After Gu Fu finished speaking, she took a sip of tea to quench his thirst and looked up to find Fu Yan staring directly at her.
Gu Fu, full of confusion, made a sound of “Huh?” Her slightly low voice, with a faintly rising tone, lightly brushed past Fu Yan’s ear like a feather.
Fu Yan’s heart was pounding, but no matter how complex his thoughts were, his face showed no sign of it. He maintained an immortal-like demeanor, untouched by worldly concerns.
Even if he stood up and left the next moment, telling Gu Fu he was going to sleep, Gu Fu wouldn’t be surprised in the least. After all, why would an immortal care about such mundane matters as love and hate?
However, Fu Yan didn’t leave. He asked Gu Fu, “Have you decided?”
Gu Fu seriously considered this question, then closed her eyes and shook her head, “No.”
The person she liked didn’t like her back. Who could she be with?
…
Everyone knows that something major happened during the Dragon Boat Festival. Prince Ying, who was summoned to the palace, was escorted out by the imperial guards on the same day. Now, Prince Ying’s residence is surrounded and guarded by the imperial guards, and Prince Ying can’t step out of his house. His duties have been handed over to someone else.
This sparked much discussion in the court, and just as someone was about to press the emperor for an explanation, citing the importance of the matter, the long-delayed Xuanlin Selection suddenly caught everyone’s attention. It quickly overshadowed Prince Ying’s detention, becoming the hottest topic in the capital.
No one expected things to turn out this way.
From the beginning, people were just after the title of “Number One in the Capital.” Some even joined purely for the fun of it, like the hostage from the Yin Kingdom who insisted on participating.
After a month of silence, many had already forgotten about this matter. When it was brought up again, there was little interest, as if the topic was already outdated—was polo not fun or were poetry gatherings not lively enough? Why bother with those pamphlets with countless names and spend money on expensive paper ballots?
What a joke.
Only prominent families with members participating in the election would go to such lengths. Many well-born youths even told their families not to waste money buying votes for them, fearing ridicule from their classmates and friends for being foolish and wasteful in the pursuit of empty fame.
Some men who had achieved academic success but hadn’t made the selection for various reasons found it embarrassing when their families bought votes for them in front of their colleagues.
However, in just a few days, the situation suddenly changed.
The turning point came when someone brought a pamphlet to Princess Ruiyang’s poetry gathering. An illustration of a young man included in the pamphlet fell to the ground and was seen by Princess Ruiyang.
Everyone present felt awkward. After all, bringing a young man’s portrait to a poetry gathering filled with young women was hard to justify. If the person who lost the portrait was identified, their reputation could be damaged.
But Princess Ruiyang didn’t think much of it. She picked up the portrait and saw that it was none other than Wen Xi, the young master from Marquis Changning’s household. She wondered why someone had brought his portrait to the poetry gathering.
Then she noticed a red plum blossom mark in the corner of the portrait, along with the words “Xuanlin Selection Pamphlet.”
The palace maid beside Princess Ruiyang softly explained the situation and thoughtfully offered several solutions to help the princess gloss over the matter, intending to preserve the young woman’s reputation at the poetry gathering.
However, the princess didn’t heed the maid’s advice. Since she had met Wen Xi before, she could confirm that the illustration in the Xuanlin Selection Pamphlet was very similar to him. By this logic, the other portraits in the pamphlet should also closely resemble the real people.
So, as long as she bought a pamphlet, she could see all the young men participating in the selection in the capital?
Of course, that wasn’t possible.
A single pamphlet contained no more than ten pages. Excluding the list of participants, only seven pages were portraits, and the portraits were not fixed. It was a matter of luck which portraits one would get.
To save costs, the pamphlet was not bound like official records but consisted of large sheets of paper rolled up and secured with a slightly thicker red paper strip, sealed with a wax stamp. The list of participants was on the outermost layer, and the portraits were inside. Therefore, buyers wouldn’t know whose portraits were in the pamphlet until they opened it.
Princess Ruiyang, who had not yet encountered the cunning ways of merchants, scoffed, “What’s so difficult about this? Just buy more.”
So, before the poetry gathering ended, the maid went to buy a dozen Xuanlin Selection Pamphlets as per the princess’s orders.
By then, no one speculated about who had brought the pamphlet to the poetry gathering and who had dropped the portrait.
All the young women gathered around the princess, watching as her maid unfolded each pamphlet and laid out each portrait one by one.
From time to time, there were exclamations like, “Oh, isn’t that my brother? It’s such a good likeness!”
Or, “The portrait says the second son of the Qi family is five feet seven inches tall. Isn’t that too tall?”
Or, “Why is this person’s hair curly? Is he from the Yin Kingdom? It’s a small country in the east; no wonder he’s different from us.”
As more pamphlets were opened, the discussions among the young women grew bolder. Some even began to evaluate the portraits and express their preferences, commenting that one looked proper or another had beautiful eyes.
Eventually, the content of their discussions changed again—
“Why is it the son of the Xie family again? How many portraits of him are there? I want to see the portrait of the young general from the Lin family or Lord Xiao Zhou’s portrait. I saw their names on the list, so why aren’t their portraits here?”
