With the beautiful State Preceptor closing in, he might find her soon enough. Better to prepare early.
Jing Hengbo put all her valuables in the vanity table drawer for easy access when the time came. While organizing the jewelry on her vanity, she deliberately rubbed oil around the edges of the bronze mirror stand.
The mirror was a hidden door, behind which lay a small chamber.
This was Fenglai Qi’s special design—every girl’s room had one, specifically for dealing with situations when clients’ fierce wives came pounding at the door. When the tigress wife arrived, they’d quickly push the patron into the hidden door to hide. With this cunning rabbit-hole strategy, Fenglai Qi gained thirty percent more business.
Since it was rarely used, the mechanism was a bit stiff and needed lubrication. She didn’t want things to go wrong at the crucial moment.
At nightfall, a luxurious carriage brought Old Master Yao to Jing Hengbo’s attic, where the madam welcomed him with beaming smiles.
The silver-red gauze window was beautifully tinted by pale yellow candlelight, reflecting the undulating silhouette of a woman and the rotund belly of a man. Jing Hengbo’s giggling laughter remained clear and crisp even amid the bustling nighttime revelry of Fenglai Qi, her youthful magnificence and arrogant aura permeating the entire building. Men in the perfumed chambers upstairs and downstairs couldn’t help but pause their activities, prick up their ears, and listen enviously.
The laughter didn’t last long before stopping. The lamp was blown out with a “puff,” and the men listening at walls shook their heads, grumbling with envy, jealousy, and hatred: “Old Yao has such good fortune…” before embracing their own women to continue seeking pleasure.
The madam bolted the door and went downstairs with a beaming smile, extinguishing the corridor lamps one by one. This was Jing Hengbo’s rule—when she entertained clients, there could be no light around.
The top floor attic grew quiet, with not a soul in sight.
There seemed to be some commotion in Jing Hengbo’s room.
After a while, a figure suddenly appeared in the pitch-black corridor.
If anyone had been present, they would have been startled, because this person had no point of origin—appearing out of thin air as if sprouting from the floorboards.
The figure was also holding someone, and from the flowing skirt, it was a woman.
The shadow looked left and right, muttering: “Wrong place again…”
The faint light from below reflected and illuminated her cat-like glowing eyes—it was Jing Hengbo.
She set down the woman in her arms and pushed her toward her own room: “Go quickly, Old Yao is waiting.”
“Did you pick his pocket clean?” the woman asked before entering.
“Don’t worry, I guarantee when he leaves he won’t be able to afford even a pair of underwear.” Jing Hengbo snapped her fingers and vanished in a flash.
The next moment she was comfortably lying in a bedroom, catching up on sleep.
This was how she’d spent her “client entertainment” career for the past half month. She would ply clients with intoxicating sweet talk, trick them out of money, then extinguish the lights. In that moment of darkness, she’d claim to be removing makeup behind the curtain, teleport to another girl’s room who had no business, and bring her back as a substitute. Afterward, all the gold, silver, and gifts she’d swindled belonged to that girl, while she hid in someone else’s room to sleep. Everyone was happy.
For the girls in the building, they gained extra business and unexpected income, so they were naturally grateful to Jing Hengbo. After witnessing her teleportation abilities, they believed she possessed great supernatural powers—perhaps a master supported by the government, or maybe a disciple sent by some overseas immortal sect to observe local customs. They dared not offend her even more. Over time, the girls had tacitly come to regard Jing Hengbo as their own courtesan leader.
After a brief nap, Jing Hengbo got up, bit into a fried rice candy, and recalled seeing a rather handsome young master in the main hall that afternoon. Thinking he’d probably gone to Hong Xiang’s room, she tiptoed to Hong Xiang’s door.
She pressed against the door listening for a while but heard nothing interesting, then flashed through the door and crouched by the vanity to observe carefully.
Sigh… insufficient duration… inadequate intensity… poor physique… what a waste of a handsome face—all show and no substance!
She bit into her fried rice candy with disappointment, the crisp “crunch” sound going unnoticed by the man on the bed. Hong Xiang irritably raised her head and threw a sock at her.
The man was startled and lifted his head asking: “Who?” He vaguely saw a dark shadow by the bed, but when he blinked again it was gone. He rubbed his eyes—still no one there, just a sock on the floor and a half-eaten fried rice candy.
