Lu Weiwei had already waited at Zhenqing Daoist Abbey for more than two hours. Kneeling in Three Purities Hall, she recited the Five Thousand Words of Dao De Jing. The scroll spread beside her prayer cushion had been copied by Chen Caozhi himself—the only copy Abbot Li had kept. Lu Weiwei gazed at the spirited running-regular script and gently brushed her fingertips over it. Thinking of how Chen Caozhi had written every single character, she felt an inexplicable delight, as though she were once again lightly touching the back of his hand in the study that day—
Lu Weiwei knew that a paternal cousin of Chen Caozhi's, who had been expelled from his clan, was trying to obstruct his rank assessment, but she was not very worried. She felt certain he would receive a rank. Yesterday she had asked her father, and he had smiled and said that if even Chen Caozhi could not receive a rank, who in Wu Commandery could? Then he had sighed deeply and said it was a pity Chen Caozhi's family standing was not high; otherwise, what difficulty would there be in assigning him the second rank?
The young maid Duan Chu kept watch outside the abbey. Seeing Chen Caozhi, Liu Shangzhi, and the others approaching in the distance, she hurried inside to inform her young mistress. Lu Weiwei came out beneath the ancient cypress by the entrance. At the sight of Chen Caozhi's calm, smiling face, the little worry she had felt vanished like smoke.
Chen Caozhi approached and bowed with clasped hands, smiling. "I went up the hill behind the abbey this morning. All the camellias have faded. Young Mistress Wei Rui, don't weep over them."
Light rippled in Lu Weiwei's eyes, and she smiled with her lips pressed together. "I won't. I