Chapter 20: Gilded Shadows and the Consort's Folly
"Consented." Ye Ling's acquiescence hung suspended as a wraith-like silhouette flitted past the moonlit lattice—a hauntingly familiar spectre.
He surged upright like a falcon sighting quarry, Miao'er gliding in his wake.
"Your Grace approaches..." Her cadence fractured. "The paramours' enclave."
"Paramours?" Ye Ling's eyes narrowed upon the hooded shape. "Your demesne entertains... distaff clientele?"
Gentlewomen haunting pleasure dens? How delightfully profane.
"On rare occasions, ladies of station pursue... unconventional recreations." Miao'er's smile crystallized into frost. "Though patronage remains predominantly masculine. Does Your Highness nurture... eclectic predilections?"
Were the prince inclined toward Ganymedean dalliances, her aspirations would wither like lotus blossoms in winter's kiss.
"Ha! This scion's desires cleave to nature's design." His mirth reverberated like temple bells. "Yet envision—crafting vestments for Apollonian companions! Gilded matrons would beggar kingdoms for such exhibitions."
Feminine coffers overflowed, though Miao'er's humble origins barred entry to aristocracy's jewelled salons.
"This unworthy blossom prostrates before Your Magnanimity." Miao'er's obeisance flowed like ink across rice paper—a living temptation to ravishment.
*This peony shall be plucked,* Ye Ling swore in silence.
From adjoining chambers, the madam's unguented tones seeped through parchment screens: "Our paramours shine purer than altar joss!"
A maid's acerbic retort arrested Ye Ling's breath—Hongzhuang, handmaiden to Lady Fu Xianxian.
"Unkempt louts hold no appeal!"
"Be tranquil; our ephebes train in Elysian arts!" Gold clinked as the matron withdrew, colliding with Ye Ling's retinue.
"My patron requires veiled discretion." Miao'er shielded him with serpentine grace.
The madam's gaze glittered, royal recognition dawning, yet protocol was maintained. "May celestial joys attend all noble guests!"
"Shall I strip bare yonder chamber's secret?" Miao'er's newfound supplication dripped saccharine obsequiousness.
"Superfluous." Ye Ling's grin acquired Arctic sharpness. "I scent this adders' nest."
The Crown Prince's own consort—Fu Xianxian incarnate—procuring male solace? Were this ignominy to pierce the imperial veil, Ye Changfeng's reign would choke on derision's ashes.
*What ambrosial leverage,* the prince reflected, observing silhouettes writhe behind damask drapery. *Let the chaste consort weave her lord's shroud with silken indiscretions.*
Looming Daggers and the Consort's Gambit
"Regarding Your Highness's designs..."
"Bide. When that asp concludes her venomous revelry, convey my missive." Ye Ling's directive coiled through sandalwood haze.
Fu Xianxian's presence here? A celestial jest ripe for harvest.
"By your will." Though perplexity clouded her gaze, Miao'er bent like a willow in stormwind.
Patrons ascending Spring Breeze Pavilion's ivory towers bore pedigrees steeped in heraldry—viscounts, barons, scions of jaded blood. But noblewomen purchasing paramours? A perverse novelty.
The matron paraded seven Adonis-like youths into neighbouring chambers. Soon, the corridor throbbed with primal cadences—a carnal liturgy that set nerves aflame and propriety ablaze.
Within these velvet walls, such hymns raised no censure. Yet between prince and courtesan, the air crackled with forbidden currents.
"Your Grace, permit this humble vessel to procure libations." Miao'er fled, auroral blush staining her cheeks.
Why now, this uncharacteristic fragility? The answer pulsed in Ye Ling's sovereign allure—an alchemy of power, opulence, and regal mien capable of intoxicating empresses.
"Proceed." His mirth chased her retreat like chasing perfume.
The erotic symphony crescendoed. Though versed in Babylon's arts, Ye Ling's composure frayed. These tainted silks held no allure—unlike Fu Xianxian's hypocrisy, now laid bare as a sacrificial lamb.
Three moon cycles later, the Crown Prince's consort lurched into the chamber, her cloak a shroud over ravaged flesh. Beneath woollen folds festered ecstasy's bruises and shame's musk.
"What serendipity, cherished kinswoman!" Ye Ling's smile glinted like honed scimitars.
"Viper!" Fu Xianxian's corpus quivered—a scorpion trapped in self-spun silk. Were exhaustion not her shackles, she might have struck with poisoned talons.
"Does fate not choreograph exquisite ironies?" His mockery dripped like molten gold.
Abruptly, her fury transmuted to arctic poise. "Name your tribute, serpent."
"Such sangfroid amidst ruin!" Ye Ling's applause echoed like temple gongs. "Truly, the heir chose tempered steel beneath bridal veils."
Her laughter was fractured yet triumphant. "You deem this indiscretion fatal? The heir's court cradles darker plagues than my... recreations."
