Chapter 1

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Southern Wan in the twenty-eighth year of Taiming, late spring.

In the imperial capital of Jinping the blossoms were withering, but the fog lingered.

Since the coming of the Gold Imitation Technique, created by the preeminent toolmaking master—the Golden Hand, the immortal Lin Chi—this worldly fog had grown year to year thicker, year to year more choking.

But this was nothing to complain of.

The Moon Plated Gold created by the Gold Imitation Technique was a wonder bestowed by heaven. The strength of steam engines powered by Moon Plated Gold was endless. They could power great ships of a hundred chi in length. The Beiming Sea could be crossed with ease, and fast-moving great sharp-edged vehicles could level mountains and fill seas. Outside the walls to the south of the city, there were uncountable factories of all sizes. Machines thundered all day without rest, turning out top quality cotton yarn like running water. It was sold along the grand canal to Northern Li in the north, transported to Western Chu to the west; in the mountains of Southern Shu with its continuous cruel summer, neither gauze nor silk lacked for a market.

The livelihood of countless families, the old and the young, relied on Moon Plated Gold. Thirty li from the west of the city, Maze Station had been completed only the year before last, and already people and goods came and went. It was full of activity. The trains that drew in and spat out white steam were also popularly called Cloud Soaring Flood Dragons. Every day, morning and night, they rushed over the railways in their set patterns. In the morning they hauled goods, and at night they transported people.

Was this not a beneficence granted to the common people by the immortals?

The fogs of Jinping City couldn’t be called fogs; they had to be called auspicious clouds.

After the new year, large numbers of fresh able-bodied laborers rushed toward the capital city like the tide. Maze Station overflowed every day. It was too expensive to find housing in the city. Even the dog kennels on the eastern bank of the Lingyang River couldn’t be rented with half a string of copper coins per month, which was enough for a worker’s rations.

The workers that came from other places had to pour into the shacks in the factory district to the south of the city, nearly putting together a proper town outside the city.

This year, Jinping City was especially busy, because it was the Grand Selection Year, which came once in ten years.

The immortal sect was going to choose disciples.

At present, Great Wan had only one place worthy of being called an “immortal sect.” This was the state sect, Xuanyin, one of the four great sects of the time.

Each Grand Selection Year, Xuanyin would calculate an auspicious time and send an immortal envoy to Jinping to choose outstanding talents from the mortal world to enter the immortal path. Jinping City had been bustling since the new year, and heroes of all kinds were making trouble—potential disciples had to burn incense in honor of deities and cultivate their bodies and minds; successful candidates from the provincial exams had to come to the capital to take part in the general examinations; martial arts academies took to the ring to complete with fists and feet; even the houses of ill-repute weren’t content to be still but had to add to the fun by voting for a Queen of Flowers.

Where there were many people, there was much business, and naturally there were also many places in the city hiring workers; anyone who had strength and was willing to try their luck could always find a bowl of food to eat. So while the state sect only chose among the scions of the upper ranks, leaving no part in the business for the common people, everyone still looked forward to the Grand Selection Year.

When the immortal envoy came down from the mountain, the year would be full of favorable weather and plentiful harvests.

And if the harvests weren’t plentiful, that was still all right. To be able to come to the capital to look at the pleasure boats on the Lingyang River was also an experience. If you could add to that hearing from afar a couple of strains of singing with musical accompaniment, you could go home and say you had heard the voice of the Queen of Flowers, enough to spend half your life bragging.

On the first day of the fourth month, the blooming of the flowers was ending.

At the House of Overflowing Splendor, Jinping City’s most highly-reputed pleasure house, the Flower Viewing Festival had also reached its end.

This truly was a splendid spectacle to mark the passing of spring. Rouge scattered throughout the city. A Flower Viewing Invitation for a private room could hardly be had for any riches.

That evening, the Marquis of Yongning was pestered to death by a group of “poetic celebrities” and dragged to Overflowing Splendor to bear witness to the newly-chosen Queen of Flowers taking her crown.

