The girls from the Chen family naturally carried a scent, thanks to certain herbs they consumed. But after a century of change, the present Chen family was not like its former self, with their fortunes diminished and few of their kin remaining. Chen Zhong had no idea where the other descendants were now; here, he was the last of his lineage, the only one that he knew of.
He had always kept the waters collected from different seasons, not for any other reason but because it was a tradition of the Chen family. These waters were often difficult to find, unless you had extraordinary luck and a significant amount of goodwill to amass it all within a year.
Few people had such extraordinary luck.
It took Chen Zhong five years to collect all four kinds of seasonal water, and he'd generously handed it over to his young apprentice. He sighed.
"You can't keep getting uglier, or not only will your father burst into tears, but I will too."