Chapter Text
Ren Shao You didn’t know how exactly the Scrying Mirror worked, but it must have made some kind of mistake this time. This thought had crossed his mind many times before when one Scrying Mirror had transported him into the middle of a battlefield, another abandoned him on an all-but-deserted island, yet another deposited him off the side of a cliff, and then some, but this time he really, really meant it. After all, there was simply no way he was going to find his newest martial training master in the middle of, well, a brothel.
He hadn’t been sure where he was at first. The Scrying Mirror had shown him a glimpse of an empty bedroom that looked extremely luxurious, and not just because he’d grown up in an underground cave and spent most of his training excursions sleeping outdoors or in the spare dwellings of powerful but misanthropic recluses living on random mountains. The silk, porcelain, and lacquerware everywhere screamed wealth. It wasn’t until he’d actually teleported there and poked his head outside of the door in search of other humans that he realized he wasn’t just in some rich martial artist’s clan estate. The door opened out into a hallway where a drunk man stumbled along on the arm of a young woman dressed in brightly-colored silk robes that accentuated her ample curves. Overheard snippets of their exchanged words were enough to confirm the nature of their relationship and what they intended to do once in the privacy of a bedchamber.
Shao You’s ears burned as he retreated back into the room. Certainly there were boys his age who had experience in the realm of sex, but at age fifteen, Shao You had never kissed anyone, let alone explored other people’s bodies more intimately. Kissing and sex weren’t among his current priorities, and even though he was vaguely curious about it all after hearing the more clinical explanations about puberty from old man Du Shuai Sheng a few years ago, he hadn’t had any opportunities to act on that curiosity to date. A brothel was hardly the place where he planned to get started.
Embarrassment aside, he needed to get out of this place without causing a commotion and then hunt down the person who was to be his training master for the duration of this trip. Experience demonstrated that he couldn't rely on the Scrying Mirrors to take him straight to his intended master’s side, and in fact it was probably better that he didn’t magically materialize right in front of their faces and provoke too many questions about his origins, but this was another level of miscalculation.
There was no way he would be able to move about openly without attracting unwanted attention. His plain and coarse clothes with their visible patches clearly marked him as an outsider to this upper class establishment. The only object of monetary value on his person was the circular jade pendant he wore around his neck, a gift from Du Shuai Sheng. Heaven only knew how much money it would fetch if he tried to sell it at a pawn shop—not that he had any intention of ever doing that. Aside from having sentimental value, it was also imbued with an invisibility spell that he could enable and disable with little effort, a handy charm for someone who generally didn't excel at sorcery.
Grasping the jade pendant, he whispered the incantation for activating the invisibility spell. He stepped out of the room and proceeded down the hallway, which was lined with several doors that matched the one he’d come out of, no doubt the entrances to similar bedrooms.
As Shao You wandered through the labyrinthine corridors of the brothel complex, dodging the occasional passerby, he eventually found a door that opened onto a courtyard, enclosed by the surrounding buildings and the covered outdoor corridors connecting them. If he followed these walkways, he should eventually reach an exit somewhere.
Ambling along, he breathed in as deeply as he could without being noisy. The cool night air offered a welcome change from the cloying scent of perfume that had hung over everything inside.
Unfortunately, his sense of direction betrayed him and he wound up in front of a walkway extending out over a small pond to an open pavilion with gauzy pink curtains fluttering between its four intricately carved wooden pillars. Just as he was about to turn around and retrace his steps, movement in the pavilion stopped him in his tracks.
Beneath in the golden glow of lantern light, a figure danced. With each movement, the dancer’s peach-colored silk dress rippled, and cascading locks of hair threaded with gem-studded chains gleamed like spun gold. A translucent veil obscured the bottom half of the dancer’s face, but that did not make them any less mesmerizing.
Shao You should have turned and continued on his way to look for the exit, but instead he crept closer to the pavilion. It was like he'd stepped into paradise and witnessed the dance of an apsara.
As he approached the pavilion, it became apparent there were no customers around to serve as an audience. Who was this dance for?
Before he could posit an answer, something streaked in his direction. He dodged on reflex, but too late. In the blink of an eye, his limbs were lashed to his sides by a fine but surprisingly sturdy silver chain decorated with crystals shaped like water droplets.
