Shuzhou, ten thousand li away, lay under a thick blanket of dark clouds, rain falling in a fine, unbroken drizzle.
Yet above the northern Capital Prefecture, the sky stretched clear for thousands of miles.
At noon after the Beginning of Autumn, the blazing sun shone high, bathing the Wind and Rain Tower, which had stood south of the Imperial City for two hundred years, until it looked bright as new.
Strands of hazy light filtered through the glass in the lattice windows.
They made the spacious room deep within the third floor seem to gleam with golden radiance.
A man wearing a White Tiger pattern mask stood before the desk, a thick White jade wolf hair brush in hand.
After dipping it in Huizhou ink, he swept the brush across soft mist-water paper and wrote four words: "Feelings After Rain."
Then came four lines of poetry: "At dawn I left Baidi amid colored clouds; a thousand li to Jiangling in one day I returned."
"Monkeys Cry from Both Banks Without Cease; My Light Boat Has Passed Ten Thousand Mountains."
They were none other than Chen Yi's "Feelings After Rain."
Only, Chen Yi had written it in Running Script, every stroke exuding an easy, unrestrained grace.
The masked man, however, had written it in Wei Qing Style.
Every stroke was square and straight, rugged and bold.
Even if it flowed like drifting clouds and running water, it did not match the Artistic Conception of "crossing ten thousand mountains to behold the light" conveyed by the poem.
Thus, after finishing, the White Tiger pattern mask-wearing man stared at the Artistic Conception emerging from the mist-water paper and remained silent for a long while.
Even the Red Robe White Tiger Guard kneeling before him had a strange look in his eyes.
—The Pavilion