Clear Sky City.
Dusk slowly pressed down from the horizon above the city walls, shrouding the entire city in a quiet gray-blue glow.
The pedestrians on the streets gradually thinned out, while lanterns outside the shops lit up one after another, casting clusters of warm yellow light across the bluestone roads.
In a secluded courtyard on the eastern side of the City Lord's Manor, a lamp burned quietly.
Tang Yuehua sat on a stone bench in the courtyard, holding a cup of tea that had already gone lukewarm, her gaze resting on the figure beneath the old locust tree.
Tang San sat on a low stool with a golden harp laid across his knees.
The harp was exquisitely crafted, its body carved from some unknown golden wood, its strings glimmering with scattered light in the dusk.
He wore a moon-white robe today. His dark blue hair was loosely tied behind his head with a black ribbon, falling over his shoulders.
He did not immediately pluck the strings. Instead, he closed his eyes and sat quietly for a moment.
The lamplight swayed gently in the night breeze, shadows flowing slowly across his face and softening that already excessively handsome visage into something deep and gentle.
A moment later, he raised his hand, his long fingers settling onto the strings.
A crisp note, like a drop of water falling into a still lake, rippled gently through the dusk.
Then came the second note, the third. The melody slowly flowed forth, neither hurried nor slow, as though recounting a very long story.
The music was not complicated—one could even call it simple. The transitions between every note were extraordinarily natural, like spring water winding down through the mountains, turning around rocks and falling over cliffs, without the slightest hesitation or awkwardness.
Tang Yuehua's