And holding the other end of the chain was the dancer, who had cleared the distance between them in a breath’s time.
“Who are you?”
Shao You’s mind raced. For them to have sensed his presence despite the invisibility spell and moved so quickly…this was no ordinary dancer. This person was almost certainly the new master he was supposed to train under.
Praying that his guess was on the mark, Shao You dropped the invisibility spell.
Of all people to have caught spying on him, Hua Wu Zong hadn’t expected a brat nearly ten years his junior. The boy’s clothes had seen better days, the ragged hem of his robe ending several inches above the skinny ankles of a boy who was growing too fast for his wardrobe to keep up. Growth spurt notwithstanding, his thinness was likely in part due to being underfed. He wore a sword at his side, the handle and sheath both plain wooden pieces that had been sanded down just enough to make for a comfortable grip. The jade pendant hanging from his neck would have been an unremarkable specimen if not for the powerful charm on it, no doubt cast by someone else since the boy didn’t seem skilled enough to manage it on his own.
Even without the clothes to give it away, it was apparent as soon as the brat opened his mouth that he wasn’t from an elite family. He babbled in the rough speech of a commoner while begging for mercy.
“I heard stories about this place and wanted to come take a look! I’m poor so I had to sneak in!”
He was almost certainly lying about his true motives, but the part about his family background squared with everything about his appearance and speech. It didn't explain the sword or the jade charm though. At the very least, Hua Wu Zong doubted the boy had been hired by one of his enemies to assassinate him. The brat was hopelessly outmatched.
The mystery of this intruder’s origins piqued his curiosity enough that he decided not to kill him for the time being. He would coax out the information he wanted gradually.
The boy stopped babbling when his captor showed no intentions of murdering him on the spot. The panic in his eyes receded, replaced by a look Hua Wu Zong knew well: awe.
Leaning in with a smirk, he said, “Never seen a male courtesan before?”
The boy flushed and ducked his head. “I've never seen any courtesans before until today.”
“Right. The likes of you could never afford my companionship, so consider yourself fortunate that you got a taste for free. This establishment is bleeding money as we speak, ten silver taels for every moment spent entertaining you instead of a paying customer. The madam will be absolutely livid when she finds out.”
The boy's gaze snapped back up in alarm. “Are you gonna have me arrested for trespassing? Please don't, I'll do anything to make up for the offense! I'll even be your personal servant for a few days!” He paused to take a breath, and in that moment, a hint of calculation surfaced in his expression. The boy might confess his true intentions any moment now, so Hua Wu Zong waited.
The boy adopted the look of a puppy begging for treats. “Since you're so strong, would you take me on as your disciple and teach me some martial arts? I've never seen anyone move so fast before!”
For the first time in a long time, Hua Wu Zong was speechless. The brat wanted to become his disciple. Why? More importantly, why did he expect someone like Hua Wu Zong to say yes to such a demand?
And yet, Hua Wu Zong warmed to the prospect almost immediately. He had only joined this entertainment house a few years ago as a means to steal priceless treasures from the personal collections of the Xi You capital’s scholar-literati elite, many of whom patronized the pleasure district. He would entertain guests to loosen their tongues on one day and then conduct reconnaissance and carry out the burglaries on another without anyone the wiser. Who would suspect him? As much as courtesans were renowned and esteemed for having many skills in their repertoire, theft was hardly one of those skills. If anything, he would only be suspected of information brokering at most. But the danger was enough that he waited until many months after collecting information to execute each of his capers, when his marks would no longer remember discussing their most valuable possessions with a courtesan who took an appropriately intellectual interest, all while in the company of peers and under the influence of alcohol.
In short, he was playing a long game, and during the lulls where he didn't have new information or new targets, he resigned himself to conversing with men who, for all their extensive book learning and esoteric knowledge, were fools who ultimately fell prey to a pretty face, just like any common man. Even those rare few who sought purely platonic companionship and intellectual stimulation in him were completely smitten by him in their own way. It worked in his favor, but it made them too predictable.
This boy wasn’t immune to Hua Wu Zong’s charms, but he clearly had a story and secret behind him that was worth investigating. He would serve as a temporary diversion.
