She thought she was going to die.
She did.
But the next time she opened her eyes , she found out that she was living a whole new life, as a little girl who was going to enter a noble household as a maid.
However, a true pearl can never hide its lus...
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When their entourage finally passed the gate of the central district the following evening, BuFeng and SongLi's horses almost kicked two people who suddenly jumped out of an alley.
They were HeShan and SunChen. Both were looking pretty disheveled, their eyes darted everywhere - seemingly afraid of being followed. The scholars put their fingers on their lips, signalling the bewildered younger men to be quiet, then both jumped onto one of the larger carriages - which luckily belonged to the Princes, not the ladies from the Ji family.
Prince JunLi, who was leading his brothers' carriage, peeked inside with confused expression. The Imperial carriage was fortunately quite spacious. Even though with HeShan and SunChen inside making it slightly cramped, it did not cause the Crown Prince KongJing and Prince GuoFu to be squashed. In fact, the Crown Prince was looking at these scholars in amusement. He could much or less guess what happened, based on the scholars' reputation among the Da Lang ladies.
He recalled both HeShan and SunChen had soldered on to the central district on their horses. With such showy appearance, Prince KongJing could only imagine the commotion of the passionate women of Da Lang after noticing their arrival.
And from the way both had suddenly appeared, he could assume that now they tried to be more discreet.
Along the way, HeShan told them one good news: that he had found a suitable residence to host the Ji family members.
It was actually his - more precisely - his teacher, Liu YangHuan's residence.
HeShan smiled bitterly as he recalled the events that earlier morning - he of course tried to visit his house first, being the closest to the district gate. But the servant who greeted him at the door told him that Old Master Liu had gone to visit SunChen's master - Wu DanShao. So both of them rushed to greet both of their teachers who they had thought as their own fathers.
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Both of them were orphans in the capital city, having known each other since they were but small children. They had always relied on each other to survive, sometimes even eating foodscraps from waste bins to fill their bellies.
Years ago, by stroke of luck that could only be attributed to fate, Liu YangHuan and Wu DanShao took notice of them when the two scholars were having a public meet among other scholars. At the time, various scholars from the empire had a small competition in the four arts. When Liu YangHuan had his turn to play his guqin, Wu DanShao noticed two scrawny dirty small boys listening to his small performance, peeking from a corner of a decrepit alley.
Initially Wu DanShao was only amused to see these two uneducated boys being enthralled in his friend's performance. Then he decidedly asked Liu YangHuan to find the two boys after their meeting ended.
The rest was history.
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So imagine HeShan and SunChen's bafflement when they finally got to meet their old teachers again after so many years of separation.
