Chapter 9: Golden Pincers and Venomous Whispers
"The Son of Heaven himself feasts on these aquatic terrors?" A townsman stammered, clutching his woven bamboo hat.
"Terrors? Nay, *pángxiè*!" Minister Fang Yan admonished with scholastic fervour, his jade girdle pendants chiming as he brandished a severed claw. "Epicurean manna from heaven!"
Behind crimson-lacquered gates, Ye Changfeng's fury stewed. "Muster the astrologers and hydraulic overseers!" he seethed, shattering a celadon teacup against courtyard murals. "This crustacean carnival concludes ere dawn!"
Within the Golden Crustacean's kitchens, cleavers pirouetted through aromatic smog as apprentices hauled bamboo crates brimming with armoured captives from riverine depths.
"Five thousand taels graced our coffers today!" The silver-maned steward cackled, abacus beads clattering like summer hail. "The river's scourge transmutes to liquid gold!"
Ling Ye's finger traced ledger entries glowing like sacrificial blood. "Triple procurement—but leave riparian folk fair recompense." His gaze narrowed. "Let rivals ape elementary preparations. Sow whispers of intestinal ruptures from sloppy cleaning. Circulate warnings of persimmon-induced agonies."
The steward's brow creased. "But our culinary secrets—"
"Supremacy lies not in obscurity, but in excellence." Ling Ye's grin frosted the steam-cloaked chamber. "Let plebeians gorge on bland carapaces while aristocrats crave *our* chili-crusted symphonies. Only when every hovel reeks of boiled chitin shall these aquatic devils vanish."
A tumult erupted—a soot-streaked scullion prostrating through ginger-scented fog. "Cataclysm, my lords! The western wharves—"
"Master your tremors!" the steward thundered. "Would you fracture cosmic harmony with base hysteria?"
The novice quivered, brine-crusted hands clutching a bamboo missive. "Nightsoil gatherers report… the crustaceans… they swarm the granary moats!"
Ling Ye's mirth cascaded through spice-laden air. "Nature's jape! Our banquet beckons reinforcements!" His hand closed about a twitching specimen, its pincers clicking impotently against imperial yellow silk. "Double the cauldrons—let the deluge become our feast!"
Beyond lattice shadows, Ye Changfeng's agents dissolved into lantern-gilded alleys, their venom phials clinking counterpoint to cleavers' relentless rhythm.
Vinous Stratagems and Empire's Libation
"Cataclysm! Every vintner in the capital withholds their ambrosial streams!" The apprentice's voice fractured like sun-baked clay.
Ling Ye's fingertips drummed a portentous staccato upon sandalwood. "The Chen tendrils strangle even Dionysus' bounty," he mused, inhaling conspiracy amidst vinous vapours.
The steward's dewlaps quivered. "Their monopoly on Bacchanalian guilds leaves us averse. Our cellars ebb to ten dawns' measure—a banquet's skeleton clad in desert robes."
Ling's mirth shattered despair's shroud. "Monoliths crumble when new fountains surge!" His gaze alighted on Lü Wu's alabaster fingers proffering peeled muscat globes—translucent orbs glimmering like Persephone's ransom.
"Grapes…" The prince's inhalation bore revelation's gravity. "Gaia's cheat code to nectar!"
Lü Wu recoiled as from Medusa's gaze, the fruit cascading in languid tragedy. "Your Celestial Highness… grapes?"
"Not mere fruit—*oenological insurrection*!" Ling clasped her jade wrists, eyes conflagrant. "While rivals steep rice in lunar cycles, we'll conjure muscat elixir in six heliacal risings! A libation to sanctify crustacean revels!"
Aurora unveiled frenetic alchemy. Master Lu's smiths wrought copper serpents—Promethean coils to hijack fermentation's tide. Orchards capitulated hecatombs of swollen grapes, their saccharine whispers merging with Ling's mantras over amphorae.
"Let Chen's rice swill fester in tradition's bog," Ling decreed, sampling the primal effervescence. "Our vintage shall inebriate continents!"
In subterranean vaults, chilli stockpiles swelled like Typhon's hoard. Cassia and star anise marshalled as spice legions. Lü Wu witnessed the maelstrom, trepidation transmuting to veneration.
"Divine Prince", she ventured, "does this vinous alchemy eclipse crustacean riches?"
Ling's smile outshone Damascus blades. "Crabs gild coffers—*wine conquers palates*. Let Chen gag on rice gruel while our muscat ichor flows to Chu's barbaric halls! Their bullion shall forge our phalanxes!"
Beyond cinnabar gates, Chen spies scuttled through wynds, their frantic missives ignored by guildlords tallying stagnant lucre. The revolution's aromatic miasma already permeated capital ramparts—muscat and ambition's intoxicant heralding monopoly's crepuscule.
