"What do you think of Violet Garden? Is there anything you're dissatisfied with?" Seeing Zhang Tie accept the secret medicines, the Crown Prince smiled and asked with concern.
Violet Garden was an imperial garden, spanning more than five thousand mu. It contained dozens of courtyards large and small, over a thousand pavilions, towers, halls, and houses, with different scenery at every turn. Every inch of land on Xuanyuan Hill was worth a fortune, and the kings, princes, and nobles of the subcontinents all took pride in owning a residence on Xuanyuan Hill in Great Xia. The land within Imperial Emperor City, the core area of Xuanyuan Hill, was even more unimaginably precious—something money alone could scarcely buy. Imperial Emperor City could be called the most prosperous place in the entire human race, without equal. Every flower, blade of grass, brick, and tile in Violet Garden gathered the finest essences under heaven. To say nothing else, the square long table at which the two men sat in the flower hall appeared merely stately and grand at first glance. But upon closer inspection, only connoisseurs would recognize that it was made of ten-thousand-year star catalpa wood, tribute timber sent to Great Xia by the other subcontinents. In all of Imperial Emperor City, the great clans and wealthy powers with the bearing to use such wood for furniture could probably be counted on both hands.
The glazed roof tiles of Violet Garden all came from the imperial bureau's official kilns, crafted by masters through secret methods and painstakingly carved, with every detail carefully considered. Any single glazed tile from this building would be a rarity among commoners, known as a glazed-tile eave-end inkstone. Some scholars and cultured gentlemen even took pride in collecting one as an inkstone and displaying it at gatherings.
Even