“The pamphlet says not everyone’s portrait is included.”
“The young general’s portrait should be there. My sixth brother is on the list, and my aunt specifically bought a pamphlet. One of the portraits was of the young general…” The girl speaking suddenly paused because she remembered that her aunt seemed to have bought more than one pamphlet. At the time, she had wondered why so many were needed.
“Look, the back of the pamphlet also says that portraits are marked with a plum blossom symbol on the list. The portraits themselves have the same mark in different colors. Those with black plum blossoms have more portraits, those with indigo have fewer, and those with vermilion are the rarest… The young general’s mark is red. It looks like I’ll need to buy several pamphlets to get his portrait.”
“Even buying several might not be enough. Look, Her Highness, the Princess has opened so many and hasn’t found it yet. Wei Qi, your aunt was really lucky. By the way, I just got a new embroidery pattern. Can I come over to your place tomorrow?”
“I want to go too, just to see the embroidery pattern, hehe.”
With three pamphlets left, Princess Ruiyang grabbed them from the maid and started opening them herself.
The first one she opened contained Wen Xi’s portrait again. Although she had already seen it, because it had the vermilion plum blossom mark, she had it carefully put away.
The second pamphlet included a portrait of the young uncle from the Li family. Though unmarried and barely meeting the age requirement, he was on the list of candidates.
Apart from the young uncle, there was also Li Yu.
The young women exclaimed in surprise because both portraits had the vermilion plum blossom mark.
Princess Ruiyang felt a surge of satisfaction. Though she had already seen these two men, one being her uncle and the other her cousin, she couldn’t help but feel accomplished—while the maids couldn’t find any vermilion portraits, she had managed to find three. Clearly, she believed her royal fortune was at play, making her so lucky.
Princess Ruiyang opened the last pamphlet, but it contained only five black-marked portraits and two indigo-marked ones, with no vermilion portraits at all.
Princess Ruiyang felt a surge of dissatisfaction and ordered ten more pamphlets to be purchased.
However, after opening all ten, only one vermilion portrait appeared. The portrait was of the young son of the Yong’an County Lord, who had joined the Secret Cabinet at a young age. Despite being short and young, he looked like someone’s little brother, but this boy was extraordinarily beautiful. His delicate features, large eyes, and upward-slanting eye corners gave him a cat-like appearance that captivated the young women present.
The handsome county lord’s son managed to soothe Princess Ruiyang’s anger somewhat, but she still decided to buy more pamphlets. She had someone calculate that there were only twenty-five candidates with vermilion portraits. No matter what, she intended to get all twenty-five.
As it was getting late, Princess Ruiyang ended the poetry gathering, placing the duplicate portraits on the table and allowing the young women to take them home.
The young women hesitated, wanting to take the portraits but afraid of how it might look in front of everyone.
At that moment, Miss Tang Wu from Earl Lin’an’s household slowly walked up and took the extra portrait of Wen Xi. She had no choice; she had been involved in the early preparations for the Xuanlin Selection and knew better than anyone how hard it was to get that portrait. She was also the one who had brought and accidentally dropped the pamphlet, intending to show off her luck to the poetry society girls at Wanxiu Zhai after the gathering, not expecting such an incident.
With Tang Wu leading the way, the other young women felt more at ease and stepped forward to take the portraits. Some were upset that they had missed out on Wen Xi’s vermilion portrait.
It was from this poetry gathering that buying Xuanlin Selection pamphlets and collecting portraits became a new hobby among the young women, spreading from the princess’s social circle outward.
Of course, some did not want to collect vermilion portraits but were interested in a particular person’s portrait. They used the guise of collecting vermilion portraits to cover their true intentions.
Some young women even argued about who was more likely to advance to the next round, buying ballots to vote for their favorite candidates to save face.
This trend naturally sparked criticism, with people saying these women were shameless.
However, vanity knows no bounds. Knowing that girls would be voting, the participating men no longer stopped their families from buying ballots, fearing they would be at the bottom in the next round of voting.
After the shift in sentiment, the Xuanlin Selection began to develop in an unforeseen direction.
Sales of the pamphlets surged, and more people bought ballots. Since everyone was doing it, no one felt it was shameful anymore, so young women, married women, and even the families of the participating men began to spend lavishly.
It’s said that some people accidentally bought extra vermilion portraits and resold them at high prices.
Of course, counterfeit portraits also appeared. The bookstores selling the pamphlets issued a statement saying that the portraits used ink made by the military bureau with an anti-counterfeiting layer. This layer wasn’t immediately obvious but could be seen under sunlight, making the vermilion portraits even more valuable.
What intensified the Xuanlin Selection’s voting was a new notice in the pamphlet—
After the first round of voting, the old portraits would stop being produced, and new portraits would be released. The new portraits would replace the plum blossom mark with a camellia mark. The ranking would determine the new classifications, meaning that the top twenty-five vote-getters in this round would become the new vermilion portraits for the next round.
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