Chapter 13: The Banquet of Earthly Delights and Princely Despair
"Cease your dithering—render service!" Ye Ling lobbed a tuber at the dumbstruck chef, his mirth cutting through the kitchen's steam.
"Cull any verdant or sprouted specimens. Pare the rest—slice some into medallions, dice others into cubes, julienne a portion, and pulverize the remainder for starch extraction." His directives flowed like a battlefield commander's.
"Ignite the braziers!"
"First offering: Crispy Wolf Tooth Potatoes!"
Amber potato wedges hissed in seething oil. As they crisped, Ye Ling conjured a piquant elixir—rice vinegar, bird's eye chillies, and clandestine spices pirouetting in alchemical harmony.
"Second creation: Golden Fritters and Wafer-Thin Crisps!"
"Third wonder: Amber-Hued Sweet Potato Confection!"
A procession of aromatic marvels emerged. Ministers whose stomachs growled from dawn court rituals found themselves enchanted by these plebeian delicacies transmuted into regal fare. Within an hour, the Hall of Celestial Accord metamorphosed into a groaning board of tuberous wonders.
The crowning glory—a porcelain bowl brimming with sour-fire potato noodles—ensorcelled the assembly. Slurps reverberated as satin strands caressed palates, chilli's kiss blooming into euphoric addiction.
"Who divined such alchemy from earthen lumps?"
"Sorcery—one root reborn in myriad guises!"
All eyes pivoted to the Emperor, suspended between protocol and temptation.
"Father", Ye Changfeng interposed, desperation clawing at his voice, "these chthonic oddities...their virtue remains unproven..."
"They differ not from heaven's rice or earth's wheat—sustenance transfigured by culinary genius!" Ye Ling riposted, noisily devouring noodles, crimson broth staining his dragon-embroidered sleeves.
The Emperor quelled dissent with an imperial palm. "Shall the Celestial Sovereign quail before his own domain's bounty?" He raised the noodle bowl, defiance glinting in his obsidian gaze.
The inaugural mouthful dilated imperial pupils. "Transcendent! Veritably transcendent!" he decreed, brood glistening in his beard like liquid rubies.
Ministers fell upon the feast like wolves upon a lamb. The crunch of wolf tooth potatoes gave way to fritters' pillowy interiors, candied sweet potatoes dissolved into caramelized rapture, and those accursed noodles bound taste buds in addictive thrall.
"Does Elder Brother disdain our humble fare?" Ye Ling taunted, wafting the aromatic bowl beneath Ye Changfeng's nostrils.
"My constitution rebels," the prince ground out, jaw taut as a crossbow string.
"Does the Feast of Heavenly Bounty offend the First Prince?" The Emperor's inquiry tolled like a funeral bell.
Ye Changfeng's trembling jade chopsticks seized a noodle strand. The flavour explosion—tangy, umami, incendiary—coincided with his crumbling ambitions. Each mastication tasted of vanquished plots, each swallow a requiem for shattered machinations.
As the hall resonated with gustatory abandon, Ye Ling observed his brother's torment with a victor's smirk. The war had shifted from soil to palate, and triumph exuded the perfume of roasted garlic and desolation.
The Alchemy of Sovereignty and Sustenance
Ye Ling! Once more commandeering the celestial dais before the assembled court!
"Does the fare caress your august palate?" Ye Ling queried with serpentine guile.
"Tolerable...marginally..."
"Merely tolerable?" Ye Ling's lips arced in vulpine triumph. "Shall subsequent morsels refine your discernment?"
The Emperor's pronouncement reverberated through spice-laden air: "These swift-sprouting bounties shall proliferate across our dominion. Ling'er, this sacred charge befalls you. Let the Ministers of Revenue and Agrarian Works proffer aid."
The designated officials rose with oiled obeisance, their bows sculpted for a prince already coronated.
"Celestial Sovereign", Ye Ling knelt with blade-sharp solemnity, "this unworthy scion pledges marrow and breath to our eternal ascendancy."
