A surprising turn of events at the horse viewing banquet
In the late spring evening, when ambiguous red clouds were still hanging in the sky, the lights in Jinxiu Pavilion began to light up.
Tonight is the big day when matchmakers and brothels use Jinxiu Pavilion as a venue to hold a "horse viewing banquet".
The horses on display are the skinny ones trained by matchmakers and brothels. Skinny horses are young maids selected by matchmakers for their talents, carefully nurtured, and then sold to wealthy merchants and dignitaries as concubines or playgirls. In recent years, horse breeding has become a trend in Yangzhou, with each matchmaker and brothel boasting their own horse breeding expertise, each vying for the top spot. Thus, every late spring, they gather to invite prominent figures, wealthy families, and high-ranking officials to appraise their skinny horses.
Li'er soaked in the bathtub, enduring the pain and letting the warm water flow over the pair of symmetrically distributed scars on her butterfly bones.
The scars were red, swollen, and burning, like two crescent moons. When she was little, they had been mere birthmarks. As she grew older, they had gradually bulged from her smooth back into a hideous membrane. It was like a piece of tender flesh, stripped bare of skin. Normally, even the rubbing of fabric would cause her unbearable pain, but now, adding hot water to her back was like pouring boiling oil over it.
Because of this scar, she was much more delicate than the other skinny horses in the Four Arts Pavilion, prone to illness. While scolding her, the matchmaker painstakingly made her fitted clothes out of fine fabric, fearing that the scar would rub against her and cause her to become ill again. After all, it was obvious to everyone that Li'er would be the Four Arts Pavilion's biggest trump card for the top horse at the Horse Appreciation Banquet.
However, this scar has one advantage: when her body temperature rises or when stimulated by hot water, it emits a fragrance. Good steel must be used on the blade. Tonight is the horse-viewing feast. If I don't maximize the use of this fragrance today, when will I?
Who says a skinny horse with its own body fragrance is not a treasure!
The instructor, Mother Jin, took the specially prepared ointment and gathered Li'er's cascading black hair to one side. Her slender, white, jade-like back was exposed, and Mother Jin's breathing became lighter.
"Girl, please be patient." Mother Jin applied the ointment on Li'er's scar. Li'er felt the scar on her back was hot and cold. She trembled unbearably for a while, and her whole body was covered with a layer of fine sweat.
The fragrance grew stronger, and bees and butterflies appeared in the bathroom. Mother Jin kept wiping Li'er's sweat and helping her get dressed. While chasing away the fluttering butterflies and bees, she said, "Look, girl, the bees and butterflies are attracted to you. Even insects are so discerning, you will definitely be the winner tonight!"
Li'er turned around to look at Mother Jin and pulled the corners of her mouth. Mother Jin saw her forced smile with tears in her almond eyes, her eyebrows slightly furrowed, her eyes red, and her eyes flickering when she looked up at people, truly interpreting what it means to be charming and lovely.
What was even more rare was that this Miss Li's eyes were actually a turquoise-gold color, and in the dim light of the bathroom, they shone astonishingly like a cat's pupils.
Mother Jin once again sighed that these eyes were both Miss Li's fault and her fortune.
Mother Jin was a woman who had seen the world. She was an old palace maid who had been exiled and had nothing to do back home, so she was hired by the Four Arts Academy with a large salary to teach these skinny horses. Of all the palace ladies she had met, which one was not a rare beauty?
But Mother Jin dared to say something disrespectful to her masters in her heart: No one's appearance can compare to that of Miss Li!
This appearance certainly wasn't something a child of humble origins could have gotten. However, these eyes, clearly those of a foreigner, must have been the result of a wealthy family's beautiful concubine having an affair with a foreigner. The moment they saw her eyes, they knew she was about to be exposed, and so abandoned her on the street when she was little, where she was picked up and sold to a matchmaker.
These eyes are so beautiful, appearing as clear as glass under the sunlight. When you meet her eyes, you will feel that she lives up to her name.
Mother Jin is very confident that Miss Li will make a big splash tonight.
Mother Jin held Li'er's soft little hand and looked her over from head to toe, her satisfaction exceeding her expectations. "I heard that the Governor of the Grand Canal will be here tonight. If you win his favor, you will enjoy endless wealth and splendor in the future. You must cheer up tonight and let the nobles in Yangzhou and Jinling see the power of our Four Arts Studio!"
Li'er nodded obediently.
In Jin's mother's words, she should have been a noble and wealthy woman, but unfortunately, fate had misjudged her, leaving her in the dust. Tonight was her chance to right this twist of fate. Only by winning the first prize could she return to her rich and prosperous home; and only the careful care of a pile of gold and jade could cure this delicate and delicate body.
She had to please the Governor-General of the Grand Canal, or even the wealthy salt merchants.
Li'er didn't show it on her face, but she was anxious inside. She had grown slowly. Her sisters had already won at the horse-appreciation banquet at the age of sixteen and had secured their own places. She hadn't grown into her twenties before she began to resemble a young girl. Although thin horses were considered beautiful due to their thinness, if she was dragged out for competition before she had fully grown, the matchmaker would be gossiped by her peers.
After sixteen, the matchmaker's eyes looked at her with less kindness, as if she was dissatisfied with her being a freeloader and yet still spoiled. If she didn't catch the eye of the Governor or the salt merchant tonight, she didn't know how the matchmaker would get rid of her.