"Ah, but minstrels hunger for ballads." He orbited her like vultures circling carrion. "'The Chaste Consort's Moonlit Debauch'—a melody to outlive dynasties."
Crimson bloomed where her nails pierced palms. "State your appetite—bullion? Influence?"
"Merely... symbiotic discourse." His whisper caressed her earlobe like assassin's silk. "The heir's itineraries. His clandestine councils. His..."
"Treachery!"
"Come now—is perfidy not our ancestral heirloom?" His thumb grazed her pulsing neck vein. "Compliance ensures silence. Defiance…"
The unsaid vengeance hung heavier than dynastic tombs.
"This blade cuts both ways." Her hiss carried desert siroccos.
"Blades", Ye Ling's grin widened, "serve only those who wield them."
As she melted into night's embrace, the prince inhaled triumph's bouquet—an elixir of dread, loathing, and sweetest capitulation.
*The chessboard thirsts,* he reflected, watching dawn's gilded fingers caress pleasure quarter tiles. *Let the endgame commence.*
The Viper's Bargain and the Shattered Mirror
"Presume not that coercion may leash me." Fu Xianxian's mirth crystallized into glacial scorn.
"To find my cherished kinswoman in this den of iniquity..." Ye Ling inclined forward, sunlight fracturing through latticework to stripe his smirk. "Does Crown Prince Ye Changfeng... falter in conjugal duties?" His tone hardened to lethal transparency. "Or does your intrigue not stir—how I penetrate the heir's most guarded secrets?"
"Silence your forked tongue!" Her poise ruptured, fingers scrabbling at scar-tissue visage. "This grotesquerie I've become—your sculpture! My beauty's ruin, my power's collapse—all offerings at your bloodstained altar!"
"Verity", Ye Ling drawled with assassinic languor, "your desolation is my magnum opus. Ye Changfeng's... impotence? Merely another brushstroke from this artisan's hand."
Behind him, Zhao Miao'er's breath suspended—a prince airing regicidal confessions?
"Yet symbiosis might resurrect vanished glories." He persisted, dismissing Fu Xianxian's homicidal glare. "Alabaster flesh restored. A consort's honour rekindled from ash."
"Pact with my despoiler?" She shrieked in the shattered celadon. "Sooner clasp asp to bosom!"
"You misapprehend the game's geometry." Ye Ling's fingertip traced a wine cup's gilded rim. "Proclaim tonight's indiscretion, and what awaits? Ye Changfeng's throne was cemented through your 'tragic demise'—a chalice of hemlock silencing inconvenient truths."
Her pallor deepened to funerary hues.
"Or..." He let the syllable dangle like a headsman's pause. "Abet my ascension, and behold your lord's head spiked upon vermilion gates. Elect: obliteration draped in ignominy, or retribution served upon jade platters."
"You deem me credulous enough to trust a serpent's oaths?"
"Trust?" Ye Ling's chuckle frosted wine in its vessel. "We waltz on scimitars' edges, sweet sister. Ye Changfeng's barren loins bar succession—this truth you clutch. The throne thirsts for unsullied lineage."
Her fists clenched, lacquered nails weeping rubies. "And you? What clemency courses through your veins?"
"Clemency?" He rose, shadow engulfing her diminished form. "A bauble for minstrels and fools. I proffer existence—swathed perhaps in mourning silks, yet existence nonetheless."
"Existence?" Her voice emerged viperine. "You, who transfigured me into this... horror?"
"Behold truth's glass." Ye Ling produced a hand mirror, compelling confrontation with ravaged features. "Gaze upon annihilation's visage. Palace whispers already paint 'mad consort'—how long until 'compassionate seclusion' becomes your eternity?"
The mirror detonated beneath her shriek.
"Abhor me as you will," he continued over tinkling shards, "but acknowledge this—solely through me flows vengeance's nectar. Ye Changfeng's anguish, protracted and symphonic... or your silent erasure from history's scroll."
Silence congealed like arterial spillage.
Abruptly, Fu Xianxian surged forth, a fractured mirror shard gleaming. Ye Ling arrested her wrist with disdainful ease, the blade trembling centimetres from his ocular throne.
"Such fervour!" His laughter rang unfeigned. "Channel this pyre correctly, and we might yet sculpt splendour from cinders."
She collapsed, seismic tremors racking her frame. "What... what would you have me surrender?"
Ye Ling's smile unfurled like mandrake blossoms. "The Crown Prince's nocturnal itineraries. His clandestine war councils. The shadowed caravan routes…"
As dawn's gilded fingers pried through shutters, a covenant sealed with loathing's kiss took root—its brambles fated to throttle dynasties.
Veiled Blossoms and the Prince's Inquiry
"Noble Consort, let harmony temper discord's blade." Zhao Miao'er interposed with silken diplomacy. "Must symbiosis demand mutual destruction?"