"Should this venture flourish", the Emperor's gaze kindled with uncommon fire, "no subject shall know hunger beneath Heaven's canopy—a ruler's ultimate apotheosis!"
"Father's vision transcends vulgar sustenance!" Ye Changfeng interposed, venom swathed in nectar. "These ambrosial yields could gild imperial coffers through foreign trade. As the Chen clan wields mercantile sagacity and Minister Chen governs fiscal realms, let them shepherd this golden venture."
A masterstroke—Ye Ling's toil would engorge Chen's coffers while he ploughed fields.
"Divine Majesty", Minister Chen pounced like a famished tiger upon a wounded gazelle, "the Chen lineage vows to funnel every copper's profit to national treasuries."
The Emperor's hesitation hung palpably—a celestial dragon recoiling from carrion-feeding jackals.
Ye Ling's blade-edged inquiry severed the tension: "Enlighten this assembly, Elder Brother and Minister Chen—what mercantile calculus governs these exports?"
Minister Chen's abacus mind clicked with metallic precision: "Common grains yield 150 catties yearly per *mu*, valued at 4.5 taels. These tubers—3,500 catties per *mu*, thrice annualized—could yield 20 taels post-transit depletion. Sold beyond borders at 20 coppers per catty..."
"Ah, but have you tallied cultivation's hidden ledger?" Ye Ling's interjection cleaved like a harvest scythe. "Seed procurement, irrigation channels, pestilence, draughts? Or the tribute foreign principalities would exact upon this 'miracle crop'"?
A glacial silence descended as ministers recalculated fortunes. Ye Ling leaned forward, eyes glinting with arithmetical predation: "Shall we dissect profits after accounting for armed escorts against bandit hordes? Or the geopolitical leverage forfeited when rival realms achieve agrarian autonomy?"
Minister Chen's throat convulsed like a gaffed carp. The banquet's lingering chilli aroma curdled into ambition's ash.
"Before lining coffers", Ye Ling purred, "let us first nourish our people's viscera. Three years of imperial feasting shall forge loyalties stronger than golden fetters. When foreign monarchs kneel begging for surplus, then we shall dictate terms."
The Emperor's thunderous mirth set jade pendulums dancing. "Sixth Son wields the chancellor's cunning and the warlord's prescience! Let it be wrought as he decrees!"
Ye Changfeng's ivory chopsticks fractured, their sundering crack echoing through the hall—twin splintered bamboos mirroring disintegrating machinations.
The Transmutation of Earthly Bounty
Minister Chen's closing pronouncement sent seismic tremors through the assembled courtiers.
"Fifteen supplementary taels per *mu*—with but a tenth of the empire's cultivable earth consecrated to potatoes, our treasuries would balloon by fifteen million taels per annum!" The figure hung suspended like Damocles' gilded blade. Even the Emperor, long circumspect toward Chen's ambitions, faltered before this Midas promise.
"Does His Highness Prince Qian perceive virtue in this proposition?" Chen Huai's voice oozed oleaginous superiority. "The Chen mercantile web enmeshes granaries, wharves, caravans—no rival house commands such logistical omnipotence."
Ye Ling's crystalline laughter fractured the tension. "Minister Chen's devotion to imperial fiscality proves... commendable."
"Then Younger Brother acknowledges Chen's primacy in this enterprise?" Ye Changfeng interposed, his serpent's smile never cresting ocular shallows.
"Commendable, yet egregiously myopic." Ye Ling's censure flayed veneers of decorum. "Vending potatoes at twenty coppers per catty constitutes rustic arithmetic—pulverizing the realm's marrow for paltry pottage!"
A collective inhalation hissed through the chamber. Fu Hai, ever the Chen mastiff, bared fangs: "You vilify four decades of fiscal sagacity!"
"Sagacity?" Ye Ling's gaze quartered the assembly. "Last autumn's iron ore travesty saw Chen factors pillage our mines to glut foreign foundries—pocketing forty taels per tonne while the treasury bled. Shall we replicate such... *patriotic industry?"
The Emperor's jade sceptre quivered as he leaned forward. "Articulate your alternative, Ling'er."
