The morning dew at the Minister's Estate was laced with the fragrance of osmanthus. Xiao Moli stared at the Tai Chi diagram of the commercial path on her desk, the scent of osmanthus petals in her sleeve mingling with the heavy smell of ink, making her fingertips tremble. On the xuan paper folded into a fan shape the previous night, the grimace in the yin fish-eye was spitting an abacus-bead tongue, and the horsetail-whip pattern in the yang fish-eye swept precisely across the two characters for "humanity," looking for all the world like a living creature that had just leaped straight out of the Book of Songs.
"Young Miss, this painting..." The maid Feicui looked at the crooked smiling face on the fan face. "Why does it have more of a common marketplace flavor than your Treatise on the Commercial Path?" Xiao Moli suddenly shoved the painting into a sandalwood box; the peony pattern on the lid formed a comical contrast with the grimace. "Marketplace flavor? It's nothing more than a trick played by some petty fellow!" Even as she said this, she couldn't help recalling the cyan ox pattern on Zhang Yifan's sleeve the night before, which matched the markings on the Illustrated Classic of Jiran in her father's study down to the tiniest detail.
Abacus Bead Alley in Chongren Ward drifted with the scent of fresh ink. Zhang Yifan was teaching Huwa to carve an "acid-dispelling grimace" onto a fan rib, the blade cutting a crooked, smiling expression into the spotted bamboo. "Miss Xiao'…
Chapter 73