"As Spring Breeze Pavilion's luminary patron," she continued, her obeisance flowing like liquid mercury, "might we not furnish Your Ladyship with... novel diversions? Our stables nurture stallions of unmatched vitality—cloaked in discretion's impenetrable veil."
"Articulate your demands." Fu Xianxian inhaled sharply, the air thick with jasmine and impending betrayal.
"Merely illumination of Ye Changfeng's nocturnal machinations." Ye Ling's smile glinted like moonlight on a dagger's edge. "Though estranged, you remain sovereign of Xu Manor's shadowed corridors."
"What tribute?"
"Your future... indulgences." The prince's gesture dismissed kingdoms. "Borne by my coffers. Miao'er's procurers shall secure paragons of virility—their discretion rivalling tomb guardians' silence."
"Amusing." Fu Xianxian's gaze honed in on Miao'er. "Does the imperial decree barring your garden's gate not chafe?"
"My orchards flourish at my whim." Ye Ling's arm encircled Miao'er's waist—a living manifesto.
"Felicitations on your new cultivar." The consort's barbed glance turned northward. "Though one muses how your cherished Fu Yuanyuan tolerates such... botanical experiments."
The spectral rivalry between Fu cousins—both erstwhile claimants to the phoenix crown, now reduced to chessmen—hung like an executioner's silken cord.
"My gardens require no counsel from blighted horticulturists." Ye Ling's riposte carried frostbite.
"Conduits for Congress?" Fu Xianxian's query emerged glacially.
"Through Spring Breeze Pavilion's blooming channels." Miao'er curtsied, eyes downcast yet triumphant.
As the consort dissolved into shadows, Miao'er's awe crystallized. The Xu Prince's veneer of virtuous heir shattered before this reality—a tactician who'd gutted rivals through salt edicts and crustacean banquets, who now casually confessed princely mutilation.
"Your faith elevates this unworthy vessel." Miao'er's pledge flowed like poisoned honey.
"Faith?" Ye Ling's chuckle resonated as fingertips grazed her clavicle. "Merely alignment of intersecting hungers." His gaze abruptly sharpened. "Curious—your countenance mirrors Chu's displaced princess. Chance... or deliberate artifice?"
The chamber stilled, incense smoke coiling like inquisitors' questions.
Miao'er's laughter chimed—wind bells masking typhoon warnings. "Do all jade-wrought beauties share familial lines through princely lenses?"
His thumb traced her jawline—caress and interrogation intertwined. "In my conservatory, even weeds eventually unveil their true petals."
As dawn's gilded fingers pried through latticework, nascent alliances took root—their thorns sheathed in velvet, their venom sweetened by shared vendettas.
Silken Veils and the Courtesan's Secret
"Your Highness honours this unworthy vessel with jests beyond measure," Zhao Miao'er demurred, her fan fluttering like a caged moth's wings. "The celestial Princess Zhao Ling'er's radiance eclipses my meagre glow."
"Yet both roses and nettles spring from common soil," Ye Ling pressed, relentless as autumn winds stripping leaves. "Your shared lineage with Chu's nobility, your intimate knowledge of their merchant networks... coincidences bloom too thick for chance's garden."
"In Chu's realm..." Her voice frayed like aged silk, "The Zhao name cloaks both jade-crowned royalty and shackled outcasts. This lowly flower shares but... ancestral shadows with Her Highness." The admission carried winter's melancholy, her gaze misting with carefully curated sorrow.
Ye Ling's eyes narrowed—here coiled a serpent of secrets, but the hour for its unveiling had not yet chimed.
"Prince! You court mortality with these endless vigils!"
Lü Wu's rebuke sliced through the tension as she entered bearing golden-shelled delicacies. Ye Ling devoured pastries absently, quill dancing across scandalous sketches—lithe forms draped in diaphanous illusions rendered in carmine ink.
"Caution!" Lü Wu gasped as tea leaves lodged in his throat, pounding his back until the verdant offenders surrendered.
"Mere distraction," he rasped, gesturing toward the parchment storm. "What verdict for these sartorial visions?"
Lü Wu's cheeks bloomed peony-red. The sketches swarmed with nymph-like figures—limbs artfully arranged to suggest nudity through gossamer veils. "This... this resembles..." Her voice dwindled, memories of Yangzhou's carnal pedagogy resurfacing.
"Resembles?" Ye Ling's grin turned vulpine. "Observe the alchemy—moonlit chiffon here, pearl-strung reticence there. The art of revelation through calculated concealment."
Indeed, the figures wore garments that clung like liquid moonlight—sheer silks mapping forbidden geographies, strategic gemwork illuminating precisely what it obscured.
"For... whom?" Lü Wu's fingers trembled like plucked zither strings.
"The arsenal of Spring Breeze Pavilion's enchantments." He tapped a design where crystal threads wove chrysanthemum patterns across sacred meridians. "Envision these beneath lantern glow—sonnets given flesh."