"A tripartite stratagem, Celestial Father." Ye Ling's digits choreographed invisible abaci. "Primus: occult cultivation. Target desolate wastes and xeric plains—preserve existing agrarian heartlands. Secundus: martial obfuscation. To brandish this bounty now would be babes flourishing jade in cutthroat alleys."
"And lucre?" Ye Changfeng's sneer curdled. "Shall we hoard tubers like dragon's treasure?"
"Tertius: alchemical transfiguration." Ye Ling revealed a lacquered coffer containing diaphanous crisps and cinnabar-tinted starch filaments. "One catty of humble spud transmutes into ten phoenix-tail noodle bowls, priced at one tael each. Fiftyfold valorisation!"
Chen Huai's derisive snort perished mid-breath as Ye Ling continued: "Master Lu's ateliers already birth processing marvels—hydraulic mandolins, vapour desiccators. These…" he shattered a crisp with theatrical flair, "…shall vanquish palates from Xiongnu steppes to Persian divans. While rivals peddle crude bulk, we vend *experience*".
"Transport impediments!" Ye Changfeng seized the fulcrum. "Noodles congeal ere dusk!"
"Behold the magnum opus." Ye Ling unfurled vellum depicting vacuum-sealed oxhide satchels. "Preserved through lunar cycles, lighter than celadon. Caravans transmute into ambulatory symposia!"
The emperor's booming mirth scattered courtiers like startled egrets. "Sixth Son wields mercantile guile and bellicose prescience! Let the Agrarian Bureau enact his designs—under Qianwang's vigilant auspices."
As Chen Huai's visage was empurpled with baulked avarice, Ye Ling met his fraternal adversary's basilisk stare. The conflict had metastasized—from loam to marketplace, from tonnage to theatre. In this nascent arena, the dramaturgy was his to compose.
The Pantry of Eternity
"Does His Highness propose hawking chefs as culinary *adjuncts* to these tuberous fancies?" Chen Huai's laughter reverberated with calculated derision. "Such flights of fancy belong in alehouse anecdotes, not imperial deliberations!"
"Merchants of cooks? Elder Brother's wit outshines even the court's silver-tongued mountebanks!" Ye Ling's retort glittered with mirrored amusement, though his gaze hardened like tempered steel.
The clash peaked as Ye Changfeng donned his guise of condescending wisdom. "Sixth Brother clings to his rustic bauble like an infant to its rattle. Yet governance requires more than peasant obstinacy—only the Chen dynasty's mechanisms can transmute clay into coin."
When the Emperor's query cut through the din—"Ling'er, lacking culinary caravans, how shall this marvel materialize?"—Ye Ling unveiled his stratagem with theatrical panache.
"Recall the pickled crustaceans dispatched to Chu, Imperial Father. Concentrated essences sealed in crystal vials—add boiling water, and ambrosia arises!" His hands shaped ethereal wonders. "Thus preserved, these elixirs endure sixfold the solar cycles!"
The chamber erupted in scoffing chaos.
"Provisions spoiling by dusk, claiming to defy Chronos?"
"Even vermin would sicken of tedium in such tombs!"
"Let His Highness feast on phantoms alone!"
Undeterred, Ye Ling withdrew into the kitchens' mist-wreathed sanctuary. Three epochs passed—ministers squirming on numbed haunches, bellies growling discordant symphonies. Only the emperor remained as still as jade, though his whitened knuckles betrayed tempests within.
"Perhaps the prince requires...prolonged gestation?" Ye Changfeng's barb dripped venom as twilight gilded the vermilion pillars.
At the crux of revolution, Ye Ling emerged bearing obsidian coffers. Within lay parchment-bound treatises and prismatic vials—a gastronomic palimpsest awaiting revelation.
"To the apostles of doubt", he intoned, shattering a vial's seal, "behold the pantheon of preservation!"
The hiss of boiling water birthed aromas that routed incredulity—smoked Iberico and alpine thyme congealing into tangible ambrosia. Ministers leaned forward as if marionetted, nostrils quivering like hounds on a scent.
