The woman of graceful bearing and unknown origins looked at him with approval and smiled. "What a good memory."
He had only heard her voice once, beneath the Covered Bridge. Years later, all it took was one sentence from her here for him to know without a doubt that she was the same person. He had followed her voice.
So was it that the boy never forgot an old acquaintance, or that he never forgot a grudge?
Chen Ping'an studied the woman they had called "Feng Yi," his face expressionless.
She was tall, wearing shoes made for spring outings. No waist token marked her place in the Mountain and Water Officialdom. Her round-collared brocade robe bore the small coiled-dragon pattern of an old design, a style that overstepped the bounds of her station.
Light makeup graced her peach-blossom face, with flower-like dimples on her cheeks. Wine had left a flush beneath her vermilion lips.
Chen Ping'an had once seen the style described in a scholar's notes. It was an old Shu palace fashion called the Yichun face.
Her hands were as soft as tender shoots. She seemed to have dyed her nails with crushed cicada shells and balsam flowers, leaving them a vivid, alluring red. The ancients called such hands "cicada palms."
A Colored Rope Knot tied back her dark hair, which fell across her chest like an azure waterfall pouring between mountain peaks.
Looking closer, Chen Ping'an found that the knot, no larger than a copper coin, was twisted from nearly a hundred fine strands, each a different color.
It was as though every color beneath heaven had been gathered into that cord.
Most mysterious of all, Feng Yi had no ripples of Spiritual Energy about her and used no immortal arts, yet not a speck of dust ever