This year’s Queen of Flowers was the famed courtesan Jiangli. The Marquis munched on melon seeds, taking a glance from time to time, feeling that this “famous flower” was nothing to write home about, with eyes and brows that turned down in an unfestive look.

But with the crowd of rogues partying all night and everyone’s faces plastered with three layers of white paste, you couldn’t tell one from another. Watching their revelry made the Marquis’s eyes hurt. When he saw Jiangli take to the stage with only a single musician, white-clothed and plain-faced, he didn’t care what she sang; as long as it wasn’t noisy, he would already feel some goodwill toward her.

It was said that she was singing a new song. No one knew where the musician had come from; she was quite skilled, able to command the scene while playing the qin on her own. Both the accompaniment and the singing were good. All the guests found it refreshing. When the song ended, gold and silver and ornaments fell like snowflakes, making the rising and falling stage let out steam wildly. The small building for a time seemed like the inside of a bamboo steamer.

In this way, the camellia crown of the Queen of Flowers fell on Miss Jiangli’s head.

Wearing the camellia crown, Jiangli descended from the stage to thank the audience. When the big givers among the customers called her to drink a toast or sing an encore, she had to agree. Fortunately, there were many people, and quite a few audience members were of high rank. They wouldn’t make too disgraceful a scene. After she had made a round of the audience, she just had time to breathe a sigh of relief and prepare to bow and make her exit before, all of a sudden, some idler called out: “Queen of Flowers, your victory today is half owed to that musician. I think she must be new. She’s superior to your house’s other musicians. Why don’t you ask her to step out? In the future, we’ll all take good care of her.”

Jiangli’s musician had been veiled the whole time, hiding behind a cotton screen. She had only shown an edge of her skirt when leaving the stage. The mystery made people’s hearts itch.

Jiangli froze. Then, with an apologetic smile, she said that her own musician had unluckily injured her hand, and the one playing today had been temporarily brought in from outside. It wasn’t suitable for her to show her face in Overflowing Splendor. She asked the gentlemen to excuse her.

The gentlemen made a fuss and weren’t having it: what was all this about “outside” and “inside”? There were so many nobles in the audience that even the top scorer in the general examinations would have to dismount his horse and bow; what was she, top courtesan for half a night, doing putting on airs?

Jiangli was “elegant and refined”—too refined; she had no long sleeves to wave and, inevitably, wasn’t up to dealing with this situation. While she stood there, stiff and not knowing what to do, someone said, “I’m coming! Look all you like—if you dare.”

This voice was deep and low but forced up to a high pitch, hanging suspended, making listeners break out in gooseflesh.

Everyone looked up. They saw that the musician Jiangli had tried to conceal was a frank and straightforward person, openly shouldering…carrying her qin as she walked downstairs.

Her face was heavily made up in the fashionable style for court women. Over a face full of white paste, she wore a half-sheer veil.

Reasonably speaking, if you could still tell anything about a person’s features under all this makeup, her appearance ought to be nothing to be ashamed of…but for some reason, there was something strange about her.

She was too tall and broad. Most of the ladies only came up to her shoulder. That big white face standing over the crowd of beauties was a little shocking. She was tall, and her build was large. The collarbones sitting openly on her “shapely shoulders” flared out so much that the sleeves on her upper arms were about to burst. Her big feet had pushed her embroidered shoes out into a pair of boats and shook the earth when they moved…and she was walking unnaturally, putting the arm and leg on one side forward at the same time.

This lady walked out and made a circle of the room, paying her respects, opening her mouth wide to exhibit her brilliant white teeth in all directions. The rouge on her lips was hastily applied. Some had accidentally rubbed onto her teeth. When this bloody maw opened, it seemed that she hadn’t rinsed it after gnawing on a dead child. Looking too long could render you possessed by an evil spirit. It scared all the noble guests in the audience sober!

At this time, the Marquis of Yongning had unobtrusively left his seat.

