I poured the tea into a porcelain cup, a murky brown soup. My gut twisted as I lifted the lid to inspect the dregs. Careless, I cursed myself. In my haste, I had placed the Longjing into the same pot as the pu’er. When mixing teas, I had been cautioned to take care with the water temperature and the ratios to balance their flavors, whether delicate or strong. From the heavy and dull aroma emanating here, I had gotten it all wrong.
Someone cleared his throat—the chief attendant, waving me over impatiently. I was the only one who had not served my tea and now, there was no time to brew another. My hands were stiff as I carried the tray to Prince Liwei. With every step, my grand dream of distinguishing myself here faded further into oblivion. Worse yet, what if His Highness spat out my tea? The empress would be furious, I might be ejected from the competition at once—deemed as unworthy and unfit as everyone here believed me.
As I placed the tray before Prince Liwei, his eyes warmed in recognition, flicking down to the sandalwood name tablet by my waist. Without hesitation, he lifted the cup to his mouth and took a long sip. I was standing in front of him so only I saw the slight wrinkle across his brow, the quirk of his lips. It was gone in an instant, but my spirits plunged. There was no way I could imagine that to be an expression of pleasure. However, to my astonishment, Prince Liwei lifted my cup into the air.
“This one. I’ve never tasted such a unique blend before.” He nodded to an attendant who recorded my name.
The Celestial Empress leaned forward. “Liwei, are you sure? It’s such an odd color. Let me try it.”
A shiver rippled down my spine. How well I remembered her voice, melodious yet sharp.
As Prince Liwei handed her the cup, it slipped from his fingers, striking the ground with a crash. The porcelain shattered, dark liquid pooling on the stone floor, the remnants of my unfortunate concoction. A crowd of attendants rushed forward to clean up the mess, but the empress ignored them, glaring at me as though it were I who had dropped it.
When the chief attendant announced me as the winner of the first challenge, I slumped with relief, taking no offense at the shocked whispers. For, despite Prince Liwei’s words, I doubted my tea deserved the honor. Yet somehow, I was ahead in the competition and that was what mattered.
In front of the pavilion, a painting of flowering osmanthus trees was unveiled for the second challenge. As the audience sighed in admiration, we were asked to compose a couplet inspired by the scene. I stifled a groan. It had been a long time since I’d held a brush, much less composed anything. I tried to conjure up elegant words and flowery phrases, but my mind remained as blank as the untouched paper before me. I closed my eyes, the smell of ink sharper in the dark—heavy, with a faint medicinal undertone. I could almost imagine myself back in my home, the cool air blowing through my window, rustling the thin sheets on my wooden desk.
It was years ago, when my mother had begun teaching me to write. I remember how her sighs had echoed through my ears. While she had been patient, I was a challenging student, particularly for the subjects that did not interest me.
“Xingyin, hold the brush firmer,” she had admonished me for the tenth time. “A thumb on one side, your index and middle fingers on the other. Straight, don’t let it slant down.”
Only after she had been satisfied, did she allow me to dip the stiff, ivory brush hairs into the glossy ink. As I swirled it harder against the inkstone, she had warned, “Not too much. Your lines will be clumsy, the ink will bleed.”
I had imagined the elegant characters I would form, but my enthusiasm soon waned after making the same wobbling stroke again and again. “What’s the point of learning this?” I asked impatiently. “It’s not like I’m going to become a scribe or scholar.”
She had taken the brush from me then, drawing the character 永 in steady, precise movements: “Forever,” the word composed of the eight brushstrokes from which all characters were formed. “You’ll never grow if you only do what you’re good at,” she had said. “The most difficult things are often the most worthwhile.”
Reluctant to leave the haven of my memory, I opened my eyes slowly. The other contestants wrote with a frenzied calm, bent over in concentration. I stared at the painting, no longer thinking of what might please the judges, but how much I missed my mother until it hurt. Lifting my brush, I wrote the following lines:
花瓣凋零，芬芳褪尽，
曾映骄阳，却落泥霜。
The blossoms fall, their sweet fragrance is lost,