chapter 3
Now every dish on that lavish table belonged to me.
The patron had released my sister. Tears still shone in her eyes, but she had redone her hair and makeup and was forcing herself to appear composed, though her legs trembled.
Madam Qin barely glanced at her. “Everyone is like this after her first patron.”
My sister suddenly lunged over and seized my collar. “Why didn’t you help me? You made me lose my chastity!”
“How was I supposed to help? Had I done so, I would have been the one defiled!” I roared back. “What, your chastity matters and mine does not?”
“You agreed to perform, then put on airs the moment you took the stage. You provoked that man, so you bear the consequences yourself!”
Well fed and full of strength, I slapped her hands away. “Ye Qingruo, let me tell you this one more time. If you want dignity in the Red Pavilion, earn it yourself. I will never again be your stepping-stone. Now that we have fallen here, neither of us is nobler than the other.”
She stared at me in shock. She could not understand how the half-sister who had obeyed her every word only yesterday had suddenly become impossible to control.
She still could not swallow her anger, but her stomach growled without pause. When she reached for a chicken leg, I struck the back of her hand with my chopsticks.
“This food was not prepared for you.”
“I cannot even have one bite?”
In the same vicious tone she had once used on me, I said, “You have lost your chastity and therefore your dignity. Someone without dignity is not worthy to eat at the same table as me.”
It struck her like lightning. “Ye Zhengzheng! I am your elder sister. How dare you speak to me this way?”
I laughed. “You never treated me as a sister. Why should I treat you as one?”
“You—”
She tried to grab the chicken leg anyway, but this time Madam Qin slapped her hand hard.
“The Red Pavilion has rules. Whoever pleases the patrons earns fine food.” She cast my sister a scornful glance. “Someone who enters a brothel and still pretends to be too noble for it deserves nothing but sour rice and rotten dishes.”
Two maids brought spoiled food and set it in front of her.
Biting her lip, my sister made a decision. “I can play the qin too. I can sell my art.”
“You were taken in front of a crowd today,” Madam Qin began. “No one will pay for your art now. Those men will want only your body.”
Before she could finish, my sister snatched up her qin and demonstrated a flourish of fingerwork. The notes curled richly through the air.
She had, after all, been trained to the standard expected of a future Crown Princess. Her skill would have been respectable even at court and had once won praise from the Crown Prince.
Madam Qin froze in amazement. “A young lady trained by a great house truly does possess some talent. Very well, I shall make one exception.”
After a quick calculation, she clapped her hands. “In two days, I will hold a qin contest for you both. Whoever the patrons prefer shall become the Red Pavilion’s foremost art courtesan.”
She hurried off, delighted by such a profitable spectacle.
The moment she left, my sister’s arrogance returned. “Father and Mother hired a master to teach me. If I display my true ability, do you imagine the scraps you picked up by spying could compete?”
“So dignity no longer matters to you?”
I swept the same poisonous, contemptuous gaze over her that she had once turned on me. “A woman truly changes after receiving her first patron. Was your dignity hidden beneath your skirt, Sister? Did losing it once persuade you to discard it forever?”
One sentence extinguished her arrogance.
“Just wait,” she spat. “The humiliation I suffered today will become your nightmare every night you spend in this place.”
Madam Qin spared no effort advertising the contest two days later. Two former noble ladies would battle on a brothel stage for the amusement of gentlemen—a story tailored perfectly to men’s tastes.
The first floor was packed, with patrons standing even in the corridors. Several wealthy merchants occupied the second floor, but the third remained empty.
Only a month had passed since the Ye family’s fall, and powerful officials at court were still avoiding suspicion. None would lightly associate themselves with its disgraced daughters.
Yet just as in my previous life, once a little more time passed, those powerful men would be unable to resist coming to look.
Before guests arrived on the third floor, I had to secure my place as the Red Pavilion’s foremost art courtesan. Only by preserving my chastity could I hope to attach myself to someone powerful enough to take me out.
The road my sister had followed before was paved over my dignity and bones, but it had still been the only road to escape.
This time, I would make it mine.
Half an hour before the contest, I struggled alone with my makeup backstage. A brothel’s seductive cosmetics were entirely unlike the restrained styles of unmarried ladies. I could not master them, and my forehead ornament kept going on crooked.
Danfeng finally stepped in. “How can you not even know how to do your face? Your sister demanded gold powder from Madam Qin so her skin will sparkle onstage, while you cannot even place a flower ornament straight.”
She complained as she carefully fixed it for me.
I looked at her with gratitude. In my previous life, Danfeng had been the only younger girl in the Red Pavilion who truly cared for me. During the five years my sister abandoned me there, I survived only because Danfeng supported and comforted me.
When I died wretchedly in the street, Danfeng pawned her own jewelry to bury me.
“Thank you, Danfeng.”
My heartfelt thanks startled her. “Do not get sentimental. Your rouge makes you look like a monkey’s backside. Wipe it off and start again.”
As she worked, she sighed. “The Red Pavilion devours people. Even blood sisters turn on each other here. Why do young ladies from great houses love scheming against one another so much? What did all that fighting bring you? Your family was confiscated, and now you have nothing.”
Danfeng was young, but she saw the truth clearly.
In my previous life, I had thought as she did. Sisters trapped in hardship should support each other, and together their lives would surely improve.
My sister had never thought that way. She wanted only to preserve her own dignity.
In this life, she could not blame me for fighting her to the end.
Just as my makeup was finished, a commotion rose outside. Afraid something had changed, I hurried to the window. A column of saber-bearing guards filed up to the third floor, where Madam Qin herself received them.
That night, for the first time, the finest and most exclusive room on the third floor was lit.
“What sort of great man has arrived?” Danfeng gasped. She had lived in the Red Pavilion for years and never seen such a procession.
One look at the guards’ uniforms made my heart leap. They belonged unmistakably to the Eastern Palace.
Candlelight threw the silhouette of a tall man against the screen. Madam Qin’s shadow knelt before him. A long while passed before he raised a hand and allowed her to stand, though she kept her waist bent and dared not meet his eyes.
If I was right, the visitor was Crown Prince Xiao Chenyi.
My face grew grave. Xiao Chenyi had no interest in women. Why would he come to a brothel without reason, bringing so many guards that he appeared to be hunting a court fugitive?
The sight dragged me back to the terror of the day our estate was seized. I clenched my fists and forced myself to think.
At this exact time in my previous life, Father had escaped during his exile.
The grain embezzlement case involved not only the army’s provisions but also the struggle for the throne between the Crown Prince and Prince Qi. The Ye family’s exile should have ended the matter, but now Father was loose. No one knew what he might do, and both factions were searching in secret.
News of his fallen daughters’ public contest had spread through the capital. If Father had returned, he would surely come to see it.
The Crown Prince was waiting for his quarry.