Chen Kuang and Shen Meinan shared the peanuts between them.
Taking advantage of Chen Kuang being "blind," Shen Meinan, who had initially said they'd split them equally, secretly gave herself two extra peanuts.
As she snacked, she read through the musical score in the jade case for Chen Kuang five full times.
The one-and-a-half sheets of musical notation were complex and archaic, with much of the script written in classical style. Many of the symbols differed entirely from modern notation, and numerous markings were unique inventions of Xi Mengquan himself.
Even so, Shen Meinan could mostly decipher the layout of the music.
"I'll have you know, I'm a proper lady proficient in thee Zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting!"
The girl puffed out her chest proudly, hands on her hips.
She looked just like a chubby, clever cockatiel, complete with natural blush.
Of course, there were many elements that left her completely baffled. After all, if a Saint's score could be understood by just anyone, wouldn't everyone already be playing it?
At those points, Chen Kuang would simply ask her to describe the symbols, what they looked like, where they were placed, etc.
But in truth, with even a single glance, he understood exactly what was written.
Only now did Chen Kuang fully realize that the unnamed musician who'd once given him that book of music and trained him for three years had passed down a true legacy.
Those techniques, full of unique notation and principles, were incomprehensible to anyone else.
And utterly unplayable by outsiders.
His understanding of music had, from the beginning, come from an entirely different realm.
No wonder three years of study had been enough for him to surpass palace musicians who had studied for thirty.
Yet even such unparalleled skill, without social connections in the palace, had amounted to no more than grunt work, ten years wasted on menial chores.
Still, if he hadn't entered the palace, he probably would've starved to death a decade ago.
Even if not starvation, given his family's desperate condition back then, he likely would've ended up as some landless tenant farmer.
Blessings and misfortunes are intertwined, it was hard to say which was better.
Chen Kuang slowly pieced together the two compositions. A strange expression crept onto his face.
He could vaguely sense that based on the musical phrasing and his familiarity with the old musician's habits, he might actually be able to restore the missing half-sheet.
It wasn't just a hunch.
Because a fully-formed composition was already beginning to take shape in his mind.
Shen Meinan, seated nearby, rested her chin on her hand and gazed at him dreamily as he tuned the zither with calm precision.
The lighting inside the boat's cabin was excellent. Afternoon sunlight shimmered off the lake, refracted through the windows, and danced in wavy patterns across Chen Kuang's back.
The young man wore plain white robes, the blindfold at his eyes trailing with his black hair. His fingers were long and well-formed, each motion across the strings poised and fluid.
In the flickering light and shadows, his movements resembled a butterfly in flight.
"These two compositions are excellent. Too bad they don't have names."
Chen Kuang suddenly broke the silence.
"Huh? Oh! Right!"
Shen Meinan snapped out of her daze, suddenly realizing she'd been holding a peanut at her mouth for a while without eating it.
She hurried to toss it into her mouth, only to miss. It bounced off her cheek and rolled under the table.
She glanced nervously at Chen Kuang, he seemed entirely unaware, his expression calm.
Biting her lip, the girl dove under the table.
As she groped around and spoke in a faux-serious voice, she declared:
"Th-then you name them! Since the sheet music is in your hands now, after all."
Chen Kuang: "..."
His mouth twitched, words on the tip of his tongue, but he held back.
Right. I'm a blind man.
With a mischievous glint, he said:
"Why not name one 'The Stars' and the other 'Anonymous'?"
Shen Meinan peeked out from under the table, confused.
"'Anonymous' is just like 'Nameless', why not just call it that? 'The Stars' at least sounds normal... but neither of those pieces had anything to do with stars..."
Chen Kuang naturally didn't explain that in his past life, those were the default tags used by music players for unknown performers or composers.
For works composed by an unnamed musician, the labels were, strangely, perfect.
He simply smiled.
"That's what makes it fun. Naming everything 'Lofty Peaks and Flowing Streams' or 'Refined Spring and White Snow' is elegant, sure, but it gets boring."
"If you don't like it, I can come up with something else."
Shen Meinan blinked, then hurriedly waved her hands.
