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Title Three: Agarwood
Guo Jia watched Jia Xu come to class with increasingly dark circles under his eyes, and saw him dozing off against the wall tiles while waiting for him. It felt strange to see Jia Xu in this state, as he was not the type to exhaust himself staying up all night, let alone indulge in revelry.
But it wasn't hard to find out, after all, except for Guo Jia, who didn't care about any Confucian Academic supervisor and regarded dogmatic rules as nothing, everyone else was working hard for the upcoming exams.
Guo Jia saw Jia Xu looking startled as he jumped down from the wall, holding a lamp with tired, lifeless eyes. In the flickering candlelight, he looked like a beautiful ancient female ghost. So Guo Jia said, "Maybe Wenhe shouldn't wait for me. I will come back when the time is right."
Jia Xu just shook his head and walked ahead, lighting the way for Guo Jia. It was early summer, and the night was still free from the buzzing of mosquitoes. In the extremely quiet night, there was only the sound of robes brushing against the ground.
Guo Jia had not fully sobered up from the alcohol, and it took a while before he spoke up and asked, "Did you not sleep well?"
Jia Xu pursed his lips, weighing the likelihood of being mocked by Guo Jia, but after a while, he still slowly admitted that he hadn't.
Unexpectedly, Guo Jia did not say anything embarrassing, perhaps because the night was too quiet to break with mocking words, or perhaps because waiting under the wall day after day had bred some camaraderie. Not sure, not investigating.
After watching Guo Jia enter, Jia Xu stood for another half hour before leaving slowly, only after Guo Jia had fallen asleep.
The second night, when Guo Jia jumped down from the wall, he seemed more agile than the day before. In the palm of his hand lay a string of agarwood beads, emitting the fragrance of sandalwood.
Jia Xu stood still, not understanding the meaning of this. So Guo Jia simply took Jia Xu's hand and put the bracelet on, saying, "Agarwood for peaceful sleep, thank you for waiting for me night after night."
Jia Xu is a bit puzzled. He gave a gift to Guo Jia, but it should have been the other way around.
After much thought, Jia Xu finally thanked Guo Jia when he escorted him to the door. Guo Jia raised his eyebrows and smiled, saying, "No need to be polite, Wenhe. If I fail to secure the top spot due to lack of sleep, then it would be my own fault."
Jia Xu tightened the grip on the lantern, thinking to himself that this was the true face of Guo Jia. It seemed that everything just now was indeed fake. With a cold snort, he turned and left, but still dutifully watched over Guo Jia until he fell asleep before departing. By the time he reached the wall, the sky was dimly lit by the lights. Upon returning to his room, after carefully examining for a while, he discovered that the Agarwood was of extremely high quality, with a long-lasting fragrance, estimated to be of the highest grade.
The bracelet was carefully placed by the pillow, and as Jia Xu fell asleep with its lingering fragrance, he couldn't help but wonder, what was the purpose of such a precious gift?
In the fourth piece, the birds are affectionate, but the most heartless. Jia Xu deeply understands this, so no matter how Guo Jia pleads and promises, he never shows mercy when dragging him back from the pavilion.
So when Jia Xu saw Guo Jia's expression, his first reaction was disbelief. It was unbelievable that someone who always had a smiling face could have such an expression. But then again, he considered that Guo Jia often claimed to have a compassionate heart and couldn't bear to see others suffer.
Jia Xu remembered the day when Guo Jia had climbed onto the high wall of the academy in front of him, sitting on the wall and looking at him with a hesitant expression. When Jia Xu asked what was wrong, Guo Jia pointed to a bird with a broken wing lying on the wall. So Jia Xu also climbed the wall, sat on the wall, and gently felt the bird's breath, and it was still alive.
Jia Xu pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve, gently wrapped the bird in it, and then kicked Guo Jia to continue. Guo Jia obediently jumped down from the wall and held out his hands to receive the bird from Jia Xu.
Guo Jia never followed the rules. He held the bird and shouted to Xun Yu from a distance, "Senior, help me!" Xun Yu carefully took the small thing from Guo Jia and found some herbs to treat it. Guo Jia squatted nearby, nervously asking Xun Yu, "It won't die, will it?"