Lü Wu's breath caught between scandal and awe. The creations balanced on the knife-edge between profanity and genius—attire to make bodhisattvas question vows, yet crafted with mathematical precision.
"But the Zhao princess..." Her whisper fractured, torn between loyalty and intrigue.
Ye Ling's quill froze mid-stroke. "Ah yes, our thorned blossom from Chu. Tell me, Lü Wu—does Miao'er's sorrow sing of banished royalty or poisoned inheritance?"
The chamber stilled, incense smoke coiling like interrogators' questions. Beyond latticed windows, dawn's first sparrows trilled of secrets awaiting their moulting hour.
Silken Alchemy — The Prince's Tapestry of Temptation
Lü Wu's fingers fluttered like trapped sparrows as parchment sheets cascaded—a sudden rendering of chiselled masculinity scattering her composure.
"Indecorous!" She gasped, eyes averted yet scorched by forbidden curiosity.
"Does the form displease?" Ye Ling retrieved the fallen sketch, his scrutiny dispassionate. "Observe the trapezius contouring—does this not embody Hyperion's essence?"
"This lowly servant dares not..." Lü Wu prostrated herself, marble tiles chilling her fevered brow.
"Arise," the prince commanded, mischief glinting like a dagger's edge. "Your service as a living mannequin is required. These creations demand... corporeal verification."
Her breath tangled in silk-draped suspense. The design suggested not attire but calculated exposure—gossamer veils mapping territories better left uncharted.
"For Your Grace's solitary regard?" Her whisper scarcely stirred the censer's smoke.
"Naturally." His fingertip traced the rendering's perilous décolletage. "Consider it... quality attestation."
Thus commenced silken purgatory—days of metamorphoses in chiffon chrysalides, each "fitting" dissolving into ravaged fabric and spent ardour. Lü Wu's wardrobe burgeoned with ephemeral creations destined for dawn's discreet pyres.
"Mass production commences forthwith." Ye Ling thrust sheaves of designs at Zhao Miao'er. "A grand exposition—Spring Breeze Pavilion's arsenal of allure unveiled!"
Miao'er's fan froze mid-arc. The sketches depicted bodices woven from starlight and temptation—pearl-strung reticence bordering on revelation. "Public exhibition? Even courtesans clutch modesty's tattered remnants!"
"Modesty?" The prince's laughter resonated like temple gongs. "We trade in revelation's metaphysics. Envision these beneath moonfire lanterns—sonnets incarnate, coffers bled of gold."
His finger stabbed a design where crystal filaments charted Aphrodite's topography. "Calculated illumination, measured disclosures—the alchemy of eternal craving."
Miao'er's mind tabulated—profit's siren song versus decorum's funeral shroud. "The matron shall demand thrice hazard's fee for our blossoms."
"Sanctioned." Ye Ling's quill slashed vermilion across vellum. "Engage Luoyang's master glass-spinners—translucent overskirts backed by obsidian mirrors. Let patrons pursue phantoms through labyrinths of their own concupiscence."
As twilight gilded pleasure quarter tiles, sartorial revolutions took form—each stitch a battle standard in the prince's campaign to monetize desire. Lü Wu's stifled whimpers harmonised with looms' rhythmic cadence, weaving tapestries of seduction destined to unravel dynasties.
Opulent Temptations — The Prince's Silken Symposium
"Behold the gilded schematics," Ye Ling proclaimed, unfurling scrolls illuminated with auric filigree. "Raiment requires stages befitting their artistry—limelight caressing every clandestine contour."
"All transpires per Your Grace's grand design." Miao'er's fan quivered like a moth ensnared in moonlight.
"A million argent taels shall anoint this spectacle!" The prince's gaze kindled with pyrotechnic fervour. "A lingerie tourney of mythic proportions—courtesans vying beneath Spring Breeze Pavilion's moon-kissed vaults!"
"Such... intimate artifices displayed before multitudes?" Miao'er's porcelain composure fissured. "Even cloistered nuns would expire from mortification!"
"Mortification?" Ye Ling's mirth cascaded like scattered carnelians. "Munificence breeds audacity. The champion's purse could ransom a dynasty's harem. The bronze laurel's sum would purchase alpine dominions."
His fingertip danced across vellum calculations like a calligrapher possessed. "All proprietary rights vest in this hand. Let princely adjudicators from gilded lineages preside—their concupiscence distilled into numerical verdicts."
"Your Grace commercializes... intimate vestments?" Miao'er's whisper frayed at propriety's precipice.
"We transmute desire into commerce." Ye Ling gestured toward thoroughfares choked with foreign palanquins—An Kingdom's musk-drenched magnates and Dai's kohl-eyed spice barons. "Witness Lü Wu—An's bioluminescent pearls gracing her lobes, Dai's powdered lapis lazuli gilding her gaze. For such trifles, matrons bankrupt familial treasuries."
