Dark clouds hung heavy overhead. By the end of the hour of the Rooster, the sky had gone completely black. Lantern light fell on the bluestone path, dim and greenish, making the courtyard seem deeper still.
It was a little over a hundred paces from the gate in the earthen wall to the main hall of the Xie Residence. Chen Caozhi followed the household steward toward the hall, hearing ethereal strains of strings and winds drift toward him, like the fragrance of flowers lingering in the night air-the fresh scent of Chinese toon trees, or the perfume of roses-
When Xie An lived at Dongshan, he loved planting Chinese toon trees, while Xie Daoyun alone favored roses. The roses at Dongshan in Shangyu bloomed in their splendor and faded late. In late May three years earlier, when Chen Caozhi went to Dongshan to ask Master Zhi Mindu to treat his mother, he had seen that great cluster of roses beside the wooden building at the Xie Clan's villa, pale yellow and pink, vying to bloom. Back then, Chen Caozhi had stood beneath those roses, waiting for the Xie Clan's Dianji to enter the building and announce him-
Xie An loved music. During his ten years at Dongshan, pipes and song had never ceased. Now, summoned back to the capital, he had brought more than a dozen female entertainers with him. His wife Liu Dan's jealousy was no longer as fierce as in earlier years; she would no longer pull a curtain across to prevent Xie An from watching the women perform, saying, "I fear it may injure your great virtue."
The main hall of the Xie Residence had tier upon tier of brackets and capitals, lofty, spacious, and grand. Curtains divided its interior, and the entire hall could accommodate over