At the third quarter of the si hour, thirty-six glass lanterns were lit one after another beneath the gilded eaves of the Qinfang Garden water pavilion. The warm, yellow radiance fragmented upon the rippling surface of the lake, tinting the hanging wisteria blossoms into a translucent, amethyst haze. Liu Ruyan reclined on the concubine’s bamboo daybed in the seat of honor, gently waving an ivory folding fan. Although the four characters for "Spring Days Lingering" on the fan were written by a master calligrapher, they could not conceal the calculation in her eyes.
"The theme of today’s poetry gathering is 'Entrusting Sentiment to Spring Scenery,'" she said, intentionally dragging out her final note as her gaze swept over the noblewomen present. "One must imbue the scenery with emotion and the emotion with scenery. If one only writes of the scenery without mentioning sentiment—" she chuckled suddenly, "—it would be like walking in silk robes through the dark, failing to do justice to the spring scenery that fills this garden."
Jiang Wan sat on a bamboo chair to the west, her fingertips tracing the ancient celadon brush washer on the table. Its icy touch reminded her of her previous life, when the Crown Prince had shattered an identical brush washer while framing her for treason. She raised her eyes to the peach orchard outside the water pavilion; petals were drifting down into the lake in a flurry. She suddenly recalled Nanny Zhou’s warning from the night before: "Liu Ruyan …
Chapter 34