As Mid-Autumn preparations crescendoed into fevered cadence, the prince's alchemy bore fruit. Looms whispered day and night, transmuting Xianyang's finest silks into cobweb fantasies. Courtesans rehearsed choreographed revelations, their movements calibrated to madden through implication.
"Let modesty's shroud nourish profit's harvest." Ye Ling observed rehearsals through onyx lenses. Lü Wu undulated across the stage, her "attire" a constellation of crystalline dewdrops suspended on arachnidian filaments.
Miao'er's jade abacus clicked final tabulations—projected revenues surpassing decennial tributes. "The matron implores jade partitions for backstage propriety."
"Negated." The prince adjusted a model's pearl-caged garter. "Let patrons espy forbidden groves through filigree screens—appetites honed by measured revelation."
When twilight's mantle embraced the fated eve, Spring Breeze Pavilion's lanterns blossomed like carnal fireflies. Princely arbiters leaned from gilded loges, oblivious to their role as marionettes in Ye Ling's grand masque—their lusts meticulously weaponized, their coffers preordained for ceremonial evisceration.
The velvet curtain ascended on the silken revolution.
Velvet Provocations and the Scatologist's Demise
The tournament's coffers haemorrhaged two million silver taels—a sum that set brothel gossips ablaze and gilded parlours aquiver. Gnarled princes and enamelled courtiers clutched embossed invitations while Lü Wu wove clandestine pacts with silk magnates and embroidery virtuosos, spinning a web of desire from loom to marketplace.
Beneath celestial lanterns and chrysanthemum firebursts, Ye Ling stood deified in lunar radiance. Crown Prince Ye Changfeng emerged from the throng, peacock-feather fan slicing perfumed air.
"Sixth Brother's ventures grow... conceptually adventurous." The heir's smile dripped venomous honey.
"When inspiration flows through sewers, even rats birth miracles!" Chen Tong shouldered through courtiers, a nasal sneer cutting zither chords. "This tawdry circus reeks of a bankrupt brothel's death rattle!"
Ye Ling's lips curved with beatific malice. "Young Master Chen! How invigorating to encounter a palate refined through... unconventional degustations."
The crowd inhaled as one.
"You dare—"
"Does the 180th-day vintage differ from the fresh harvest?" Ye Ling's whisper carried across frozen silences. "Your inverted banquet at Spring Breeze Pavilion remains legendary—they say excrement leaves... lasting bouquets."
Snickers erupted like ruptured dams. Chen Tong's complexion purpled as a servant "accidentally" passed bearing ginseng broth—its murky hue and grassy aroma triggering visceral recollections.
"Muzzle your hound, Crown Prince." Ye Ling turned faux-concerned eyes to Ye Changfeng. "Lest he christen another pair of breeches."
The heir's fan snapped like a guillotine blade. Dragon Guards in lacquered midnight armour materialised, their presence stifling Chen Tong's strangled threats. Even the Obsidian Tabard assassins lurking in shadowed alcoves dared not challenge this phalanx of imperial might.
"Depravity parading as enterprise!" Chen Tong spat through bile-flecked lips. "This filth desecrates Great Shang's virtue!"
"Virtue?" Ye Ling's laughter soared above the pandemonium. "Witness Dai Kingdom's envoy pledging ancestral lands for that pearl-strung confection. Behold a kingdom's prince auctioning his grandmother's jade coffin for backstage access. Here, virtue wears golden scales—and outweighs ministers' hollow homilies."
As Chen Tong fled retching, the inaugural contestant glided forth—her "attire" a masterclass in strategic revelation. Gasps transmuted into clinking coins. Ye Ling's courtesan-accountants circulated through the throng, collecting deposits for "imperial editions" before looms ceased their song.
Backstage, Zhao Miao'er's jade abacus clicked through sums that mocked fiscal reason. Lü Wu adjusted a contestant's diamond-dusted garter, her earlier mortification replaced by capitalist zeal. The prince's gamble unfolded as ordained—each scandalized whisper minting silver, each aristocratic sniff fuelling bourgeois emulation.
When dawn's first rays gilded the ledges, even Miao'er's worldly composure fractured. The night's profits eclipsed a decade's tributes. Chen Tong's humiliation, it seemed, had fertilized fields of golden betrayal.
Silken Machinations and Princely Hypocrisy
Chen Tong's umbrage sprang not from virtue's defence but fiscal haemorrhage—the Chen silk pavilions bled patrons to Spring Breeze Pavilion's brazen spectacle. With Chen Huai deposed as Treasury Overlord, their carnal coffers now faced an existential threat from Ye Ling's sartorial insurgency.
"Sixth Brother, this licentious pageantry transgresses—"
"—transgresses your prudish pretence?" Ye Ling severed Crown Prince Ye Changfeng's censure. "Note how your gaze lingers despite sanctimonious protestations."
