Chapter 30: The Drunken Immortal Tower

Early morning.

The city of Luodu was alive with noise and bustle.

Along the main thoroughfares, the carriages of various nobles and officials already rolled along with a steady rumble, while the morning market at the roadside buzzed with the voices of vendors and shoppers. Inside the teahouses, common folk sat sipping tea and chatting idly.

Along the banks of the Luo River, weeping willows swayed gently in the breeze, and scholars and men of refined taste gathered there to admire the scenery, composing verses and trading couplets.

Legend had it that the goddess Fufei of the Luo River was the daughter of Fuxi, who had drowned while crossing the river and became its divine spirit. Over the centuries, countless brilliant poets had left their verses here, spreading the fame of the Luo River throughout all of Great Jin.

Of late, a new topic of excitement had swept through the streets of Luodu.

Word had spread that the Drunken Immortal Tower was soon to host a grand flower banquet, through which a Beauty Rankings would be compiled — a list to gather the most beautiful women under heaven.

In every lane and alley of Luodu, the chatter was endless. Whenever the Beauty Rankings came up, people's eyes glazed over with dreamy expressions and flushed faces.

After all, as a legendary city of eternal renown, Luodu owed much of its fame among scholars and men of culture to the so-called "Three Wonders of Luodu," a tradition passed down through a thousand years.

The peerless peonies, the murmuring Luo River, and the beauties of Luodu.

A Beauty Rankings compiled by the Drunken Immortal Tower was naturally the talk of the entire realm!

The Drunken Immortal Tower was the foremost High-class Brothel in Luodu, situated beside the Luo River. Just outside its walls stretched a ten-mile corridor of peonies in full bloom; in late spring, their fragrance drifted through every floor of the tower. The women within were gifted in both talent and beauty — truly, the tower alone contained all Three Wonders of Luodu.

In recent years, even merchants from distant regions could not help but exclaim: "If you haven't seen the Drunken Immortal, you haven't truly been to Luodu!"

The tower's owner, Hong Wancai, was a man of vast connections and immense wealth. In recent years he had swallowed up no small number of businesses, yet those merchants could only swallow their grievances in silence, not daring to utter a single word of complaint.

For Hong Wancai had used this tower to make a name for himself among Luodu's powerful elite, and rumor had it that he enjoyed a close personal friendship with Wang Shan — the governor's son, a man no one dared to cross.

* * *

"Come now! Old Hong, today I've brought you a distinguished guest. I thought it over and over, and it's still your Drunken Immortal Tower that knows best how to treat people right!"

On the upper floor of the lavish tower overlooking the Luo River.

A stout, middle-aged man of around forty, slightly hunched, looked at the two men before him and bowed with a fawning smile:

"This humble one, Hong Wancai, pays his respects to both young masters."

Before him stood Wang Shan — the notorious young wastrel of Luodu, a frequent guest at the Drunken Immortal Tower — and beside Wang Shan, an unfamiliar face.

Dressed in a dark brocade robe, his features strikingly handsome, his bearing extraordinary, radiating an air of noble dignity.

Hong Wancai had spent years navigating the currents of commerce and had long since honed a sharp eye for reading people. One glance told him that the young lord Wang Shan had brought was of extraordinarily exalted status.

After all, even Wang Shan — that utterly lawless wastrel of Luodu — seemed to carry himself with a faint air of deference toward this man.

"This Drunken Immortal Tower is quite impressive — not far behind the Changgé Tower in the Imperial Capital, I'd say..."

Pei Su glanced around and smiled faintly.

Hong Wancai's heart gave a sudden lurch.

The Changgé Tower of the Imperial Capital — that was one of the most celebrated establishments under heaven, a place even the imperial family frequented. Could this young lord before him be a noble from the Imperial Capital?

"Ha ha! To receive the Young Lord's praise — if word of this gets out, Old Hong, the fame of your Drunken Immortal Tower is sure to rise yet another level!"

Seeing that Pei Su seemed reasonably pleased with the surroundings, Wang Shan was inwardly delighted, and even his opinion of the scheming Hong Wancai improved somewhat.

"Old Hong, serve the Young Lord well. After all, Young Master Pei will be returning to the Imperial Capital in a few days..."

Hong Wancai froze for a moment, then saw Pei Su look at him with a smile and say:

"I am Pei Su. I'm afraid I'll be imposing on you for a couple of days."

Hong Wancai stood dumbstruck for several breaths, then suddenly snapped back to his senses. Suppressing the crashing waves of shock within him, he bowed respectfully:

"This humble one has poor eyes! I — I did not know the Heir of the Northern Marquis had graced us with his presence! Oh my! This humble one — whatever the Young Lord commands, please, please just say the word!"

