[Tomorrow was the Gathering of Beauties Banquet.]
[Parasol Tree grew more excited by the day. The small courtyard was livelier than last year, and it had received so many New Year's goods and gifts from the other courtyards that its storeroom could not hold them all.]
["Young Master, several stewards from the estate came bearing gifts today."]
[Parasol Tree asked uncertainly, "Should we decline them?"]
[Though Parasol Tree was a little older than you, she had changed greatly since crying herself blind and then regaining her sight. Gradually, you had become her "pillar of strength."]
[There were no adults in the house. The young master was its head.]
[Whether it was firewood, rice, oil, salt, or any of the household's countless little matters, she came to ask your opinion.]
[You never grew annoyed. Each time, you answered patiently.]
[Parasol Tree thought the estate stewards had acted this way because they had seen everything that had happened recently.]
[Xie Hong, the Xie Clan's second master, often sent servants to ask the young master to write calligraphy samples for the Waiting for Spring Tower.]
[Madam Zhuge, Xie Yuan's birth mother, had personally come to deliver a gift to the young master the day before yesterday.]
[Military Governor Sima Ting was close to the young master, too, and had prepared a New Year's gift for him.]
[Then there was your Fragmentary Lyric, which had made your name known at the West Wing Tower, and the visit from Su Yun, the Su Clan's young master. One event after another, all within a few short months, suggested that once this young master entered the academy next year, his prospects might be limitless.]
[You listened to Parasol Tree and smiled faintly. "Accept them. Declining would only make things awkward."]
[But Parasol Tree remembered the arrogant faces