The Emperor's first sip resonated through frozen silence. Noodles danced across his tongue—resilient, tenacious, steeped in captured sunlight. When imperial eyelids finally lowered in beatific acquiescence, the unspoken verdict echoed in marrow.
Chen Huai's chopsticks trembled mid-air, suspended noodles dripping blasphemy. Ye Changfeng's throat convulsed soundlessly, intricate schemes dissolving like mist before dawn.
Beyond the lattice screens, the first stars flickered to life as Ye Ling's revolution triumphed—not through magnitude, but through the art of imprisoning time itself in crystal.
***
The Pantheon of Perseverance
Crepuscular shadows elongated like cynics' smirks across the gilded hall. Ye Changfeng's visceral growls underscored his silent taunt: *The charlatan's artifice crumbles beneath time's anvil. Chen's ascendancy dawns!
"Patience..." The emperor's murmur resonated with tectonic authority, quelling even visceral dissent.
Ye Changfeng's jewelled digits twitched toward congealed remnants, patrician hauteur surrendering to primal hunger. When vigilance waned, he furtively devoured the frigid leavings—a crown prince reduced to clandestine gluttony.
The grand portals sundered as Ye Ling materialized, visage streaked with soot and triumph. Cradled in his palms glimmered a vitreous disc akin to captured moonlight, trailed by eunuchs bearing trays of desiccated parcels and alchemical phials.
"Imperial Father's magnanimity humbles this son—culinary resurrection demands primitive tools be transmuted."
The Emperor's onyx gaze honed to a lethal edge. "Manifest your sorcery."
"Witness!" Ye Ling orchestrated his artefacts with hierophantic precision—the lunar disc, a carmine ampoule labelled "Dragon's Pyre", and a viridian cruet marked "Celestial Dew". "The secret lies in aqueous metempsychosis."
As aqua fervens cascaded into jade bowls, sceptics involuntarily leaned. The disc unfurled into nacreous tendrils, the carmine elixir unleashed umami's symphony, and the viridian essence wept chlorophyll sonnets. Fragrance materialized—juniper-smoked venison pirouetting with Sichuan fire, black bean chorales harmonizing with star anise.
"Celestial Progenitor—does this mirror our prior banquet?"
The Emperor's ivory chopsticks hovered, then struck. "The filaments... they pulse with vita nova!"
Ministers followed, their mastication composing a capitulation cantata. Even Fu Hai's sneer dissolved as elasticity duelled enamel, as crimson oils ignited dormant papillae.
Ye Ling raised an obsidian amphora, cradling his gastronomic phoenix—desiccated mandala, spice cruets, and verdure parchment. "This reliquary—bartered to Chu at one tael—bears triune salvation. Ethereal as zephyrs, enduring as dynastic edicts."
Chen Huai's rebuttal expired stillborn as imperial mirth quaked ancestral tablets. "Sixth Son transmutes scarcity into sovereignty! Let the realm know—this thaumaturgy answers solely to its architect!"
Ye Changfeng's chopsticks clattered, fallen noodles coiling like vanquished asps. Beyond cinnabar portals, the lunar orb ascended over reinvented cosmogony—where tenacity eclipsed bloodline, where appetite forged empires.
The Crucible of Celestial Mandate
The throne hall erupted in fractious discord.
"Such piquant convenience merits thrice the price!" thundered Minister of Rites Xu Shimao, his ceremonial sash quivering with fervour. "One tael insults its genius!"
"Two taels bare minimum!"
"Three scarcely suffices!"
The Nine Ministers transformed into mercantile augurs, their voices scaling mercenary heights. Only the Chen contingent sat entombed in ashen silence—their agrarian hegemony crumbling before Ye Ling's gastronomic insurrection.
Ye Changfeng's knuckles bleached white around his ivory sceptre. "Even should this...concoction revive through aqueous sorcery, what proof exists of its six-month endurance?" His challenge cleaved through the cacophony like a sacrificial blade.