The Grape Gambit
At the teahouse across from the Golden Crab Tower, Chen Huai proudly presented his "masterpiece" of sabotage to Ye Changfeng over the past few days.
"Your Highness, rest assured—his tavern sold out all its liquor last night!" Chen Huai declared with smug confidence. "Without my permission, no one in the capital dares to sell wine to Ye Ling. A tavern without wine is nothing!"
"Ye Ling is cunning. Are you certain he didn't procure liquor from some hidden corner?" Ye Changfeng sipped his tea, his gaze fixed on the bustling Golden Crab Tower across the street. *This fool Ye Ling thinks opening a tavern and selling crabs will resolve the monster crisis? Delusional!* Today, he vowed to crush that tavern.
"Your Highness, my men have been stationed at every city gate, monitoring all incoming shipments of alcohol," Chen Huai growled. "Any wine with unclear origins, I've had the barrels smashed in secret. This matter is too critical. If any wine merchant dares defy the guild's rules, I'll make them regret crossing me!"
Chen Huai had invested heavily in this scheme. But if Ye Changfeng ascended to the throne, every sacrifice would be worth it.
"Uncle's planning is flawless, as always," Ye Changfeng replied with a honeyed tone, his smile warm and approving.
"Your Highness need not be so courteous—"
Before Chen Huai could finish, the Golden Crab Tower erupted with the booming shouts of a waiter:
"Golden Crab Tower's newest offering—**grape wine**!"
"**Pairs perfectly with spicy crab!**"
"**Half-price wine with every spicy crab order!**"
*Grape wine? What nonsense is this?
Ye Changfeng and Chen Huai froze. They had blocked every avenue for Ye Ling to *buy* alcohol—but never considered he might *brew* his own! Of course, ordinary brewing took weeks, so the thought hadn't crossed their minds.
The Golden Crab Tower's waiters didn't just shout—they handed out free samples in tiny cups, letting the crowd taste the strange crimson liquid.
At first, patrons hesitated at the wine's unusual colour. But the sweet, fruity aroma of grapes soon won them over.
After a short while, a bold customer took a sip.
"Hmm… it's got the tang of grapes and a mellow warmth. Smooth, not too harsh. Not bad!"
"Red wine? Made from grapes?" someone at a neighbouring table exclaimed.
"Let me try a cup!"
Curiosity spread like wildfire. By the time the crowd surged toward the waiters, peer pressure took hold. *If everyone's buying, why not?
Within half an hour, five hundred bottles of grape wine sold out.
*No wine at the Golden Crab Tower? Impossible!* From now on, grape wine would be one of its signature offerings.
"What a brilliant plan, Uncle!" Ye Changfeng spat, his earlier cordiality replaced by icy fury.
"Your Highness… Who could have guessed the Humble Prince knew how to brew wine?" Chen Huai stammered, his confidence crumbling.
The Emperor's Vintage
"Was Ye Ling not once a feckless wretch? How has he metamorphosed into an entirely altered being overnight?"
As Ye Changfeng seethed, a guardsman—disguised as a commoner—returned bearing a vial of grape wine procured from the Golden Crab Tower.
"What tardiness befell you in fetching this trifling flask?" Ye Changfeng hissed, seizing the moment to vent his rancour.
"Your Highness, the tavern teemed with patrons—doubled in number today by the allure of this novel vintage," the guard stammered, oblivious to how each word deepened the storm upon his lord's visage.
At his side, Chen Huai decanted the garnet-hued wine into a chalice, its sanguine depths mirroring Ye Changfeng's contorted reflection.
"Your Highness," Chen Huai purred, swirling the goblet with serpentine grace, "I conceive a stratagem to ensure not a thimble of the Humble Prince's brew shall grace another lip."
---
Within the Taiji Hall, Emperor Shang—having dispatched his ministerial missives—relished the primal ritual of dismantling a crab with imperial fingers.
*The pleasure lies not in the meat but in the conquest of the carapace,* he mused, heedless of his attendants' fluttering hands, poised to stanch any royal blood spilt by errant claws.
"How prospers my sixth son's culinary enterprise?" The sovereign enquired, savouring a morsel of briny flesh anointed in piquant sauce.
"Majesty, the Humble Prince's establishment flourishes beneath your vermilion brushstrokes. Each dawn sees viands vanish ere noon," a eunuch simpered.
"And the Chen cabal?" The emperor's tone frosted the air.
Well acquainted with Chen Guifei's machinations and Ye Changfeng's viperous temperament, the throne stayed its hand only for political necessity. Were the Chen clan's roots less deep, Chen Huai's plot to frame a prince with displaced souls would have reaped not mere demotion but a dynasty's extinction.
