Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I hurriedly raised my sleeve to cover my face, but in the next instant, someone stepped firmly in front of me, shielding me from view.

“Young Master Chun, is there something you need?”

The fat youth’s expression changed at once. “Bai Jiu, you again? Always meddling in my business!”

“And what were you planning to do?”

Seeing that the two of them were about to come to blows, the other young men hastily tried to smooth things over. “Bai Jiu has always been the sort to play savior to women in distress. Young Master Chun, don’t quarrel with him over this.”

But the other boy gave a smile that did not reach his eyes and showed no intention of backing down. “I didn’t fight you over Li Shishi. Now you won’t even let me have a little nun?”

“Bai Jiu, don’t forget-my uncle now holds an associate third-rank post in the capital. How dare you compete with me? What right do you have?”

“Oh?”

At that, Bai Yupu blocked me even more completely. “Your uncle-is he the one who got recommended because his family had three widows under one roof?”

Before he had even finished speaking, the young men around us burst into snickers.

Stung by his words, Young Master Chun immediately rolled up his sleeves, his eyes reddening with rage. “Bai Jiu, I, Lu Chun, never wanted to make an enemy of you! But today, I am taking her home. Just see if you dare stop me!”

“I have stopped you. What are you going to do about it?”

Just as a bloody fight seemed ready to break out, Young Master Chun sized up the other’s tall frame. His reckless fury gradually receded, replaced by a trace of slippery cunning. “If you want me to let her go, fine.”

“How about this? Let her come up with an idea. If she can help you become the private guest of that Top Courtesan, then I’ll release her. What do you say?”

At those words, the young men laughed so hard they could hardly straighten their backs. “A nun? What would a nun know about how a whore thinks?”

“You two are truly savage. You won’t even let a little nun go!”

“Hahaha!”

Amid their jeers, Young Master Chun looked rather pleased with himself. “Today, I’ll see just how she helps you. If this doesn’t work, then this nun is mine!”

With that, he stood there gripping his whip, fierce and menacing as he blocked the road.

I looked around. Every person there was secretly laughing, while Bai Yupu’s lips were pressed tight together, as if he were desperately thinking of a plan.

So I lightly tugged at his sleeve. “Ninth Young Master, I am willing to help you.”

Hearing this, he shook his head again and again. “Don’t get tangled up in this. I’ll think of another way.”

“Why?”

While I was still puzzled, one of the young men nearby poured cold water on the idea. “It’s useless. We’ve already tried every method that could be tried.”

“I sent in a poem, and Ninth Young Master sent in a painting, but that courtesan threw them both out, saying they were unbearably vulgar!”

“Exactly. It was infuriating!”

At that, I looked at Bai Yupu beside me. “You too?”

He looked embarrassed and turned his face away.

Next, the young men all began talking at once, and only then did I learn the whole story.

It turned out that Li Shishi, whom I had run into on the road, was actually the famed Top Courtesan of the capital. Passing through Qingshi Town, she had set herself up at the largest restaurant in town to receive guests. She had even announced that she would seek a kindred spirit through calligraphy and painting-in other words, they might become her private guest without spending a single coin.

And so, these young men had all gone mad.

I looked at their sighing, dejected faces and asked, “Aside from her reputation as the Top Courtesan, do any of you know what kind of person Head Courtesan Li is?”

The young men looked at one another. “We heard she was originally the daughter of a hunter. Because she was beautiful, a brothel madam bought her and trained her as a courtesan.”

“Perhaps we could paint her as a beauty?”

“Aren’t portraits of beauties all the same? What could be special about that?”

“Your paintings were wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

I retorted, “In your hearts, a beautiful woman is nothing more than a plaything, no different from a precious vessel or ornament. Every time you paint one, don’t you focus on her clothes and adornments, then add a little of her beauty and charm?”

“As for what she is thinking in her heart, do any of you truly know?”

“The fault lies in the fact that you painted a beauty’s face, but never painted her heart.”

At those words, Bai Yupu stared at me in a daze.

As though he were seeing me for the first time.

“Paint her heart?”

The young men did not buy this at all. Instead, they started clamoring. “The little nun is spouting nonsense!”

“A person is easy to paint! But how does one paint a heart?”

“Exactly!”

They argued fiercely, but Bai Yupu understood the hidden meaning at once. He immediately took out a sheet of painting paper and began working on the greasy little table beside him.

In the time it took to burn a single stick of incense, he rolled up the painting before the ink had even dried and handed it to a servant to deliver to the tavern.

I wanted to take a look, but never got the chance.

I did not know how long we waited. By the time the brown sugar cakes I had bought had gone cold, a plump, slick-looking man gradually approached from ahead. After sizing us up, he drew a small peach-colored note from his sleeve. “Who is Bai Yupu?”

Under everyone’s gaze, the man said with a beaming smile, “The night watch no longer forbids the night; young master, come early to seek spring.”

“Head Courtesan Li invites Young Master Bai to join her at a private gathering!”

At that, the young men burst into an uproar.

Just as they crowded around Bai Yupu, cheering and leaping with joy, I quietly withdrew from the group.

Fortunately, the carriage was still trapped where it was and had not yet left. Only after I handed the cakes to my eldest sister did the driver gradually urge the horse forward.

But after we had gone only a few hundred meters, someone stopped us.

A person lifted the carriage curtain. Threads of sunlight spread across features carved like jade, a presence as vivid and striking as ridges and rivers. He leaned inside and seized my arm tightly.

“Mother, I’m borrowing your female tutor for a moment!”

With that, he pulled hard and dragged me bodily out of the carriage!