Standing behind them, an enticing woman in her thirties sneered: “So what if she’s noble? So what if she’s upright? That’s because His Highness hasn’t slept with her yet. Wait until she has gone to his bed; she would not be playing these sounds then.”
What they didn’t know was that Chen Rong was playing this song to let everyone know she was a guest of the estate, that she hadn’t had intimate relations with the Prince of Nan’yang.
Amid the murmuring and drifting zither, night gradually descended.
By suppertime, the racing wind was whipping leaves and branches, and shaking the shingles outside.
Chen Rong placed her chopsticks down and looked out to the sky. “Is it going to rain tonight?” she softly asked.