"The Chens severed the tavern's libations… Yet whispers suggest the sixth prince has conjured a remedy," the eunuch ventured, proffering a crystalline carafe from Ye Ling.
"This vessel—blown by the Humble Prince's own redesigned kiln, its form unique as phoenix tears—was wrought solely for Your Majesty's nectar," the eunuch intoned, echoing the prince's exactitudes.
Sunlight fractured through the glass, setting the wine's vermilion heart aflame—a hue as audacious as the emperor's own youth, when he'd galloped through the jade gates of Chang'an, drunk on dominion.
*Grape wine in night's own cup…* The memory of Western Regions' envoys flooded him—their caravans once heavy with tribute when Great Shang's banners flew from desert to sea. Now Chu's shadow dimmed those glory roads, leaving only moth-eaten silks in imperial coffers.
"Retrieve the twin luminous chalices from the thirtieth-year Western tribute," the emperor commanded, voice thick with bygone splendour. *Might this son reforge the broken annals of Shang ere I join my ancestors?
The eunuch had scarce bowed when Ye Changfeng and the Chief Astrologer erupted into the hall, their haste a blade through the emperor's reverie.
"What fresh vexation is this?" The sovereign abandoned his half-cracked crustacean. His stolen moment of bliss—fiery crab paired with filial wine—lay shattered by the heir's ill-timed trespass. *Must the crown's weight ever choke simple joys?*
Scarlet Skies and Sovereign's Ire
"The Prince of Xu proclaims the affair imperils Great Shang's very foundations and entreats immediate imperial counsel," the eunuch intoned with servile resignation. He had dared to probe, but Ye Changfeng—swaddled in Consort Chen's influence—deigned not to enlighten a menial.
"Remove these remnants and admit them," Emperor Shang decreed, mourning his congealing crustacean. *A feast murdered by haste.
"This unworthy son prostrates before the Dragon Throne," Ye Changfeng declaimed, performing the ritual kowtow.
*My equanimity fled upon your shadow,* the emperor's thoughts snarled.
"Declare your purpose," the sovereign growled, his gaze twin blades honed on the petitioners.
"Imperial Father… this calamity… it entwines itself with Sixth Imperial Brother…" Ye Changfeng lamented with counterfeit hesitance, prodding the Chief Astrologer forth like a sacrificial lamb.
"Well?" The emperor's eyebrow arched like a drawn bowstring.
"Divine Majesty", the astrologer quavered, "these three nights past, I have witnessed the moon's pallor stained vermilion—a baleful sign conjoined with the Malevolent Star's ascendant trajectory. This cosmic dissonance resonates with the Humble Prince's trade in wine, crimson as freshly spilt lifeblood! The symbology portends cataclysm!"
"The rabble already murmur of 'altar offerings' peddled through capital streets," Ye Changfeng interposed, venom honeyed. "Should this profanity persist, the Mandate of Heaven itself may fissure!"
"Father!" The prince clasped jewelled hands in pantomimed entreaty. "I implore clemency for Sixth Brother's green years and astrological illiteracy!"
"Though Prince of Xu's mercy becomes him," the astrologer keened, "the celestial spheres thunder condemnation! To show forbearance now would be to court Heaven's wrath upon our realm!"
Their macabre symphony of slander wove lunar stains and vinous hues into treason's tapestry—until Emperor Shang's fist closed about his jade teacup and launched it at the star-reader's brow.
Crash!
"Ai-ya! August Sovereign—!" The man collapsed, steaming rivulets etching crimson trails down his cheeks.
"What scholar of antiquity claims ignorance of Dionysian arts?" The emperor's wrath shook palace beams. "Western emissaries bore grape nectar to our courts when your grandfather suckled at wet-nurse breasts! To name this ambrosia 'haemorrhage-drink', you charlatan and fool!"
The Chief Astrologer's wild gaze sought Ye Changfeng, finding only princely shoulders raised in hapless shrug—neither spawn of that bygone era of wine-stained diplomacy.
"Persist in this astrological buffoonery," the emperor's voice dropped to glacial timbre, "and your cranium shall adorn the Bureau's gate as a warning to superstitious minds."
As fractured silence reigned, a eunuch shuffled forth bearing twin chalices that drank moonlight. "Celestial Majesty, the luminous cups from the Western tribute…" His voice faltered before the throne's tempest. *What fresh venom does the Xu Prince spew now?
"Convey these to the Golden Crab Tower," the emperor proclaimed. "By Imperial Word: The Humble Prince's vintage gladdens the Son of Heaven's palate. Let him toast his craft with cups kissed by history."
"But Imperial Father—!" Ye Changfeng's protest withered as the sovereign uncorked Ye Ling's vintage, imbibing long and slow before him—a monarch's mute judgement, swallowed with the relish of vindication.
