Chen Ji looked down at the water in the bucket, the water gently swaying, and the face within swayed along with it, sometimes gathering, sometimes scattering.
He looked for a long time, until the water finally calmed down, but the face remained the same, expressionless.
From behind in Gate Tower Alley, the neighbors' gossip drifted over, intermittently.
A man in a short brown garment squatted at the base of a wall, holding a dry tobacco pipe in his hand, and said in a muffled voice: "If the prison break in Luocheng City is true, then it's a crime punishable by death. That Chen Ji embodies all traits—disloyalty, lack of filial piety, unkindness, unrighteousness..."