Li'er reluctantly put on the layered coat that would leave scars on her back that felt like they were being pierced by needles or carved by knives, her heart filled with unspeakable tension and misery.
I heard that the Governor is almost fifty years old, and the salt merchants are all grandfathers.
But so what? What right did a plaything have to be picky? If a plaything like her, with a lowly fate and delicate body, didn't try her best to curry favor with the rich and powerful, who else could afford to have fine silk made into intimate clothing for a plaything like her?
It seems that her only way out is to become the top horse.
At the hour of You, the distinguished guests took their seats one after another. The Jinxiu Pavilion was brightly lit and filled with subtle fragrance.
The pavilion was packed, with only a high platform in the middle. A polished bronze mirror, propped at an ingenious angle, reflected the candlelight onto the platform, making the thin horses playing the zither look like fairies from the Moon Palace.
As the song ended, the tortoise in the green turban crouched down and walked to the edge of the stage, singing loudly: "Next performance - Four Arts Studio!"
The audience suddenly fell silent, because as the long-drawn-out tune of the turtle man sank, the skinny horse that appeared next was actually carried up by two rough servants in gray clothes!
Everyone was first struck by her flawless white attire. Unlike the other girls, who wore red and green, this girl held a plain white round fan to shield her face. Her hair was held in place with a simple white jade hairpin, and two mutton-fat jade bracelets blended seamlessly with her wrists. Aside from her satin-like, silky black hair, there was no other color.
The maids deliberately lifted her skirt slightly, and everyone knew why the girl was carried up.
The girl's feet were small and delicate, pointed like bamboo shoots in spring, and wrapped in the white forged shoes, just three inches long, like white lotus flowers blooming in the rain.
Before anyone could admire the three-inch white lotus, the girl, who had been carried to the center of the stage, moved the round fan to her nose bridge, and suddenly there was a sound of slight gasps.
This girl actually has a pair of blue-gold eyes!
These eyes are as clear as jade and as sharp as gold. Even the finest glass jade cannot compare to their elegance.
When the round fan covering his face was completely removed, even the sound of breathing disappeared.
You could hear a pin drop in the field, for fear that any noise would scare away this fairy who looked like the last speck of snow on a branch in early spring.
Li'er displayed a perfectly practiced smile that she had practiced countless times, and her beautiful eyes were fixed on the Governor-General sitting at the head of the audience. It was no surprise that she caught the astonishment and obsession in the Governor-General's eyes.
The maids placed her on the mahogany armchair in the middle of the stage. As she sat down, her skirt fell down, covering her feet. A few soft sighs of regret were heard from the audience.
But soon everyone had no time to regret, as Li'er had already taken out a rosewood pipa, and her slender fingers gently plucked the strings. "March in Jiangnan" fully unfolded the charm of the water town with flowing water around the bridge and spring breeze blowing the willows in the Jinxiu Pavilion, making it seem as if one could see the night view of Qinhuai without even opening the window.
As the music reached its climax, a sweet fragrance filled the pavilion, and the audience was momentarily mesmerized. Mother Jin, watching the crowd's reactions from the audience, knew it was a success.
Miss Li’s first place position tonight is a foregone conclusion!
Mother Jin was still trying to figure out what price Siyi Zhai could sell Miss Li for, when she suddenly felt something was wrong.
Why does the ground seem to be shaking?
It's really shaking!
I don’t know who was the first to come to his senses and shouted “The dragon is turning over!”, but in an instant it was like pouring cold water into a boiling oil pot, and the place exploded in an instant.
Admiring beauty is important, but life is more important. The audience rushed to the door. On the stage, Li'er was already unable to sit still due to the shaking, and she slid off the armchair. This delicate, seemingly boneless beauty went unappreciated. The ground shook more and more violently, wine glasses toppled, bronze mirrors tumbled, and the screams of the girls and the guests' hurried shouting and shouting as they fled echoed one after another.
The two maids, also hired temporarily, abandoned Li'er and fled for their lives. Li'er lay sprawled in the middle of the platform, which had just been brightly lit. Her delicate feet could not even stand up, and she was so panicked that she didn't know what to do.
She looked at the nearly fifty-year-old Governor with tears in her eyes, as if she remembered the dream of being a hero saving her in her youth. She pushed away the servants who were holding him and trying to escape, and walked towards Li'er with each step staggering.
Li'er was extremely surprised. She called out "Governor" in a tactful way and extended her hand to the man.
She lay prone on the stage, her eyes fixed only on the Grand Canal Governor who had come to rescue her. She didn't notice that, about two meters behind her, the air was ripped open like a piece of cloth. A purple-black electric current flowed, and the other end seemed to connect to a bottomless black prison.
The governor who had intended to come and rescue her had lost all the color from his face, his eyes were wide open, and his eyebrows and beard were trembling along with the muscles on his face.
From the dark hole swirling with electric current, a hand covered in brown-black armor suddenly emerged. The hand was thicker than an average person's thigh, and had only four claw-shaped fingers.
The Governor of the Grand Canal was so frightened that he could not walk. He watched helplessly as the claws that looked like the legendary Yaksha grabbed Miss Li's waist and dragged her into the huge purple-black hole!
The moment the white hem of Miss Li's skirt disappeared into the hole, the black hole closed like a hungry ghost who had swallowed a delicious meal and needed to digest it.
The shaking of the earth stopped.
The shocked crowd then realized that the stunning beauty on the stage was gone.
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