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In the dead of night, a request for pink powder.
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In the Upper Room East Room, Old Master Lian, was propped up against his rolled-up bedding, eyes closed. Since his sons had left earlier, he had maintained this same posture without moving.
He had neatly rolled the bedding into a cylinder and placed it by the windowsill, rather than stowing it away in the cabinet or bedding stack—a habit from his apprentice years.
Back then, several apprentices and journeymen would sleep together on a large communal kang bed, each occupying a space like that. The rule in the shop was to fold and roll up the bedding in the morning and, upon returning in the evening, to unroll it and crawl in to sleep.
Later, after he had started a family, had his own house, and bore children with Lady Zhou, he abandoned this habit. Only in recent years, for some reason, had he picked it up again.