“There’s a ghost!” The man leaped up, his terrified screams echoing through the building.
Jing Hengbo had already moved elsewhere to continue her voyeurism out of boredom…
Near dawn, when the activities in her room finished, she sent the substitute courtesan back and dragged the limp Old Master Yao up to escort him out. After changing the bed sheets, she continued sleeping contentedly.
While she was satisfied, Hong Xiang was quite annoyed. Last night’s client had been frightened, causing a commotion with the doctor for half the night. When the client’s wife heard the news and rushed over, she rewarded Hong Xiang with a slapping.
With injuries to her face, Hong Xiang couldn’t take clients short-term, so she put on a veil and went out to see a doctor.
After seeing the doctor, noting the fine weather, she felt like strolling around. Brothel women slept during the day and worked at night, rarely having opportunities for outdoor recreation.
The daytime market was lively. The cosmetics stalls and clothing shops lining the busy district of Jade Water Workshop always attracted women like moths to flame. As Hong Xiang browsed along, watching the flowing silk and powder like a stream, she suddenly felt something odd.
Everyone, regardless of what they were doing or which direction they were heading, turned their heads toward the same direction.
The market atmosphere seemed off too. Hong Xiang thought for a moment before understanding—it had been quite noisy earlier, but now the sounds were gradually diminishing. The surging human voices were replaced by whispering murmurs, like rushing tides suddenly growing gentle before a soft, bright beach, continuously swirling back in delight.
The girls’ gasps were obvious, with faint low screams mixed in.
Hong Xiang turned her head. Though crowds surrounded her on all sides, she spotted a figure immediately.
It was a retreating figure—tall and gracefully upright. His white clothing was of fine, clean material without dark patterns or floral decorations, yet it shimmered with strange pale silver radiance in the sunlight. Under his veil, a section of black hair fell down, its luster even more brilliant.
Just a retreating figure was enough to make people unable to look away.
He walked slowly through the market while crowds flowed toward him from all directions. People couldn’t help but look him over when they saw him, yet dared not approach after looking, and despite not daring to approach, couldn’t resist wanting another glance. People continuously cried out in surprise because they walked backward while watching him, bumping into others or trees, shaking down pale pink peach blossoms that fell like heavenly rain.
Those light pink cherry-red petals of incomparable beauty fell on his shoulders. He neither reached out to brush them away nor stopped walking, but the flowers gradually flew backward as he moved forward, the pink petals dancing as if pulled by invisible silk threads, fluttering behind him like a peach blossom cloak. Against his white robes flowing with dark light, the effect was both pure and gorgeous to the extreme.
The market fell silent—even those amazed whispers completely disappeared. People opened their mouths wide, their eyes full of dazzling colors, reflecting this moment’s wondrous scene, this instant’s elegance.
Seeing one person’s beauty that could topple a nation, heavenly flower rain moves half the city.
Hong Xiang was also shocked into forgetting to breathe, thinking that though Fenglai Qi received many elegant young nobles, none could match such divine bearing—a single retreating figure was enough to overturn all living beings.
She watched that figure move farther and farther from the market until gradually becoming invisible. Only then did the market seem to awaken from a dream, with people finding themselves again and returning to their business. Hong Xiang exhaled a long breath as if from a dream, couldn’t help murmuring: “With such elegance, if Da Bo saw him, she’d probably pounce immediately, or tunnel through walls at midnight to directly abduct him…”
Before her words finished, she suddenly felt brightness before her eyes, as if a white shadow flashed like lightning before her, bringing a refreshing breeze. Then she suddenly found her whole body unable to move.
As if in a dream where the surging crowds became still, snow-colored robes fluttered around her like light clouds, cold fragrance rising like Sanskrit incense.
In the dream, a voice by her ear spoke clearly and calmly: “Where is she?”
…
Hong Xiang walked back to Fenglai Qi trembling all over, her face pale as death.
What had just happened replayed in her mind like a dream.
Just one careless murmur had caused that white-robed person who’d already left the market to suddenly appear before her.
From over ten yards away, he could hear her unconscious muttering? Was he human or ghost?
The white-robed person appeared beside her like a spirit, and the next moment had carried her beyond the market without anyone in the marketplace noticing.
