After The Royal Entertainment Guide and A Refined Scholar of the Cold, Xiaodao ventured into historical fiction once more, to show you a different late Ming. Dear readers, please lend your support and add Elegant and Saucy to your favorites. Thank you.
Having traveled back to the fortieth year of the Wanli reign, he wanted both to eat, drink, and make merry and to save the nation by the most direct route.
Yes, this was just such a story, full of zest and contradictions.
The late Ming, Jiangnan, the splendor of a dying age;
The refinement of The Root Vegetable Discourses, the vulgarity of The Plum in the Golden Vase;
Old monks did business; celebrated courtesans worshipped the Buddha;
Yuan Hongdao savored tea, arranged flowers, and expressed his spirit; Li Zhuowu brewed wine, practiced Chan meditation, and continued his Book to Be Burned;
Dong Qichang excelled in both calligraphy and painting, yet was a tyrannical local squire; Zhang Zongzi was a young wastrel who, in old age, returned to West Lake in his dreams;
The refined saw refinement; the saucy saw sauciness.
To count the truly great figures, look to the present day (accompanied by a certain person's signature gesture).