As the sun set behind the western hills, the study visibly darkened.
Sun Shaozong lifted the purple-tipped brush hovering over the Gold-Flecked Paper slightly, then sat dazed for a long while before tossing it onto the reclining-Buddha-shaped brush rest.
He gathered up the draft sheets covered in haphazard scribbles from the desk. The stack was nearly half a foot thick. This was newly fashionable Gold-Flecked Paper, mixed with tiny flakes of gold foil—elegant and luxurious, and correspondingly expensive.
That half-foot-high stack alone would have provided a poor scholar with coarse paper for a lifetime.
Yet Sun Shaozong felt no inclination to treasure it. He firmly pinched the stack between three fingers and prepared to toss it into the brazier nearby.
But just as he was about to do so, Sun Shaozong stopped again.
It was not that he had changed his mind and could not bear to burn such outrageously expensive Xuan Paper. Rather, the brazier was gray and lifeless, without the faintest trace of fire; it had apparently gone out long ago.
Tsk.
No wonder his feet had felt so icy.
Sun Shaozong rose and searched the curio shelf, finding a fire starter specially supplied by Western Capital Tinder House. He pushed open its gilded windproof cover with his thumb and gave it a hard shake against the wind. A flame more than three inches high sprang up from the wick.
He lit the stack of draft paper and casually tossed it into the brazier. Once it had burned down to scraps, Sun Shaozong pushed open the door and left the study, now returned to darkness, behind him.
He exhaled a cloud of white mist toward the silver moon hanging in the sky, stamped his feet on the stone steps to ease the soreness and numbness from sitting too