For the next several days, Chen Caozhi went to Young Minister Lu's Residence in Hengtang every afternoon to paint with Lu Weiwei. Gu Kaizhi and Zhang Tongyun also came without fail each day, and the two pairs sat facing one another in the Lu Residence's inner study to paint their portraits.
Lady Lu, Zhang Wenwan, often came to see how both paintings were progressing, but Lu Na seldom visited. Chen Caozhi and Wei Rui seemed like a young married couple, and Lu Na could hardly avoid feeling awkward at the sight. In his heart, he too admitted that they were exceedingly well matched. With Chen Caozhi, Wei Rui shone with an altogether different radiance, like the burgeoning vitality and delicate beauty of flowers blooming in spring. Lu Na could scarcely bear to look, his heart filled with deep tenderness for his daughter. Thus, although he felt it was not entirely appropriate for his wife Zhang Wenwan to arrange for Chen Caozhi to paint at their residence like this, he said nothing. He merely worried that his elder brother Lu Shi might come to demand an explanation if he learned of it. Fortunately, no trouble arose even as the end of the month arrived and the paintings neared completion.
At dusk on the second day of the third month, the portrait of Gu Kaizhi and his wife that Chen Caozhi and Lu Weiwei had painted together was finished. Like Zhang Tongyun, Lu Weiwei excelled at flowers and birds rather than figures, so Chen Caozhi had done the principal work, just as he had when painting the Eight Classes of Devas and Nagas murals at Waguansi the previous year.
The portrait of Chen Caozhi and Lu Weiwei by Gu Kaizhi and Zhang Tongyun was also essentially complete, but Gu Kaizhi seemed dissatisfied.