Chapter 11: Management Style

Just like that, Liu Liwa started to put down roots in Intoxication Pavilion. As for the other young masters and misses who had arrived with him, almost none of them passed the assessment. In fact, this was done on purpose to hassle them—they were made to do heavy servant’s labor. The goal was first to break their arrogance, to crush the pride of those noble-born young ladies and gentlemen. Their training had begun right then. The lowly workers who had previously done the laundry, cooked, and swept floors suddenly became seniors and supervisors. None of them showed any courtesy to the newcomers—if they were in a mild mood, they yelled; if they were harsh, they hit. In just that short morning, some of the young masters and misses had already cried rivers of tears. A few of the young ladies were even thinking about taking clients that very night.

Over here, Yang Xiaosi was guiding Liu Liwa around to get familiar with the surroundings. Yang Xiaosi usually lived and ate here. His room was at the very end of the first floor—it was his lodging, the reception area for the entire Intoxication Pavilion, and also the waiting area for the first-floor girls.

Because it was an official brothel, Intoxication Pavilion had many working girls, who were ranked into different tiers based on their looks and special skills. For example, Miss Liuyun on the fourth floor was of Flower Queen level—the gem of the establishment. Not only was she stunningly beautiful with an otherworldly air, but she also had excellent skill with the qin and a lovely singing voice. She outshone all the other prostitutes and captivated countless patrons. Girls like her were the top of the profession; even the boss and the owner had to pamper and flatter them, while fiercely protecting them from being won over by any man. After all, what you can’t have always seems the best! Someone like Miss Liuyun was akin to a celebrity in Edison Chen’s photos.

One level down, that is, the third floor of Intoxication Pavilion, the girls were all quite attractive. They had some training in the arts—like music, chess, calligraphy, and painting—and were specifically meant to receive elegant and very wealthy guests. The girls on this floor were roughly on par with those in top-tier establishments.

On the second floor were the girls who were average in appearance and had no special talents, but were the most popular. Their biggest selling point was that they were good in bed! This floor was comparable to a highly reputed upscale bathhouse.

The first floor, where Yang Xiaosi and Liu Liwa were, had the largest number of girls, but their quality varied. As long as you paid, they would take on any job—much like the hair-washing parlors you could find by the roadside.

Because of this, the Brothel Stewards and attendants working on the first floor could rake in quite a bit of extra money. Since there were so many girls on this floor, in order to ensure fair competition and reasonable assignments, the owner had instructed the Brothel Steward to assign numbers to the girls and arrange them in order. When no client specifically requested someone, they would take turns according to their numbers—whoever was up next would go serve. This kept the girls from rushing clients like a swarm and disrupting the overall order of Intoxication Pavilion.

Moreover, the girls had their own set of standards. Particularly with regular clients, they knew who spent generously, who they got along with best, which handsome youths they fancied, or when they were simply tired and didn’t want to work. In such cases, if they wanted to swap numbers with another girl, they had to get permission from the Brothel Steward on duty. So it was inevitable that they would offer a little grease money or some perks—truly a lucrative position!

Yang Xiaosi took him around the entire floor. There were over thirty rooms, connected from east to west. Every time they passed by a door, they could smell a strange odor. At that moment, the girls were all asleep. In some rooms, there were still clients, and the sound of snoring could be heard from time to time; in others, things were even more intense—some had already gotten up for “morning exercises.”

All Pleasure Houses had a rule: overnight guests could stay no later than noon the next day—similar to the check-out time in modern hotels. Of course, some guests didn’t want to leave or were unwilling to go. This was when the attendants had to step in, lay out the facts, and reason with them. If someone put up a stubborn fight, then it came down to your physical skills. Naturally, since Intoxication Pavilion had official backing, most people wouldn’t dare make a scene here.

After listening to Yang Xiaosi’s explanations, Liu Liwa understood a little more: to become a qualified attendant, you basically had to major in public relations and women’s psychology, with minors in hotel service and management, accounting, as well as have a few years of training in freestyle fighting. In other words, a seasoned attendant like Yang Xiaosi, if he traveled to the future, would at least be a prefectural women’s federation director or a public relations manager at a major company. This went to show that society is the best place to train talent!

Gradually, more people started moving around in Intoxication Pavilion. Some maids and servants had gotten up. The servants began cleaning the main hall, which had been left in disarray from the night before, while the maids bustled about fetching water, cooking meals, and attending to the precious girls upstairs. As for the girls on the first floor, they wouldn’t get up before noon, and of course, they didn’t have maids to serve them.

Wanting to show off in front of Liu Liwa, Yang Xiaosi deliberately took him to the backyard. That was where the workers who had arrived with Liu Liwa—those who hadn’t passed the earlier assessment—had been assigned to labor. A big, burly man with a full beard stood in the middle of the yard, holding a Rattan Cane and looking fierce. Yang Xiaosi introduced him as Wang Meng, the security captain of Intoxication Pavilion. He had practiced martial arts since childhood, and it was said he came here to lay low after getting into legal trouble, taken in by the Madam. He was usually gloomy and showed no mercy to anyone.

Beside him was a delicate young woman dressed in a bright red gown. Her looks were average, but she had a pair of charming, smiling peach-blossom eyes that gave off a bewitching aura. This young lady was named Shen Zuijin, the head procuress of Intoxication Pavilion, the lead “mama-san.” She was very mercenary, famously caring more about money than people.

The staff and girls of Intoxication Pavilion referred to these two as the “Black and White Impermanence.” One was cold-faced and ruthless, focused only on punishment; the other was sweet-talking but treacherous, cunning and greedy. It was precisely because of this pair that Intoxication Pavilion developed peacefully and steadily, with business booming more and more.

After hearing the introduction, Liu Liwa smiled. This really resembled the model of a modern big company. Two supervisors with distinct personalities and clear traits; employees who dared to be angry but not speak out, slowly developing a habit of passive acceptance. And at the very top, the boss secretly grinned…

Right now, the coworkers who had arrived with Liu Liwa had been assigned new identities and started their new lives. The men were all made to do odd jobs. The original laborers had it easy today—they only had to do light tasks. As for these newcomers, some carried buckets to fetch water from the well, while others chopped firewood by the wall. All of them used to be young masters who had everything handed to them—they had never done such rough work before. Naturally, mistakes, accidents, and slow progress were unavoidable. However, the supervisor, who was like a dark demon, paid no mind to such excuses. The company hired you to create value, not to support idlers. His Rattan Cane flew through the air, and for a while, the yard echoed with cries of agony.

As for the young misses, they were seated in a row against the wall. Each had a large wooden tub in front of her, and in each tub were more than ten pieces of clothing—expensive garments made of silk. These young ladies had never even washed clothes before, let alone handled delicate laundry, so they naturally didn’t know how to be gentle. For a time, the sounds of tearing and shredding fabric were unceasing. Meanwhile, the mama-san Shen Zuijin stood by them, smiling and clicking away on a small silver abacus, calculating the compensation for these clothes. The reimbursement would later be deducted from their wages. They hadn’t even started working and already owed the company money. Liu Liwa watched this with inner alarm—this management style was way ahead of its time…