As a young man, the Marquis had been acclaimed by women as the handsomest man in Jinping. He felt that these “famous flowers” were average-looking, and their so-called “arts” were sloppy and inferior. There was really nothing worth looking at. He would be better off going home and looking at himself in the mirror. He had come to Overflowing Splendor out of social obligation. He had said what he needed to say and didn’t feel like watching these people disgrace themselves and make a fuss. Therefore he tidied his clothes and went downstairs, ready to go home. When he came downstairs, he had a direct encounter with the big-footed musician who was making her exit.

The Marquis normally wouldn’t look a prostitute in the face, but since this lady’s height was so abundant, if he didn’t want to look her in the face, he would have to roll his eyes up.

He was startled by the heavily made up face that met his eyes and was just wondering where this fiend came from… But why did she seem a little familiar? Then the musician, who had been up to dealing with the scoundrels, abruptly looked alarmed, the half jin of white paste on her face nearly cracking open. Without a word, she turned and ran.

“Her” qin was left behind, and “her” shoes flew into the air. The dash made a big stir. It was like a wild horse equipped with a steam engine. The only thing missing was steam coming out of the tailbone!

The Marquis hadn’t thought that the dainty House of Overflowing Splendor would be rearing this sort of mythical beast. After a moment’s confusion, he realized something. He put a hand to his chest, his face turning ashen.

Around him, his household was perplexed, thinking that the master was once again having an attack of chest pain. They quickly stepped up to support him. “Master?”

Then the trembling Marquis trilled in a mumbling, altered pitch: “Get…get me that…”

The guards and servants were confused. “Get who?”

The Marquis took a deep breath and spoke from the diaphragm: “Get me that fiend!”

All of Overflowing Splendor went silent at the Marquis’s yell. Soon, everyone had heard—Gentlemen, guess what? The “lady musician” who just scared us to death without paying her dues? None other than the Viscount of Yongning in disguise!

A man dressed as a woman in a brothel, and he had run headfirst into his own father—how exciting!

Now, what sort of person was the Viscount of Yongning?

His full name was Xi Ping. It was said that in all of Jinping City, among the myriad wastrels, none could surpass him.

With this preposterous new trick, while all the wealthy people were scrabbling for one of Overflowing Splendor’s Flower Viewing Invitations, the Viscount had taken the stage as one of the flowers himself. Anyone who heard would have to concede that he knew how to have fun.

At that moment, all the wealthy people gathered in Overflowing Splendor sobered up. Each of their necks grew two cun longer. They wished they could send their heads flying to observe the Viscount of Yongning fleeing by night in female garb.

The Viscount’s flowing sleeves fluttered; the crush of his father’s people turned him into a big moth. He tore his skirt, which was too narrow to spread his legs in, up to the knee. With his big feet bare, he flew out of Overflowing Splendor, running toward the northwest.

When he had just run past the pleasure boat ferry crossing, he met Wang Baochang, son of the War Ministry’s assistant minister, head on. Xi Ping silently cursed his bad luck. Truly, enemies walked a narrow path.

It happened that this Young Lord Wang was a poor student and thought he was something special, a true talent. This “talent” had failed the military examination, leaving his parents to pay to find him a spot in the imperial guard. He often went to the brothels to show off. When he had shown off to his satisfaction, he would get drunk. With two cups of wine in his belly, he couldn’t find his way around and would try to display his “conquering heroic spirit” in front of everyone. Generally he would shout and snarl at the girls looking after him; when the wine went to his head, it wasn’t unusual for him to get physical. So as soon as he appeared, the girls became apprehensive. He was given the title of “Big Dog Wang.”

The Viscount and the talented Wang couldn’t stand each other. They were always at odds.

Now, Wang Baochang was standing at the mouth of an alley about four chi wide. This fellow’s figure was unusually valorous; he took up about half the mouth of the alley. Perhaps he was drunk. He held a ghastly pale decorative lantern in his hand, his blank eyes looking fixedly at Xi Ping. He didn’t make way.

Just then, by coincidence, an evil wind swept by. A gas streetlamp at the mouth of the alley went out for some reason. It popped and released a thin stream of smoke. A wooden carving of a kingfisher hanging under the lamp, half-blackened by soot, waved ambiguously in the wind.

Xi Ping thought that he had already been put to the test. His own father had barely recognized him. Why should Big Dog Wang?

