Rong Cai

TangShi stretched out and rotated her shoulders to ease their stiffness as she put down her mixing bowl and spatula, pleased with the natural paint they had been learning to make all day. She now had several soft colors and some ground dried plants and herbs laid out before her to use in tomorrow’s class. This was the most enjoyable and unexpected lesson she had ever had and bode well for her days here after this. A first success, and she was thrilled to be here under the watchful but also gentle care of Master. Cai.

He was exactly how Linlin had imagined him. An old man with soft grey hair that was kept neat and trim around his head, but his beard was long and tapered into a point midway down his chest. He was on the older side in age, but utterly adorable. He was wrinkled and tanned but a smiley fellow who loved to spend his days wearing the traditional Manchu style of clothing that compromised of a long-fitted cotton coat that buttoned high to the neck, over loose pa