"Elder Brother might procure a consignment for extended scrutiny," Ye Ling riposted, eyes glinting like honed steel. "Unless His Highness prefers obstructionism to empirical validation?"
Silence descended as Ye Ling unfurled his scroll of economic alchemy. "The arithmetic of sovereignty: ceramic amphorae thirty coppers, spice phials fifty, laborious transmutation twenty—total one hundred coppers per reliquary. Sold at one tael five hundred coppers, each yields fourteen hundred coppers profit. One *mu* yields three celestial cycles of ten thousand catties—translating to one hundred thousand portions and one hundred four thousand taels argent."
The figures materialized like gilded execution blades above Chen's heads.
"Moreover", Ye Ling's baritone swelled, "capsicum and xanthoxylum procurement elevate agrarian plebeians. Idle digits become silvered instruments—brigandage withers like blighted crops. True harmony flowers from sated viscera and industrious looms."
Chen Huai's cane struck jade tiles. "This...this culinary heresy profanes ancestral canon! Celestial retribution—"
"Does Minister Chen suggest our progenitors desired famine's scourge?" Ye Ling's interjection dripped nightshade venom. "Or that heavenly decrees whisper exclusively through Chen's lips? The Mandate Office records no astrological appointment for Your Excellency."
The Emperor's laughter detonated, scattering objections like startled pheasants. "Let heavenly wrath strike these aged shoulders! Nourishing my children outweighs astral auguries." His gaze was anchored on Ye Ling, alchemist and heir-elect. "By Vermilion Decree: Prince Qian assumes suzerainty over novel cultivars and processed manna. Let the Celestial Vault Blade—ancestral steel that forged our dynasty—sever corruption's hydra heads where they dare emerge!"
A collective inhalation froze the chamber. The sword's mere presence authorised regicide under imperial imprimatur.
As Ye Ling knelt to receive the weapon, its scabbard etched with constellations mirroring tuberous constellations—Chen Huai's prostration became both a fealty and a silent vendetta oath. Beyond cinnabar pillars, twilight's haemorrhage stained the firmament, yet within this sacrosanct arena, a new heliacal rising of power commenced.
The Forge of Sovereignty
The Celestial Vault Blade's formidable heft threatened to overwhelm Ye Ling's grasp—a silent tribute to his clandestine regimen of physical discipline. Clutching the scabbard adorned with astral jade constellations, he became a living emblem of imperial benediction, its gemstone refractions casting his visage in ethereal luminescence. To the assembled courtiers, he personified the realm's reforged backbone—a weapon tempered against corruption's corrosion.
Ye Changfeng's crescent-shaped wounds bloomed crimson on pallid palms. "Armed with this steel, Sixth Brother ascends as the empire's paramount authority," he fawned, each syllable oozing serpentine malice.
"Merely an unworthy custodian compared to the Chen dynasty's commercial omnipotence," Ye Ling parried, executing a bow that fused pantherine elegance with lethal precision. "When logistical endeavours commence, I shall require Chen caravans—though lamentably, all profits flow irrevocably to the national treasury." The unspoken provocation shimmered like honed steel: *your infrastructure becomes my imperial chariot.
The Emperor's edict reverberated with dynastic finality: "Reveal tuber cultivation secrets, and treason's edge shall reap its harvest!"
Later, within the Vermilion Study's sandalwood-veiled sanctum, the monarch's regal façade crumbled. "That imperial stipend necessitated my son's mercantile machinations..." His voice frayed like ancient parchment.
"Three million taels from salt monopolies this annum alone, Celestial Father," Ye Ling interposed, pressing jade-carved fiscal projections into trembling fingers. "The Chen malignancy metastasizes, yet our economic lancets grow keener."
The Emperor's mirth resonated with hoarfrost's brittleness. "They shall assail you with gilded calumnies and poisoned epistles."
"Let their venom flow." Ye Ling traced the blade's astral engravings—ancestral conquerors immortalized in steel. "When our caravans choke the Jade Road with golden spud wealth, Chen paper fortunes shall combust like mayflies in blast furnaces."
