Water caltrops pierced the duckweed, green brocade upon the waves; summer orioles trilled a thousand notes among the roses. All day, no one watched the gentle rain; paired mandarin ducks bathed their crimson robes.
- Anonymous
At the sudden sound of those smiling words, Xing Yan was startled and hastily looked toward the person who had stepped into view.
With a face like rare blossoms and jade-white stamens, and a waist that seemed to embrace drifting mist and moonlight, was she not Ju Ying, the girl who had once trodden Poyang's misty waves beside him?
This time, the girl had appeared in her true guise and splendid attire, fresh as a willow in spring, radiant as a lotus upon the water. Her divine radiance shimmered in and out of sight, instantly making the place where she stood somewhere none dared look upon too intently.
While the Four Seas Hall Master was still dazzled and dizzy, the magnificently dressed girl parted her lips and said:
"I knew a hall master would have much to forget. Fortunately, Ju Ying brought a token."
With that, she unfastened a little bamboo cup tied with a silk cord from her slender waist, circled with pearl tassels, and handed it to the dumbstruck youth before her, asking with a bright smile:
"Please examine it carefully, Hall Master. Are the words and picture on the cup authentic?"
On that little bamboo cup, now faintly yellow-green, were carved a lone skiff, a few ripples, and several strokes of distant mountains. Were those simple, rustic words, "A keepsake of Raozhou," not the very ones he had carved on Horseshoe Mountain by the faint moonlight that night last year?
At the sight of the little bamboo cup, already somewhat mottled with age, the waves and waters of Poyang Lake, the