With so many beauties coming for the selection this time, it was nearly dusk and the moon began to creep up, when the turn came for me and Meizhuang to enter the hall. Most of the beauties had finished their rounds and returned home, with only a dozen still waiting in the room. The inner hall was lit up, with hundreds of candles, each as big as an arm, filled with crumbs of agilawood, glittering with scent of freshness, all the way up from the emperor's throne down to the gate of the hall, where Meizhuang and I, together with other four girls, looked over our dressings again, and then entered the hall. Following the eunuch's chanting instructions, we kneeled down, saluted, rose up, and then stood aside, waiting for the eunuch of etiquette to call us out by our names one after another. Moment later, there came a sharp sound of voice from an old eunuch, chanting:
