At the hour of the dragon on the ninth day of the tenth month, Feng Mengxiong, Magistrate of Qiantang County, arrived at the north bank of Maple Forest Ferry in an ox cart with his wife Sun Shi and daughter Feng Lingbo, intending to visit Chen Caozhi's mother, Lady Li, at Chen Family Cove. People from Du Zigong's household had said that Mother Chen Lady Li was incurably ill and her life hung by a thread. Feng Mengxiong was greatly startled by the news. Three months earlier, his wife Sun Shi and daughter Feng Lingbo had visited Mother Chen Lady Li and returned saying that she looked well and was in good spirits. Lingbo had even become her goddaughter. How had her illness grown so grave in just three short months?
When the Feng Clan of three and their two servants reached the ferry, they saw two ferryboats, one large and one small, moving through the middle of the river toward the opposite bank. Sun Shi sighed repeatedly. "Just a step too late, a step too late. Now we'll have to wait nearly an hour."
Feng Lingbo was just fifteen, with delicate brows and lovely eyes, her figure slender and graceful. Wearing a veiled hat and a lambskin cloak, she stood on a slab of bluestone at the landing and watched the two ferryboats dock across the river. Three ox carts and another six or seven people came off the larger boat. At that distance, she could just make out both men and women. They soon climbed into the ox carts and vanished behind the fiery red maple woods.
Sun Shi said, "Lingbo, the wind is strong by the river. Come sit in the cart and wait. It'll be quite a while before the boats get here."
Feng Lingbo returned