That noon, after practicing swordplay all morning and bathing and changing with the maids' help, Daiyu stepped into the courtyard beneath the covered walkway, her long hair still slightly damp. She was carrying a pudgy little bear whose whole body was soaked, its fur clumped together in sticky tufts, and which looked as if it were on the verge of death. She meant to leave it in the sun to dry. At a glance, she spotted Baoyu, Tanchun, Yingchun, and their maids gathered around the stone table, chatting about something.
"Well, this is a rare sight!"
"You lazybones, what brings you all crowding around my place today? Don't you have somewhere else to go and play?"
Daiyu tossed her little bear onto the open-air stone table so it could dry its soaked fur in the sun. She tucked a few damp strands of hair behind her ear, then chided her cousins, who had once again come to the Green Gauze Cabinet to bother her.
"..."
Though Daiyu had already changed into her fitted martial outfit, she had only just come out of the bath. Her face and hastily tied-up hair still glistened with moisture. Baoyu, who had been laughing and chatting with the girls, stared at her wide-eyed, as if he'd just seen a fairy emerge from the celestial realm.
They had only been apart for a few days, but Baoyu felt that his younger cousin Daiyu seemed quite different from before.
"!!"
"Why, Daiyu, teasing us again?"
"But look at her! Doesn't Daiyu seem more heroic and more lovely than ever?"
"Goodness!"
"Daiyu is looking more and more like a fairy, as if she'd stepped out of a painting. We can hardly recognize her!"
"That's right! They say that after three days apart, you should look at someone with