Chapter 277: Threading the Needle

The waiter, wearing a smile of utmost fawning attentiveness, escorted Le Wuya back to the Peony Pavilion, pouring tea and serving dishes with the greatest care to the distinguished guests.

However, the scholarly atmosphere here was a bit too heavy.

That lawless Second Young Master of the Yuan family, because his statecraft essay contained three wrong characters, one blot, and two misused allusions, was made to stand against the wall as punishment and even got his palms smacked, wincing in pain but not daring to talk back.

While Le Wuya lowered his head to review his next essay, Zhong Piaoping silently busied himself feeding braised pork bites into Yuan Zijin's mouth.

Yuan Zijin, with cheeks puffed out like a guilty thief, didn't dare chew too conspicuously.

Le Wuya turned a blind eye to all of this.

...The scene was momentarily quite harmonious, making the waiter feel distinctly out of place.

The waiter withdrew and stood outside the Plum Blossom Pavilion, lost in thought.

The taverns of the capital were a melting pot of all kinds of people—a clearinghouse for information.

For instance, although this young waiter at the Hongbin Tower was young, he was also a member of the Changmen Guard, charged specifically with monitoring and recording the words and deeds of officials who came to dine.

Ever since the previous head of the Changmen Guard had perished in prison, the capital's Changmen Guard had undergone a thorough reshuffling.

This waiter was one of the newly appointed replacements.

Compared to the previous lot of Rebel Le supporters, the needs of these new Changmen Guards were far more blunt:

Got money? Then it's all good.

This young waiter was already considered one of the more capable among the lower-ranking guards.

For example, he knew that the handsome young man in the Peony Pavilion, who was lecturing Second Young Master Yuan like a father scolding his son, was Wen Renyue—a man who had risen from a mere provincial scholar to a fourth-rank capital official within three and a half years, leaping several ranks from a seventh-rank magistrate in a remote border county.

He had lurked nearby for a good while, hoping to dig up some dirt on him, but had failed to find a single breach of protocol.

But the waiter wasn't about to leave empty-handed.

The Censorate had sent a message today, specifically instructing him to keep a close eye on this man's movements, especially any gifts Yuan Zijin might give him, and to record every last detail. If there was even the slightest violation, he was to report it that very day. If he found anything, his reward would be doubled.

Who would have thought Yuan Zijin would show up with nothing in hand, saying, "We're all old friends here, why stand on ceremony?"—which made the waiter's eyes pop and his breath catch.

...What kind of ill-mannered fool is this?

Besides, the three of them had only ordered a few simple home-style dishes, and the priciest braised pork was being fed to Yuan Zijin by Wen Renyue's lowly servant, while Wen Renyue himself hardly got a bite.

The waiter didn't want to have come all this way for nothing.

After racking his brains, he figured the only piece of info worth selling was probably the fact that Wen Renyue had just gone into the wrong room.

The waiter hadn't seen him enter the Plum Blossom Pavilion.

But this brief in-and-out was already enough to fuel speculation.

As long as there was even a hint of a connection between the two, he could spin it into a big story!

The waiter psyched himself up with ambition:

Into the Plum Blossom Pavilion to find out what's what!

He lifted the curtain to the Plum Blossom Pavilion and said with a big smile, "Honored guest, we've got some new seasonal dishes that are mighty refreshing. Care to try some?..."

Le Jue, who had been facing away from the door picking out dishes from the menu, spun around at the sound, his face dark and stormy: "No one's even here yet, so why the hell are you barging in like an idiot? What the hell are you good for? A big restaurant like this, and no one to lead you in? Does everyone just barge in here without a second thought?!"

Le Jue was big and burly, with a booming voice, and his fierce scowl was genuinely scary.

The waiter's knees went weak. Stammering apologies with his scalp prickling, he racked his brain trying to recall who this official was.

It wasn't the waiter's fault he didn't know him.

Although Le Jue had earned the rank of Military Tanhu (third-place martial arts graduate), due to the Le family's decline, he never set foot outside the house, spending his days idle and restless, holed up at home studying recipes. His official post was so cushy that he had almost no chance to socialize or attend banquets, so naturally the waiter had no clue who he was. He could only stammer apologies while backing out.

He figured this unfamiliar man, with his rough soldierly ways, was clearly not in the same league as that Lord Wen Ren.

As the waiter backed out, wiping cold sweat, he heard the clatter of footsteps on the stairs.

Seven or eight soldiers trooped up the stairs, all beaming with delight.

"This is the first time the squad leader's ever treated us to a meal!"

"The young master didn't even eat lunch—this time we'll eat him broke!"

Le Jue stuck his head out of the room and barked, "What's all the racket? You little brats itching for a whipping, are you? I could hear you yapping from eight hundred li away. Get in here now, and let me knock some sense into you!"

The group clearly wasn't scared of him. They burst out laughing and swarmed into the private room.

The waiter took in their attire and immediately understood.

Guanshan Camp, huh.

Going by the title, he was just a squad leader.

He couldn't help feeling dejected:

A seventh-rank military officer in this capital wasn't even fit to lick the boots of a fourth-rank civil official.

That Lord Wen Ren was such a big shot—how could he possibly have any connection with such a crude soldier?

Besides, Lord Wen Ren had just gone to wash up; he couldn't have been gone longer than it takes to brew a cup of tea.

Even if he wanted to spin a tale, he'd need someone to buy it.

If he tried to scheme and ended up losing, a scolding would be the least of his worries—losing his job would be the real disaster.

The waiter reluctantly gave up on the idea of making something of this and turned to go serve tea at the Peony Pavilion.

