After Jade Pot was summoned away by Princess Qi’s maid, all the female dancers were excited.
The household entertainers living in Rainbow Garment Pavilion, Clear Song Pavilion, and other places had never seen a single person escape their lowly status and leave the princely mansion to regain freedom, except for those given as gifts to guests or sold to brokers when they grew old and lost their beauty. Jade Pot, with her naturally beautiful appearance, gentle and compliant temperament, and outstanding dance skills, had finally seen a glimmer of hope in the endless darkness.
Mi Moyan supported Bao Zhu’s lower back with one hand to prevent injury during her back-bending practice, while earnestly instructing, “Did you hear? Jade Pot gained this opportunity by winning a young master’s favor. If you practice your dance well and gain the master’s favor, wouldn’t escaping your status be even easier? First survive the Golden Osmanthus Banquet, then worry about the future later.”
Bao Zhu had stretched her body to the limit she could endure, grimacing in discomfort with no trace of beauty in her expression. But she gave no response to Mi Moyan’s advice.
Having personally heard the conversation between Prince Qi and his wife today, she always had an ominous premonition in her heart. Jade Pot was kind-hearted. Though she had hidden the truth about the Golden Osmanthus Banquet from her, Bao Zhu understood that as a servant, there were indeed secret matters she couldn’t reveal casually.
She still remembered the eunuch named Rui’an from her childhood who had disappeared without a trace after mentioning the “Blood-Smeared Ghost” to her. Afterward, no one dared even mention his name.
If Jade Pot could use this opportunity to escape her status and become a concubine to the heir prince, at least she wouldn’t have to accompany guests at banquets anymore. But would things really go so smoothly?
After finishing practice, the sweat-soaked Bao Zhu opened the food box. These matrons, accustomed to reading the wind and bowing to power, always currying favor with whoever gained favor, were like fence-sitters who followed the wind. The meal they saved for her today was much more sumptuous than when she first arrived. They had even considered that she might return late from serving the master and have to eat cold food, so they prepared dishes that would taste good even when cold.
A plate of jade-white fish strips with golden pickles, a plate of deboned goose meat, a plate of lamb skin flower shreds, a bowl of cold baby toad soup, and two crab-filled bread rolls.
“You can only eat one bread roll…” Mi Moyan hadn’t finished speaking when Bao Zhu had already stuffed both into her mouth.
“He’s infatuated with the Guanyin wearing jade armbands. If I lose my plumpness and can’t wear the armband, a ‘willow-waisted beauty’ won’t survive.” With one sentence, she silenced Mi Moyan.
After dark, Bao Zhu and Mi Moyan were summoned again to perform a duet at the evening banquet, then returned to Rainbow Garment Pavilion to rest. This night seemed no different from usual, but at midnight, Jade Pot returned.
She was carried back. After Princess Qi summoned her, she scolded her for “bewitching the master with fox charms and corrupting the royal heir,” corrupting Prince Jihui, and ordered Jade Pot to kneel in the courtyard to reflect on her mistakes. Then she commanded her trusted servants to “ruin her seductive face.”
Female entertainers often suffered slapping, forced kneeling, and other punishments, but the injuries Jade Pot suffered this time were fatal. Her cheeks were repeatedly beaten with wooden rulers until they were bloody and mangled, exposing white molars. Under the extreme pain, she had already fallen unconscious.
These injuries could never heal. Jade Pot’s roommate was heartbroken, crying as she tried to give her water, but the water flowed out through the gaps in her cheeks mixed with blood, unable to enter her throat.
Bao Zhu immediately remembered Li Yu’s casual words to his wife: “As long as you can keep your sons from running to Auspicious Cloud Hall, handle them however you like.” Princess Qi had done exactly that.
Two days later, the once bright-eyed, white-toothed beauty with a flower-like face was unrecognizable. Her entire head was swollen and purple, oozing pus and blood, swollen to twice normal size, like a corpse that had fallen into the Luo River and bloated. The sisters who came to visit took one look and fled in terror, crying.
Everyone knew she was doomed to die.
At midnight, the tormented Jade Pot let out dying screams.
Strangely, it wasn’t Jade Pot’s own voice, but sharp and piercing, like the roar of demons from the depths of hell.
“The moon shall rise, the sun shall fall, with mulberry bow and winnowing basket, the royal line shall be utterly destroyed!”
The screams like night owl cries pierced through all of Rainbow Garment Pavilion, cutting through the night sky like blades, carrying far into the distance.