“If you want to train under me, you will have to remain hidden and do as I say. No one can know I’m sheltering a common brat in my quarters.” He’d acted hastily in revealing his martial ability to this boy, but at least there were no other witnesses around. He had given instructions to everyone in the entertainment house to leave this area empty while he practiced his dance.
When the boy bobbed his head obligingly, Hua Wu Zong released his binding chains, which vanished back into his sleeve.
Immediately, his new student dropped to his knees and touched his head to the ground to pay his respects. Uncouth as he was, he wasn’t completely ignorant of etiquette.
“Put your invisibility spell back up and follow me.”
“Yes, shifu!”
Though he had agreed to accept the kid as his disciple, it was another thing to hear the honorific “shifu” come out of his mouth. This was his first time taking on such a mantle, and it would take getting used to.
Ren Shao You trailed his new master across the premises of the pleasure house and up two flights of stairs to the uppermost story of the tallest building in the complex. Soon he was safely inside the courtesan’s private suite, where he was able to disable the invisibility spell. His shifu reassured him that the place was spelled to prevent anyone from eavesdropping, so they could converse freely.
For a while, Shao You didn’t say anything, dumbstruck by his surroundings. This room was even more luxurious than the one he’d teleported to upon his initial arrival. It took up the entire upper floor and was subdivided into two primary sections demarcated by ornately carved wooden partitions that extended from the left and right walls to form a circular doorway. The half of the room immediately inside the entrance was further split into two roughly symmetrical sitting areas with space to walk between them. The lefthand side centered around a square table for playing weiqi while the furniture on the righthand side flanked a zither resting on a narrow rectangular table. Wooden shelves lined the walls adjacent to these two sitting areas, displaying dozens of decorative objects, including porcelain vases, carved jade figurines, antique bronze vessels with a verdigris patina, and lacquered boxes inlaid with precious metals or stones. Past the circular partition in the far left corner was a study area with a desk bracketed by shelves piled with scrolls and codices. A long scroll-painting hung on the portion of the wall behind the desk. The opposite corner on the right housed a canopy bed draped in silk and a dressing area complete with a vanity and armoire. A round dining table, bearing a blue and white porcelain tea set and outfitted with four round stools, occupied the central space between the study and the bedchamber. Another set of doors situated behind the dining table and directly opposite the entrance most likely opened up onto the balcony outside. The various sections of the room were separated by movable screens of painted silk mounted on wood that could be reconfigured as needed.
“If you are finished gawking…”
While Shao You had performed his sweeping survey of the room, his new master had settled down at the dining table. He beckoned Shao You over and poured a cup of tea for him. This seemed backwards to what etiquette would demand in a master-disciple relationship, but then again, his shifu was a courtesan who was used to waiting on others. Shao You took a seat across from him and gulped down the tea. His panic from the whole situation earlier had left his throat parched.
“First thing’s first—what’s your name, boy?”
“My name is Ren Shao You. What about you, shifu?”
“They call me Hua Kui.” It sounded like it had a special meaning, but while Shao You recognized the first syllable as “flower,” he wasn't sure about the second. His confusion must have shown in his face, for the courtesan added, “The foremost of flowers, referring to the plum blossom.” He refilled Shao You’s cup and then poured some tea for himself, removing his face veil so that he could drink.
As much as it was a cliche to compare beauties to flowers, Shao You had to admit the comparison was apt for his shifu. His sensuous pink lips were like delicate petals on the snow-white of his skin. The outlines of his jade green eyes were accented in a shade that matched his lips, simultaneously graceful and bold. This was the kind of beauty that inspired paintings and poetry. But Ren Shao You was a humble swordsman-in-training who knew little of such refined arts, so he merely admired from a distance, drinking his tea in smaller gulps in his best attempt at imitating his shifu’s elegant mannerisms.
When Hua Kui finished sipping his tea, he said, “So, Ren Shao You, as my disciple, you need to follow my rules. The first rule to remember is that you can look but you can’t touch.”
Shao You almost choked on his tea. “I wouldn’t disrespect you like that, shifu!”
Hua Kui laughed. “I was referring to my belongings, especially the treasures you were staring at earlier.”
“Oh.” Face burning, Shao You looked down at his teacup and fervently wished the Scrying Mirror would take him straight home.
