From halfway up Jade Emperor Mountain, the sunset clouds looked like heavenly fire blazing across the sky. The mountains stretched hazy, deep, and lovely into the distance; ten li away, Mingsheng Lake shimmered beneath resplendent clouds, its blue waters spanning a thousand qing. The magnificent view filled the heart with soaring ambition.
Chen Shang took the bowl of plain tea Lai De offered, drained it in one breath, and let out a long sigh. "Father, as soon as I learned the good news about our admission to the gentry register, I set out for home. Twelve days in all, traveling day and night. It was exhausting, but my heart was happy."
Chen Xian looked at his son Chen Shang, so full of spirit, then at his nephew Chen Caozhi, who merely smiled faintly, his eyes on the clouds along the horizon. It seemed that something still finer awaited him somewhere beyond sight, and admission to the gentry register was only the beginning.
It was late spring, when the grass grew tall and kites wheeled overhead. The two rows of pines and cypresses Chen Caozhi had planted with his own hands were putting forth fresh green, brimming with life.
Rather than go inside the thatched hut to sit and talk, everyone stood beneath the eaves, conversing as they bathed in the evening breeze of the springtime hills.
Though pleased that the Chen Clan had entered the gentry register, Ding Yi also found it rather sudden. "Because Caozhi was mourning his mother, he could not go to the capital for the assessment by the Grand Zhongzheng of the Eighteen Provinces, and gave up his chance to enter the gentry register. I regretted that deeply. Who would have thought the mountain path would turn and reveal another vista, and the matter would already