From a private room on the pleasure boat came the faint, elegant strains of a zither, but a slightly drunken voice soon shattered the quiet. "Ha ha, hahaha! To buy osmanthus blossoms and take wine along! Yet it could never be the same-as wandering in youth-"
Gong Zichun drained the wine before him, laughing and crying, seemingly on the verge of tears.
He had barely touched the tableful of food, but had drunk most of the wine.
By contrast, Lin Hao was thoroughly enjoying his meal. Looking at Gong Zichun, whose face seemed covered in stories, he ate the delicious food while listening to those stories as an accompaniment.
Every so often, he sighed and offered a few words of comfort.
The gist was that Gong Zichun had once frequented brothels and fallen in love with a courtesan queen. She had even borne him a daughter, but he himself had known nothing about it.
Only when he returned many years later had he seen the new courtesan queen, whose brows and eyes bore an extraordinary resemblance to his own. He needed no verification; her looks alone told him she was his daughter. Letters her mother had left behind later confirmed it.
Afterward, his daughter married someone she should never have married and died, leaving him alone, his heart filled with regret-
"Brother Gong, you can't keep living in the past. They wouldn't want to see you like this either, would they?"
Lin Hao ate his roast duck, grease coating his mouth.
He had to admit that Spring Full House really knew its business. The musician playing the zither was highly skilled; even someone like him, who knew nothing about music, found it an excellent accompaniment to his meal.
The chef's skill even surpassed that of the chef at Hexi Prefecture's