Classics inform conversations in author's contemporary title

Confucius once asked his students: "What is your ideal life?"

Some said they wanted to help run the country. Others said they wanted to educate people on morality.

A student named Zeng Xi said: "My ideal life is to go with friends and helpers to swim in the rivers outside the city in spring. And after swimming, we, in our wet clothes, will go up to the Wuyu Tai (an elevated place in the open once used for worship and later converted into a venue where Confucius and his students met). After the gentle breeze dries our clothes, we will return, humming verses."