Xun Yu's hand didn't stop moving as he softly replied, "It's almost autumn, I don't know if we can survive this winter."
Not knowing if they could survive the winter, Jia Xu didn't have much affection for the little thing he was meeting for the first time. But when he heard this sentence, he subconsciously tightened his sleeve, as if he had remembered some old things. Then he heard Guo Jia shouting crisply, "Senior - good senior! Please save it, I promise, I promise..."
Xun Yu calmly looked at Guo Jia and asked, "What do you want to guarantee?" Guo Jia gritted his teeth and said, "I promise not to leave the academy for three months to save it!" Xun Yu shook his head helplessly and said, "You, oh you," then added, "This bird seems to have escaped from a beast's mouth and its right wing is almost torn apart."
Guo Jia pinched Xun Yu's sleeve, coquettishly pleading, "Then let's give it a try, senior brother."
Since the bird suddenly appeared from the sky, Guo Jia rarely went to the singing tower. As soon as he finished studying, he would drag Jia Xu to Xun Yu's residence and squat in front of the cage for the whole afternoon. Jia Xu couldn't understand why Guo Jia was so fond of it, but he went along with Guo Jia's wishes. After all, not going to the singing tower saved him a lot of trouble.
And the little sparrow, for its part, was quite spirited. By late autumn, it was already able to walk on the ground, though its wings still hung weakly by its side, unable to flap.
After the little sparrow had recovered, Guo Jia often carried it around to show off to everyone how beautiful it was. He would also talk about how difficult it was to save it and how Wenhe and Wenruo were so softhearted, but he never mentioned his own efforts.
The little sparrow loves the academy West Courtyard's Ginkgo forest the most. The golden ginkgo leaves cover the ground in late autumn, and the little sparrow can now flutter and walk on the ginkgo trees. However, the little sparrow did not survive that winter. After school, Guo Jia hurried to Xun Yu's residence, and when he saw the empty cage, he stood still for a moment, then pushed Jia Xu who came after him, saying, "Go ask the senior, I'm going out to look for it."
Jia Xu turned and looked back from a distance when leaving, only to see the straw made into a small nest with just two small feathers left and a small pool of sticky blood.
Jia Xu's heart uncontrollably panicked. Pets always leave their owners before they die. Realizing this, Jia Xu stopped himself. After explaining the situation to his classmates, the senior quickly organized people and horses to help search together.
Later, when I thought of this incident, I just found it funny. The Imperial College of Bing Yong was brightly lit, all just to find a beautiful bird. Jia Xu never met Guo Jia on the road, and the result was almost jumping from the heart to the throat.
Jia Xu finally found Guo Jia deep in the ginkgo forest. He was sitting on the ground, surrounded by ginkgo leaves, sitting quietly. When Jia Xu approached, Guo Jia smiled and gestured for him to come over. Jia Xu squatted next to Guo Jia and looked at the quiet little sparrow lying in the ginkgo leaves for a long time before saying, "Let's go back, Fengxiao."
Guo Jia obediently nodded and got up, supporting himself on a tree trunk after sitting for a long time, just like the day he saved a little sparrow, listening to Jia Xu's words and leaping down from the high wall of the academy. Jia Xu reached out to help Guo Jia, and their ice-cold hands, separated by over a month, came together again.
Guo Jia didn't seem to change anything because of this incident. He still went to the singing tower as usual, played around with his senior brothers, but occasionally took a walk alone in the Ginkgo forest. When Jia Xu went to look for him, he would see Guo Jia sitting alone on a stone bench, staring blankly, empty, without any expression on his face, exuding a sharp sense of distance.
So Jia Xu did not send out the pair of earrings, holding them in his hand, and called for Guo Jia to come back as usual.
When Guo Jia saw Jia Xu coming, he smiled and patted the fallen leaves on his clothes, stepping on the dry branches as he walked towards Jia Xu. Although he was clearly getting closer, Jia Xu felt that the person in front of him was getting farther away.
Years later, when buried under the ruins of Huguang, the setting sun peeked through the cracks, and Jia Xu remembered the pain of the bird that had come from the sky with a broken wing. Unfortunately, the little bird did not fly out of the high walls of The Imperial College of Bing Yong, and one of the three wise youths died in the blood pool of Huguang.
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