The heir's rebuke withered as a model undulated past—her gossamer tunic cascading over Cytherea's sacred topography. Though the attire preserved technical modesty, courtesans' inherent allure transformed calculated concealment into erotic cartography.
"Admire beauty without shame, august brother," Ye Ling provoked. "Must imperial scions posture as eunuch ascetics?"
Ye Changfeng's ivory fan creaked under whitened knuckles. Thirty concubines nightly paraded through his chambers per imperial physicians' prescriptions, yet his loins remained as inert as funerary jade. The crown prince's stare clung to a model's pearl-strung sternum—hunger warring with emasculated fury.
"You conflate vigilance with vulgar interest," the heir hissed. "When censorate memorials inundate the Vermilion Throne—"
"—They'll extol my ingenuity in replenishing imperial vaults?" Ye Ling gestured toward Dai Kingdom's envoy mortgaging ancestral tombs for backstage access. "Observe—An's prince just bartered military provisions for ten 'imperial editions'. Such cultural diplomacy must gratify Father's strategic visions."
A model's crystal-embroidered hem grazed Ye Changfeng's robes, releasing sandalwood and ambergris that resurrected phantom sensations of virile conquests. The cruel memento shattered his composure.
"Tawdry commerce disguised as statecraft!" The heir's voice fractured. "These... these silken baits belong in alleyway ditches, not royal precincts!"
"Yet your ocular grasp rivals beggars clutching feast scraps." Ye Ling's smile honed to stiletto sharpness. "Does moral posturing salve your... incapacities?"
The barb pierced armour. Ye Changfeng's jade-carved poise fissured—hairline cracks spreading through the regal facade. Dragon Guards shifted imperceptibly, blades whispering against scabbards as they intercepted his reflexive reach for concealed daggers.
"Cherish this ephemeral conquest," the crown prince exhaled through clenched jadeite teeth. "When autumn gales bear censorate denunciations, not even Father's indulgence will shield—"
"—my contributions to border defences?" Ye Ling flourished ledgers glowing with ill-gotten gains. "Last night's proceeds armed three frontier garrisons. Pray tell—do censors prefer barren virtue or stocked armouries?"
As the heir retreated through sneering throngs, Spring Breeze Pavilion's accountants murmured astronomical sums—profits dwarfing Chen tributes. Behind jade screens, Zhao Miao'er orchestrated looms replicating winning designs, while Lü Wu demonstrated "dynastic editions" to hyperventilating magnates.
Ye Ling sipped osmanthus wine, savouring dual victories. The crown prince's impotence now danced alongside Chen Tong's excremental infamy, while imperial vaults swelled with silver extracted from moralizing hypocrites.
Onstage, a model's diamond-caged garter snapped with calculated precision—igniting frenzied auctions. The prince smiled. Let them clutch moral pearls while emptying coffers. His revolution wore silk and drew blood like Damascus steel.
Ancestral Acclaim and the Silken Coup
"Sublime! A ballet of allure and restraint!" Prince Ling's ovation shook Spring Breeze Pavilion's rafters, his age-spotted hands clapping with leonine vigour.
"A sartorial symphony!" Prince Ming concurred, rheumy eyes glinting behind nephrite lenses. "These vestments reveal through concealment—art's highest form!" Their twin benedictions slapped Ye Changfeng's pretence like silken gauntlets.
The nonagenarian princes—survivors of four imperial successions, outliving emperors as ancient oaks outlast seasons—held court from ivory-inlaid thrones. Their sanction bore dynastic gravity; even the throne's heir dared not dispute it.
"Let treasures rain upon these Graces!" Prince Ling's decree unleashed a cascade of argent and aureate treasures. Courtesans in Ye Ling's creations shimmered like forbidden ambrosia, eclipsing rivals' moth-eaten silks. Onyx lattice bodices outdazzled brocaded satins; diamond-studded garters outpriced jade heirlooms.
Ye Ling observed with vulpine relish as noblemen's coffers haemorrhaged. "Does my esteemed brother question our forebears' connoisseurship?" he barbed, gesturing where Prince Ming pledged ancestral estates to a newly emancipated courtesan.
Ye Changfeng's mandible tightened. These living relics had spurned his overtures for decades, dismissing his concubine-born taint with the scorn reserved for gilded dross. Now they lavished praise on his baseborn sibling's carnal enterprise!
"Our uncles' discernment remains... peerless," the crown prince conceded through jade-carved teeth, the compliment curdling like soured milk.
The spectacle's aftermath rippled through the capital. Spring Breeze Pavilion's looms hummed day and night replicating the obsidian web bodice—Prince Ling's particular fancy. Imitation peddlers sprouted like toadstools after monsoon rains, yet none approached the original's lethal elegance.
"Behold, honoured brother." Ye Ling unfurled silk scrolls depicting triumphant designs. "Vermilion gossamer charting desire's cartography, cerulean chiffon obscuring Venus's dell. Do these not kindle even your... dormant appreciations?"
