The hour of hai, one of the twelve traditional double-hours, was known as "the hour when people settled down."
For instance, The Romance of the Western Chamber said: "Who told you to enter another's home in the dead of night? If not for illicit love, then to be caught as a thief."
It corresponded to the modern hours of nine to eleven at night.
The Capital, the imperial palace, the Eastern Warm Pavilion of Qianqing.
On the Imperial Desk, the memorials awaiting or bearing vermilion annotations stood in three stacks.
Those already reviewed rose over a foot high; those awaiting review still stood several inches tall.
Only one stack, enclosed in plain white covers without names or titles, occupied the center of the desk alone, starkly distinct from the official documents around it.
Emperor Jing of Zhou sat alone behind the desk.
He wore no ceremonial crown, and his informal robe lay half-open, revealing a little of its plain lining. A single jade hairpin loosely secured his topknot.
Without strings of pearls or ornaments of gold and jade, he displayed a degree of ease rarely seen in an emperor.
Beside his hand sat a freshly brewed cup of Gu Zhu Purple Bamboo Shoot tea, its liquor clear green, slender wisps of steam curling upward.
Wang Cheng stood behind and to one side of the Imperial Throne, hands lowered and body bowed, holding his breath in rapt attention.
He had stood there for more than two hours. His feet had long since gone numb, yet his expression remained utterly still; even his lashes scarcely flickered.
He knew very well that this night was no ordinary one.
The Son of Heaven had already read the stack of secret reports on the Imperial Desk three times.
The first time, he had