Lu Li - Chapter 3

I turned my eyes back to my book. Wen Chao watched me for a moment, then suddenly asked, “Would you like to go out and relax on our day off tomorrow?”

“Half a month ago, I accidentally took one of your essays on policy home. A friend saw it and was so impressed by your insight that he’s been begging me ever since to introduce you.”

“What do you say? Do your elder brother here a favor and meet him?”

His stare was too intent to ignore. I lifted my head to refuse, but Wen Chao gave me a pitiful look.

“You’re leaving in less than five days to take the county examination back home. We won’t see each other for seven months, until the provincial examination is over. Let tomorrow be my farewell to you. Please?”

Ever since we met, Wen Chao had treated me well. My quiet hopes of gaining his favor aside, he truly was the closest school friend I had made in this life.

I knew that after I passed the examinations and entered government service, we could only be ruler and subject. We had little time left to be this free with each other. So I agreed.

“All right. I’ll go.”

Had I known the friend who wanted to meet me was Pei Zhou, I would never have gone out that day. But there was no undoing it.

Wen Chao introduced us, and Pei Zhou and I exchanged greetings. He was anything but courteous. He looked at me exactly as he had looked at “Lu Li” in the previous life.

With one glance, I knew he had been reborn too.

Sure enough, no sooner had we sat down than he swirled his wine and challenged me.

“Some time ago, I saw an essay on policy at Brother Wen’s. Its claims were well supported and its vision far beyond what one would expect of a young man. Yet Brother Wen said it was written by Young Master Lu Yu here. I wonder if that’s true?”

Silence fell around the table. The other students were all my friends. They frowned and turned hostile looks on Pei Zhou.

Wen Chao’s face went cold. I held him back before he could speak for me and nodded to Pei Zhou.

“I did write it. Do you have any thoughts to offer, Young Master Pei?”

Pei Zhou sneered. “I didn’t know someone who could barely make sense of the Four Books and Five Classics could write a piece like that.”

There had been a brief time in our previous life when Pei Zhou and I had lived peacefully together. We had been married for over a year. Perhaps we had both resigned ourselves to it, because we began to treat each other with courtesy.

Outside the house, I played his loving, dutiful wife. At home, he returned the favor by giving me authority to run the household. A lifetime like that might even have been bearable.

Then one day I brought him *The Doctrine of the Mean* and asked him to explain something. Instead of answering, he suddenly turned on me like a madman. He said I was a clumsy imitation of my sister and could never measure up to her, no matter how much I studied.

When I did not react, he went further. I was deluded, he said, copying my sister in every way in the hope of taking her place in his heart.

I had been forced to marry him in the first place. His mockery set my temper ablaze, and we argued. After that, the fragile pretense of mutual respect between us was gone.

At first, it had been true that I could barely understand the Four Books and Five Classics. But I had studied them for ten years in the previous life and for another eight without a day of idleness in this one.

I was no longer the person he remembered.

I rose in one smooth motion and looked down at Pei Zhou.

“What are you implying, Young Master Pei? We have never met. How can you claim I cannot understand the classics, or that someone else wrote my essay for me?”

Pei Zhou slammed down his wine cup with a bang, his face dark with anger.

“We’ve never met?”

He started to stand, but Wen Chao moved faster and shoved him back down.

“Pei Zhou,” Wen Chao said coldly, “Lu Yu is my friend.”

Pei Zhou looked at Wen Chao, then at me. Under Wen Chao’s icy stare, he ground out, “My apologies. It was only a joke. I hope Brother Lu will forgive me.”

I picked up my wine cup and threw its contents in his face.

Then I smiled. “No harm done.”