My head lowered and my eyes stared at the ground, which was composed by numerous huge bluestone bricks, seamlessly connected with one another, as clear as a mirror in the middle with patterns of lucky cloud drawn around the sides. I had a peep over the other girls, who were already trembling out of fear; and then over the emperor and the empress on the thrones. The hall of Yunyi was commodious, whose walls, ridge beams, and pillars were all in decoration of varieties of glamorous clouds but not patterns commonly seen in the palace, like those of the Chinese dragon and phoenix. Sitting right on the golden throne of Nine dragons was Xuanling, the 4th emperor of our Great Zhou Dynasty, who was wearing a crown, from which 12 streamers made of white jade beads were hanging down,right in position to veil his face, making it impossible to tell his expressions. His body was leaning slightly, indicating his tiredness due to the whole day's work of choosing the beauties, whose salutes had been responded by a mere nod from him without any further inquiries at all. Poor girls they were that they had been nervous for a whole day, and skipped luncheon in order to maintain their makeup, but finally ended up in vain, with their name cards turned down so easily. On the right of the emperor was sitting the empress, who was dressed in a phoenix gown and wearing a jeweled crown, looking rather solemn. The empress herself had a very dignified and amialbe appearance, who, though, showed evident sign of fatigue, managed well enough to sit in a gracious posture, with her imposing deportment undeminished at all.