“The moon shall rise, the sun shall fall, with mulberry bow and winnowing basket, the royal line shall be utterly destroyed!”
In the eerie wind, the severely wounded and dying woman repeated this mysterious and ominous phrase, like prophecy, like curse.
In a princely mansion with strict taboos, disrespecting the sun would surely bring disaster. Terrified roommates tried to cover Jade Pot’s mouth to stop her from speaking. The injured woman had long lost consciousness, yet that voice squeezed out through her twisted and deformed features, overflowing from her ruptured and festering wounds. Everyone who heard these piercing screams felt their hair stand on end, huddling under blankets and shivering.
Bao Zhu and Mi Moyan were the same. The two lay side by side on the couch, their cold hands tightly clasped, drawing non-existent security from each other.
Whether one was exceptionally beautiful with a gentle nature, or extraordinarily talented, in this cruel game of death, no matter how hard the forced participants tried to meet the harsh rules set by those in power, they still could not escape their fate. Plump or slender, passionate or chaste, virtuous or charming—none of it mattered. They could change the rules of the game at will.
“The moon shall rise, the sun shall fall, with mulberry bow and winnowing basket, the royal line shall be utterly destroyed!”
The piercing screams penetrated into the room inescapably. Mi Moyan’s voice trembled as he whispered, “What does that mean?”
Bao Zhu answered quietly, “That’s a prophecy that circulated among the people when King You of Zhou fell: The moon is about to rise while the sun will fall. When bows made of mulberry wood and quivers woven from winnowing grass appear, the king’s descendants will be exterminated.”
Jade Pot’s dying screams didn’t last long. Several guards came from outside, quietly smothered her with a pillow, then dragged her body out of the courtyard. Everything returned to calm, as if nothing had happened, leaving only boundless and silent fear.
Despair reappeared in Mi Moyan’s eyes as he murmured, “She finally escaped from here.”
Bao Zhu asked, “Will they bury her properly?”
Mi Moyan said softly, “Usually the back gate people handle the aftermath. Hair, teeth—young female corpses have many profitable uses.”
Bao Zhu thought silently: So not only was she exploited and consumed by lions and tigers in life, but after death, she would still be torn apart by greedy vultures and wild dogs, leaving nothing from skin to bone.
Bao Zhu again looked toward the roof beam, contemplating the choice of Green Pearl, the osmanthus flower goddess. In the darkness, she suddenly asked, “Have you ever thought about it too?”
Mi Moyan, also gazing at the roof beam above, instantly understood his roommate’s intention. He said slowly, “Every day and night, every moment.”
“Why haven’t you tried?”
Mi Moyan was silent for a while, then said softly, “I’m afraid. Buddhist scriptures say that even if one escapes here through suicide, accomplices like me will still fall into the Avici Hell, climbing knife mountains and sword trees, embracing red-hot copper pillars, suffering the torture of being boiled in cauldrons.”
Bao Zhu asked in surprise, “How could you be an accomplice?”
Mi Moyan said sadly, “Since I came here, I have personally taught the Zhezhi dance to every year’s Guanyin slave, and I have dressed and prepared each one going to banquets to die. Knowing what they will suffer, yet still seeing off the unknowing Guanyin slaves. To survive, I committed these sins against them—isn’t this the behavior of an accomplice?”
Bao Zhu heard endless guilt and regret in his voice. Perhaps this was the survivor’s inescapable guilt.
“You are absolutely not an accomplice, and you have committed no crime. The ones who should die are others.” Bao Zhu raised her hand to firmly grasp his shoulder, saying solemnly, “Even if you ever had the slightest fault, it was beyond your control. I absolve you.”
Though equally trapped in a cage, equally enslaved, after hearing her absurd words, Mi Moyan felt an invisible power, as if she truly possessed the miraculous ability to pull him out of hell. Tears couldn’t help but well up in his eyes.
He choked out, “Am I really innocent?”
Bao Zhu answered firmly, “Think of the moment the sacred hexagram appeared—you and I were chosen by the Bodhisattva, the most pure and innocent Guanyin slaves in the world.”
Crystal tears slid from the corners of his eyes toward his ears, dampening his glass earrings. Yes, in that solemn and sacred moment, he had prayed devoutly and briefly gained the most glorious identity of his life. If there truly was hell in this world, then there must also be gods and Buddhas. The Bodhisattva had chosen him; he should shoulder this mission.
His roommate quietly sobbed. On this night when Jade Pot died, Bao Zhu secretly made a decision.
A scholar can be killed but not humiliated. Even if her final fate would be the same as Green Pearl’s, she would fight these inhumane demons to mutual destruction before dying.
The next day, the daily banquets at Prince Qi’s mansion continued as usual.
Sword dances, Sogdian whirling dances, Nine Achievement dances, and lion dances were performed one after another. Everyone was intoxicated with song, dance, wine, and sensual pleasures, happy and carefree.
Li Yu gripped his white jade cup, drinking cup after cup. He was very displeased—that poisonous woman had killed his most excellent lead dancer without even informing him. Who knew how long it would take to find a beauty of such caliber to replace her.
On stage, twenty guards wore tight-fitting clothes printed with scale armor, divided into two columns, stepping with vigorous and powerful dance moves, simulating battlefield combat with weapons and armor. The musicians vigorously beat large drums, creating a magnificent scene. It was “The Music of King Qin Breaking Through Enemy Lines.”
Danniao knelt before him. She, who was usually silent as a sculpture, suddenly let out a light laugh.
Li Yu asked drunkenly, “Little bird, why do you laugh?”
“I laugh at these commoner servants putting on airs, daring to pretend to be the ‘Heavenly Khan’s’ warriors.” A faint, almost imperceptible contemptuous smile appeared at the corners of Bao Zhu’s lips.
Li Yu couldn’t help but frown. He knew this maiden came from the Chang’an palace Musical Training Institute and should have witnessed various dances and music performed for the imperial family. Her standards should naturally be demanding, incomparable to ordinary people. Emperor Taizong was the most revered ancestor in the hearts of all Li surname descendants, and moreover their divine ideal and spiritual support.
He asked unclearly, “Then in your opinion, how should this ‘Breaking Through Enemy Lines’ be… be adjusted and modified to be worthy of our ancestor’s illustrious achievements?”
Bao Zhu straightened her back and spoke eloquently: “Thinking back to those days, His Majesty Taizong, at the tender age of twenty, wielding the giant Que heavenly bow and four-feathered great arrows, led troops to besiege Wang Shichong in Luoyang. Then he personally led three thousand Black Armored troops to defeat Dou Jiande at Tiger Prison Pass, blood flowing down his sleeves, yet he wiped it away and continued fighting. In one battle he captured two kings, shocking the world and covering all directions with his achievements. His Majesty Taizong personally designed the ‘King Qin Breaking Through Enemy Lines Dance Formation Diagram,’ with hundreds of dancers wearing armor and wielding halberds, attacking and thrusting back and forth, with battle formations changing in an instant. His Majesty even had the most excellent warriors hold bows and arrows to portray himself, showing the heroic bearing of leading the Black Armored army into battle…”
Emperor Taizong’s glorious achievements were familiar to every Li family descendant, engraved in their hearts. Yet hearing praise of their ancestor again, Li Yu still felt his blood boiling, strong pride and glory surging in his heart, as if those earth-shaking military achievements were his own handiwork.
Bao Zhu gazed at his self-satisfied, entranced expression and continued, “The Great King’s veins flow with His Majesty Taizong’s true dragon blood, and this happens to be the ancient Luoyang battlefield. Why doesn’t the Great King take this excellent opportunity to recreate the ‘King Qin Breaking Through Enemy Lines’ of those days? Even without hundreds of people, how could the Heavenly Khan’s hegemony be expressed by commoner dancers?”
Li Yu fell into contemplation. Due to imperial suspicion, Prince Qi’s mansion only had ten sets of armor bestowed by the late emperor, all recorded in detail in the yellow registers. Ten armored warriors could at most perform a “Small Breaking Through Enemy Lines,” far from the grand spectacle he envisioned.
Bao Zhu had already guessed his thoughts and coaxed, “No need for real iron armor—just paper armor, rattan armor and such. Have craftsmen shape the appearance and paint it black. The guests entertained at Auspicious Cloud Hall are all the Great King’s close allies, so there’s no fear of them talking carelessly. Even if word gets out, it’s just paper and bamboo playthings for children’s amusement—what harm could there be?”
Li Yu was suddenly enlightened, laughing with alcohol on his breath, “Good idea! You… you really are a clever little bird.” He immediately ordered his subordinates to handle this matter without error, adding an instruction: “Don’t let that killjoy old woman know.”
This year’s ultimate pleasure banquet should add some new and interesting programs, he thought.