The next day, after rising early and feeling in a pleasant mood, Mei Gongxue finished her meal and set out with Hongxiu.
First, she visited the rouge shop to ensure everything was in order. Seeing that it was, she wandered about for a while. With her birthday approaching, she felt she deserved to treat herself to something nice for a change.
At a small stall, a vendor was making sugar figurines on the spot. As a child, she and Mei Xianghan used to make them themselves. They could never draw anything complex, so they always settled on snakes. For one thing, both were born in the Year of the Snake; for another, snakes were easy to draw; and finally, in the legend of *The White Snake*, the white and green snakes were sisters. Though they were at odds now, they had once shared a childhood of absolute closeness.
Chapter 102