In the human world, April's fragrant blossoms had all faded; in the mountain temple, the peach blossoms had only just begun to bloom.
There was not a word of falsehood in that saying. It was already April, yet the spring breeze had only belatedly reached the mountains.
Many days had passed since Grain Rain, but a faint rainy mist still lingered around the mountaintops, refusing to disperse. A deep breath drew the cool droplets drifting on the mountain breeze into the Lung Palace.
With gentle winds and fine rain, it was the lively season of soaring orioles and growing grass. Spring bamboo shoots on Bright Governance Mountain raced one another out of the earth.
Bright Governance Mountain had a truly enormous variety of bamboo. One kind, called sweet bamboo, tasted just like sugarcane. Third Younger Sister usually loved to hold a stalk and gnaw on it slowly.
Its shoots were called sweet bamboo shoots. They had plump bellies and thick skins, but tasted exceptionally tender, soft, fresh, and sweet. Their hollow joints held abundant juice that tasted like fruit wine.
Eating these shoots meant taking a bite, swallowing a mouthful, then drinking a mouthful, so they were also called three-bite shoots.
Third Younger Sister and the Green Chi-Dragon loved eating them.
It was now the season when three-bite shoots sprouted. Cheng Xinzhan dug up a great many and wove plenty of bamboo baskets, delivering a large basketful to each of the elders he knew well.
Besides the bamboo shoots covering the mountain, the medicinal garden was also flourishing. All kinds of flowers and herbs displayed their brilliant colors, vying in beauty.
That day, he was once again burying Five Elements Mineral Jade in the fields-commonly known as fertilizing.
His medicinal fields formed an Eight Trigrams diagram. He fertilized them in