Imperial Endorsement and Princely Feud
Ye Changfeng's cheeks blazed with searing humiliation. Though the teacup had spared his flesh, Emperor Shang's deliberate spectacle—ostentatiously relishing Ye Ling's vintage while shaming his detractors—felt like an imperial boot heel grinding his honour to dust.
The ambrosial vintage cascaded down the imperial throat, its saccharine notes interlaced with adolescent fervour, evoking the emperor's own tempestuous youth. *This son echoes this dragon's own rebellious springtide,* Emperor Shang reflected, contemplating how Ye Ling's enterprises might soon fracture the Chen cabal's fiscal dominion over the court.
A eunuch's reedy proclamation shrilled through the tavern's din: **"By Heaven's Mandate, the Son of Heaven Declares:** This establishment's grape nectar gladdens the Imperial palate. We confer twin luminous chalices to commemorate its artistry!"
"This undeserving son kowtows before celestial munificence!" Ye Ling prostrated with his stewards, positioning the radiant vessels amidst gilded crab carapaces. As the eunuch withdrew, the prince slipped two crystal flagons into vermilion sleeves.
"Your Highness honours this lowly worm beyond merit," the castrato fawned, secreting the libations before murmuring of Ye Changfeng's aborted calumny.
Ye Ling's fingertips brushed the chalices' moonlit filigree—*a sovereign's bulwark against venomous intrigues.*
Patrons' whispers swelled like tidewaters:
"The *Celestial Dragon* imbibes this draught?"
"Crimson libations, they warned—poppycock! Nattering jackanapes!"
"Decant another amphora! Let my tongue taste celestial draughts!"
Seizing providence's cue, Ye Ling proclaimed, "In tribute to Heaven's bestowed favour, all wines hence bear twenty percent clemency this day! Moreover, henceforth, each crustacean banquet shall include twin ewers of Dionysian bounty!"
Ye Changfeng manifested like a vengeful wraith, jade fan aflutter. "Sixth Brother's coffers must brim daily with vulgar lucre. But does celestial blood deign to pick paupers' purses?"
Diners stiffened, brine-dripped claws suspended mid-air. The indictment lingered—*azure-blooded leech draining common veins.*
Ye Ling's smile gleamed like honed Damascus steel. "Modest trifles compared to Elder Brother's coffers, swollen by Chen's mercantile octopus. While half the capital's wealth slithers into your coffers, my mere mites fund hydraulic salvation."
A grizzled fisherman smashed his tankard amidst thickening silence: "My brother's bones bleach in last autumn's flood channels! Let princelings bicker—I'll toast any son of heaven who mends our drowning rivers!"
The tavern erupted in carousing clamour, Ye Changfeng's poisoned barb dissolving in wine-soaked pragmatism.
Mask of Brotherhood and Machiavellian Currents
Chen Huai's countenance stiffened behind Ye Changfeng, his composure fracturing like aged lacquer. *This insipid wretch Ye Ling dares lay bare the Chen clan's coffers before common rabble?* The insolence scalded his throat like molten lead.
"Noble patrons all," Ye Ling declaimed, palms uplifted in benediction, "these armoured scourges overrun our waterways, drowning humble livelihoods. This unworthy venture exists not for lucre but as a celestial mandate—each crustacean sold resurrects flooded hamlets!"
The assembly swelled with righteous zeal. A fishwife bellowed, "Ten bushels for my sister's drowned children!" while literati dipped brushes in ink, composing paeans to this princely saviour.
"Sixth Brother's tongue could transmute offal into ambrosia," Ye Changfeng remarked, his fan's flutter belying serpentine calm. Chen Huai hissed through clenched teeth, "Never have I witnessed vice so artfully masquerading as virtue."
A censor's venomous whisper infiltrated the fervor: "The Humble Prince pilfered Prince Xu's betrothed… they say even this tavern's beams were bought with purloined silver…" The slander spread like ink on rice paper, transmuting reverence into curled lips—precisely as statecraft treatises prescribe for dismantling rivals.
Ye Ling parried with guileless candour: "Elder Brother's vaults burst with Chen-mined gold, yet he begrudges even copper mites here? Where flows fraternal charity?"
The barb struck marrow. Compelled to salvage decorum, Ye Changfeng slammed a silver sycee upon the table—"Serve your lordliest fare!"—only for Ye Ling to chuckle, "Does Brother mistake my kitchens for paupers' gruel-house? This pittance scarce purchases claw tips."
"Ye Ling!" The prince's roar set hanging lanterns trembling. "Presume not thrones render you inviolate!"