What happened afterward was even stranger. The white-robed person brought her to a secluded place, asked her only three questions, then instructed her to do one thing before letting her return.
Hong Xiang slowly opened her sweat-soaked palms. In her palm, a ruby sparkled brilliantly.
Worth a thousand gold pieces wouldn’t be excessive—this mysterious beauty had rewarded her on a whim.
She’d never dared raise her head, not even daring to look at the veil hanging below his chin. She only saw his tightly fastened collar with a silver pearl the size of a longan—lustrous, crystalline, beautiful and noble.
That was his only adornment throughout, yet even Hong Xiang, a woman of the pleasure quarters, couldn’t help feeling it was perfectly appropriate. Less would fail to support his noble bearing; more would be sacrilege.
That single pearl was probably worth far more than this gemstone.
When he questioned her, guards secured both ends of the alley. She stole a glance at those people and only felt their murderous aura was heart-stopping.
Hong Xiang remembered his instructions and shuddered, hugging her arms tight.
Da Bo, you’re on your own now…
…
Once again, the lanterns were just being lit.
Tonight Jing Hengbo was entertaining Young Master Wang from the Wang family, whose father was a garrison commander in the north of the city.
After three rounds of drinking with the weak and scrawny Young Master Wang, Jing Hengbo successfully got him drunk as planned, felt him all over for gold and silver, stuffed half in her private money box and left half on the table.
Then she blew out the candle, swayed, and appeared at Hong Xiang’s door.
Earlier that evening, Hong Xiang had told her she’d met a young man who truly cared for her and wanted to leave the profession, currently saving money to buy her freedom, begging for more opportunities. Jing Hengbo, always easygoing by nature, immediately agreed.
Hong Xiang’s room had no lamp lit. There was vaguely someone on the bed, and the room was filled with floating fragrance, but not the rich scent of Hong Xiang’s usual “union incense”—this was exceptionally elegant.
Jing Hengbo sniffed and found it pleasant but didn’t think much of it. Giggling, she pounced on the bed, reaching out to embrace Hong Xiang: “Sweet Hong, darling Hong, Hong baby, sister ruined your good thing yesterday, today I’ll take you to fleece the sheep…”
Her wolf claws suddenly froze.
The person on the bed turned over.
In the darkness she couldn’t see the face, only a pair of eyes bright as stars. Jing Hengbo was certain Hong Xiang absolutely didn’t have such bright, clear eyes—very few people in this world would.
She wanted to retreat but found her whole body suddenly stiff, only able to maintain her wretched posture of reaching forward with both hands, bent at waist and knees, frozen before the bed.
It looked as if she was preparing to kneel and beg forgiveness from the person on the bed.
The person on the bed seemed somewhat disgusted by this wretched pose and slowly extended one finger, pointing vaguely at her chest.
Jing Hengbo felt her chest constrict, her whole body involuntarily retreating slowly until she’d backed three feet away, where she stopped in a bowing posture.
The person sat up, waved his sleeve, and the window on the back wall suddenly opened, letting in a fresh breeze.
The person on the bed lifted his finger slightly, and the incense block burning dimly in the red clay incense burner on the table brightened, spreading elegant fragrance.
Watching his movements, Jing Hengbo suddenly understood—this guy thought her smell was too strong, pushed her away, then opened the window and burned incense to dispel the odor!
Every action this person had taken since appearing conveyed one emotion.
Disgust!
Damn!
Jing Hengbo had no time to be angry because the person on the bed sat up.
With this sitting motion, she realized the bed was covered in snow white—Hong Xiang’s peach-red mandarin duck sheets and bedding were all crumpled and thrown on the floor. This guy hadn’t slept on Hong Xiang’s sheets at all; he’d borrowed her bed but brought his own bedding.
So fastidious!
The person sat cross-legged on the bed in a dignified posture, a sweep of snow-colored robe corner hanging down like flowing moonlight. Jing Hengbo’s heart suddenly pounded, feeling as if she was seeing an emperor seated high on his throne, about to coldly interrogate her.
This man’s aura…
She suddenly held her breath too.
He wasn’t looking at her, his face slightly raised, hands resting on his knees. Moonlight slanted in, illuminating only his chin in cold jade-like radiance. His voice was also like cold jade—cool and clear, each word crystallizing into ice and snow.
He said:
“I’ll allow you to escape three times. Your Majesty.”