For a moment, the entire Liangzhou City lit up; to Wang Anfeng, the clamor of the crowds seemed to flow with his boiling blood, straight into his heart. The streets, though increasingly crowded, were at least in motion.
Today's Lantern Festival was Liangzhou's biggest annual event, even grander than the New Year celebrations. Throughout its seventy-plus district markets, small shops displayed strings of red lanterns, while larger businesses paid silver coins to commission elaborate lanterns. If one side featured the "Dragon Draws Water," the other had to exhibit the "Phoenix Spreads Its Wings," adorned with colorful silk, splendid and vibrant.
Along the intersecting main roads were all sorts of performers for the people to see; foreign women with slender waists danced barefoot on round drums, their supple bodies adorned with silver bells at the waist and anklets, creating a unique charm that drew countless admiring men.
