SMWOM 20

Xu Wangya’s students and two assistants brought up the “test questions”, which were in a wooden box. These so-called test questions weren’t written on paper, but were various kinds of powders, liquids, pastes, and solid raw material extracts that were all related to making perfume. 

“Junchen, you’ll be blindfolded to compete with him or he might think it’s unfair,” Xu Wangya said.

“…Yes,” Yu Junchen replied, picking up the wide white strip of cloth and covering his eyes. Though he didn’t want to worsen his relationship with Meng Yang, he could only show his strength now that things came to this. 

Meng Yang sat down and also blindfolded himself with a wide cloth. Xu Wangya looked at his action and sneered. 

Xu Wangya’s two assistants opened the wooden box and took out the small covered saucers, and arranged them neatly on the long table in front of Meng Yang and Yu Junchen.

Just as Yu Junchen picked up the saucer and put it under his nose, about to concentrate on the smell, Meng Yang said, “Lingxiang bean powder.” (1)

Yu Junchen froze for a moment, then waited for the answer to be announced. 

The assistant swept the little powder in the dish into the lid with a feather and showed the bottom of the dish to everyone. “Lingxiang bean powder, correct.”

“…Fir moss oil,” Yu Junchen also replied.

“Fir moss oil, correct.” The assistant showed the bottom of the dish. 

“Tuberose root,” Meng Yang answered again.

“Tuberose root, right.”

“Zi orchid leaf,” Meng Yang said.

“Zi orchid leaf, correct.”

“Guihui grass.”

“Guihui grass, correct.”

“Honey pod.”

“Honey pod, right.”

Once Meng Yang had answered five kinds of plant ingredients in a row, Yu Junchen said his second one, “Guihui grass.”

“Guihui grass, correct.”

Other people were gradually becoming more surprised as Xu Wangya’s brows furrowed. 

Yu Junchen’s heart was also a little anxious. He wanted to catch up with Meng Yang’s speed as soon as possible, but with his eyes covered, he needed to concentrate to confirm the scent.

It was basically just Meng Yang’s performance after that. Although Yu Junchen’s accuracy was also very good, his speed was far behind Meng Yang’s. 

“The benzoin with sophora butter, cistanche, citrus pine, orange oil, and rice star calms the nerves and inner qi, makes people happy, and keeps them from feeling dizzy for a long time.”

“…That’s right.” Xu Wangya’s assistant looked at Meng Yang, even more surprised.

Benzoin referred to a type of fragrance. This kind of benzoin formula was quite common, but there were many different recipe combinations. Meng Yang being able to say all the ingredients correctly at such a fast speed was really too impressive.

After Meng Yang named several different kinds of blended incense in succession and also described the ingredients, all the students looked at him with shocked eyes. The masters sitting on the platform also couldn’t believe it. As a student, naming only two or three of the major ingredients was already impressive, but Meng Yang had listed all the ingredients; his sensitivity to smell was really too shocking. 

Yu Junchen had already started to panic, but the more he panicked, the more difficult it was for him to concentrate and the slower his speed became. 

By the time Meng Yang had named all of the perfume materials on the table accurately, Yu Junchen had confirmed less than a third of them. Xu Wangya’s face had become very ugly, but he had to confirm the facts with his own eyes. 

Meng Yang untied the blindfold cloth, then looked at Xu Wangya to say, “What else does Mr. Xu want to test? Pharmacology? Botany? Zoology? Chemistry? Physics? Or fragrance geography or history?”

“It’s not interesting to test on these basic subjects. Let’s see you make an incense seal (2).” Lin Songtai raised his hand and asked people to prepare things. 

Yu Junchen had also untied his blindfold, but his eyes were staring at the desktop, not daring to look at Xu Wangya. In fact, the extent that he could do now was beyond the ability of the other students. However, the strength that Meng Yang had shown made him panic, as he’d never dreamed that he’d lose to Meng Yang. 

Yu Junchen’s two senior brothers watched and couldn’t help but worry about him. They were afraid that Yu Junchen would be scolded by Xu Wangya for losing to Meng Yang. 

Lin Songtai’s assistant brought the tools for creating the incense seal and put them on Meng Yang’s desk. Lin Songtai then looked at Meng Yang seriously, waiting for him to start.

Sealing incense was similar to showing off tea making skills in a tea ceremony; it had certain steps and procedures.

From ancient times till now, incense making had become a kind of art. There were many different categories and schools, and was an important way to cultivate one’s morality and body.

Lin Songtai carefully watched Meng Yang’s movements. At first, he was expressionless from his seriousness and expectations, but seeing Meng Yang’s relaxed and easy to follow movements, he gradually smiled again. It was very difficult to do these movements so freely and pleasantly and still do each step well. If he didn’t do them well enough, it would make people uncomfortable, so most students were very willing to learn the proper steps. The display process of Meng Yang was completely Lin Songtai’s style. 

After filling in the incense powder, Meng Yang lifted the seal mold vertically, and lit one end of the design after finishing the final piece, finally covering the incense burner with the lid.

