The autumn rain fell for several days without stop — occasionally pausing for an hour before resuming its endless, unbroken cascade.

The timing of this rain could not have been worse. Farmers had waited an entire season, only for it to come pouring down without warning right in the middle of the autumn harvest. Those with fields in the surrounding countryside were out braving the rain to rush their crops in, and over the past few days, Shen Zhuxi had granted several of the manservants leave to go home and help bring in the harvest.

There was nothing much to be done at home anyway.

The rain was not a downpour, but it never quite stopped. Shen Zhuxi had been trapped indoors and could not set foot outside.

Also confined to the house with her were the three Li brothers.

Shen Zhuxi had spent most of her life within the deep palace, and this was how the great majority of her days had passed. Being limited to a small patch of ground once again was not, for her, particularly hard to bear. It was the three Li brothers who were more restless — eating and then sleeping, sleeping and then eating, three grown men unable to go anywhere, far more ill at ease than Shen Zhuxi.

That morning, after finishing breakfast, Shen Zhuxi set herself to a task.

She wanted to sit under the eaves, listen to the rain, and enjoy some tea — something that seemed simple enough, but was in fact accompanied by many small preparations.

First, she instructed the servants to bring out and arrange the tea table and tea set. Some of them didn’t know the names of the different pieces and placed things in the wrong spots; Shen Zhuxi had to guide them through it step by step.

Next, she had someone retrieve the rain flower tea that Li Wu had carried all the way back from a distant journey, and stood watch as a manservant who had no knowledge of the tea arts ground the small tea cake and sieved it — not a moment’s carelessness permitted.

Finally, she pinned up her long hair, changed deliberately into a pale scallion-green ensemble of a short blouse and long skirt to complement both the autumn rain and the clear tea, and pulled on a layered sleeve jacket of slightly heavier material.

The Insufferable Li had watched the entire process from where he sprawled on a pile of cushions nearby, eyes half-lidded, and said, “It’s just tea — what’s the point of all this fuss?”

Li Kun and Li Que were lying on their own cushions off to one side — one had polished off an entire dish of snacks and was already drowsy, the other was absorbed in some book of idle reading, eyes fixed and focused.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Shen Zhuxi said.

How could the Insufferable Li ever understand the poetry of an autumn rain falling, a single cup of clear tea in hand?

Shen Zhuxi knelt before the head of the tea table with composed grace, put aside her scattered mood, and with solemn care, brewed herself a cup of tea.

There was no music here, but the sound of rain beneath the eaves surpassed music a hundredfold.

A gust of autumn wind swept through, and her gauze-thin sleeve jacket rippled with it — like the robes of an immortal drifting westward aboard a crane. Shen Zhuxi closed her eyes, breathed in the fragrance rising from her cup, and let her ears capture the sound of rain falling beneath the eaves. Her spirit eased, and she felt herself transported to another realm entirely.

“Isn’t that cheap little tea set of yours cracked?”

The Insufferable Li’s voice came like a hand that had just scratched somewhere it shouldn’t — carrying all the crude, unrefined flavors of the mortal world — and yanked her without warning from her celestial sanctuary.

“This is a Jianyao tea set!” Shen Zhuxi nearly choked.

“Right, a Jianyao tea set — but the way I see it, there’s a crack in the tea bowl, right there. Doesn’t it look like it?”

Shen Zhuxi examined it immediately, but the so-called crack was nothing more than the naturally occurring pattern formed when the piece came out of the kiln.

“That is the natural hare’s fur pattern!” Shen Zhuxi set down her tea bowl, fuming.

“And you bought it with a flaw?” Li Wu looked astounded. “Even that plain old ceramic basin of mine looks better and does a better job.”

Every last trace of the poetic mood Shen Zhuxi had been cultivating was obliterated by Li Wu. She was so thoroughly exasperated she half-collapsed with anger, and turned her head away to ignore him entirely.

She fixed her gaze on the unbroken curtain of rain beneath the eaves, attempting to recover the state of mind she had lost.

Moved by the scene before her, Shen Zhuxi could not help but recite a verse from the immortal poem “Crow Calling at Night” by the Last Emperor of Southern Tang, the words rising unbidden to her lips.

“Last night, wind and rain together — the curtained window shuddering with the sounds of autumn.”

