After more than half a month of clear skies, a fine, steady rain finally began to fall on White Dew.
These days, apart from major festivals and holidays, few people paid much attention to the lunar calendar or the solar terms.
But Chen Shi'an remembered them. In fact, he had always been used to keeping track of dates by the lunar calendar.
White Dew was the fifteenth of the twenty-four solar terms, marking the end of the month of Shen and the beginning of the month of You in the sexagenary calendar. After White Dew, cold air began to shift from defense to offense, the weather gradually cooled, and the chill condensed into dew.
As the old saying went, "Autumn dew upon all grasses, gathered during the hour of Wei, cures a hundred ailments, quenches excessive thirst, makes the body light and free from hunger, and leaves the flesh supple and lustrous." Back when he lived on the mountain, Chen Shi'an and his master would "gather pure dew" in the early morning woods whenever White Dew came around.
The mountain had plenty of vegetation and thick mist. Without much effort, they could collect several large wooden basins of pure dew, which they would store for making medicine or brewing tea.
Now that he was no longer on the mountain, though, even the experience of White Dew had become less distinct.
The mist was indeed thicker than usual, but it was mixed with too much foul-smelling, polluted haze. Dew collected here would be unusable.
Chen Shi'an still got up at five.
White Dew had coincided with rainy weather, and at five in the morning, the city seemed to have slipped into the misty, rain-shrouded lands south of the Yangtze.
Because of the lower elevation and the urban heat island effect, the