Over the next few days, Chen Caozhi and Xie Daoyun set out at the Hour of the Rabbit and stopped at noon, covering fifty or sixty li a day. In the afternoons and evenings, they played board games or discussed calligraphy, Confucian learning, and metaphysics, getting along most harmoniously. Chen Caozhi took out the court officials' memorials and discussions on reducing official posts and the Great Tuduan that Xi Chao had given him, and sorted through them with Xie Daoyun. On the second day of the seventh month, the night before they reached Gushu, they finished reviewing the several dozen memorials and scattered discussions, distilling them into eleven proposals for Merging Offices and Reducing Posts and fifteen for the Great Tuduan. Chen Caozhi made a fair copy to submit to Grand Marshal Huan-
After Chen Caozhi finished copying and put everything away, he was about to call Huang Xiaotong in to take the brush and inkstone away for washing when Xie Daoyun said, "Let Liu Xu wash them." Liu Xu quickly carried them out, and Yinfeng followed her, smiling.
When Chen Caozhi spent time with Xie Daoyun, he generally kept Lai Zhen and Huang Xiaotong away, leaving only her two maids, Liu Xu and Yinfeng, to attend them. That way, Xie Daoyun did not have to speak with her nose stopped up.
They were in the small hall of a posting inn. Xie Daoyun rose and walked out beneath the veranda. Seeing no one around, she tilted her head back to gaze at the stars filling the sky and said to Chen Caozhi, who had followed her out, "We'll reach Gushu tomorrow. Suddenly, I feel a little apprehensive. What am I to do if Duke Huan spots a flaw?"
"Brother Yingtai, simply act taciturn, aloof, and eccentric," Chen Caozhi said.