The assistant came over and carefully picked up the censer. Walking to Lin Songtai’s side, he gently placed the incense burner on the low table.

Lin Songtai opened the censer’s cover, first observed the seal, and then nodded in satisfaction. He closed the cover to observe the smoke, finally closing his eyes to earnestly take in the scent. 

The incense powder was quickly prepared by Meng Yang, and Lin Songtai felt that the scent was fresh and relaxing. Though it was connected to the quality of the fragrance powders, it had to be said that the proportions in Meng Yang’s preparation were very well-controlled. Other people around Lin Songtai, including Xu Wangya, felt the same way. 

Lin Songtai opened his eyes and looked at the other incense masters beside him, who nodded at the same time.

“If you’re willing to accept my guidance, you may come to me from tomorrow on,” Lin Songtai said to Meng Yang. 

Lin Songtai directly showed that he wanted to accept Meng Yang as a student, and the other students looked very envious when they heard this. Students of an international perfume master could be said to be set for life.

“Thank you to Mr. Lin for giving me this opportunity; I’ll try my best to live up to it,” Meng Yang replied seriously. There were many advantages to becoming a student of a world-class master of perfume. Although Meng Yang didn’t need to change his fate by becoming a master’s student like the others, it was still better to be one. 

Lin Songtai smiled and nodded.

Meng Yang looked at Xu Wangya, whose complexion wasn’t well, and said, “I know many people think that my achievements are fake, so I also want to thank Mr. Xu for giving me the opportunity to disprove the false rumors and prove myself.”

Meng Yang then turned to the other students and said, “I’m really sorry for the delay caused by me.”

Lin Songtai and several other masters around him gave Meng Yang a few mental points, because whether Meng Yang was genuine or hypocritical, his behavior was the best way to protect himself. After all, these masters still attached great importance to these young people’s behavior and etiquette. Even though Xu Wangya had first caused the conflict and Meng Yang had proven his strength, if Meng Yang had shown an unreasonable and unforgiving stance, it would make people disgusted even if it was justified. Xu Wangya’s status had already been established, and the more modest and decent Meng Yang acted, the more likely Xu Wangya had to utilize his high status to bully the younger generation. It really wasn’t in line with a morally prestigious behavior model. 

“Old Xu, are you satisfied now?” Lin Songtai turned to Xu Wangya and said, “Because of your prejudice, you’ve wasted both the students’ time and our time. Do you have anything to say?”

Everyone on Lin Songtai’s side began to cooperate.

“In fact, the order of the seats isn’t fixed. After each month’s assessment, the seats will be rearranged. Whether his achievements are true or not, there’d be opportunities to confirm it later. I really can’t think of a reason to have his seat moved to the back today.”

“That’s right. If just by my own guess, I can conclude that a student’s grades must be fake and I punish him with my identity without evidence, and all the teachers had the same type of teaching, wouldn’t this school be messed up?”

“We don’t care if you damage your own reputation, but don’t damage our reputations and that of the school’s. If the students think we’re the same as you, then we won’t sit idly by.”

Xu Wangya was completely speechless at Lin Songtai’s people. He couldn’t refute their words, because this time he really was at fault. Even if Meng Yang had a 99% chance of having entered the school by cheating, he still should have made a decision after confirming evidence, rather than from just his judgment. Besides, he wasn’t the leader of the school, and he had no right to make decisions about the students. Only because of his position in the aromatherapy field did the school leaders give him any face. 

“I’ve wronged you, and I apologize.” Xu Wangya had been respected for so many years, and he now had to put his face down and apologize to Meng Yang. Otherwise, it would seem as if he had no manners. Suppressing the anger in his heart, he said, “Grade leader, I’ll personally teach all of the students tomorrow in an extra class.”

“Okay,” the grade leader replied.

It took a long time for these masters to begin their lectures. Today’s class was mainly for the masters to explain their own ideas about aromatherapy to the students. The reason why so many masters were going on at the same time was because there was a lot of difference in their philosophies, so they had them carry out the course together. 

After listening to the masters’ opinions on fragrances, Lin Songtai and Xu Wangya separately explained some techniques and methods of perfumery to the students. All the students covered their eyes with blindfolds and held the plates with fragrant powders in their hands, earnestly feeling and experiencing them. 

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Translator Notes: Xiang is a word often used that can mean either incense, aroma, perfume, spice, fragrance, etc., which is just…great. Just great.

With work starting again, updates might be a little off on days, but I’ll do my best to still do two a week!

Thank you to Red Yak as always for editing!

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1. Just to note, I’m leaving some of these ingredients in pinyin and others are probably rough translations. I have no idea if all of these are real things, I could only find stuff on some of them online.

2. I believe this tradition began with Buddhists, where they would pack incense powder into incense seals to burn them, which is what they’re referring to. They usually had various designs and it is very ritualistic and beautiful to watch. Here’s a video of it, and here’s a picture of it. Next to the censer is the mold they pack it into. They’ll then light one end of the incense powder design and let it burn.