"Brother misapprehends," Ye Ling countered with mocking obeisance. "I but heed imperial wisdom—'Let princes cloak daggers in silken courtesies, yet keep scabbards ever near.'"
As Chen Huai ushered his seething master from the fray, Ye Ling raised his chalice to murmuring censors: "Drink deep, noble friends! Tomorrow's ballads thirst for tonight's vintage!" The crowd's mirth drowned lingering doubts—a masterstroke of theatrics where every gesture concealed stratagems, and each sip brewed fresh conspiracies.
Decapodal Stratagems and Matrimonial Intrigues
Chen Huai departed the Golden Crab Tower in Ye Changfeng's shadow, his gaze lingering upon the edifice as venomous inspiration struck. *Ye Ling, you presume crustacean dominion grants immunity? In the mercantile coliseum of the capital, the Chen lineage knows no conqueror.
Three dawns hence, triune rumours infested the city's veins:
1. The Golden Crab Tower proclaimed lavish crustacean acquisitions—five gleaming taels per jute-burdened sack.
2. A legion of taverns sprouted crab-laden menus, their prices slashing Ye Ling's tariffs like poachers' blades.
3. The Prince of Xu would bind Lady Fu in matrimonial chains within seven sunsets—nuptial theatre masking fiscal warfare.
The inaugural manoeuvre had gestated in Ye Ling's mind since claiming his aquatic fiefdom. At five taels per harvest, profits flowed like monsoon rivers while transforming riverbank paupers into armoured entrepreneurs. "Let the flood's curse become their coffers' blessing," he'd decreed, circumventing officialdom's torpor.
"Celestial Highness," a server panted beneath crab-laden burdens, "riparian folk now domesticate these armoured fiends. Though legion in number, they hoard them as misers clutch gold."
The seneschal's brow furrowed at dwindling crustacean proportions. "Distant waters must now be plundered for worthy specimens," he fretted. "Our rivals ape culinary arts—clumsy forgeries, yet their copper-thrift syphons patrons."
Ye Ling's laughter cascaded like summer thunder. "Thus crabs ascend to gastronomic sovereignty!"
"Divine Prince, you…" The steward scrutinised him, fearing mercantile rout had unseated reason.
"What cause for trepidation?" Ye Ling's eyes glimmered with arachnid anticipation. "Elevate our procurement to eight taels per armoured haul."
"Eight celestial taels?!" The steward's jowls quivered. "Our granaries burst with chitinous surplus! To acquire more—"
"Precisely the calculus." Ye Ling silenced him, savouring the approaching tempest. *Let the Chen leviathan haemorrhage argent to match our bids. Each squandered tale becomes a stiletto' against their jugular.
Beyond, nuptial vermilion bathed the capital—a sanguine masque obscuring the true war waged in crab-infested alleys and ledger-lined trenches. The prince's bridal cortege would traverse avenues reeking of steamed carapaces, its opulence dwarfed by the silent carnage of abacuses and ambition.
Exoskeletal Economics and Siegecraft
To hoard such copious crustacean quantities strained coffers; to let mortality claim them squandered treasure. Even princely vaults could ill endure such haemorrhaging—or so the seneschal's furrowed brow proclaimed.
"Set thy heart at ease," Ye Ling consoled, his palm imprinting resolve upon the steward's sloped shoulder. "These armoured legions' worth shall transcend eight taels' paltry measure." *When rapacious harvests render them rarer than phoenix plumes, their valuation shall rival celestial jade.
"Eight lunar taels?!" Ye Changfeng's porcelain cup shattered against marble. "The demented oaf courts fiscal ruin!"
Chen Huai's lips curled like scorched parchment. "Let the simpleton exsanguinate argent rivers. The Chen vaults could purchase carapaces at centennial taels and still entomb him beneath economic avalanches!"
The Chief Astrologer—silent partner in Chen's culinary empire—murmured dissent: "Our establishments vend crustacean fare at half his tariffs. As procurement gilds each sack, profits evaporate like morning dew."
"Profit?" Chen Huai's chuckle echoed through ancestral halls. "Ye Ling's disgrace shall be our dividend. His bankrupt tavern will make splendid stables for Xu Palace's steeds."
Their conspiracy unfurled: galvanise flood-ravaged hinterlands to deluge Ye Ling with chitinous bounty. "Let every rivulet from Yunnan to Liaodong disgorge armoured hordes upon him!" Chen Huai exulted. "His coffers shall founder beneath exoskeletal tides!"
Meanwhile, the Golden Crab Tower's courtyards birthed mountainous sacks, their clattering crescendo drowning stewards' lamentations. Ye Ling surveyed the hoard with an alchemist's glee. "Magnificent! Triple our acquisitions! Let every estuary from Minjiang to Pearl River disinherit their crustacean heirs!"
