Ning Chen and the rest came up to the second floor.

There was a large open space here, with something like a stage in the middle of it. The girls of the courtesans’ quarter presumably performed on it.

All around it were low tables, each meant for one man alone.

A good many people were there already and had taken the best places.

The big teapot showed them eagerly to their seats and set a cup of tea in front of each of them.

Gao Ziping took out ten taels of silver and tossed it to him. “Go and get us something to eat and some wine.”

“At once. If the gentlemen will wait a moment, it will be right along.”

Feng Qizheng moved over beside Ning Chen and said quietly, “In a little while it’s on you.”

Ning Chen looked at him, not understanding.

Feng Qizheng said, “Look at the way they’re looking at us.”

Ning Chen looked around him. Anyone who could afford to spend here was the son of some great man, and every one of them was in magnificent clothes with a folding fan in his hand, striking attitudes.

What Ning Chen could least stand was that some of these young gentlemen had paint and powder on.

And the main thing was the way they looked at the Inspectorate’s men, with their eyes full of distaste and contempt.

They did not dare say it out loud, of course. They could only show it with their eyes and the way they held themselves.

Ning Chen asked, curious, “These men aren’t afraid of the Inspectorate? To behave like that.”

Feng Qizheng explained. “They are rich if not noble, and none of them has a weak family behind him… Besides, this is the courtesans’ quarter. His Majesty leaves us alone to take our pleasures, but if we make trouble while we are taking them he will not indulge us.”

“Every time the girls of the twelve houses come out, these dogs open their mouths and lotuses fall out of them… Our tongues are clumsy. All we can do is stand and watch.”

“Ning Chen, you are brimming with talent, you are an immortal of poetry born again. Tonight you have to win back everything we have ever lost in here.”

Ning Chen was about to say something when Chen Chong brought his hand down on the table. “What are you looking at?”

Ning Chen turned and looked. Chen Chong was glaring at a young gentleman in fine brocade.

The young gentleman was not troubled in the least. He said it in a nasty, sidelong way. “What is it? Is the Inspectorate here on a case again?”

“None of your damn business.”

A sneer came onto the young gentleman’s face. “Vulgar… Pah. Coarse fighting men.”

That set every Inspectorate man there rolling his eyes in fury. It was the phrase they hated most in the world.

“God damn it… Say that again.”

He was contemptuous. “And if I said it ten times more? A pack of coarse fighting men. Sitting in the same room as you brings the level of the place down.”

That startled Ning Chen, and he asked Feng Qizheng curiously, “Who is he? To dare talk to the Inspectorate like that.”

Feng Qizheng said, “Lou Juncai. Son of the Marquis of Wenyang. His aunt is Consort Yu, so he is connected to the imperial house by marriage. He counts as imperial kin.”

Ning Chen made a sound. No wonder he can ignore the Inspectorate. He is a relative of the emperor’s.

Lou Juncai laughed coldly again. “Coarse fighting men like you, with your minds on the girls of the twelve houses… My advice is to go down to the first floor and stop wasting your silver.”

“How many times a year can you come here on those few melons and couple of dates you call a salary? I say save your silver, or one day you won’t be able to afford your dinner.”

Chen Chong was in a rage, and Pan Yucheng stopped him.

Just then the big teapot brought the wine and the food… and told them that Miss Nanzhi and Miss Yudie would be coming down to perform that evening.

The room lifted at once.

The young gentlemen hurried to straighten their clothes and correct the way they were sitting, and asked the servants behind them whether their hair was out of place.

Every one of them was like an old peacock working at his tail.

Feng Qizheng’s whole face lit up. “Ning Chen, you have come on the right night… Miss Nanzhi’s flute and Miss Yudie’s lute are without equal in the capital.”

Ning Chen took that in, and then looked at Pan Yucheng.

Pan Yucheng was sitting bolt upright, and Ning Chen could not help finding it funny.

They drank and waited for Miss Nanzhi and Miss Yudie to come out.

The poets and versifiers behind them stopped sneering at the Inspectorate too… Everyone wanted to show his best side.

The brewing in this world is nothing special and the wine is not strong — rice wine and the like, with a sweetness to it… Ning Chen found it good and had several cups more than he meant to, and by the time he noticed, his head was swimming.

Feng Qizheng suddenly slapped his shoulder, excited. “Look— look… Miss Nanzhi and Miss Yudie are coming out.”

Ning Chen turned and looked. Two supple women were coming down the stairs on light feet, with several maids of no ordinary looks behind them.

One was in white gauze, flesh half hidden and half showing, her skin white and fine, a waist a man could span with his hands, and a bosom all but coming out of the dress.

The other was in a pale blue gauze skirt, and her figure was such that no one could take his eyes away from it.

But both had a white veil over the face, so nothing of their features could be made out. Only the eyes, like autumn water.

Ning Chen was not a lecherous man, and even he could not help looking more than once.

“Ning Chen. The one in the white gauze is Miss Nanzhi. The one in the pale blue is Miss Yudie.”

Feng Qizheng said it, excited.

Ning Chen rolled his eyes. Is that not obvious? One of them has a flute in her hand and the other is carrying a lute. Did he think I couldn’t tell them apart?

“Well? Beautiful, aren’t they?”

Ning Chen nodded slightly. He could not see their faces, but from the way they carried themselves he could feel that both must be beautiful as immortals.

Every eye in the room was locked on Nanzhi and Yudie, and there was a heat in all of them.

Ning Chen glanced at Pan Yucheng. The man’s eyes followed Miss Nanzhi and did not blink once.

The man has an eye. Miss Nanzhi may be a woman of the pleasure houses, but her body is her own still… All the same, is a woman like that really suited to being taken home and lived with?

The two of them went up onto the stage, and their eyes moved over the room.

Every man there worked at getting his chest out, with the same heat in his eyes.

Nanzhi and Yudie said nothing at all. They began at once.

The flute came up, high and clear and unearthly, and lifted the spirit of everyone there, as though a man were standing in some beautiful valley with birdsong and the scent of flowers around him.

The lute came in after it, sweet on the ear.

Ning Chen knew nothing about any of it, and even he was lost in it.

I never thought a flute and a lute together could sound like this.

Before anyone knew it, the piece had ended.

But nobody could pull himself out of it.

“May the gentlemen enjoy themselves. This girl will withdraw.”

The voice was a pleasant one, and it woke them all up.

Lou Juncai was the first on his feet. He went to the edge of the stage. “Miss Nanzhi. This is a poem I wrote for you. I hope you will not think it beneath you.”

The rest crowded up after him.

“Miss Nanzhi, this is a night-shining pearl I sent men beyond the borders to find for you.”

“Miss Nanzhi, this is a swaying hairpin I paid a great deal to have made for you.”

“Miss Yudie, this is my family’s ancestral jade pendant. Please take it.”

Ning Chen stared.

These lapdogs. To get a girl they’ll bring out the ancestral jade… Why not dig up your ancestor’s coffin while you’re at it and give Miss Yudie that?

Then Ning Chen’s eyes narrowed. He had seen Ning Gan.

Ning Gan must have been sitting on the far side of the stage, with it blocking the view, and that was why Ning Chen had not seen him until now.

The little shit is here too.

I wonder what Ning Gan is going to give.

(End of Chapter 76)