The Grand View Garden at Xie Manor-Wait!

Xie Manor was extraordinarily lively today.

Joy filled the air.

Within the Main Estate stood a courtyard called Grand Vista Courtyard, reserved for entertaining honored guests.

It had once been called Pavilion Lake Courtyard. It stood at the front of Xie Manor, in the honored eastern position.

The courtyard owed its former name to its two lakes, one child and one mother.

The child lake was small. Though called a lake, it was really a deep, still pool of cold water.

Years ago, Xie Hong, the second master of Xie Manor, had often washed his brushes and inkstones there as a boy. The water had turned black with ink, and the tale had become a favorite.

So the child lake was renamed Ink Lake to commemorate it.

Mother Lake was broad. To reach the garden beyond it, visitors had to cross by boat, traveling more than ten yards before reaching the far shore.

The lakeside scenery was lovely. Pavilions and towers rose among ornamental rocks, dozens of clusters of Qingzhu grew along the shore, and banana trees added a touch of elegance.

Lotuses stood tall in the lake, white as snow and red as satin, swaying gracefully whenever the wind blew.

The water was clear, and fish could often be seen admiring the lotuses.

All of it was because Old Madam Xie had always loved lotus flowers.

Thus Xie Ling's legitimate son, now the Xie Clan's eldest legitimate son, had been named Xie He.

Where did the water of the two lakes come from?

An underground current fed them, its slender streams flowing without cease.

A feng shui master had once declared that as long as the mother and child lakes kept flowing, the Xie Clan would prosper from generation to generation without end.

Later, the Academy's Third Gentleman visited