Every time Ye Zhu, a servant at the Xu Clan School, reported Chen Caozhi's words and actions to the attendant Chu Wenbin had assigned, he received a reward ranging from a dozen or so copper coins to several dozen. Yet after the third day of the eleventh month, Ye Zhu could no longer find that generous man. Habit had become second nature, however, and he continued observing Chen Caozhi every day, storing up a bellyful of stories about him, ready to recount them one by one when the generous man appeared again and collect a handsome reward. But wait as he might, the generous man never appeared, and Master Xu dismissed him instead.
Given Ran Sheng's temperament, he wanted to give Ye Zhu a couple of punches. Chen Caozhi forbade it and told him not to hold it against the man, so Ran Sheng could only let the matter drop. "Forget it, forget it. In view of his service in carrying that message, I'll spare him this once."
Since Chen Caozhi's birthday on the first of that month, Lu Weiwei had come to see him every day, sometimes at Zhenqing Daoist Abbey, sometimes at the Xu Clan Thatched Cottage. Their conversations never strayed from flowers, trees, and painting. Sometimes they said little at all, merely strolling beneath the flowering trees and exchanging a smile. On the occasional day when wind and rain darkened the sky and they could not meet, they felt distracted, as though something were missing.
At noon on the sixteenth day of the eleventh month, the two slowly descended the steps from the hill behind Zhenqing Daoist Abbey. Lu Weiwei asked, "Master Chen, about when will you return to Qiantang?"
"Early next month," Chen Caozhi said. "I hope to reach Chen Family Cove before it snows."
"Why