Suzhou's autumn came over the water; Taihu Lake lay calm, and the tide ebbed at Chang Gate.
Maple Bridge had yet to turn red, but the osmanthus was already fragrant.
Through the streets and lanes, golden grains of blossom pattered down, covering the blue flagstones.
Beneath the eaves, a fresh chill stirred, seeping through the window gauze.
September twenty-seventh, Jinghe Year Fifteen, Suzhou Prefecture Office.
A senior clerk's ringing cry broke the silence within the office:
[A dispatch from the Ministry of Revenue has arrived!]
[Zhang Zai, acting Prefect of Suzhou, is hereby transferred by imperial decree to serve as Director of the Shaanxi Office of Clear Accounts in the Ministry of Revenue. He shall proceed to the Capital immediately, without delay!]
In the courtyard, Zhang Zai stood beneath a tree in his prefect's official dress: a spread-wing Futou, a Crimson Silk Robe, and a Golden Belt.
At those words, he slowly turned, accepted the document, and read it three times.
The new Prefect would arrive within days.
He would not see this autumn through in Suzhou.
Zhang Zai stood in the courtyard, lifting his head to gaze at the sky.
The sky was high, the clouds thin; a line of geese bound north drifted leisurely over the rooftops.
He remembered the day news of the death had reached Suzhou.
Dressed in plain mourning clothes, he had bowed toward the north, neither speaking nor smiling for three days.
With Lord Feng gone, half the Court in the Capital had collapsed.
Zi'an had lost his teacher.
Matters in Ningxia were underway...
Zhou Quan was at the frontier; the military farmland awaited an accounting, and the grain route awaited clearance.
After a long while, Zhang Zai reached down and brushed the Golden Belt at his waist. "Now is precisely the time