The rain started in the evening.
At first it was just a few scattered points, hitting the old and disrepaired green tiles of the Hanlin Academy library, making a muffled sound, like a distant drum. When I finished copying the lost pages of the last volume of "Yongle Dadian" and raised my head, there was already a dense curtain of rain outside the window, soaking the entire imperial city in a gray and suffocating moisture.
The ink is still wet. I blew on the paper and looked at the neat but lifeless handwriting glowing dully under the lamp. This is my job - to repair and copy books that should have been burned or lost long ago in the most remote library of the Hanlin Academy, using the poorest imitation handwriting.
