In the humid, plague-ridden alleys of Cangqian, there sat a shop with a sign of black lacquer and gold leaf that read: The Hall of Loving Benevolence.
It was a cruel irony. The owner, Qian Baosheng, possessed neither love nor benevolence. He was a man whom nature had marked as a warning to others. Years of debauchery in the lowest flower-boats of the canal had gifted him a virulent case of the "willow disease" (syphilis). It had ravaged his body, necessitating the amputation of his manhood and eating away the cartilage of his nose until only two dark, whistling pits remained in the center of his face.
Baosheng was a eunuch by disease rather than decree, a creature of frustrated appetites who now fed on the sins of others. He was a voyeur, a fixer, a pimp disguised as a pharmacist. He moved through the town like a spider, weaving webs of debt and blackmail.
His parents, decent people who had founded the pharmacy to heal the sick, were appalled by the monster they had raised. But Baosheng's mother, blinded by a toxic maternal devotion, had shielded him from consequences his entire life. When Baosheng decided he needed the best room in the house to entertain his wealthy "clients," he evicted his own father.
"Go to the back shed," Baosheng lisped through his ruined face, throwing his father's bedding into the dirt. "You smell of old age. My guests smell of gold."
His father wept, but his mother nodded. "He is making connections," she told her husband. "He is building the family fortune."
And indeed, Baosheng had caught a very big fish.
He had ingratiated himself with Liu Zihe, the spoiled son of the Yuhang Magistrate. It was a friendship rooted in the compost heap; Zihe needed a guide to the underworld, and Baosheng needed a patron with deep pockets and political immunity. They were the perfect symbiotic pair: the golden prince and his rotting shadow.
In the Yamen of Yuhang, preparations for the journey were underway.
Liu Zihe stood before his mother, Madam Lin, affecting the pose of a dutiful son preparing for a pilgrimage.
"The festival attracts all kinds, Mother," Zihe said, smoothing his silk sleeves. "If I am to represent Father with dignity, I cannot look like a pauper. I need... resources."
Madam Lin, the true power behind the Magistrate's seal, looked at her son. She saw the glint of boredom and hunger in his eyes. She knew he wasn't going to Cangqian to pray for the hungry ghosts. But she denied him nothing.
"Cash is vulgar," she said, opening her private vault—a red leather trunk reinforced with iron bands. "And silver is heavy. It drags down the spirit."
She reached inside and withdrew a heavy silk pouch. Inside were ten gold bars and a stack of gold leaf—twenty taels of pure, soft yellow metal.
"Gold," she whispered, pressing it into his hand. "It speaks a language everyone understands, from the magistrate to the whore. Take it. But be discreet. The river has eyes."
Zihe weighed the pouch. It felt like freedom. "You are wise, Mother," he said, kissing her hand.
He did not pack prayer beads. He packed silk robes, imported wines, and the arrogance of a man who has never heard the word "no."
The barge carrying the Young Master arrived in Cangqian on a morning thick with mist.
Baosheng was waiting on the dock. He had been preparing for days. He had scrubbed the upstairs room of the pharmacy, laid out fresh mats, and stocked the cabinet with aphrodisiacs and expensive Shaoxing wine. He needed Zihe to stay under his roof. A patron on a boat was independent; a patron in his house was a captive audience.
As the barge docked, Zihe emerged, flanked by his sycophants. He looked out at the muddy water and wrinkled his nose.
"Young Master!" Baosheng cried, bowing low so that his face was hidden. "You honor our humble mud-hole."
Zihe stepped onto the plank. "Baosheng, my friend. The air here is thick enough to chew."
"It is the crowd, Young Master. The whole province is here." Baosheng gestured to the pharmacy. "I have prepared the upper chamber for you. It is cool, private, and far from the stench of the canal."
Zihe hesitated. "The boat is comfortable..."
Baosheng moved closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial hiss. "The boat is public, Young Master. The boatmen talk. But my house... my house has a back entrance. If you wish to inspect the local... delicacies... anonymously, the Hall of Loving Benevolence is the only fortress."
Zihe smiled. The logic appealed to his vanity and his vice. "Lead on."
He ordered his servants to move his trunks—and the gold—to the pharmacy. He left his entourage on the boat to guard the empty shell, while he moved into the spider's parlor.
