Whether by chance or not, a casual search for someone on the way back led Xing Yan to a decidedly alluring sight.
Once he made out the figure amid the hazy vapor at the lake's center, Xing Yan gave a start:
Whose daughter dared bathe in the middle of the lake? Wasn't she afraid of drowning in such deep water?
Beyond his surprise, he found it rather strange:
Why did I keep running into girls bathing by the water these days?
There, amid the blue evening mist, a woman was bathing at the center of a lake the sunset had turned into a disc of purple jade. Thanks to his exceptional eyesight, Xing Yan could see that the greater part of her body exposed above the water was utterly unclothed!
Evening mist was rising, and blue-purple dusk gradually enveloped the woods, lake, and hills before him. From this angle, the reflected sunset fell entirely upon the water around the girl, opening a natural mirror within the gathering darkness. Her graceful, upright figure cast a captivating silhouette upon that bright water mirror. He could tell that her skin was smooth and lustrous, with long hair winding about her body; she did not seem to be a woman of the Central Plains. Her hair did not appear to be the usual black, either. But the dazzling purple light kept Xing Yan from discerning its precise color.
With such a lovely sight before him, his already keen vision aided by the exceptionally bright reflected sunset, every detail of the beauty's enchanting pose as she turned sideways and scooped water fell into his eyes. As he gazed, the two rounded curves amid the shifting light seemed to tremble just before him, their contrast against the brilliant background indescribably soft and suggestive. Thus this exceedingly