The courtesans’ quarter stood on the bank of the Heaven River.

This is at the Son of Heaven’s feet, after all, so the river is called the Heaven River.

Pleasure boats went back and forth on it.

A great many sons of rich houses liked to sit on the flower boats reciting poems and capping couplets, playing at refinement.

Put plainly, it is much the same as a yacht party now, and it is all for the same last shudder at the end of it.

The place was a building of three stories, mostly in a festive red, and lit up bright.

Ning Chen and the rest arrived and tied up their horses.

He looked around him at everything, curious.

The girls here certainly save on cloth. They wore undershorts and a bodice with a length of thin gauze over the top, flesh half hidden and half showing.

The girls were at the door, seeing guests in and out.

They went inside.

Ning Chen was rather astonished. The place was not only large; it was fitted out with expensive care.

“My lords, is there a girl any of you knows?”

An attendant had come up eagerly, bowing and scraping.

A man like this is called a big teapot in the courtesans’ quarter, because he is always going among the guests with a teapot in his hand, carrying tea and pouring it.

Everyone but Ning Chen had a fish-scale coat on, and the big teapot was eager and frightened at once.

“Miss Xiaotao. Days and days without a sight of you. Have you been missing me?”

Feng Qizheng caught hold of a girl going past and pulled her against him.

She saw who it was, and her eyes moved, and there was longing in her face and fear together.

“Sir, you have not been here in such a long time… Have you come tonight especially for this girl?”

She leaned against him and said it in a soft, melting voice.

Feng Qizheng grinned, and it was a lewd grin. “Then you’ll keep me company tonight.”

Something struggled in her eyes, and then she said, soft and melting, “Sir, this girl is not well. She cannot keep you company tonight. Let me find you a pretty little sister in a while. I promise you will be satisfied.”

Feng Qizheng frowned. “Not well?”

“Sir, this girl is not lying to you… You were too fierce last time. My legs still won’t hold me, and I have not been able to take customers for days.”

This coarse fighting man put me through a whole night of it last time, and the next day I could hardly walk… Days of not taking customers because of him, and a great deal of silver I did not earn.

It had been very good, certainly, but the silver mattered more… That was why she both looked forward to him and was afraid of him.

Feng Qizheng’s vanity was thoroughly satisfied, and he generously let her go.

Gao Ziping tossed the big teapot some odd bits of silver. “Take us up to the second floor. Find us a good place.”

“Gentlemen, upstairs, if you please.”

The big teapot put the silver away inside his coat, and his smile got more fawning still.

“Ning Chen, is there one you like? Point her out and I’ll have her brought over.”

Chen Chong said it, leaning in as they went up.

“Bullshit. With talent like Ning Chen’s, how will common paint and powder do? It has to be a girl of the twelve houses.”

Feng Qizheng said it over his shoulder.

Ning Chen laughed weakly. “Ah… you go and enjoy yourselves. I’ll just watch.”

Every one of them turned and looked at him strangely.

“Ning Chen, how can you have a taste like that? Being stared at while a man is doing that — it’s too strange.”

Ning Chen’s forehead was full of black lines. What is the matter with their comprehension?

“What I meant was, you enjoy yourselves and pay no attention to me.”

They all let out a breath. We thought he meant to stand at the side and watch while we slept with women.

Gao Ziping said suddenly, “I nearly forgot. Ning Chen is still a little chick. He has no experience.”

“A little chick. Then the girl who waits on him tonight ought to be paying Ning Chen silver, surely?”

“It is Ning Chen’s first time, so it cannot be any ordinary girl… I say it should go to the highest bidder.”

The rest nodded, one after another, in agreement.

“Then I’ll put the word out.” Feng Qizheng leaned over the railing as he said it and shouted at the top of his voice, “Ladies, we have here a—”

Ning Chen clapped a hand over his mouth and shoved the rest of it back in.

If that gets out I’ll die of embarrassment where I stand.

“Sorry— sorry… Apologies to everyone. My friend here has had too much to drink.”

Ning Chen apologized to the people who had turned to look.

Feng Qizheng knocked his hand away and asked, not understanding, “Why won’t you let me say it? You might earn back everything we spend tonight.”

Ning Chen’s face went black.

“I came here to buy. Not to sell.”

Feng Qizheng laughed. Heh heh. “But you’re still untouched. You really could make a great deal out of it… And to get the most out of it, of course it has to go to the highest bidder.”

Ning Chen’s forehead was full of black lines.

“I’m telling you. If you dare bring up my being a virgin chick again… I’ll break it off with you, God damn it.”

“Ooh. Ooh. He’s gone shy… All right. You don’t want it brought up, it won’t be brought up.” Feng Qizheng said it laughing, and then asked, “What position is breaking it off?”

Ning Chen: “…”

“Old Feng. Do you doubt I’d write a poem saying you’re a wax spearhead with a silver shine on it, and that you’ve caught a filthy disease… I’ll nail you to the pillar of shame in this place, and every girl in the courtesans’ quarter will avoid you afterward the way they would avoid snakes and scorpions.”

That gave Feng Qizheng a fright. “No, no, no… I won’t bring it up. Will that do?”

“A virgin chick really is worth good money, though.”

Ning Chen was annoyed. “You’re still at it?”

“I’m only thinking of you. There are a good twelve of us, and the tea charge alone will come to tens of taels.”

Ning Chen’s eyes went wide. “How much silver?”

Feng Qizheng held up five fingers.

“The tea charge on the first floor is three taels a head. On the second it’s five. The third is dearer still.”

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. He counted. There were twelve of them, which came to sixty taels.

“And what does five taels get you?”

Feng Qizheng said, “Tea. What else did you expect for five taels? Though with luck you might see the girls of the twelve houses. They come down sometimes to pour a cup.”

Ning Chen blew up. “Christ… Five taels for a mouthful of tea and a look? I’d rather not look… Is one look going to make me live forever? The first floor seems perfectly good to me.”

No wonder the capital called the courtesans’ quarter and the pleasure houses the two greatest devourers of silver in it.

An ordinary household could not earn one man’s tea charge in a year.

Feng Qizheng caught hold of him. “We’re here already. Think how it would look to go back down.”

Ning Chen said it in a tone of high righteousness. “Looking foolish is better than losing silver. Sixty taels for a cup of tea… For sixty taels I could buy a small courtyard house outside the capital. I am not going to be a prize sap over this.”

Feng Qizheng had nothing to say to that. “Is this about grudging the silver?”

Ning Chen nodded. “Yes.”

Every forehead there filled with black lines. He admits it as easily as that? Has the man no pride at all?

Ning Chen said it with an entirely serious face. “Silver should be spent on the edge of the blade, and every bit of this is going on the back of it… Sixty taels to look at the girls of the twelve houses is nothing but driving the price up. Refuse to be a prize sap. It starts with you and me.”

Feng Qizheng laughed. “What is all this nonsense? Coarse fighting men are looked down on to begin with. We are not adding to it… Chen Chong. Help.”

The two of them took him under the arms, one on each side, and carried him up to the second floor.

Ning Chen wanted to weep and had no tears for it. “It really is not worth it. You prize saps.”

Chen Chong laughed. “Look at you being stingy. Nobody is asking you to pay.”

“Mm?”

“The reward for Squire Zhang’s case came through. A hundred taels, and none of us has touched it… Tonight comes out of that.”

Ning Chen blinked a few times and said it full of righteous indignation.

“But I still don’t think it’s worth it… Come on. I want to see just how beautiful the girls of the twelve houses are. To dare ask that much silver — I shall have to criticize this business of putting their own price up, and criticize it severely.”

(End of Chapter 75)