The Fourteenth Saturday

December 6, Saturday, the ninth day of the eleventh lunar month.

Auspicious: consecration, breaking ground, demolition, construction;

Inauspicious: marriage, opening market, planting, burial.

Nine o'clock in the evening.

Linzhong Lakefront, before the little cabin.

This was Zheng Qing's fourteenth Saturday since arriving at First University, and his thirteenth time taking part in the School Labor Committee's nighttime patrol around Linzhong Lake. Everyone around him was already familiar, and he knew the mission procedures by heart. The young publicly funded student had long since lost his initial nervousness.

Tomorrow would be Heavy Snow, the third solar term of winter, marking the official beginning of midwinter. As the "Collected Explanations of the Solar Terms" put it: "Heavy Snow is the solar term of the eleventh month; by this time, snow falls in abundance."

Zheng Qing was not sure whether it would snow in the next few days. Although the school's weather was controlled by some department, its members had always enjoyed giving everyone "surprises"—such as a late cold snap at the Start of Spring, sudden goose-feather snow in the blazing heat of summer, or days on end of low, gloomy clouds during crisp autumn weather.

In short, if one tried to predict First University's weather with ordinary logic or standard divination, seven or eight out of ten predictions would probably be wrong. As for the remaining one or two, it would only be because the wizards in charge of the weather were in a good mood and had chosen not to torment them.

But while minor details could shift, the overall trend could not be reversed.

For instance, in the height of summer, the usual temperature would not fall below thirty degrees Celsius; during the plum rain season, total rainfall would not be less than six chi, three cun, eight fen, and