Luoyang.
Great Wei's first public library appeared in Luoyang.
It occupied a sprawling compound in the eastern part of the city.
Wang Rong had purchased the compound.
Its location was excellent, and its scale was even more impressive: it contained no fewer than eight subsidiary courtyards. Calling it a transgression of his station would have been putting it mildly!
After Wang Rong's arrest, the imperial court confiscated the property. Cao Mao found its location favorable and its interior furnishings exquisite, so he simply designated it Great Wei's first library.
Cao Mao even personally bestowed a name on this public library: Education without Distinction.
Shortened, it became the Education Prefecture.
At that moment, Cao Mao stood some distance away, dressed in ordinary clothes, his face covered in dust and grime. Standing beside a carriage, he secretly surveyed the place.
Zhang Hua was likewise dressed as someone from a humble family and stood beside Cao Mao, watching from afar.
For an incognito visit among the common people, he could bring Sima Yan, but not to a gathering place for literati like this.
His features were simply too distinctive: flowing long hair and hands that reached past his knees. Sima Yan was the only person in all Luoyang with that appearance; there was no hiding him.
With him standing here beside them, who could possibly recognize their identities?
Having thoroughly absorbed the lessons of his previous attempts, Cao Mao had carefully disguised himself. With the eunuchs' "makeup techniques," he finally looked somewhat ordinary. Unless someone stared at him, they would notice nothing amiss.
It seemed Cao Mao still fell a notch short of Pei Kai. No disguise worked for that man; wherever he went, people recognized him and gathered to stare.
Cao Mao had, in fact, already experienced Pei Kai's suffering.
Social customs