“…The affairs of the world drift on like flowing water. Reckoning it all, a life is nothing but a dream. The road to drunkenness is smooth and worth frequenting often…”

“Beyond that, all else is too hard to tread.”

She murmured the final line, and by the time it left her lips, her eyes were brimming with tears.

In the matter of grief over a fallen kingdom and a ruined home — who else could ever truly know what she felt, if not the Last Emperor?

Li Kun suddenly jolted awake and looked at Shen Zhuxi in bleary confusion. “Why is the little pig squeaking?”

“She’s making oinking sounds,” Li Wu said.

“Excellent poem — excellent poem. Profound and deeply moving,” Li Que said without lifting his head from his book.

“Let me compose a poem as well,” Li Wu said, clearing his throat.

Shen Zhuxi gave a start, and her tears retreated in alarm back into her body. “No, don’t—”

Too late.

Too late to flee to the outhouse.

Too late to cover her ears and feign deafness.

Too late for everything. Tonight she would again have his horrible verses ringing in her ears, and she would not sleep.

“To the west, a rush and roar—”

Li Wu’s voice rose and fell with theatrical flair.

“To the east, a drip and pour—”

“But I have no umbrella—”

“So I won’t need to go anymore.”

Li Wu considered for a moment, then turned to look at Shen Zhuxi. “I’ll call this poem ‘Ode to Rain.’ What do you think?”

“…”

Shen Zhuxi stared fixedly at the rain falling beneath the eaves.

Ah — the rain was so loud. She could barely hear a thing.

This overdue autumn rain had sent every duck in the vicinity into a frenzy of excitement. It seemed to Shen Zhuxi as if she could already hear ducks quacking in the distance.

Perhaps roasted duck for tonight’s meal, then.

“Magnificent!”

Li Que executed a carp-flip to sitting upright and called out his admiration, his expression one of great agitation, as though he had just heard a transcendent masterpiece and been struck with sudden enlightenment.

He said with tremendous excitement, “A magnificent poem — a magnificent poem! Both profound and deeply moving! It expresses an overwhelming sense of sorrow and longing through the description of scenery, leaving the reader endlessly savoring its meaning and greatly enriched by it. Elder Brother’s talent is immense — to have achieved such effortless eloquence at his very first foray into poetry! Even the great Du Fu and Li Bai, were they to know of this from below, would surely be overcome with shame and regret. This scene and this moment most certainly inspire an irresistible urge to compose verse. What if, dear Sister-in-law, you were to write a verse in response and call it ‘In Reply to My Husband’s Ode to Rain’? When Elder Brother rises to prominence someday, this charming story will surely be passed down through the ages!”

…No, absolutely not!

Shen Zhuxi had no desire to have her name go down in infamy alongside Li Wu’s poetry!

She went pale, shaking her head vigorously. “I have a stomachache — I must excuse myself…”

Li Wu furrowed his brow with a look of “I knew it.”

“I told you not to drink that cheap tea and you wouldn’t listen — see, now you’ve upset your stomach, haven’t you?”

“This is a shrimp dumpling — no, a rain flower tea!” Shen Zhuxi truly wanted to pry his skull open and see what sort of watery bean curd was inside it. “It is not some cheap tea!”

“Then which tea is the cheap one?”

“There is no cheap tea! There is only cheap — Jianyao — the Jianyao tea set!”

“You people are so particular about everything — names this peculiar, impossible to remember,” Li Wu said disdainfully.

At this, Shen Zhuxi genuinely felt ill from the frustration. She rose from the tea table and decided to lie down in bed.

Li Wu said, “My ‘Ode to Rain’ just now — remember to add it to my poetry collection. How many poems do I have now?”

“Four in total, Elder Brother,” Li Que immediately replied. “First, ‘Lament for Pig’s Trotters’; second, ‘Li Wu’s Tasting of the Rain Flower Tea’; third, ‘Ode to the Sun’; and today’s is the fourth, ‘Ode to Rain.’ Elder Brother’s genius surpasses all — having barely embarked on the art of poetry, yet already overflowing with inspiration and producing fully formed verses with every stroke of the brush. Even the great Du Fu and Li Bai, knowing of this from the underworld, would surely be struck with shame and mortification!”

Shen Zhuxi could bear no more of this — no human being could bear to listen to such words. And the one who was clearly not human sat there looking thoroughly pleased with himself and asked, “Who are Du Fu and Li Bai? When did they come by? I should have them over sometime to exchange some ideas.”

