while the sun has yet to

At this time of night, there are only a few especially committed customers gracing the main, lower floor of the Warm Red Pavilion. He has little worry to give to his identity being revealed. A few girls tend to the customers on the floor, smiling sweetly as they listen to their stories and sit only a little closer than propriety would typically allow. On a small stage, across the room, a young woman plays the pipa with precise, careful fingers with her delicately painted eyes downcast towards the instrument and her lips parted in concentration.He has never seen her here before, and for a moment Shen Jiu’s fingers twitch, itching for a brush he doesn’t have—the image she paints so picturesque he finds himself longing to immortalize it. Surely, though, if he did, she would only laugh a soft, sweet laugh, and tell him how he flatters her, all while pushing the painting back into his arms.

Or

Shen Jiu meets a young man at the Warm Red Pavilion, and maybe, just maybe, it changes the course of his life.