Cai Feng, head of the Cai Clan, led several men galloping after Chen Caozhi's party, calling loudly, "Governor Chen, please wait a moment-"
Chen Caozhi dismounted. When Cai Feng drew near, he cupped his hands and asked, "Clan Head Cai, what further guidance do you have for me?"
Cai Feng jumped down from his horse and said with a smile, "Our three days of long conversation have greatly eased my heart. Parting this morning left me so melancholy that I nearly forgot the modest gift I prepared yesterday."
An ox cart gradually approached from the direction of the Cai Clan's fortified manor and stopped before Chen Caozhi. Two Cai servants carried out two cases, one a square camphorwood chest, the other a long nanmu case-
Cai Feng said, "You are a man of refined tastes, Governor, and I would not dare profane them with vulgar things. I offer you a hundred scrolls from our ancestral library, including five scrolls of the original Lu Poetry manuscript from the Jia Ping Stone Classics, handwritten by my ancestor, Lord Bojie. There is also an old Fuxi Style qin in our family collection, which I present to you along with them."
The Jia Ping Stone Classics comprised the complete texts of seven classics-the Book of Changes, Book of Documents, Lu Poetry, Book of Rites, Spring and Autumn Annals, Gongyang Commentary, and Analects-which Cai Yong had written in clerical script at Emperor Ling of Han's command, and which stonemasons had then carved into stone. They were called the Jia Ping Stone Classics because they were made in the fourth year of Emperor Ling's Jia Ping era. The original inscribed steles left in Chang'an had suffered damage through successive wars. Chen Caozhi had once seen rubbings of some surviving fragments at Lu Na's residence. Cai Yong's