“Even if you could afford my rates, I only sell my artistic skills, not sex—though you could say sex is an art unto itself.”
As someone with neither skill nor experience in that realm, Shao You was inclined to agree. And as much as the discussion embarrassed him, in a way it was refreshing to hear someone talk freely about sex without making it a personal competition or a crude joke, as many of the men and boys he'd met often did.
“As I was saying, even one of those pieces on display is worth more than you’d ever be able to repay in a lifetime of servitude, so break them at your own peril.”
“Yes, shifu.”
“My second rule is to avoid poking your nose too deeply into my affairs. You may ask questions as they pertain to your training, but the rest is none of your business. The less you know, the better off you are.”
Shao You didn’t need to be told this. Although he naturally felt curious about his masters’ circumstances, he’d learned the hard way that some secrets were better left untouched.
“Understood, shifu. Are there any other rules?”
“Aside from staying hidden while you're on the premises, just exercise some common sense and don't cause trouble. I shall not be liable for what happens to you when you are out and about in the city.”
It was a surprisingly short list of rules. In the past, Shao You had trained under a few masters who were quite strict about etiquette and had enough rules to fill an entire book. He could almost feel phantom pain in his hand just remembering the extensive rule copying he'd performed under one such master. Just to be safe, he asked, “Are you gonna make me write down the rules and copy them over and over?”
“No. Do you even know how to read and write?”
“I know enough to get by. The old man who raised me taught me.” Although it was good to be cautious about revealing too much of his background to others—not that he even knew much about it himself, he didn't see any reason to lie about this particular fact.
“I see.” Hua Kui’s expression was unreadable. “Well, if you wish to practice and polish your brush technique, you are talking to one of the capital's finest calligraphers.” He gestured at the painting on the wall. “That poem inscribed there is my work.” The tone of his voice and the lift of his chin indicated he was proud of his craft.
Shao You turned to look. The painting, longer than he was tall, depicted a forested mountainscape partially shrouded in mist, with a thin waterfall plunging down its side and widening at the bottom as it became a river that rushed toward the viewer. In the top left corner that had been left blank in the original composition of the painting, four columns of elegant characters flowed down the page in what was called the running script. Having grown up only reading his caretaker's writing for many years, he hadn't realized just how ungainly and even childish it looked until he got out into the world and encountered examples from far more adept scribes. Even after all the extra practice copying rules and other passages under other mentors, his own handwriting was just passable.
“What about the painting itself?”
“That, I acquired.” Somehow, Hua Kui sounded equally proud of this even though he’d presumably bought it or received it as a gift, which didn’t strike Shao You as much of an achievement. Maybe it was an extremely rare piece by a famous artist, or an august personage among his clients had gifted it to him, or both.
“And you scribbled on it?”
“Ha! I suppose a common brat like you wouldn’t know, but it is tradition for collectors of fine paintings to add their own inscriptions and seals to them. Think of it as extending the meaning of the work through a sustained conversation with it over time.”
“Huh, okay.” It still seemed a bit like defacing the work to him, but as his shifu had pointedly stated, he was an outsider to the tradition. Even though Shao You could appreciate the beauty of a well-done piece, past a certain point, he wouldn’t be able to distinguish an excellent painting from a classic that would transcend the ages. It was all too abstract for him.
“Don’t worry your little head too much about the intricacies of painting. You said you wished to learn martial arts, not painting arts, from me, no?”
“Right.” He’d been so wrapped up in soaking in the opulence around him that he’d almost forgotten why he was even here. “When can we start, shifu?”
“It’s getting late, so I won’t get into it today.”
“Oh.” He couldn’t hide his disappointment. Before he could even ask what sort of martial arts skills his shifu would be willing to teach him, his stomach let out a ferocious growl.
“Hungry, I see.”
It would have been mildly embarrassing in any situation, but it felt ten times worse when it was in front of someone as sophisticated as Hua Kui. Though he surely had all the same bodily functions as any human being, it was difficult for Shao You to imagine the courtesan doing something like farting in others’ company.
Hua Kui seemed to guess at his thoughts. “You wouldn't know from looking at me now, but I'm no stranger to hunger, whether of the regular variety or the kind so excruciating that death would be preferable. I was born to a poor family and sold to a brothel as a child so that there would be one less mouth to feed.”