Without even pausing to tidy up the tea table, Shen Zhuxi escaped this den of lunacy at top speed.

Her conscience would not permit her to remain and listen any further. She also feared that tonight she would dream — truly dream — of Du Fu and Li Bai themselves arriving at the house to drink tea.

As she left the sitting room, she called after a passing maidservant and left her with an instruction:

“Roasted duck for tonight.”

……

When the gleaming golden roasted duck was brought to the table, the autumn rain that had fallen on and off for four or five days finally stopped. The grey sky opened up at long last, revealing a clear expanse of blue washed clean by the rain.

Through a veil of wispy cloud, a single ray of evening light pierced through — warm and golden. The scallion flowers bloomed with vibrant energy beside the rockery, their spiny-ball blossoms a lush and brilliant green. Shen Zhuxi had specifically told the servants to move the dining table near the window, so that everyone at the table could feel this rare burst of sunset light after days of rain.

Yet of the four at the table, the three men had nothing on their minds but eating to their hearts’ content. They paid no attention whatsoever to the beautiful scenery outside the window after the rain had cleared.

“Delicious, delicious… ducky ducky delicious…” Li Kun held a fat, glistening roasted duck leg in his left hand and a large white-flour bun in his right, taking bites alternately from left and right, keeping himself very busy.

Li Que ladled out a bowl of winter melon soup, blew on it gently, and sipped it at an unhurried, measured pace.

And that fellow Li Wu showed far more interest in the wine jar he was cradling than in the fine food on the table. His wine bowl had been emptied and refilled more times than she could count, yet he showed not the slightest trace of drunkenness.

Shen Zhuxi sat alone savoring the poetic autumn glow after the rain, feeling quite bored.

She picked up a spring roll wrapper, added shredded cucumber and scallion, then placed in a piece of duck skin-on duck meat dipped in the roasted duck sauce, neatly folded in the four corners, and casually held it out to Li Kun, whose hands were already full.

Li Kun had already opened his mouth wide and the spring roll was halfway to it, when a Li Kui-like figure suddenly cut in from nowhere.

Li Wu took one bite, and in the same motion swept her fingers into his mouth along with the roll.

Shen Zhuxi’s face flushed scarlet. Her heartbeat lurched into disorder. She had no time to think, no time to process the sensation of that duck beak — she just yanked her fingers back with force.

“What are you doing!”

“You wrapped one for him — why didn’t you wrap one for me?” The Insufferable Li glowered at her.

“I…” Shen Zhuxi sputtered in frustration. “You can wrap your own! You have hands!”

“So does he!”

“He’s like a child — you can’t possibly compete with a child over food!”

“I can if I want to,” Li Wu said without the slightest shame. “You wrapped one for him and not for me — so which of us matters more to you? Him or me?”

“…”

“Him or me?” Li Wu pressed in, his manner forceful.

Li Kun, completely unaware that what was happening had anything to do with him, polished off the duck leg in his hand in a few bites after Li Wu had swooped in and made off with his spring roll, then helped himself to a wrapper and began rolling his own.

Li Que, beside him, was suppressing a laugh.

But it was no use — the bubbles burping up through the winter melon soup had already betrayed his delight at the spectacle unfolding before him.

Shen Zhuxi felt the gazes of the servants around her too, all of them working hard to hold back their own laughter.

Mother Consort, are you well up there?

Your daughter Zhuxi must stay strong down here.

“You matter more…” Shen Zhuxi said in a hollow, soulless voice.

“Good.” Li Wu nodded, settled back into his seat with satisfaction. “Wrap me a big one.”

…You’ll choke on yourself!

Shen Zhuxi took up the wrapper and made a point of piling in the thickest, most glistening duck skin and duck meat she could find.

Li Wu opened his cavernous mouth and swallowed the stuffed spring roll in a single bite, his voice muffled as he said:

“…Delicious.”

…Birds of a feather eating each other — he would surely have nightmares tonight!

That evening, Li Wu slept like a dead duck. It was Shen Zhuxi who had eaten too many spring rolls and tossed and turned, unable to find sleep.

Looking at that peacefully sleeping face not far away, Shen Zhuxi felt her irritation swell.

Just as that Doctor Tang had said — that man Li Wu was absolutely going to live a thousand years.