The bad news was that the northern border had been breached.
The good news was that while it was breached, it wasn't completely broken, as General Zheng had held the line.
One day, Zheng Xiu returned to their inn from his street stall. Xie Luohe, acting like an attentive little wife, came forward to take the basket from his back and the Luohe Brush from his waist. She sniffed it and asked, "You didn't use the Luohe Brush, did you?"
"I didn't." Zheng Xiu shook his head.
Zheng Xiu was still drawing Xie Luohe's "back view" every day to delve into the Deep Path. Xie Luohe had amassed a thick stack of his drawings. She never let him use the Luohe Brush to draw anything else. In her words, the brush was called the "Luohe Brush," and the Luohe Brush could not be used for vulgar art.
Zheng Xiu couldn't win against her, so he had to let her have her way.
