Chapter 1: How He Arrived
Chapter 1: How He Arrived
The cruelest punishment in this world wasn’t decapitation or death by a thousand cuts. Death wasn’t scary; what truly was terrifying was a fate worse than death!
Long ago in ancient China, some grand sage had dreamed up such a punishment: implicating relatives up to the ninth degree. They didn’t kill everyone; instead, these officials’ households—the spoiled sons and daughters used to giving orders—were flipped head over heels, plummeting straight from heaven down to hell. Men became slaves. Women became prostitutes. They were forever bound to a lowly status register, meant to be humiliated throughout their endless suffering…
The one who’d cooked up such a rotten scheme must truly be a “sage”… a pure bad egg!
Standing among the crowd, Liu Xia fumed silently. Nearby came the light, pitiful sobs of women. Indeed, they were the pampered daughters of official families. Even after being cast down into this disgrace, they wept with perfect ladylike grace. Tears fell in a steady rhythm: the right eye first, followed by the left. Nice sense of balance! They covered their heads, shielding their faces. Practicing, no doubt, for the most effective way to protect themselves during police raids later on.
Beside him stood a bunch of fair-skinned pretty boys, with lips pink as berries and faces pale as cream, disgustingly milky. He hadn’t yet seen his own face, but judging by the heavy scrutiny from the old Madam—her face shedding powder like old snow, plump as a bouncing meatball—he figured his own looks were even more extreme. Milk fresh. Or worse, like that toxic milk formula!
He wanted to feel his face, but given the deeply somber mood, he decided against it. He didn’t have to cry with them, but looking too excited wouldn’t do. Still… a pleasure house had always been a dream destination for him…
The Intoxication Pavilion stood in a prosperous town called Linyu, about a hundred miles outside the Capital City. These newly impoverished young masters and misses had all been sent here. First, the Imperial Court feared they might reconnect with their faction’s remnants. Second, this was the largest, most popular pleasure house in Dongning Kingdom—an official brothel under the government’s pleasure ministry. Just the look of its interior decoration made its leading status in the pleasure trade obvious. Posting them here also suited the rules: gamble close to home, seek pleasure far away!
The four-story building boasted a golden roof and jade walls, ornate beams and carved rafters. Four immense red pillars anchored its corners, each carved with dazzling, lifelike golden phoenixes. The main hall alone was as big as a basketball court. The second floor held ordinary rooms, the third floor held VIP suites, and the top floor was the ultimate suite. Rumor had it even the Emperor himself had visited it once.
Would be nice to come here as a customer… Sadly, his role was that of a servant in this den of gentle comforts. What a rare chance, this time-travel adventure—to become a brothel steward, a “tea pot,” probably the first through history! Still… being a brothel steward was better than serving some worthless scumbags!
Liu Xia—traveler from the 21st century. College dropout. He’d broken his heart searching for a job, worn out his lips pleading, nearly wrecked his body working hard. Finally, after using every connection, pulling every backdoor favor, and enduring rigorous business training, he managed to worm his way into a third-rate actor agency. At least he could now call himself an agent!
Even as a third-rate agency with no big stars and no talent for uncovering new ones, they had their own survival tricks. Especially in the twenty-first century, with its diverse beauty standards, an agent’s opportunities were plenty. Take their two top talent performers, who raked in decent profits every year. Their famous names were thunderous to all: Furong and Sister Feng!
By chance, Liu Xia ended up as both ladies’ agent, assistant, and live-in caretaker…
Day after day, dealing with the pair: Furong fussing over body shaping; Yufeng demanding beauty treatments. Furong stopped Yufeng from cosmetic surgery, fearing Yufeng might emerge prettier. Yufeng blocked Furong’s fitness plans, wary Furong might slim down and eclipse her glamour. Round and round they went—was it Furong forbidding Yufeng plastic surgery, or Yufeng barring Furong from workouts?
Liu Xia spent over ten hours a day facing them. Even with nerves of steel, there came a breaking point… And on that very day, he made the firm decision to switch moods at a foot massage parlor, returning to his own sunny skies. But he’d barely entered the shop, hadn’t even taken action yet, when policemen, eager to restore society’s sunny skies, arrived…
To preserve his lifetime of innocence, Liu Xia gladly took the suggestion of the massage girl and made the decisive leap from the third floor. He did manage to escape the massage parlor… only to land in an ancient pleasure house.
The above… was how Liu Xia met his end… and how he arrived here.
His current identity: Originally the only son of Dongning Kingdom’s top-rank Grand Minister and Grand Minister of the Left, Liu Hongren—Liu Liwa… Um. The name sounded even more unique than Liu Xia. His dad’s surname was Liu, his mom’s was Li. The child of Liu and Li was named Liu Liwa! Thank heavens his dad didn’t bear the surname Hu—otherwise, it might’ve been “Hu Li Jing”!
That era had two Grand Ministers helping the Emperor govern. Each led a political faction. Power struggles were constant. The Emperor—master of the so-called art of ruling—was the pivot. Stationed at the center, he maintained balance between the two factions, all for the benefit of the Imperial Court. The Emperor had only two sons: the first prince and the second prince. The two Grand Ministers served respectively as their tutors.
Minister Liu’s luck ran thin, though. The Old Emperor passed away. On his deathbed, his final will named the first prince as the next sovereign. And this new Emperor’s very first act was to imprison his own younger brother. Then he listed Minister Liu’s ten most grievous crimes. Minister Liu was thrust straight into the deepest dungeons. The disaster reached the whole family, implicating relatives to the ninth degree. The whole household should have been executed. But then the other Grand Minister, who’d fought with him through a lifetime, jumped forward. Pleaded for the life-long rival he’d battled. And so, young scholar Liu Liwa ended up here—a slave in an official brothel—kicking off his legendary life…
The others around him were children of Minister Liu Hongren’s faction followers. Every face wore expressions of gloom and despair. The women especially sobbed uncontrollably. Gone was the past wealth and honor, vanished like smoke. The days when they’d been like stars surrounded by admirers—gone in a breath, leaving them mere common weeds. Such a massive fall was hard for anyone to accept.
That plump woman—powder flaking off her face—scanned these twenty-something youths, her cold sneer tinged with vengeful glee. Yet she didn’t speak much, only addressing the woman behind her: “I’m leaving them to you. Train them well. I’ll return in a month to inspect their progress.”
The woman acknowledged softly. The rotund madam nodded, then wobbled away like a tyrannosaurus rex. Only then did Liu Liwa get a proper look at the other woman. His heart shuddered. Not from any contrast formed by seeing only Sister Feng and Furong recently. This woman was shockingly, genuinely stunning.
She looked in her early twenties, yet her gourd-like figure spoke of maturity beyond her age. Encased in an emerald-green silk dress—no see-through gauzes or typical pleasure house finery—it looked ordinary, even modest at first glance. An everyday farmer’s wife wouldn’t have seemed odd. But her raven-black silky hair was coiled atop her head in an elaborate bun, accented by a jade hairpin. A rounded forehead, straight nose, thin crimson lips set against the perfection of an egg-shaped face. Then there were her eyes—those seductive, slanted phoenix eyes. Shifting, they held mesmerizing grace; gazing straight, they shone like stars. Staring into those eyes might be even more captivating than appreciating her figure.
The woman stepped forward slowly, looking over the group of ruined youths. Expression tinged with bitterness, she sighed softly:
“Cry. Cry away. Hope you can pour out your lifetime’s worth of tears today. For starting tomorrow… even if the skies come crashing down… you must greet the world with a smile!”