"Celestial Highness", the steward implored, "our granaries burst beyond—"
"Surplus?" Ye Ling's smile mirrored tiger eyes before pounce. "At dawn, proclaim we shall render excess to medicinal unguents and agrarian elixirs. When Western merchants pay rubies for aphrodisiac powders brewed from Chen's 'generosity', let our rivals' tears salt the Yangtze!"
As nuptial silks shrouded the capital, an inscrutable war raged—waged not with blades but abacus beads, where armoured battalions bore not standards but pincers, triumph reserved for whichever combatant could most artfully drown their foe in aqueous paradox: vending floodwaters to the drowning.
Exoskeletal Exports and Regal Ruses
"Celestial Highness, this surfeit defies prudent commerce!" The seneschal's brow remained creased with fiscal consternation. Even anticipating valuation ascensions, stockpiling ephemeral crustaceans transgressed mercantile orthodoxy.
"These armoured legions' vitality ebbs by the clepsydra's drip," Ye Ling decreed, scrutinizing freshly harvested carapaces. "Marshal every culinary acolyte—transmute them into ambrosial conserves within hermetical amphorae ere night's obsidian mantle descends!"
His alchemical innovation—chilli-steeped crustaceans entombed in glazed urns—promised preservation across solstices, destined for Chu's opulent tables and barbarian kingdoms beyond. While provincial rivals scrapped over tavern dominance, Ye Ling's vision spanned cartographic frontiers. *Let gnats battle over puddles; leviathans shall rule tidal empires.
"Doubt not," the steward avowed. "Two dozen culinary savants stand arrayed—virtuosos winnowed by three decades' discernment from this unworthy judge of gastronomic merit."
"Thy sagacity ever illuminates the darkest ledgers," Ye Ling concurred, accelerating the preservation crusade. *Chu's merchant princes salivate for exotic relishes—let chitinous emissaries line foreign coffers!
As twilight gilded the capital in Midas' touch, Ye Ling approached the Vernal Delights Pavilion—a brothel where Chu's velvet-clad envoys awaited. His reverie drifted to Zhao Ling'er, the absconded princess whose royal bedchamber warmth remained unconquered. *A regal concubine lost—though tonight's prey may yield sweeter conquests.
In an upper sanctum perfumed with musk and conspiracy, Zhao Miao'er—masquerading as courtesan Zhao Miaor—traced a crab's dorsal ridge with vermillion-tipped fingernails. "This pallid princeling bested my sister's machinations?" Her laughter cascaded like shattered crystal. "More scholar than warlord, I'll wager."
Since Princess Zhao Ling'er's calamitous rout at Yanhu Mountain, Miao'er had infiltrated Shang's underbelly as its most coveted hetaera. Now retribution donned silk and saffron.
"Divine Princess", a merchant-knight entreated, "this fox-spirit prince unravelled our kingdom's cunningest webs. Behind crustacean barter lurk deeper stratagems."
Miao'er's gaze sharpened like honed dao blades. "Do you think I'd confront him sword-naked? Let honeyed whispers be my scabbard, dulcet lies my tempered steel."
As Ye Ling crossed the threshold, twin Chu magnates—Lord An Mu-tai and Viscount An Mu-xin—proffered obeisances steeped in mercantile theatrics. "One celestial tael per sanctified urn," the elder proclaimed sans courtly prelude. "Your spiced carapaces shall adorn Chu's imperial symposia."
Ye Ling's smile deepened like twilight shadows. *Let them presume this mere commodity exchange. The true duel commences when royal asp meets princely mongoose—in a garden of silken snares.*
Auric Haggling and Siren's Whispers
"One celestial tael per amphora?" Ye Ling's pulse quickened—each vessel's crafting cost scarcely grazed a silver tael, promising profits to shame Croesus.
"Two taels," the prince parried.
Liu Ren, his steward, suppressed a gasp. *Two? The princeling demands dragon-hoard prices for armored invertebrates!
"Two?" An Mu-xin's weathered visage flushed claret. "Your tavern peddles platters for copper mites! What sorcery warrants this larceny?"
Ye Ling's smile gleamed like damascened steel. "Our alchemical preserves guard flavour through six moon cycles—perfection for camel caravans. Grovel for a cheaper fare, but ponder: Will rancid cargo line Chu's ducal coffers?"
The brothers exchanged weighted glances. An Mu-tai rumbled, "One lunar tael and half—final tribute. We'll assay these preserves' endurance."
*Deception,* Liu Ren fumed inwardly. *They'd never parley without prior assurance.
"Accorded." Ye Ling sealed the covenant for fifteen thousand urns—a sovereign's ransom in crustacean transmutation.
As merchants retreated, argent chimes shimmered through opium-scented air.