But to avoid trouble, he was still planning to hide his face. Therefore, he waved his water green long sleeve and swept it in a surge of fragrance over Wang Baochang’s face. In a high-pitched voice, he gave an eerie wail: “Faithless rat, give me back my life—”

With a female ghost demanding his life in the middle of the night, Brother Big Dog might have been scared silly. He actually didn’t react at first. Xi Ping took the opportunity to shoulder him aside. He ran past without a look back, heading straight for Prince Zhuang Manor.

Prince Zhuang was the present third prince, issue of the emperor and the Imperial Consort Lady Xi.

The Imperial Consort was the Marquis of Yongning’s younger sister, Xi Ping’s aunt.

Xi Ping had been Prince Zhuang’s study companion for several years as a child. He didn’t stand on any ceremony with his cousin. Whenever he suffered a setback, he would come running to take refuge. Anyway, the Marquis couldn’t break down Prince Zhuang’s gate in the middle of night to get him back.

After squeezing through the alley in one breath, Xi Ping found that the footsteps of his pursuers had vanished at some point. He looked back for a moment and saw that his father’s henchmen weren’t following. It seemed that they knew where he was heading, and that they couldn’t follow him there, so they had simply called it a day.

So Xi Ping, pleased with himself, swept his hair, loosened as he ran, back over his shoulder. Humming a tune, he went happily toward Prince Zhuang Manor, trampling on the hem of his ruined skirt.

There was no moonlight on the night of the first of the month. Dust and steam mingled together and clung to each other inseparably.

The grey fumes climbed over Jinping’s gold dust-stained footprints, spreading outward from the Lingyang River and mixing with the steam spurting out from the engines. It tightly covered all of Jinping.

As for the people from the Yongning Marquis Manor, they had heard that eerie wail from far away. The Marquis Manor’s head servant had plenty of experience. With one look at Wang Baochang’s face, he knew that his young master had been up to no good. He quickly stepped forward and said, “Forgive me, Young Master Wang. That was my young master just now… He’s drunk. If he has given any offense, the Marquis will order to him to pay you a visit and apologize tomorrow.”

Wang Baochang was blank. He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t really have scared him out of his wits? The servant was nervous. He took another step forward. “Young Master…”

Just then, Wang Baochang stiffly turned his body, which had been knocked askew by Xi Ping. He was like a rusted piece of machinery. His staring eyes turned in a half circle. His pupils rolled up.

The servants from the Yongning Marquis Manor looked at each other in dismay, not knowing what this gentleman meant by pulling faces… Could it be that because their young master had just scared him, he was planning revenge himself by scaring them?

Before they could decide whether to cooperate and take fright, they saw Wang Baochang open his mouth and begin to wail a funeral lamentation: “Raise the casket, hang two mats, shelter it fully seven days—”

This description isn’t meant to disparage the quality of Wang Baochang’s singing. It’s that the words he was wailing were in fact part of the “Soul Calling Melody” used during funerals by country folk in Ning’an, which neighbored Jinping.

His voice was hoarse and shrill, like a crow cawing in the night. It chilled its hearers to the bone.

As he sang, he walked forward stiffly.

“…the Great Way leads to Heaven…and sends you back…home…uh…hrrk!”

He took a step forward with each word he sang. At “home,” his voice and footsteps both came to a sudden halt. He was “stuck” for a moment, standing bolt upright. Then, like a door without a frame, he fell flat on the ground.

A green jade tablet fell from him and rolled two chi away along the stone-paved street, making a string of crisp striking sounds.

He didn’t move again.

After a long moment, a brave servant went over to investigate. He reached out to push Wang Baochang by the shoulder and raised the lantern in his hand.

“Young Master Wang? What is this, Young…ah!”

The servant gave a brief scream, then plopped down on the ground. The glazed lantern shattered into bits.

He had no attention to spare for the broken object. As if his buttocks had grown feet, he skittered away in a panic—

He had touched an ice cold dead man. He was stone dead, even rigid. On the back of his neck, which was facing upward, there was even a big patch of livor mortis!