Dark clouds blanketed Luoyang City, bearing down as though they would crush it.
Spring thunder rolled, so fierce that even the earth seemed to tremble with it.
The strange weather startled the city's people. Some of the timid ones hid at home with their doors and windows tightly shut, while more hurried through the streets. In teahouses and restaurants, people whispered among themselves, anxiously seeking out every scrap of rumor.
Rumble-
A tremendous thunderclap exploded overhead. Sitting in the Knowledge and Practice Tower, Wei Zhilin felt his heart give a sudden jolt. For no reason he could name, a strange heaviness settled over him.
He gazed at the withered banana leaves below the tower, drifting into a daze. There had been no word from his teacher for a long time. Where was the old man now? The winds that winter had been bitterly cold, and when he left, he had worn only a single layer of clothing...
The early spring wind brought no news of those people longed for. It merely sobbed softly as it swept over fields and country paths, through the ordinary alleys of Luoyang City, and past the thick palace walls of the Imperial City.
Inside Fu Ning Palace, Empress Cui wore a gown embroidered in gold thread with luan birds paying homage to a phoenix, beneath an outer robe patterned with auspicious elephants. Having just finished dressing, she studied her lovely face in the bronze mirror, her cloudlike hair adorned with a phoenix hairpin, and pressed her lips together in a quiet smile.
The announcing eunuch had already reported that His Majesty would come to Fu Ning Palace for his midday meal.
Lifting her skirts, Empress Cui hurried to the front hall and directed the eunuchs and palace maids as they carried the prepared dishes to