Kong Chan, his face contorted with rage, said in an unfriendly voice, "You damned madam! It's an honor for you that our talented scholars from the Academy have come to your brothel. How dare you make excuses? While the Hanlin Academy has never used its power to bully others, that doesn't mean we're easy to humiliate!"
"With just one word from me, I can ensure that the students of the academy will never set foot in your brothel again!"
"Oh dear! Esteemed scholars, this is going to be the death of me!" The madam's delicate eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown, her wrinkles deepening with worry, a worry that even the finest rouge and powder could not conceal.
What good are all the beauties in the brothel if the students of the Hanlin Academy don't come? Many who come to this place of pleasure are merely pretending to be cultured. Without the support of poetry and prose from the academy's students, who represent talent and orthodoxy, this wretched place will inevitably degenerate into a truly vulgar and obscene place.
Although many of the rough men didn't care at all, the group had a few silver ingots in their pockets, which, even when combined, weren't enough to make a clanging noise.
Kong Chan's words were obviously not his true intention; he was mostly trying to save face for Ye Tian. However, if the madam in front of him didn't know her place and couldn't say a few polite words, this lie could very well become the truth. In any case, for Kong Chan, the academy's dean, it was just a casual instruction after a meeting.
Although it's a pity that you can't see many beauties from the Jiaofangsi, the book city has more than just this one place of pleasure. If you can't go to the Jiaofangsi, you can still go to the brothels.
The brothels also had many beautiful women with clear, melodious voices and delicate features. They could also hum a few enchanting tunes from the Western Regions. Although those tunes were vulgar, weren't they the true embodiment of the image of a beautiful young woman, as soft as butter, with a sword at her waist to slay foolish men?
Otherwise, how could Lü Zu have said, "Although no heads are seen falling, you are secretly being drained of your marrow"?
The madam knew perfectly well that the sorrow on her still-attractive face was only momentary. She quickly wiped away tears, sobbing and whimpering:
"Liu Rushi has always been very particular about rules, and even I, her madam, cannot force her to follow them. Talented women are always pretentious, but today all the great scholars from the academy are here, so her talent is nothing. I must go upstairs and make her break those rotten rules. If she doesn't listen, this brothel will only decline and eventually have to close down."
The madam's words were extremely moving, as if the brothel was currently a thriving place, but was about to become a thing of the past, withering away on an inevitable downward slope.
He offered neither a guarantee nor compromises, yet he managed to save face for the esteemed scholar of the academy. While Ye Tian marveled at the shrewdness of people in such places, he couldn't help but feel a surge of curiosity towards this complete stranger, Liu Rushi.
What kind of talented woman could be in the Jiaofangsi (a government-run entertainment institution) and yet even the madam couldn't guarantee she'd leave? The system of the Jiaofangsi was indeed somewhat strange.
After the madam finished speaking, Kong Chan's expression softened slightly, and his brows relaxed. He was no longer so aggressive, and simply waved his hand, saying, "Go quickly. If you can't reach an agreement, you don't need to come back."
The title and status of the old Kong Hanlin Academy's dean were enough to allow him to move freely in this not-so-large bookstore. This statement was not pretentious at all; it was simply without any disguise or pretense. He was inherently superior to these people, and to then adopt a polite and approachable attitude would be unbecoming of Kong Chan's character.
On the blue sandalwood table sat a bottle of Dendrobium liquor; strong liquor was very expensive in the book city. Even in top-tier entertainment venues like the Jiaofangsi, only mild and easy-to-drink liquors were available. The kind of strong alcohol that could be tasted as dead and desolate as a sip was simply not suited to this city, and few could afford it.
"The aroma of wine in the bookstore is intoxicating, and so are the beauties. After a few sips, a bellyful of poetry and songs will flood your mind," Kong Chan said, raising his Dendrobium officinale with a friendly smile.
Clearly, Kong Chan didn't care how many drinks Ye Tian could have. He only cared whether, after drinking, Ye Tian could utter a masterpiece that would go down in history, like the grand vow he made in the Haoran Tower.
Ye Tian could only helplessly take a sip of wine. Even a plagiarist needs a pretext. He couldn't just randomly copy things without any reason. Putting aside the possibility of disrespecting the scholars recorded in history, the most important thing was that it would make him look cheap.
Poems that will go down in history are not so easy to utter—it takes creating this kind of thought in the minds of the academy's workers to make them feel that they cherish it all the more.
The middle-aged madam, swaying her slender waist and round, pert buttocks, walked in with an overjoyed grin. Judging from her posture, perhaps the hidden money tree in this building, the courtesan known as Liu Rushi, had relented, and she was no longer caught in the middle.
"Esteemed scholars, we begged and pleaded until Liu Rushi finally relented. However, she said that since you are all great scholars, she, a frail woman, would not be able to entertain you properly. She could only invite one gentleman into her boudoir, and she gave you a couplet challenge. Whoever can solve it will be allowed to enter Miss Liu Rushi's boudoir."
Kong Chan chuckled, a hint of amusement creeping into the wrinkles on the old man's face. "Who among you isn't a pedantic scholar? What difficulty could a simple couplet pose? Surely a mere courtesan from a brothel couldn't possibly compose a timeless masterpiece?"
"Give me a question," Kong Chan said, waving his hand impatiently.
The madam was overjoyed and exclaimed, "Our Miss Liu Rushi is from an ancient kingdom in the Western Regions. When she came to Fengchao, she found a stone with the first half of a couplet carved on it. She pondered it for many years but could not understand its meaning. The first half of the couplet is: 'Smoke locks the willow by the pond.'"
"Smoke locks the willows by the pond?" Kong Chan frowned. As a great Confucian scholar, he naturally wouldn't miss the subtlety in this. Taking the radicals of each character, they represent fire, metal, water, earth, and wood. They happen to represent the five elements. It's easy to match the meaning and rhyme of the characters, but matching the five elements is slightly more difficult.
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