For two days, the Prince and the Pariah prowled the town.
The festival had turned Cangqian into a carnival of the grotesque. Stilt-walkers loomed over the crowds like wading birds; priests burned mountains of paper money that filled the air with black ash.
But Zihe was hunting different game.
He walked the streets with Baosheng, his eyes scanning the faces of the women in the crowd. He was looking for a sensation, a spark.
"Too fat," he sneered at a merchant's daughter.
"Too coarse," he dismissed a farm girl.
"Too used," he said of the women standing in the doorways of the flower shops.
Baosheng sweated in his wake. He introduced Zihe to Yayun and Ruixiang, the two most popular courtesans in town. They were pretty, lively girls who knew how to pour wine and sing a tune. Zihe took them to bed, paid them carelessly with gold leaf, and then ignored them the next morning.
"Is this it?" Zihe complained on the night of the twenty-ninth.
They were sitting in the upstairs room of the pharmacy. The remains of a feast lay on the table. Yayun and Ruixiang were playing a drinking game in the corner, ignored.
Zihe swirled his wine cup, his face dark with boredom. "You promised me the best, Baosheng. You said this town held hidden gems. All I see is mud and mediocrity."
Baosheng wiped his forehead. He knew he was losing his patron. If Zihe got bored, he would leave, and the flow of gold would stop.
"Young Master," Baosheng stammered, "the festival brings everyone out. Perhaps tomorrow..."
"Tomorrow is for the ghosts!" Zihe snapped. "I am alive tonight!" He leaned forward, the lamplight catching the cruelty in his eyes. "You are a local rat, Baosheng. You know every hole in this wall. Don't play the fool with me. Where are you hiding the real jade?"
Baosheng looked at the spoiled boy. He looked at the heavy gold ring on Zihe's finger.
He realized he had to offer a sacrifice. He had to give Zihe something forbidden.
He thought of the town gossip. He thought of the woman who walked with her head down, the woman whose beauty was a curse.
A slow, lipless grin spread across Baosheng's face.
"You are right, Young Master," he hissed. "There is one. One woman who makes these whores look like barn animals."
Zihe sat up. "Who?"
"She is not a courtesan," Baosheng warned, dropping his voice. "She is a wife. A respectable woman."
"Better," Zihe said. "The fruit is sweeter when you have to climb the wall."
"Her name is Little Cabbage," Baosheng said. "She is the wife of Ge Pinlian, the tofu maker."
Zihe frowned. "A peasant? You offer me a tofu maker's wife?"
"She is no ordinary peasant," Baosheng said, his eyes gleaming with malice. "She has skin like white jade and eyes like deep pools. And... she has a history."
"What history?"
"She was the favorite of Yang Naiwu."
Zihe froze. The cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
"The scholar?" Zihe asked softly. "The Juren? The man who writes poems mocking my father? The man who calls the Lius 'upstarts'?"
"The very same," Baosheng purred. "They say he loved her to distraction. They say he risked his reputation for her. But... he turned coward. He cast her off to save his name. She is vulnerable, Young Master. She is abandoned."
Zihe slowly lowered the cup. A smile spread across his face—not of lust, but of triumph.
To take a beautiful woman was a pleasure. But to take Yang Naiwu's woman? To soil the prize that the arrogant scholar had cherished? That was warfare. That was revenge.
"Yang Naiwu," Zihe mused, tasting the name like a fine wine. "He thinks he is the moon, untouchable in the sky. Imagine his face if the Magistrate's son plucks his flower."
He stood up, the boredom vanishing. He smoothed his silk robe.
"Where is she?" Zihe demanded.
"She will be at the procession tomorrow night," Baosheng promised. "Watching the ghosts. I will point her out to you."
"Good," Zihe said. He tossed a gold leaf onto the table, where it fluttered like a dead moth. "Show me this Cabbage. And if she is as beautiful as you say... I will make you rich."
Baosheng bowed, his ruined face twisting into a mask of delight. "She will be there, Young Master. Waiting to be plucked."
Outside, the drums of the festival began to beat, a low, rhythmic thudding that sounded like a heart in panic. The trap was laid. The predator had the scent. And in the dark house on Peace Street, Little Cabbage slept fitfully, unaware that her name had just been sold for a flake of gold.
To see the first encounter in the crowd, read the next chapter.