On the sixth day of the third month, at the Hour of the Dragon, the assembled officials gathered in Taiji Hall in Jiankang's Taicheng. Emperor Sima Yi bestowed an eight-chi ceremonial staff upon Chen Caozhi, along with two command spears and two gate banners, and promoted him to the seventh-rank post of Crown Prince's Attendant. Chen Caozhi received the imperial edict, official seals, and gifts of silk, and was commissioned to serve as envoy to Di Qin.
At the end of the Hour of the Dragon, the officials, headed by Sima Yu, Prince of Langya, escorted Chen Caozhi out of the city. Lu Qin saw Chen Caozhi riding a tall horse with a gleaming black coat. Ink-black from head to hoof, without a single hair of another color, it was an extraordinarily magnificent steed, rarely seen in Jiangzuo. Lu Qin first stared, wide-eyed, then turned livid. The horse Chen Caozhi rode was unmistakably the prized Western Regions steed treasured by his third uncle, Lu Na. The year before last, in Huating, Lu Qin had asked his third uncle to give him the horse. His uncle had refused and even rebuked him for pursuing luxury rather than striving to better himself. Yet now his third uncle had given this splendid horse, worth eight hundred thousand coins, to Chen Caozhi! The horse had always been kept in Huating. His third uncle must have learned that Chen Caozhi was going to Di Qin and ordered someone to bring it all the way from Huating at once. His third uncle's appreciation of Chen Caozhi was far from ordinary: he treated him entirely as a son-in-law. Even his own nephew could not compare!
Frustration filled Lu Qin's chest. He resented his third uncle, Lu Na, and hated Chen Caozhi even more. He thought, *Now that