Ye Changfeng's gaze lingered on platinum filigreed stockings. Memories of thirty concubines' nightly processions flashed—thirty failures to resurrect extinct embers. The heir turned away, his retreat underscored by the clangour of silver ingots filling imperial vaults.
In lamplit alcoves, Zhao Miao'er tallied profits surpassing wartime plunder. Lü Wu conducted "private exhibitions" for breathless magistrates. The Chen pleasure palaces stood desolate, their gilded halls now mausoleums of obsolete vice.
Ye Ling sipped century-old pu'er, savouring retribution's ambrosial aftertaste. Let censors clutch their moral treatises. His revolution wore spider silk and tallied treasure—each coin's chime a death knell for pretenders' ambitions.
Velvet Vipers and the Silken Coup
"A vulgar spectacle unfit for noble gazes," Crown Prince Ye Changfeng proclaimed, his disdain sharp enough to etch jade. To his court-honed sensibilities, Ye Ling's endeavours reeked of plebeian desperation.
"Yet whispers abound of Your Highness combing pleasure quarters for rare orchids," Ye Ling parried with viperous innocence. "Surely these virtuous paragons gracing your chambers weren't culled from... say, Spring Breeze Pavilion's gardens?"
The barb struck marrow-deep. Ye Changfeng's private menagerie—curated through Minister Chen's shadow networks—overflowed with courtesans reborn as "cultured companions". True nobility would've ignited political conflagrations.
"From what venomous wellspring flows this calumny?" The crown prince's tone frosted the air.
Chen Tong interposed, face contorted like a theatre demon's mask. "Prince Ling hallucinates if he imagines silk shreds can dismantle our Chen dynasty!" The Chen dominion gripped ninety percent of Great Shang's pleasure trade—their brothels doubling as espionage nexuses.
Their clash fractured as Prince Ling's mirth earthquaked through the hall. "Exquisite revelry, Young Ling!" The argent-maned royal enveloped two courtesans, their silhouettes fluid as inkbrush strokes. Attendants heaved gold-stuffed satchels at the madam—wealth sufficient to purchase provincial governance.
"These nightingales shall nest here henceforth!" The madam immolated indenture scrolls with ritualistic flair. Prince Ling's patronage rites were legend—gilded cages forged from fleeting obsessions.
"Your Highness deems this... establishment worthy?" Chen Tong's voice splintered. Half his elite patronage—Duke Cheng, Prince Min—now clinked jade cups within these insurgent walls.
"Worthy?" Prince Ling swirled wine, eyes glinting like honed daggers. "I deem it transformative."
Ye Ling bowed with mock humility as new patrons cascaded in—bluebloods who'd spurned Chen dens for weeks. Their coffers gaped for crystal-veiled corsets and scandalous "lunar communion gowns".
Behind damask screens, Zhao Miao'er chronicled another crown prince's clandestine bid for private exhibitions—his harem demands eclipsing military logistics. Lü Wu smirked, adjusting a courtesan's diamond-filigreed garter. The Chen empire of decadence crumbled stitch by silken stitch.
"Behold, august brother," Ye Ling murmured as a model undulated past in nebula-hued chiffon. "Even anchorites genuflect before Aphrodite's loom."
Ye Changfeng's ivory fan shattered. Dragon Guards materialized—not to detain but to spirit their liege from crushing defeat. The crown prince's retreating silhouette stretched like an eclipse across Spring Breeze Pavilion's gilded dawn.
Silken Defiance and the Scorned Suitor's Fall
The exodus of these gilded patrons threatened to bleed the Chen empire pale—not merely draining coffers, but severing the shadowed tributaries of intelligence that flowed through brothel corridors.
"May Your Eminences bask in ambrosial delights this eve."
Zhao Miao'er drifted through the throng on Ye Ling's arm, her laughter crystallizing envy into diamond-edged admiration.
"To possess such a jewel reflects celestial favour," crooned a white-maned marquis, rheumy gaze lingering on Miao'er's moonstone-adorned collarbones.
"This transient blossom merely reflects His Highness's solar grace," she demurred, fan fluttering like a caged lark. Her orchestrated humility stoked fascination—this legendary qin virtuoso who'd once rebuffed emperors now playing devoted muse to a disreputable prince.
"Thrice-damned serpent!" Chen Tong's snarl cleaved through pipa melodies. He shouldered past slack-jawed nobles, his complexion mottled with humiliated fury. "You spurned towers of jade from my coffers, yet simper before this gelding princeling? His vaults haemorrhage silver from this farce—soon he'll auction you to settle debts!"
Miao'er's smile remained unbroken as the madam materialized like a war junk through fog.
"Young Master conflates artistic communion with vulgar transaction," the matron intoned, phoenix hairpins trembling with restrained wrath. "Our Miao'er remains jade-virginal—to besmirch her purity profanes His Highness's enlightened patronage."
