Thanks to Huan Wen's efficiency, the South of the Yangtze enjoyed a rare response that was both efficient and practical.
Liu Cheng arrived at Niuzhu, also known as Caishi, on the seventh day of the seventh month. That very evening, he asked Yuan Hong, who had remained stationed there, to help him find a suitable river island, then went there with him for a few drinks beneath the stars, even teasing him about his official career.
Yuan Hong was rather helpless about it himself. He felt that his literary accomplishments were so outstanding that they overshadowed his other strengths, leaving Xie Shang unwilling to release him for an outside appointment.
Yet what Xie Shang meant to him had long since gone beyond gratitude for recognizing his worth. Even if their bones were broken, their sinews would still bind them together; inside and out, they were one. With Xie Shang refusing to let him leave, he simply had no way to spread his wings and realize his ambitions.
Liu Acheng understood some of this perfectly well. Yuan Hong's complaints were genuine, but given his performance when confronted with a crisis, his bellyful of learning, and his habitual arrogance, an outside appointment might not actually suit him. If he really followed the path from county magistrate to capital official to Administrator, he might well make an utter mess of his first magistracy, then fall headlong and never get up again.
He could work a few more years, build up his seniority, and, once Xie Shang grew old, receive some prestigious, undemanding post such as Director of the Secretariat Library, then scrape together a military achievement and be made a Marquis. That would make a perfectly satisfactory life.
So Liu Cheng pretended to speak under the influence of drink and said just that,