his goatee still stained with glistening sweat. "Miss! The housekeeper from the Imperial Tutor's Mansion has handed over a card, saying that the Imperial Tutor's wife requests your immediate visit!"
Chen Weiwan was about to put a piece of honey-drenched osmanthus cake into her mouth when her fingers trembled at the words, and the cake almost fell onto her moon-white skirt. Chuntao cried out, "Ouch!" and held her elbow, her fingertips trembling beneath her embroidered handkerchief. "Miss, could it be that the Taifu's wife has heard about you selling poems on Zhuque Street? She's always been very particular about etiquette, and I'm afraid she'll blame us..."
"Blame?" Chen Weiwan licked the sugar stains on her fingertips, her obsidian eyes rolled around, and she suddenly laughed, "During the Lantern Festival two years ago, I saw Madam Taifu secretly buying sugar-painted rabbits on the street - maybe she was attracted by my 'sand sculpture poems'!" She remembered that in her previous life, Madam Taifu always secretly collected folk slang at banquets, and the edges of the "Xiao Lin Guang Ji" hidden in her sleeves were worn out.
Half an hour later, Chen Weiwan boarded the blue-clothed carriage, the sunlight filtering through the gaps in the curtains dancing on the tip of her nose. As they passed the stone lions in front of the Grand Tutor's residence, the shaft suddenly lightened, and the colorful parrot under the porch fluttered its wings and followed, calling out crisply, "A distinguished guest has arrived—a distinguished guest has arrived—" She was so amused that she couldn't help but lift the curtains. She saw the parrot, its claws tied with gold thread, tilting its head to look at her, a few grains of corn clinging to its red beak.
The housekeeper led her through a winding corridor. Outside, a pond of water lilies was in full bloom, with koi carp swimming beneath the leaves, shattering the light from the sky. The curtains of the warm room were lifted, and a faint scent of ink mixed with mint filled the air. The Imperial Tutor's wife sat by the window, a scroll half obscuring her face. Jade Buddhist beads slipped through her fingers, making a rustling sound.
"Are you the legitimate daughter of the General Guardian's Mansion?" The Imperial Tutor's wife put down her scroll and looked at her through her reading glasses. As Shen Weiwan bowed, she noticed that the flat red gold hairpin on the lady's temples had a few scratches, and the hem of her moon-white satin skirt was stained with a few spots of ink - as if she had just fished it out of a pile of books.
"I heard that you wrote a 'chamber pot poem' at the Waterside Poetry Meeting?" Mrs. Taifu tapped the pearwood table with her fingertips, a meaningful smile on her lips.
Chen Weiwan's heart skipped a beat, but she pretended to be confused: "Which poem are you talking about, Madam? I recently wrote the 'Spider Web Poem' to satirize the Confucian scholars, and the 'Abacus Poem' to persuade my aunt..."
"Stop pretending to be confused!" The wife of the Grand Tutor suddenly laughed out loud, and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes stretched out like a blooming chrysanthemum. "It's that poem 'The Chamber Pot Belly is Big and the Mouth is Small' - it's well written! It's a hundred times better than the whining written by my grandsons!" She stood up and walked to the rosewood bookshelf, pulled out a booklet with a blue cloth cover. The four words "Folk Jokes" were written crookedly on the cover, obviously written by her own hand.
Shen Weiwan took the booklet and opened it. It was full of street rhymes copied in tiny calligraphy: "Three monks have no water to drink, four women make a play", "Wang Po next door sells watermelons, and she brags about it"... She couldn't help but read them out loud. When she read "Don't worry about squatting in the toilet, the fragrant cakes you bring are better than honey", the wife of the Grand Tutor slapped her thigh and laughed so hard that she almost dropped the Buddhist beads in her hand.
"That's right!" The lady pointed to a certain annotation in the booklet, "Look at this 'Aunt is good at calculating', it's exactly the same as your 'calculating the family property'!" Shen Weiwan only then discovered that the blank spaces in the booklet were densely packed with annotations from the Taifu's wife, and there was even a little man making faces next to the poem "The new bride enters the house noisily".
As she spoke, a maid brought in some refreshments. A crystal pork elbow trembled on a gilded lacquer tray, its skin coated in amber sauce. The sight of this made Shen Weiwan drool. The Imperial Tutor's wife pushed the plate directly in front of her, saying, "Eat now! Don't act like those ladies, pretending to be so—I like your straightforward nature!"
Shen Weiwan didn't hesitate. She picked up a large piece of pork elbow with her silver chopsticks and put it into her mouth. The soft and sticky skin melted on her tongue, and the sweet and salty taste made her squint her eyes. Chun Tao was stunned by the sight and quietly pulled her sleeve, but she shook it off calmly and picked up another piece of pork elbow with tendons.
"I heard you made a lot of money selling poems on the street?" The Taifu's wife sipped her Biluochun tea and suddenly lowered her voice. "How much silver? Tell me about it, so that my grandsons who only know how to read books can embarrass themselves!"
Shen Weiwan swallowed the meat and said vaguely: "It's only... a few hundred taels." As soon as the voice fell, the Taifu's wife laughed even more happily: "Good! It's more than the thank-you gift my eldest grandson earned when he passed the imperial examination!"
The two were chatting happily when the sound of rings and pendants suddenly rang out from outside the warm room. Shen Weiwan looked up and saw the Seventh Prince, Xiao Yu, walking in with a food box. A few flower petals clung to his moon-white brocade robe, clearly having come straight from the Imperial Gardens. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Shen Weiwan and tapped the food box with his jade ring. "So Miss Shen is here too? I was thinking of sending some freshly made mung bean cakes to Grandmother..."
"Come on!" Madam Taifu took the food box and said angrily, "Weiwan hasn't finished the crystal pork elbow your mother sent, and she's eating it with great relish!"
Xiao Yu sat down next to Shen Weiwan, deliberately moving closer. The cedar-like scent mixed with the sweet aroma of pork elbows. "Miss Shen's 'Aunt's Abacus Poems' are now even sung by the chefs in the imperial kitchen. I'd like to buy a collection of poems for my collection. How much is it?"
Shen Weiwan rolled her eyes at him and tapped the empty plate with her silver chopsticks: "Your Highness will naturally be charged double - after all, you are a prince!"
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