Heng was the horizontal jade piece on a jade pendant, neither flaunting its splendor nor dazzling with its light.
When jade lay in the mountain, the grasses and trees grew lush; when pearls formed in the depths, the cliffs did not wither.
At their first meeting in the Eastern Palace, he seemed like fine jade: without a word being spoken, its clear radiance already filled one's breast.
Wei Nisheng had only just stepped across the threshold and had yet to approach the desk when a stern shout rang out behind him.
"Wait!"
At those words, he halted and turned to look back.
The voice had come from one of the great Confucian scholars.
The man at their head had snow-white hair and beard and a lean, austere face.
Dressed in a plain cloth robe, a book in hand and his expression solemn, he rose to stand beneath the Corridor.
He bowed to the Crown Prince, his voice steady but allowing no retreat.
"Your Highness, under our dynasty's ancestral institutions, before the Crown Prince establishes his own household, he may not associate with Outer Court Officials outside the palace.
This is an iron rule laid down by Emperor Taizu, unchanged for a hundred years.
We have the honor of serving as Your Highness's teachers and dare not fail to offer admonition."
He had barely finished when another great scholar stepped half a pace forward and cupped his hands.
"Your Highness, I delight in reading the classics and know little of affairs at court.
Yet looking at this young man, a young official clad in scarlet, he must have rendered service to the state altars. Even so, the rules of propriety cannot be discarded.
If this precedent is broken today, will not anyone be able to enter the Eastern Palace