"Miao'er descends!"
The throng converged upon the central dais where a veiled vision materialized. Amethyst dewdrops quivered where diaphanous silks caressed alabaster curves; bare feet, adorned with chiming anklets, imprinted rose petals in trance-inducing cadence. Her serpentine waist undulated beneath translucent gauze, each undulation distilling reason into primal hunger.
"A concubine fit for Jade Emperors," Ye Ling mused, chalice forgotten. "What mortal spurns such ambrosia?"
The dance dissolved like morning mist. Miao'er's retreating silhouette left noblemen agape, their yearning trailing her like incense tendrils.
"She dances but a single nocturne," a wine-slurred voice mourned. "Three enigmas guard her chambers—unsolved since her crescent-moon arrival."
Liu Ren whispered urgently, "The An brethren fled mid-revelry. Prudent men shun Zhao Miao'er's labyrinth."
Ye Ling's gaze clung to vacant stairs. "Prudence suits merchants, not princes. Since when do dragons fear riddles when thrones await claiming?"
Aloft in scented chambers, Miao'er lifted her veil—a visage echoing Princess Zhao Ling'er's beauty, yet honed to lethal allure. "Let the crab alchemist unravel my puzzles," she purred, quill poised above venom-laced parchment. "His gold shall gild Chu's retribution."
In the brothel's catacombs, An Mu-tai tallied abacus beads. "Fifteen thousand vessels to infest Chu's harbours. When preserves fester, Shang's honour rots alongside."
His sibling's grin mirrored a hungering jackal. "Let Ye Ling bathe in illusory triumph. The Chen coffers ensure our 'tainted' wares breed epidemics!"
The snare constricted—crustaceans transmuted from currency to plague, ballroom pageantry veiling poniard intrigues. Yet as his carriage clattered toward chitinous stockpiles, Ye Ling hummed a drinking ditty. *Let vermin scheme; celestial dragons prosper through every gambit.*
The Gambit of Blossoms and Riddles
"This maiden's radiance eclipses the moon itself!" Ye Ling cast the signed parchment toward Liu Ren with a flourish. "Hold your ground. When I unravel this labyrinth of words, that living jade shall adorn my manor's innermost sanctum!"
For what is mortal existence but twin siren calls—the clink of golden ambition and the whisper of silken temptation? To breathe without Aphrodite's incarnate sighing at one's shoulder? Better to haunt the underworld as a wraith.
"Hear me, moth-eaten procurer—I require Miaor's presence!" Ye Ling's boots struck the lacquered dais like war drums. Memory's phantom fingers tightened about his throat—this coin-gorged Medusa had milked his former self dry, leaving naught but empty coffers and colder sheets. Small marvel that venom now pulsed where blood should flow.
*Minor?
The madam's rouge-cracked lips parted like a rusted hinge. Was this not the crown's wayward comet, whose trajectory was once charted solely between brothel chambers? The very profligate whose legend still adorned the Pavilion of Veiled Desires' gossip scrolls? That this spent arrow now sought to pierce Miaor's fabled armour?
Mockery's poison seeped through the hall—from silk-clad libertines to pearl-adorned courtesans, all teeth gleamed sharp.
"Most August Prince of Modesty…" A voice oozed from the shadows, honeyed yet corrosive, "Though your veins run azure, Miaor answers neither sceptre nor seal. Retreat lest your dignity haemorrhage further."
"Truth's own hammer strikes! Even Prince An retreated, red-faced, from her riddles' gauntlet!" another crowd, goblet sloshing crimson witness.
Prince An—the living relic whose birth predated the Emperor's by three dawns yet claimed seniority through royal womb-lottery—a fact rendering the taunt doubly barbed: *let no coronet blind you to your fragility.
"Your Eminence," the madam grovelled, her ceruse-painted face crumbling like ancient fresco, "'tis not defiance, but Miaor's covenant with the muses—none may bask in her aura without first wrestling her Sphinx." Yet her eyes glittered, twin stilettos sheathed in glycerine tears.
"**Miaor. Unveiled. Now." Ye Ling's decree carried the metallic tang of a blade leaving its scabbard.
"Must I inscribe this edict upon your tombstone? Fetch the oracles!" Liu Ren's roar shook lotus-shaped lanterns, their trembling light painting quicksilver fury on his face.
*Insects daring to measure the dragon's breath?* The retainer's knuckles whitened. Two lunar cycles past, he'd have sooner licked leper's sores than guard this "princeling of dissipation". Yet having charted Ye Ling's chessmaster mind behind closed doors—watching common clay transformed to porcelain through sheer will—he now knew: a harlot's wordplay would shatter like a Ming vase under a peasant's club.
