But no one revealed this reality, and the people in the cabin across the way slightly apologized, shouting back, "We waited for you a long time, thinking you needed time to leave the palace, and another trip home might make you late. There are too many people on the shore, and there happened to be an empty boat, so we boarded first to wait for you."
The two boats slowly came alongside each other. Because the boats weren't very large, and the boatmen slowed down, sometimes rowing and sometimes not, there was no worry even if they bumped into each other.
They charged by the hour, not in any rush to urge the distinguished guests to hurry, hoping they would stay on the boat all day.
Both sides looked at each other across the lake in the boats with ease, and on the other boat were not only Qiao Tao and several students from the Highest Institute but also Peng Zhiru and Lu Xiaofu, who were students admitted to the Imperial Academy through ancestral merit.
