Shufeng finally awoke deep in the night from a very vivid nightmare, yet it quickly faded due to a strange sound that puzzled him; until he identified it as the twittering of his restless parrot.
He saw that Li Ji was sleeping in a chair at the foot of the bed, thus he quietly climbed out of bed as not to disturb her. But he doubled back to cover her with his quilt.
It had entirely stopped raining. Shufeng hoped that this longer spell of rainfall was the beginning of many more to finally end the drought.
The stillness and clearness of the ominous night made him walk to the garden and look up at the pale light of the moon. And as Shufeng stood and looked at the solitary rock above he knew that had it not been for the sorrow in his heart forming layer upon layer, and actually embittering his heart, he would have not been reluctant to visit his father before the banquet when the latter had solicited him.
