Pu Ling studied under Master Zhou. Although he is young and a newcomer to the Central Plains tea market, his tea-whisking techniques are excellent and beyond the reach of ordinary people.
Despite appearing to be around the same age as Hu Yunshan, his actual foundation in tea studies is much deeper. Hu Yunshan had studied tea since childhood with the old head of the Hu family, whose skills were mediocre; had Hu Yunshan not possessed some natural talent himself, he might not be standing on equal footing with Pu Ling today.
Presumably, Xiao Heng had already tested the depths of both individuals during this time and knew Pu Ling was superior. He used Fang Zesheng’s visit as an opportunity to replace Pu Ling, avoiding any mishaps on the day of the competition that would embarrass the royal family in front of the common people.
At night.
Fu Jingxuan brought Fang Zesheng to the room where he had lived for the past six months. A heater was lit inside, so it wasn’t too cold, and the layout of the furniture followed the style of Central Plains houses without much foreign flair. Xiao Heng had spent several years in the Central Plains during his youth and personally favored these elegant items; colored glass cups and jade vases were displayed one by one throughout the room. Upon entering, one didn’t feel as though they were in a foreign land at all.
Fang Zesheng looked nowhere else and went straight to the bed where Fu Jingxuan had slept for half a year before reaching out to feel the bedboard. As expected, although the Third Prince Xiao did his utmost to present himself with refined elegance, at heart he was still a nomadic tribesman, used to taking the open sky as his blanket and the grasslands as his bed. When Fang Zesheng was young, he had accompanied Fang Changru to Linhuang Prefecture and learned that many nomads disliked high beds and soft pillows, preferring instead to lay a thin animal hide over a hard wooden bed to keep warm during winter.
It was not cold, but it was truly hard.
Seeing his stiff back, Fu Jingxuan wrapped his arms around his waist from behind.
Fang Zesheng sighed. He turned around, cradled Fu Jingxuan’s face, and gazed at him for a long time, rubbing against the faint layer of stubble on his face.
“Doesn’t it prickle?” Fu Jingxuan asked with a smile.
Fang Zesheng shook his head slightly. Taking him by the hand and guiding him to the table, he called out to Zhou Qi outside the door to fetch a razor and had San Bao bring a basin of clean water, then began to shave away the stubble for him.
Fu Jingxuan lifted his chin and moved left and right following the motions of the other party’s hand while chatting about his experiences in Linhuang Prefecture. Fang Zesheng seemed to have something on his mind; his lips twitched a few times before he finally spoke, “Hu Yunshan said that you…”
“Hmm?”
“Were out of your soul all day?”
Fu Jingxuan broke into a wide smile, startling Fang Zesheng into hurriedly pulling the razor away for fear of causing even the slightest nick. Sitting very close face-to-face, Fu Jingxuan leaned forward and rubbed Fang Zesheng’s reddening earlobe. “More than just out of my soul; I was nearly driven mad by lovesickness.”
At dawn the next day.
In the streets and alleys of Linhuang Prefecture, notices were posted one after another regarding the Third Prince’s upcoming tea competition against the Central Plains tea masters. The idle citizens were specially invited to the Zhaorong Terrace in the south of the city two days later to witness the battle.
Zhaorong Terrace was originally a martial arts training ground belonging to the Xiao family. Following the completion of the capital city a few years ago, the training grounds were moved outside the city, and the site became a place for wrestling matches among local warriors. Now that the Third Prince was personally ascending the stage for a tea competition, it naturally drew the attention of many tribespeople. Word spread from ten to a hundred, and in just two days, the entire city knew of it.
Tonight, Xiao Heng sat in an eating house within the capital drinking tea with two foreign tea masters.
Like him, these two tea masters spent years traveling through the Central Plains tea markets to study tea-whisking techniques. One of them bore the Central Plains name Li Da; he was not only adept at whisking tea but also exceptionally skilled in tasting it. Even if blindfolded and given a cup of clear, colorless tea, he could determine by scent alone which household it came from, as well as the exact year and month it had been harvested.
The three sat there preparing for the next day’s competition. Their “preparation,” however, was not like the vigilant, sleepless bracing of Pu Ling and Hu Yunshan; they were merely gathered to discuss the arrangements of the tea ceremony.
