They Called Me a Coward, My New Master Asked for Lessons novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: A Bowl That Arrived
Ji passes a public bowl-carrying test by crouching under the posted pole; the judge stamps the place, and Qiu heads for the steward's table first.
Ji's first public victory for her new school began with water inside her boot.
She had spilled it while taking a heroic starting stance.
The course judge pointed at the wet paving beneath Ji's foot.
"The bowl is meant to keep it," the judge said.
Ji crouched and refilled the plain ceramic bowl from the wooden tub.
Luo watched from the spectator bench with her bad foot propped on a brick.
She had insisted on coming, and Ji had almost made that decision for her.
The other entrants rolled their sleeves above glowing wrists.
This trial was open to schools that Tang had left off his list.
A pass won a recognized place at the provincial festival.
The judge read the rules aloud before anyone received water.
Each entrant must reach the far red ribbon before the hanging bell stopped ringing.
Water must still cover the bottom of the bowl at the ribbon.
The low bamboo pole at the halfway mark could be passed over or under.
Speed and spectacle earned nothing extra.
Ji still wanted to cross in a way nobody could laugh at.
Qiu Zhenheng arrived while she dried her wrist.
He was the senior disciple who had told the academy she abandoned the bridge.
He pushed the spectator gate open from three paces with a flick of two golden rings.
Ji had polished his silver clasp every morning of her first academy winter.
He had never learned to open a gate without showing his rank.
"A suitable challenge for her," he told the spectators, looking at the bowl.
Ji gripped the ceramic until her fingers ached.
Shen stood beside the judge, still carrying the academy's borrowed stool.
"Would you like to sit?" she asked Qiu.
"The small challenges sometimes take a while."
He remained standing, which left her free to use the stool herself.
The bell sounded for the first entrant.
He lifted his bowl overhead and leaped the pole in splendid style.
Most of his water landed on the judge's red sleeve cord.
She sent him back to the tub without raising her voice.
The second entrant attempted a floating step along the edge of the court.
His light sleeve swept through the hanging reeds and dragged the water out of his bowl.
He crossed the ribbon beautifully and handed over an empty bowl.
The judge turned it over and got nothing for her trouble.
A third entrant, a stolid man from a farm school, ducked the pole.
He lowered the bowl to his knees first, and the water sloshed over the rim anyway.
The judge sent him back too, and he accepted it with a nod.
Ji felt Qiu looking at her before her own turn came.
She could try the floating step with a lower sleeve.
If it worked, the whole court would remember her doing it, and the word on the board would shrink.
Luo shifted her bad foot beneath the bench, and Ji remembered the bridge.
A magnificent leap would have dropped both of them into the river.
Shen had spent the night teaching her that water follows the hips and not the hands.
Years of hauling pails over rotten bridges had taught her the same.
She took her bowl to the starting mark, and the bell sounded.
She walked toward the pole with the ceramic warm against her wrist.
Her first ring pressed the bowl to her palm and left her knees free.
She crouched before she reached the pole, bending both knees together.
A spectator laughed, and her old habit begged her to straighten for dignity.
Straightening would cost the water long before it earned any dignity.
She kept her knees bent and slid the bowl beneath the pole, level at her hip.
At the reeds she turned sideways and led with one shoulder.
The wet tips streaked her plain sleeve and missed the bowl entirely.
The bell was thinning when she stepped past the red ribbon.
Water covered the bottom of the bowl.
The judge bent to inspect it and reached for her stamp.
"Low Step," Ji told her before she could ask.
The name sounded strange and public in her own mouth.
Shen stood up and nearly left the stool beneath her robe.
Luo clapped hard enough to startle the nearest entrant.
Qiu pointed at the pole with two stiff fingers.
"She went under," he told the judge.
The judge looked from the pole to his immaculate white knees.
"The rules said over or under," she replied.
"You are welcome to attempt it over."
She stamped the school's invitation and handed it to Ji.
For the first time since the bridge, somebody waited for Ji to accept an honor.
She took it without apologizing for the water in her boot.
"A recognized school keeps its place only by filling a demonstration space before the lamps are lit," the judge added.
Spaces were paid for at the steward's table on the far side of the court.
Qiu was already walking toward it, humming.
Ji ran after him with the stamped paper in one fist and her last coppers in the other.
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