If the twilight wished to set aflame all the clouds on the horizon, it would still require a very long time, but the feasts and banquets in the restaurants and brothels of the capital had already begun.
Formal banquets always required long periods of time, so they would naturally start very early. It had nothing to do with conserving lantern oil or candles. The cultivating experts and high officials, the scholars and literati, the young ladies and their maids—what they all valued was the change in light as dawn proceeded to dusk and then into the night as well as the change in ambience and experience with it.
Chen Changsheng didn't understand these things. In his view, if a meal exceeded a quarter hour, then it was unhealthy, just like how all the fine delicacies arrayed before him right now were unhealthy.