"Madam Wu, let the scrolls unfurl! Let logic's merciless tide drown this arrogance!" A voice jeered from velvet darkness—Chen Tong, the Revenue Minister's spawn and eternal mooncalf to Miaor's unattainable glow. Scion of Ye Ling's mortal enemy, he leaned forward, a jackal scenting bloodied linen.
"Your Eminence…" The madam's clawed hands performed an aria of false torment: "Our garden blooms with peonies aching for your touch—why court the orchid that thrives on glaciers?"
**"Miaor. Or ashes."** The prince's interruption fell like an executioner's shadow.
"You flay this humble servant's mortal coil!" The madam wailed toward the rafters while her soul sneered, Let the peacock preen until his feathers combust!*
Silk whispered its own conspiracy as a maid descended—a moth bearing cryptic pollen. Lips brushed the madam's ear: "The phoenix relents. He may face the first trial."
"Behold! Olympus' gates creak for mortal feet!" Chen Tong's laughter dripped with hemlock sweetness. "Even gutter-born royalty reeks of privilege. How... democratic of our ice-bound muse."
The hall erupted in serpentine mirth, its coils tightening around the dais—a living trap awaiting its prey.
The Poetic Crucible
Chunfeng Ruyi Lou simmered with malice, its air thick with scorn-laden taunts from Ye Ling's "familiar faces", all relishing the prince's imminent downfall.
"Your Eminence," Madam Wu simpered, fluttering her peony-embroidered kerchief, "our Miaor's covenant requires three poetic trials ere her veil lifts."
Twin maids unveiled a silk scroll, its vermilion ink proclaiming:
*"The Seven Luminaries of the North—waters embrace celestial reflections fourteenfold."
"Who fathomed Miaor's genius transcends dance and visage?" Chen Tong's slack-jawed gaze clung to the stairwell's emptiness, spittle glistening on his brocade collar. "Each couplet she births is a celestial pearl!"
To his sycophants, he hissed, "Dispatch riders to every scholar's hovel! A thousand gold dragons to whoever stitches the matching hem!"
The hall hummed with botched attempts—scholar's sons mangling metre, merchants forcing rhymes like ill-fitted shoes. When the incense burner's sand emptied, the scroll remained inviolate.
"This trifling wordplay", Ye Ling scoffed, studying the characters, "dares masquerade as erudition?"
"Trifling?!" Chen Tong's chalice cracked against jade tiles. "Confess incompetence, you posturing peacock!"
Common men might quake before imperial blood, but not the Chen patriarch's heir—armoured by consort-kinship to the Eastern Palace.
"I merely permitted your epiphanies to gestate," Ye Ling purred, "lest complaints of haste stain my triumph tonight when Miaor warms my silken sheets."
His eyes flickered toward the shadowed alcove where amethyst robes had shimmered—conquest's fire now molten in his veins.
"Blasphemous braggart! Son of shamelessness!" Chen Tong's roar shook lotus-shaped lanterns. "Succeed, and I'll consume excrement inverted!"
"Let the Nine Heavens bear witness!" Ye Ling pivoted, his voice carving the air like a ceremonial dagger. "Chroniclers shall etch Chen Tong's feast in vermilion ink!"
"By my ancestral tablets, I swear!" Chen Tong's wine-flushed face rivalled sacrificial ox-blood. "But falter, and your knees shall kiss these filthy stones!"
"Vermin!" Liu Ren's blade sang from its scabbard, moonlight-steel grazing Chen Tong's jade pendant. "You address the Son of Heaven's blood!"
"This den of decadence recognizes no celestial mandates!" Chen Tong sneered, unblinking. "Check your dignity with your boots, *August One."
"Accepted." Ye Ling's smile could preserve glaciers. "But when victory crowns me, recall—remorse's bile outranks all excreta."
"May my lineage's tombs crumble should I recant!"
As the oath's echo faded, Ye Ling grasped the wolf-hair brush. Ink cascaded like liquid obsidian.
*"The Southern Pagoda's solitary phoenix—lunar embrace cradles twin silhouettes soaring."
Silence fell—profound, absolute.
Then—
"A cosmic pairing! Calligraphed by the Starry River's own hand!"
"Symmetry divine! Each stroke converses with its counterpart!"
The hall detonated in awe. All pupils dilated toward Chen Tong, now blanched like rice-paper funeral effigies. Even the opium haze seemed to pause, awaiting gravity's inversion.
"Plagiarized filth!" Chen Tong recoiled as from plague scrolls. "Pilfered from... from mouldering codices!"
"Y-yes! Literary banditry!" His lickspittles chorused, voices cracking like cheap celadon.
Yet their denials drowned beneath tidal laughter—the cacophony of jackals discovering their prey wears dragon scales.
To be continuous…