Meanwhile, inside the Plum Blossom Pavilion, Le Jue was all smiles as he joked around with his soldiers, but his right hand clutched a thin piece of paper in his sleeve, shaking with excitement.

He had just taken a quick look at the sketch.

Lord Wen Ren had even written out his design approach, proposing the idea of pre-loading gunpowder and pellets into hollow bamboo tubes or wooden molds.

With that guidance, Le Jue could already envision the subsequent design.

—Insert the whole mold into the barrel, leave a small hole in the bamboo tube, and use a ramrod to set it off.

All he needed to do was run repeated tests and refine the design.

And he happened to have plenty of free time on his hands right now to do just that.

With this sketch as a reference, one month was more than enough time.

And about a month and a half later was the Guanshan Camp's triennial examination day.

...Lord Wenren was handing him a golden ticket to success!

Le Jue hesitated.

He wondered if he should take this chance.

Shouldn't the Le family be lying low, hiding their talents, and playing it safe like scared turtles for the rest of their lives?

Le Jue's fists clenched.

He didn't want to! He refused to settle for this!

As the saying goes, "Learn the arts of war and letters, then sell them to the emperor."

But now the court refused to acknowledge their worth, bringing them in only to shelve them.

His elder brother was a second-rank *jinshi*, while he was a military *tanhua*.

His brother was far more talented than him, yet even more beaten down and disheartened.

"Reading thirty thousand volumes in vain, bearing empty fame despite one's talents."

And yet, his brother had spent years as an Erudite of the Imperial Academy.

That was a measly eighth-rank position!

Though his brother never complained and threw himself into teaching, Le Jue knew that with his brother's brilliance, he should never have been stuck there.

If not for the injustice done to his brother, Le Jue would never have pushed his own mediocre self through grueling training in the dead of winter and the peak of summer, finally earning the title of *tanhua*.

Back then, he thought that if he could rise to prominence, he might be able to protect his brother.

But like his brother, he too was cast aside to some trivial, insignificant post.

And now, time was slipping away, and they were both wasting away in obscurity.

At this thought, a fierce resolve gleamed in Le Jue's eyes:

Lord Wenren had risked danger to meet him and personally hand over such an important blueprint—that showed real sincerity.

If Lord Wenren was willing to back him, why shouldn't Le Jue go all in?

Even if someone later stole his credit and he ended up back in obscurity watching over a warehouse, at least he would have fought for himself once, with no regrets even in defeat.

The Le family had already hit rock bottom—how much worse could it get?

Would the emperor really wipe out the Le family just because he was too ambitious?

And besides...

Lord Wenren looked so much like Ali, as if Ali himself had come back.

He had never refused anything Ali had wanted him to do.

If he could climb a persimmon tree for Ali to pick the highest fruit, why couldn't he live up to Lord Wenren's expectations and wishes?

Just as Le Jue made up his mind, the waiter, having found nothing, went back into the Peony Pavilion to try to dig up more info.

By then, Le Wuya had finished reading the three essays, set them aside, and was tapping the paper with his fingertips.

Yuan Zijin forced himself to stay calm, but his guilt was already written all over his face.

Whenever Le Wuya got that thoughtful look on his face, trouble was sure to follow for him.

Yuan Zijin didn't dare look up, shoveling food into his mouth and pretending not to notice, though he felt a bit aggrieved inside:

He wasn't naturally gifted at scholarship and had started late; producing complete essays was already the result of sheer hard work and dedication.

Soon, he heard Le Wuya ask casually, "After you got back to the capital, did you go apologize to Erudite Yue at the Imperial Academy?"

Yuan Zijin swallowed the food in his mouth and shook his head.

In just two short years, he had come to understand things clearly. He knew that his harassment of Le Hang on the main street was entirely his own fault—he had been in a hurry to get home before his father and brother left for their posts, constantly urging the driver to go faster, which led to the collision with Le Hang's carriage.

This time, he had returned home with merit and had intended to apologize, but his current situation was even more restrictive than when he was a carefree playboy.

Even Yuan Weiyan had told him to stay home and only entertain a few close friends and old acquaintances, afraid that people might think he was getting cocky after his achievements.

It was only now, when Yuan Weiyan judged that the dust had settled, that he cautiously sent Yuan Zijin out to seek Le Wuya as his mentor.

Though Yuan Zijin hadn't realized it yet, he had already become one of the most promising young talents among the current generation of military scions—even more likely to rise than the steady and reliable Yuan Ziyou.

After all, even Yuan Ziyou, who was destined to inherit Yuan Weiyan's title, had no military merits to his name.

Le Wuya said, "Go find Erudite Yue and apologize in person for what you did before. Many in the capital know why the Venerable General Yuan banished you from the city back then. There's no point in playing ostrich—just go and apologize openly."

Yuan Zijin fell silent: "..."

Even now, he still didn't like the Le family, but he knew he was in the wrong, so he nodded obediently: "Alright, I got it."

"Don't forget to bring your essays and ask for his guidance. ...Why are you staring at me with those cow eyes? He's a *jinshi* graduate, a brilliant writer, and I hear he has a very gentle temperament."

Yuan Zijin protested: "Why can't you just review them? Why do I have to go to him?"

"Me?" Le Wuya grabbed a pair of chopsticks and threw them at him. "If I read two more of your essays, these chopsticks are going straight into your forehead."

Yuan Zijin caught the chopsticks, his face turning slightly red: "..."

Hmph.

Fine, he'd go!

It wasn't like he was scared of some guy named Yue!