Li Dongyang did not talk much about the palace, nor did he share his poem on the painting with the Hanlin scholars, nor did he ask others to write a poem in the same rhyme.
The Hanlin scholars had been waiting to hear about his new work, but seeing that he looked uninterested, they estimated that it was just a vulgar poem written for social occasions, so they simply stopped asking and instead asked him what painting it was about: an ancient relic from the previous dynasty, or a birthday painting like the Old Man of the South Pole or the Pine and Crane?
Li Dongyang sighed, "It is a picture of a deity celebrating a birthday, and it is very well painted. I just regret that it is so hard to get the chance to see it, and I can only write some popular birthday greetings, which is not helpful to the court or the country. If you want to see a good painting, why go elsewhere? Aren't there these right in front of you?"
He walked to Ryan Cui's collection of paintings and flipped through a few pages. Looking at the extraordinarily colorful clothes worn by the protagonists, he couldn't help but ask, "Nowadays, the world has become so extravagant that men outside have changed to wearing wide robes and narrow-sleeved Hu clothing from the previous dynasty? And this guy who jumped down, why is his clothing like he's covered in clouds? Is he a human or a god?"
The clothes were as good as those of the Eight Immortals in the Upper Cave in "The Immortals Celebrating a Birthday". If he hadn't recognized Xie Zhenfu's face, he would have found it hard to believe that this was a story about their Ming Dynasty.
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