Although Xiao Heng was born into a foreign royal family, he took tea matters extremely seriously. The rules of the tea competition remained unchanged, following the same order as the Tea Tasting Convention; first evaluating the tea, then proceeding to whisking it.
He indeed possessed some skill, but to ensure everything was foolproof and to avoid losing face before his people, he had selfishly replaced Pu Ling. Yet after doing so, instead of feeling relieved, he had spent the past two days tossing and turning, unable to settle his mind.
Hearing him sigh once more, Li Da asked, “What concerns the Third Prince?”
Xiao Heng couldn’t quite say. He rotated the white jade teacup on the table and asked, “What have Fang Zesheng and Fu Jingxuan been doing these past few days?”
The other tea master, named Wang Pu, chimed in: “They haven’t done anything. They just eat and sleep together; they have some porridge in the morning, practice walking at noon, and sit together to play chess in the evening.”
Li Da seemed to know of these things as well and asked quite curiously, “Why are Central Plains men so intimate? Setting aside the eating and sleeping together, I even saw Fang Zesheng helping Fu Jingxuan wash and comb his hair the other day. Isn’t that something a wife should do for her husband?” He then turned to ask Wang Pu, “Would you be willing to comb my hair?”
Wang Pu glanced at his bushy beard and said with a complex expression, “I would rather brush the coat of an old horse.”
Li Da was thick-skinned and didn’t catch the underlying meaning before nodding along. “I think so too. Also, why does that Fu Jingxuan seem like a different person these past few days? He carries a beaming smile all day long. I had once dismissed him as no threat, but now it seems he may truly have some skill after all.”
“But having traveled the Central Plains for years, I’ve never heard of this ‘Fu Jingxuan’ character. I only know he is the second young master of the family that sells floral tea; he attended a few Tea Tasting Convention as a child, but he was always the one at the bottom of the rankings.”
Wang Pu said, “I also haven’t been able to figure out why they sent him. That man surnamed Hu and the one surnamed Pu were both champions of the tea-whisking competition at last year’s convention. I remember the champion of the Tea Tasting Convention very clearly; it was someone from the Fang family.”
Li Da said, “Yes, someone from the ‘Inner Courtyard’ of the Fang family.”
Xiao Heng had taken over many royal political affairs over the past two years and truly couldn’t monitor the Central Plains tea market at all times; much of his information came from Li Da and Wang Pu. The more he listened now, the more he felt something was off. He asked while massaging his temples, “Does the one from the’Inner Courtyard’ of the Fang family have a name?”
Li Da said, “Of course they do.”
Xiao Heng asked, “What is it?”
“It’s…” Li Da rolled his eyes as he thought, “I think it’s…”
Wang Pu said, “Fu Jingxuan.”
“Right! It’s Fu… Fu Jingxuan!?”
With a sharp “bang,” Li Da slapped the table and sprang to his feet, but before he could speak, he remembered Xiao Heng seated before him and hurriedly lowered his head in apology. “Third Prince, please quell your anger!”
Xiao Heng wasn’t angry, but he hadn’t expected these two to be so careless as to not even clearly remember the name of the one from the Fang family’s inner courtyard. He waved his hand helplessly for Li Da to sit and asked, “As for this Fang Zesheng; has there been any word of him in the Central Plains tea market these past few years?”
Li Da said, “I haven’t heard anything about that. Moreover, judging by how he has appeared these past few days, he hardly seems like someone capable of even handling a teapot. Furthermore, when the Third Prince had instructed him to take Pu Ling’s place in the competition that day, Fu Jingxuan had clearly wanted to resist; but over the past two days, it was as if that moment had been completely forgotten. I haven’t seen them doing much preparation. Could it be that they aren’t afraid of losing?”
Wang Pu pondered for a long while and said worriedly, “There is also the possibility that they simply didn’t feel the need to prepare excessively.”
“What possibility?”
“Being perfectly confident.”
Xiao Heng’s brows knit into a deep frown. That day, he had studied Fang Zesheng and Fu Jingxuan’s expressions closely for quite a while. It seemed impossible for them to react so quickly as to set up a trap and lure him into it based on a single sentence from him, right?
