115 A Scholarly Banquet

Rain after a long drought. Meeting a fellow townsman in a strange land. Red candles lit at night in the nuptial chamber. To have one's name inscribed on a gold tablet. (1)

These were the four great joys in life and Tang Yuqin had had the pleasure of experiencing the first two before this evening. Growing up in farmlands as a child, he had been fortunate to not have had to live through the worst of the droughts as his ancestors had. But he could remember the disaster a decade ago that had claimed the life of his frail little sister. His only sister, now forever immortalised in his memories as a child that barely reached his knees. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the way the famine that had ensued after months of relentless sunshine had slowly etched starvation into the bodies of his loved ones.