After Wang Shan led Pei Su away, Hong Wancai realized his back was soaked through with cold sweat. He gripped the railing with trembling hands.

"Good heavens — the Heir of the Northern Marquis has come to Luodu in secret — and to my Drunken Immortal Tower, no less!"

Even twelve years ago, when the Vice Minister of Revenue from the Imperial Capital, Zhao Yuande, had come to his Drunken Immortal Tower to handle flood relief matters in the central Yuzhou region, he had served the man impeccably without ever making such an embarrassing display of himself.

But the reason was simple: the status of the Heir of the Northern Marquis was simply too exalted. The sole grandson of Chancellor Pei, the sole son of the Northern Pacification Marquis — to Hong Wancai, these were figures as lofty as Heaven-Men...

"Quickly! Quickly!"

Hong Wancai suddenly came to his senses and hurried downstairs.

"Quick! Send someone to escort the Young Lord on a tour — no, no, I'll do it myself..."

But Hong Wancai was disappointed all the same, for when he looked down, he saw that Wang Shan had already taken on the task.

This wastrel spent his idle days wandering the Drunken Immortal Tower; he probably knew every hidden path and every nook of the place better than the sweeping boys did.

* * *

"Young Lord, take a look at this painting — 'Azure Clouds Over the Vast Sea.' It was painted forty years ago by the renowned talent Liu Quan, whose name rang throughout the realm. Old Hong paid over a hundred taels of gold for this original!"

Wang Shan led Pei Su along, admiring the murals lining the corridor, surrounded by drifting floral fragrance and wafting incense.

"Oh?" Pei Su's expression showed a flicker of interest. "What a coincidence — a few years ago I saw an identical one at the Changgé Tower in the Imperial Capital."

"Heh heh heh... that — that Old Hong, he just loves to put on airs, always desperate to save face..."

Wang Shan's smile turned awkward, and in his heart he had already cursed Hong Wancai's ancestors back eighteen generations for making him look foolish in front of the Young Lord.

"Brother Wang, I hear the Drunken Immortal Tower is about to hold a flower banquet and compile a Beauty Rankings?"

Pei Su brought it up as if in passing, and Wang Shan's heart leapt with delight.

Beauties? Now that was his area of expertise!

"That's right! Young Lord, you may not know — all the beauties under heaven come from Luodu, and all of Luodu's beauties are found in the Drunken Immortal Tower. Whatever else you might say about Hong Wancai, when it comes to finding beauties, no establishment in the realm can hold a candle to him!"

Wang Shan continued to chatter on —

"At the flower banquet three days from now, not only will all of Luodu's beauties attend, but many renowned beauties from neighboring commanderies will come to vie for a place on the Beauty Rankings...

"But in my view, all those so-called beauties put together can't compare to the three top courtesans of the Drunken Immortal Tower. Those three are the tower's headliners.

"And what's more — they sell their art, not their bodies. They've left countless young lords drooling with desire yet unable to have them, and to this day they remain untouched..."

Pei Su glanced sideways at Wang Shan, a faint smile on his lips —

"Oh? The Drunken Immortal Tower has courtesans who sell their art but not their bodies."

"Indeed. These women of the pleasure quarters are each shrewder than the last. After learning from the lesson of that Hong Ling back in the day, they now keep themselves clean and pure, waiting to find a good family to marry into someday."

Pei Su suddenly seemed to take an interest.

"Who is Hong Ling?"

"Young Lord may not know — Hong Ling was the top courtesan of the Drunken Immortal Tower thirty years ago. She was strikingly beautiful and deeply favored by the powerful elite. Later, she received a great personage from the north.

"That courtesan certainly knew how to please a man. They say she bewitched him completely, and for those few days the two were inseparable..."

At this point, a flash of mockery crossed Wang Shan's eyes.

"For women of the pleasure quarters, the ultimate dream is to find a wealthy and powerful husband. The story goes that when Hong Ling felt the time was right, she asked that great personage to buy out her contract and take her home as his wife. And Young Lord, can you guess what happened?"

Pei Su smiled with an ambiguous expression: "What happened?"

"That great personage, the moment he heard this, left without so much as a word of farewell and went straight home. The top courtesan became the laughingstock of the city overnight, mocked by everyone in Luodu.

"No matter how enchanting and seductive she was, at the end of the day she was nothing but a whore — her lips kissed by ten thousand men, having been entangled with who knows how many. And she still dared to dream of entering a noble household? What a fool's fantasy..."