Chen Caozhi walked slowly along Little Mirror Lake. The spring sunshine fell directly upon its clear surface, where ripples shimmered with molten gold. A gentle spring breeze brushed his face with a slight chill, carrying the fresh fragrance of plants from the distant hills and making him involuntarily draw a deep breath-
The clump of primroses on the southern bank had all bloomed, pinkish white, vermilion, purple, and green, exceptionally vivid in the sunlight. Last year, when Lu Weiwei saw these primroses, she had said she would come to see them in spring, saying that flowers growing in the wild always possessed an intense charm absent from those cultivated in courtyards.
Chen Caozhi recalled what his sister-in-law Ding Youwei had told him that night. If he wanted to be with Lu Weiwei, he would have to work extraordinarily hard, and Lu Weiwei would have to strive alongside him. Faced with the immense pressure of worldly conventions, the slightest retreat would leave them forever parted at opposite ends of the earth-
Then he remembered that Lu Weiwei had very likely gone to Huating to wait for him, and he could not help sighing softly. Lu Weiwei was innocent and devoted. She would weep over a withering flower, and to see flowers she thought nothing of making two round trips of a thousand li every year. She was the pampered daughter of an exalted aristocratic clan, never needing to worry about food or clothing, tenderhearted and deeply affectionate, and had never suffered any grievance... Could Lu Weiwei possess the same steadfast resolve to "take your hand and grow old with you" that his sister-in-law Ding Youwei had shown his elder brother Chen Qingzhi?
Deep down, Chen Caozhi asked himself the same question. He felt he had too many ties: his clan, his