"No, no! I like them. I just didn't expect it... I thought you were one of those proper, upright types."
"Oh, I've got plenty of improper traits too. You can slowly get to know them."
"Improper is good!" she nodded vigorously, then blushed. "I mean... it suits... uh, suits friendship..."
Chen Kuang pretended to be a deaf blind man and let her slip slide.
"I've finished interpreting the scores. Let me play them for you."
Shen Meinan quickly straightened her posture, placing her hands primly on her knees like a serious music critic.
In truth, she had zero interest in the arts. Zither, chess, calligraphy, painting, those had all been her sister Shen Xingzhu's hobbies. Shen Meinan had long rejected them in favor of direct cultivation.
But her family had projected those tastes onto her, assuming she'd naturally like them too.
Every time they watched her practice, they weren't really seeing her.
She was just a stand-in.
But not even a proper replacement, more like a flawed knockoff.
Yet now, her gaze fell once more on Chen Kuang's face, and for the first time in a long while, she felt a secret joy.
She had always thought she alone knew the truth.
Now... there were two of them.
"Zheng!"
The zither rang out like a stream of quicksilver. Shen Meinan's eyes widened, her attention shifting from his face to the sound.
Though the first piece was titled The Stars, it actually conveyed the stillness of a general drawing his bow under moonlight, snow cloaking feathers, a breath before violence.
The music rose from the shadows, shattering internal balance and unraveling meridians.
The second, Anonymous, evoked a high-hung moon shining into the underworld.
Like the first, it broadened perception, but this one nourished divine sense.
Though one's spiritual sense was little more than instinct before the Moon-Embracing Realm, after training under Huo Hengxuan's killing intent, Chen Kuang had come to understand its importance.
If unstable, one might fall to a single thought from a Moon-Embracing expert, without even a chance to resist.
Life and death decided in a blink.
Halfway through the second piece, he found himself unsatisfied.
So he closed his eyes and began to follow the outline in his mind, completing what had once been lost.
Shen Meinan had already lifted her hands to applaud, but paused.
The melody had merely paused, and now resumed, flowing smoothly.
Seamless. Perfectly natural.
A divine revelation.
She slowly lowered her hands, sat up straighter, and felt chills run down her spine.
The Lost Score of the Music Saint. Silent for a thousand years.
Today... it is whole again.
With no elaborate ritual, no incense or purification, just casually, offhandedly, it had been completed.
If the elders of the Heavenly Sound Pavilion, who had puzzled over this music for centuries, ever found out...
They'd probably tie this man up and enshrine him as a sect treasure.
Did I... accidentally pick up a peerless genius? Shen Meinan thought absurdly.
As the music rose, Chen Kuang's mind soared with it. His body instinctively activated the First Aspect, once again entering a brief state of heightened perception.
The boat was abuzz.
On the upper deck, Lin Eryou watched a burly stranger leave and fanned himself, eyes glinting.
On the middle deck, Wind and Rain Tower cultivators had finished drinking and were gathering their gear, bloodlust thick in the air.
In a corridor not far away, a man with thick eyebrows had removed his outer robes, revealing a violet inner robe. An aged attendant followed at his side.
Naturally, it was Zhou Yanwei.
Their voices, faint from the distance, still drifted into Chen Kuang's perception.
"Second Highness... Young Master, this old servant will do all I can. But I cannot smooth things over with the Martial Saint Pavilion. You'll have to manage your father yourself."
"I only said I was helping a friend, I didn't know who he was. Don't say anything."
"As long as you understand. Next time, don't act so rashly."
"Yes, yes. You know how I am."
Zhou Yanwei smiled. "Next time for sure."
Chen Kuang blinked.
The violet robe on Zhou Yanwei's body reminded him of a legend.
"There is a god... garbed in purple, crowned with a pennant crown. His name is Yanwei. The ruler who gains him shall feast like an emperor and reign over all."
"Zhou... is the Ji clan."
"A surname taken from the nation. A name taken from the god of hegemony."
Chen Kuang's eyes flew open.
Zhou Yanwei... is a prince of Zhou.