Every muscle went rigid and his mouth was bone dry. Drawing his brows closer, his thoughts bounced around his skull and he scrambled to understand why his gift, a love token, was now in Taizong's hands.
His eyes rested fixedly on the poem which he had inscribed on the beautiful painted landscape.
'Like yearning bamboo
Hidden in the grassy fields,
I longed in secret.
But the truth of my passion
Must show in this face
As I grant your wish.'
Shufeng recalled with tender feelings Emika saying with a coquettish and childish pout that she wished she could one day admire the beautiful Solitary Orchid for real, not just in his paintings.
And so, he rode under the wind-blasts for half a day and more, until the moonlight had disappeared, when he at last reached the marshlands.