Chen Tong's ivory fan splintered. "Brothel crone moralizes? I'll see this den of iniquity—"
"—den of imperial sanction?" The matron's enamelled nails clacked. Twenty guards coalesced from lacquered shadows, knuckles scarred from breaking aristocratic noses.
The ensuing ballet of disgrace unfolded with poetic precision—Chen Tong's brocade robes tearing like rotten silk as he was hauled through moon gates, final imprecations ("You'll choke on regret!") drowned by the splash of his ungainly descent into koi ponds.
Nobles sipping osmanthus wine barely flickered eyelids at the spectacle. The Chen constellation had dimmed—their fallen patriarch Chen Huai disgraced, their spy networks crumbling like desiccated lotus pods.
"Mark how jackals turn on wounded beasts," Ye Ling murmured as Miao'er adjusted his sash of office. Before them unfurled the pavilion's new tapestry—Duke Cheng pledging ancestral estates for "nocturnal consultations", Prince Min auctioning military seals for backstage passage.
Behind cinnabar screens, Lü Wu tallied profits that mocked mortal arithmetic. The Chen pleasure-domes stood as mausoleums of obsolete vice, while Spring Breeze Pavilion's coffers swelled with silver wrested from moralists' sweating palms.
As dawn's first rays gilded abacus beads, Ye Ling traced Miao'er's jawline—a caress both tender and interrogative. "Your performance tonight could shame palace tragedians."
Her laughter chimed like wind-bells veiling typhoon warnings. "Do all pawns in Your Highness's chess merit such encomiums?"
The prince's smile honed to scimitar sharpness. "Only those who dance willingly toward oblivion's precipice."
Beyond vermilion gates, Chen Tong's sodden figure slunk through alleyways, curses seeding plans for vengeance. Yet even his hatred had become negotiable tender in Ye Ling's economy—a dark investment accruing compound interest in chaos's fertile soil.
Celestial Supremacy and the Waning Crescent
Ye Changfeng observed the capricious undulations of influence with gall surging through his gullet, the acrid verity of political transience materializing through abandoned tea services and vanished courtier shadows. Ye Ling now blazed as the celestial heliosphere above Great Shang's throne city, his incandescence reducing erstwhile luminaries to smothered stardust.
Within the Humble Prince's demesne, Lü Wu flitted between columns of numerals like a silk-winged lepidopteran, hypnotized by vellum scrolls. "Our maiden conquest yields diurnal commissions surpassing myriad taels in silken finery," she intoned, her cadence unshaken by stellar arithmetic.
Ye Ling's fingertips grazed gilt-edged folios, the cloying musk of inkwells and vaulting ambition congealing the chamber's atmosphere. "Adequate," he conceded, though his vision already pierced veils of temporal gain.
"Spring Breeze Pavilion's tributaries swell our coffers with a centum millennium diurnally," she appended, exposing revenues that rendered Chen's antiquated pleasure-domes obsolete by twenty magnitudes. The numerals murmured of damask insurrections—where alabaster undergarments and lunar-revelry vestments had morphed into armaments surpassing blades.
"Procure emporiums along Vermilion Phoenix Promenade," Ye Ling decreed, his psyche already spinning fresh arachnid strategems. "We shall erect private melos chambers with rotating hetaira-symphonies, immersive fratricide enigmas where clues nestle in lacework, and lycanthropic charades where truths emerge through paramours' half-truths."
Lü Wu's stylus hovered above papyrus. "These... enterprises..."
"Shall transmute Chen's decrepit seraglios into funerary vaults," he concluded. Though the paradigms confounded, seasons observing Ye Ling's Midasian caperings transforming lunacy into bullion had annealed her resolve.
"Legates from foreign thrones approach for the decennial convocation," Ye Ling continued, envisioning caravansaries burdened with outlandish specie. "Their coffers shall engorge our vaults while propagating Great Shang's cultural ascendancy. This necessitated Chen Huai's expulsion from the Fiscus—no longer shall imperial tributaries be syphoned into private cisterns."
Meanwhile, Ye Changfeng submerged his disgrace in bacchanalian purgatory. Five dozen concubines—Chen Tong's frantic tribute—undulated within his privy pavilion like orchards of interdicted persea blooms. Nephrite limbs glimmered beneath sinuous incense braziers, their attar-drenched susurri ("Celestial Highness...") curdling into jeers as his regal sceptre rebelled against ascension.
The cosmos' cruellest jape unfolded in tenebrist tableaux: satin-draped femoral curves framing sterile fury, carmine labia osculating vacant ether. Where Ye Ling's dominion metastasized through calibrated enticements of commerce, Ye Changfeng's atavistic allurements crumbled into ludicrous mummery.
As selenic rays argentated Humble Prince Manor's cartographic schemata, twin sovereigns of concupiscence waged celestial war—one erecting carnal constellations to occlude the daystar, the other disintegrating within his own waning penumbra.
To be continuous…