“Rumors are swirling outside, but you mustn’t take them to heart. When your mother left, she told me that your father had repeatedly urged in his letters that your studies must not be delayed, which is why she ignored your pleas, took two old servants, borrowed a few strong hands from our family, and personally hurried to Hankou. There’s only a year’s difference between a fourteen-year-old xiucai and a fifteen-year-old xiucai, but perhaps their futures will be worlds apart. To pin the crime of unfilial conduct on you because of this, and to accuse you of cheating—clearly, someone is stirring up public opinion with truly malicious intent!”

Grace Warren had tried desperately to keep this matter secret, but never expected Uncle to reveal everything the moment he opened his mouth, catching her completely off guard. She hurriedly glanced at Frank Warren, and saw that her younger brother’s expression was as calm as ever, not the least bit surprised. She was greatly astonished, and in the next moment, she saw Frank Warren give her another smile.

“Little brother, you knew all along?”

Only then did Grace Warren ask, seeing Frank Warren nod slightly. She recalled how he had previously confided in her about that matter with Young Master Cheng, and for the moment didn’t bother to wonder who had let it slip—she simply felt that her brother had truly grown up.

“Uncle makes a fair point, but even if I really did stay behind to take the exam because of mother’s orders, with both parents gone, others will only see that I abandoned filial piety for the sake of my studies. At this point, Uncle, there’s no need to comfort me. I just want to ask one question: who do you think would hate me this much?”

As for Thomas Wood, while he was certainly pleased with the composure Frank Warren showed at such a young age, he could only respond to this last question with a bitter smile.

“Shuangmu, your father has been a traveling merchant for many years, dealing in salt, but he started late, and even now there’s hardly any profit to speak of. He doesn’t use the Wang family name in his business, so he shouldn’t have offended anyone. If you ask me, the root of this matter is simply that there are too many candidates and too few opportunities. In Huizhou Prefecture, She County has the most salt merchants. Some sons of wealthy families try to game the system by registering in northern counties for the exams, but most of the rich and powerful take the exams locally. Add in the sons of officials and well-off farming families, and there’s no shortage of talent. Compared to the northern counties, even just earning the xiucai title here means countless students have failed! So, perhaps it’s just some resentful candidate who failed the exam and decided to spread word of your family’s affairs.”

Frank Warren only knew that Huizhou merchants were fabulously wealthy, but hadn’t realized that the imperial exams in Huizhou Prefecture were such a fierce competition—a single-plank bridge for thousands of soldiers and horses. He couldn’t help but ask a few more questions, and soon learned about the impressive exam record of his own She County.

Since the early Ming, Huizhou Prefecture’s exam results had always been good, and from the mid-Ming onward, they became even more outstanding. In recent years, every round of the imperial exams had seen She County produce at least one successful candidate, sometimes as many as four or five, and both top scholars and provincial champions had come from here. In Thomas Wood’s words, the number of jinshi from Huizhou Prefecture was second only to Suzhou and Changzhou in Southern Zhili, and the number of juren was often among the highest as well. Of the jinshi from Huizhou, at least two-fifths or three-fifths came from She County, and a high proportion went on to become high officials. So, even just the xiucai title, with quotas fixed for each county, was almost as hard to get as in the famously competitive regions of Shanyin and Suzhou in Jiangnan!

“And besides, you were at the bottom of the list.”

Thomas Wood didn’t say this outright, but how could Frank Warren not understand? Barely scraping through the exam, with a family that seemed to have little influence, and now people had dug up the story of a sick father and a son who stayed behind, a mother who traveled a thousand li to care for her husband—on top of that, they slapped on the label of cheating. This was clearly picking the softest target!

The key was, no one even knew who was behind it all!

Since even Thomas Wood, as the clan head of the Wu family’s Yanzhen Nanshan branch, only knew this much, Frank Warren didn’t expect to find the source of the rumors any time soon. After thanking this Uncle profusely, he entrusted him with escorting Grace Warren back to her husband’s family in Huizhou city, asking him to see his still-worried elder sister safely home.

Once Uncle and his elder sister had left, Frank Warren went outside, saying he wanted to take a walk. James Gold hurried to help him dress, and though Second Lady Warren was full of worry, once her elder brother made up his mind, all her fussing was useless—she could only stew in silence. In contrast, their youngest sister Hannah Warren, who was about the same age as James Gold, had no such concerns. For her, going out was like a holiday: she opened the wardrobe, picked out outfit after outfit, chattering about which matched best, bringing a bit of liveliness back to a house that had been shrouded in gloom for days.

Though she was sharp-tongued, when her elder brother actually left the house with James Gold and the tagalong Little Sister Warren, Second Lady Warren stood at the door stamping her feet in frustration, secretly annoyed that she’d only complained but her brother had really left her behind. But thinking about it, apart from the old servant couple Seventh Warren and his wife, and two women from tenant families who occasionally helped out, there was no one else at home, so she could only stay behind, disgruntled.

The first time he went out, Frank Warren had assumed, based on the diary in that “Collected Annotations of the Analects,” that Songming Mountain was just an ordinary village nestled in a mountain hollow. But as soon as he stepped out the door, he realized how wrong he’d been.