Xie Manor, Grand View Garden.
Today was a day of great celebration, yet the heavens refused to cooperate.
It was early spring, and the fine rain drifted like mist.
Led by a servant, Xue Huaian and his group stepped into Grand View Garden. The bluestone beneath their feet was damp, reflecting the shadowy silhouettes of weeping willows along both sides of the lake.
Two men and three women!
They reached the shore, boarded a boat, and crossed the lake into Grand View Garden.
"This Xie Manor is truly enormous. Every inch of Long Peace Street is worth its weight in gold, yet they still carved out such a vast lake in the rear courtyard. They really are competing in extravagance."
The speaker was a lovely young maiden of sixteen, with a slender figure and a beauty mark at the edge of her right brow. Her lively eyes and brows were full of spirit.
She wore a gauzy palace dress embroidered with gold thread and held a green lotus-leaf umbrella.
Xue Huaian merely smiled faintly. "And that is worth marveling at? The Zhao Clan of Wealth and Honor Well in Bianjing has over a thousand groves and gardens within their estate. One must travel by carriage between the various courtyards. That is true extravagance—it opened my eyes."
Behind Xue Huaian stood a middle-aged man. A few strands of silver hair showed at his forehead. He wore a scholar's robe that should have made him appear refined and elegant, except an image of the yin-yang Eight Trigrams had been embroidered on its hem, making him seem rather strange.
He stood with his hands behind his back, his gaze steady. His eyes swept over the lake as though he were smiling, yet not smiling.
"Second Young Master, you are a son of the