Shao You blinked. It was jarring to mentally juxtapose the image of abject poverty with the luxury of the pleasure house. No doubt his shifu had spent countless hours training in the four gentlemanly arts as well as dance to attain his current status. And somehow he had also added martial arts to his repertoire on top of it all.
“Shifu, you're amazing.”
“Hmph. I don't need a brat like you to tell me that much. Wait here. I'll go fetch a nighttime snack from the kitchens so you won't go to bed hungry.”
About half an hour later Hua Wu Zong returned to his quarters with a bowl of eight treasure congee and a plate of pineapple cakes for Ren Shao You. The congee contained the ingredients most popular in Xi You’s capital, mixing barley, glutinous rice, maize, millet, sorghum, azuki beans, chestnuts, dried jujubes, lotus seeds, and pine seeds—rich in nutrients but nothing too fancy as far as the capital’s vibrant culinary scene was concerned. However, the boy’s face contorted into different expressions as he ate, as if sorting out all the different flavors and textures for the first time. If he truly hailed from a poorer background, gathering all of the eight “treasures” would have been a challenge.
By comparison, the pineapple cakes were the real treat, putting a spin on Xi You’s pastry tradition using an exotic fruit only introduced to Xi You from a far-flung southern land in the past few years. The entertainment house had poached an apprentice from a famous bakery that specialized in such cakes to serve in their kitchens. Oblivious to this lore, the boy polished off all three of the pineapple cakes at an inadvisable speed considering the way the crumbs of the pastry tended to form thick clumps that were difficult to swallow when wet with saliva.
When he was finished chowing down, Ren Shao You let out a sigh of contentment. “Thank you for the food, shifu!” he said, mouth speckled with golden crumbs.
Shaking his head and clucking his tongue, Hua Wu Zong fished out a handkerchief from his robes. “This has nothing to do with martial arts, but as your master, I must say: you should really keep a handkerchief on you at all times. Here, take this.” He held it out to Ren Shao You.
The boy accepted it with a dubious expression. “Shifu, are you sure you want to let me use this? It’ll get dirty.”
“You can wash it later, and I have more just like it. I won’t miss it even if you do ruin it. You can keep it.” What he didn’t say was that despite it being a plain linen handkerchief with minimal embroidery on it and no sentimental value for Hua Wu Zong, his clients would have treasured the gift. There were even devotees of his who would have paid a hefty sum for such a token, given the opportunity.
“Thank you, shifu.” The boy patted his mouth gingerly to remove the crumbs on his face. Then, he folded the handkerchief into a neat square and tucked it into his robes.
Though it had been well over a decade since his trainee days, Hua Wu Zong could still recall the fear of ruining something that seemed too precious for the likes of him. During the initial period right after being sold to the first brothel he’d worked at in his birth province, he’d weathered punishments for every minor infraction. On one occasion, he'd taken a beating for dropping and breaking a porcelain teacup that he’d been using to practice serving customers. Even with his natural agility and sense of balance, the graceful movements of a courtesan had required painstaking cultivation to achieve. The boy in front of him, despite being as different from him as night to day in appearance and mannerisms, reminded Hua Wu Zong of his younger, greener self—not sheltered in the manner of the privileged, but still naive in many ways and desperate to prove himself in the world.
Belly full, the boy yawned. “Should I sleep on the floor, shifu?”
Hua Wu Zong looked him up and down. Aside from being worn, the boy’s clothes were also in sore need of cleaning. One of the sitting platforms in the area for entertaining guests was large enough to fit the boy comfortably, but it would be a hassle to clean the padded mats if they got dirty. “Until you’ve had a chance to wash your clothes, that might be for the best.”
Ren Shao You didn’t complain. Even the floor here was likely far nicer than the accommodations he was used to. He retrieved a thin blanket from the battered knapsack on his back and laid it out on the open floor space between the chess table and the screen marking off the sitting area. The knapsack became his pillow as he settled onto the blanket to sleep.
Hua Wu Zong kept a watchful eye on Ren Shao You until the boy fell asleep, just in case he had been wrong about him harboring no malicious designs, all the while wondering whether he would regret taking the kid on as his disciple.