Chapter 2
Of all the girls sold into the brothel by their families, Zhao Xiaochan was the most diligent and determined.
The attendant’s yellow teeth flashed as he flattered Madam Qian, raising a thumb and declaring that Xiaochan would surely become their most celebrated girl.
Madam Qian slapped him so hard that his head spun.
He covered his cheek and stared.
Madam Qian’s little eyes gleamed. She had seen countless girls: those who submitted in silence, those who abandoned themselves, and those who swore they would rather die. Every girl who came here had a miserable story.
Only Zhao Xiaochan stood perfectly straight. Even when she was taught the arts between men and women, her expression remained solemn and studious, as if she were a schoolgirl in class.
Bright, elaborate qipaos wrapped her still-youthful body and gave it a mystery that made men long to explore.
Madam Qian drew on her pipe and snorted. She wanted to see what tricks this Zhao Xiaochan could possibly play in the palm of her hand.
Xiaochan was given a new name. Madam Qian chose the vulgar “Yingying,” but Xiaochan disliked it and renamed herself Tang Xiaowan.
Life was bitter enough, she thought. At least her new surname, Tang—sugar—could sound sweet.
Xiaowan had also been the name of a famous courtesan in antiquity. Since she was going to become a prostitute, she might as well openly take the name of one.
From then on, Zhao Xiaochan ceased to exist. In her place stood Tang Xiaowan, the foremost beauty of Spring Breeze House.
Her arrival lent an air of mystery to a brothel whose patrons had grown bored with familiar faces. She was educated and had once been raised as a proper young lady; an unmistakable refinement clung to her.
Even with her hair curled into seductive waves, pride filled her luminous face. Her eyes shone like jewels, and one glance from them could hold a man spellbound.
Madam Qian kept her hidden for more than half a year. As Tang Xiaowan’s fame grew by the day, impatient patrons offered more and more money, demanding to know when she would finally receive guests.
Madam Qian collected their gifts and delivered nothing, leaving the gentlemen frantic with frustrated desire.
She made a fortune before Tang Xiaowan ever entertained a single man. Every night, people lined up merely to dine, drink tea, or burn incense with her.
Human beings were perverse. Once they slept with a prostitute, they complained she lacked dignity. If she was reserved, they complained she was cold. Presented with a proud beauty, however, they worried that they were unworthy of her gaze.
Tang Xiaowan was proud, yet she knew when to lower herself. She could charm those great lords until they forgot which way was north. One man even offered a vast sum to redeem her and take her home as a concubine.
Courtesans going respectable was fashionable in those days. If a woman could cling to a devoted patron, the rest of her life might be secure.
But Tang Xiaowan used her youth as an excuse and made Madam Qian refuse him.
“I’m perfectly happy here. Why should I follow a man home, turn into a weary wife, and endure the first wife’s temper?”
She dabbed a smear of lipstick from the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief, disdain in her eyes.
Her mother had been a daughter of a respectable family. What fate had respectability brought her?
Rely on a man?
To hell with that.
In the end, Tang Xiaowan could not escape.
On the night her virginity was auctioned, Spring Breeze House was packed to bursting.
At sixteen, her figure had ripened beneath her qipao. Every movement carried grace and allure. Her face was full as the moon, her breasts high as hills.
Yet she was still only merchandise.
The highest bidder would own her.
One wealthy lord whom she had teased for half a year vowed that he would have her that night. The auction grew feverish. The men flung money about as if they owned mines, and at its height they nearly came to blows.
Madam Qian’s eyes went green with excitement.
But no amount of money could compete with guns.
The country was in chaos, and every city and county had its own petty king. Whoever held the rifles held authority.
Tang Xiaowan watched Fourth Master Wu swagger in with a pipe clenched between his teeth and a squad of armed soldiers at his back. He yanked her from the platform and, despite her cry of alarm, threw her over his shoulder.
Every gentleman in the room fell mute.
Madam Qian hurried forward with an ingratiating smile. “Fourth Master Wu…”
He slapped her to the floor.
A soldier’s hand was heavy. Her old face swelled at once, her vision went dark, and she fainted. No one else dared make a sound. Only Tang Xiaowan continued to struggle.
“Bastard! Put me down!”
Her small fists beat against his shoulder like a playful scratch.
Fourth Master Wu swung a broad palm down on her bottom with a resounding smack.
“Stop fussing. Your master will take good care of you in a moment!”
Take care of her, hell.
He was a crude man and showed no consideration for her first time. He left her sobbing, cursing him without pause.
The next day, Tang Xiaowan could not get out of bed.
Satisfied, Fourth Master Wu carried in a chest of silver dollars and dropped it with a crash in the main hall of Spring Breeze House.
“Xiaowan worked hard last night. I’ve got business for the next few days. If you let her receive another guest, you can wait for one of my bullets!”
With that, he marched away with his men.
Madam Qian slapped her thighs in anguish. She could never have imagined that the girl she had cultivated so carefully would be taken so cheaply by the banditlike Fourth Master Wu.
He was in his thirties, short and fierce-faced, with a foul mouth and no talent for tenderness. His wife back home had reportedly died in childbirth. Fortune had smiled on him in recent years: he gathered men willing to die for him, earned victories by force of arms, and gradually became a warlord and local tyrant.
Tang Xiaowan had not necessarily suffered a bad bargain by going with him. Madam Qian’s concern was his notorious habit of forgetting a woman as soon as he left her bed. He might sleep with someone tonight and forget her name tomorrow.
Then the girl would waste away waiting for a living man as if she were already widowed. The madam would not dare let her receive guests in case Fourth Master Wu suddenly remembered she existed.
That was why he had such a poor reputation among the women of the pleasure quarters.
But he had guns. Who dared offend him?
Tang Xiaowan did.
As soon as she could stand, she wrote him a letter. It contained not a word of longing, only a torrent of abuse.
Fourth Master Wu could recognize perhaps six words out of ten, so he made one of his men read it aloud. The poor soldier trembled, his voice shrinking with every line.
Fourth Master Wu snatched the paper away, tossed aside his pipe, and roared with laughter. Then he sent several “little yellow croakers”—gold bars—directly to Tang Xiaowan’s room.
In those times, a “big yellow croaker” meant a gold brick and a little one a gold bar. However one counted it, Tang Xiaowan had profited.
Best of all, the gold had never passed through Madam Qian’s hands.