Since early September, no rain had fallen anywhere from Jiankang to Kuaiji, and most of the winter wheat seedlings had suffered from drought. On the day the people of Shanyin rioted, the evening of the twenty-second of the tenth month, Cold Rain began to fall, and the weather abruptly turned much colder.
That night, Chen Caozhi and Xie Daoyun talked at the Commandery Post Station. As usual, Chen Caozhi went to Xie Daoyun's quarters. The two maids, Liu Xu and Yinfeng, kept Xiao Chan in the outer room to chat, leaving Chen Caozhi and Xie Daoyun alone in the inner room, where Xie Daoyun could speak without altering her voice-
Without powder, Xie Daoyun's face was clean and fresh, her slender eyebrows perfectly neat. Her long, narrow eyes, their black and white clearly defined, occasionally shifted in a glance. Shallow dimples appeared as she spoke; her words were witty, her bearing elegant and captivating.
"Zizhong, why haven't you interrogated the clerk Zhang Lun and those twenty-odd rioters? Do you feel that even if questioning revealed the Lu Clan and He Clan as the masterminds, the two of us would still be powerless against them for now?"
"Yes. I'm waiting for word from Xi Jiabin. He also knows that Wu Commandery and Kuaiji are the hardest places to implement Tuduan. Escalating the confrontation is inadvisable, but gentle breezes and fine rain certainly won't achieve anything either. Acting on Duke Huan's orders, Xi Jiabin will severely punish someone of high rank to establish his authority. Once both gentry and commoners are cowed, Tuduan will be much easier to carry out."
"Oh," Xie Daoyun said. "I knew nothing of this. You are Duke Huan's trusted confidant, Zizhong. I am not, and neither is Youdu."
"You are my trusted confidant-" Chen Caozhi replied casually