Beyond lattice-framed apertures, the first stars kindled as conspiratorial shadows lengthened. Ye Ling's visage mirrored in the Celestial Vault Blade revealed not a prince but a celestial blacksmith—hammering the empire's destiny upon the anvil of audacity.
The Crucible of Imperial Alchemy
"This audience transcends mere commerce," the emperor intoned, fingertips caressing a celadon teacup's gilded rim. "Your desiccated tuber filaments—they harbour martial metamorphosis."
Ye Ling inclined his head, the Celestial Vault Blade's heft an anchor to reality. "Featherweight sustenance impervious to decay—mule trains outpacing oxcarts. Victories forged through logistical sorcery."
"The Madao armouries at Yanhu Mountain roar with smithing fires," the sovereign sighed, "yet silver veins haemorrhage as Chu's silhouette looms."
"Imperial Father, witness this cypher." Ye Ling unfurled a silk cartouche emblazoned with vermilion sigils. "Chu's equine pestilence ravages cavalry—herds halved, raiding hordes neutered. Soon they'll grovel for our provender."
The Emperor's gaze ignited with lupine ferocity. "Celestial benediction!"
"Two years' celestial truce", Ye Ling entreated, "and our caravans shall birth legions sheathed in Madao adamant. The Chen carcinoma will self-immolate through fiscal exsanguination."
As crepuscular rays gilded the Vermilion Sanctum, the monarch bestowed upon Ye Ling a phalanx of umbral sentinels—dragon-visored phantoms dissolving into his retinue like ink in obsidian.
***
The Jade Crustacean Pavilion's lanterns bled crimson as Ye Ling marshalled his war council. Master Lu's forge-tempered digits drafted manufactory schematics while Lü Lü charted mercantile vectors through barbarian satrapies.
"Three comestibles for export," Ye Ling proclaimed, "piquant filament noodles, golden lattice crisps, and amber sweetroot ribbons. Let the Gilded Decapod House exhibit gastronomic theatre—sizzling fritters, magma-kissed tuber confections."
Lü Lü's jade abacus clicked like a deathwatch beetle. "Fluvial crustaceans diminish per prognosis. Pisciculture becomes imperative."
As strategies crystallized, Lü Lü lingered, her whisper silk-wrapped. "The Siren of Vernal Delights Pavilion seeks an audience. Mistress Miao's missive bears... peculiar sigils."
Beyond latticework apertures, the lunar orb ascended over transmuted empires—where scarcity birthed opulence, where courtesans' sighs tilted crowns. Ye Ling's digits grazed the blade's astral glyphs, their constellations murmuring of phantom battles yet unchronicled.
Courtesans and Commerce — The Price of Ambition
"Oh? She seeks an audience? Does the lady presume to offer her bedchamber?" Ye Ling tilted Lü Lü's chin with playful audacity, his grin sharp as a honed dagger. "Does my jade consort harbour jealousy?"
His hands, restless as prowling beasts, began their conquest.
"This unworthy vessel dares not," Lü Lü murmured, her cheeks blooming like peonies at dawn. "Your celestial vigour rivals the sun charioteer himself. In time, three palaces and six courts shall brim with splendour. A willow too frail to sway ambition's gales, blessed by fleeting favour—what more could withering reeds desire?" Her token resistance dissolved like mist, leaving her supine upon silk as Ye Ling departed, vitality renewed.
***
At the Pavilion of Spring's Whisper, Ye Ling returned to opulent decadence, his factories inspected. The new madam fluttered vermilion silk, sycophancy oozing like honeyed poison. "Divine timing, Prince Qian! The songbird Miaor awaits your audience!"
"No poetic parlour games tonight?" Ye Ling arched a brow.
"Shall we insult her ardour?" The madam's chuckle curdled as silver clinked into her palm. "Wisdom graces you beyond your predecessor."
Her smile petrified—Ye Ling's casual allusion to the prior madam's execution for incompetence turned her marrow to frost. Coin clutched, she fled like a startled hare.
***
Zhao Miaor's pipa wept melancholy notes until Ye Ling's silhouette eclipsed her chamber's light. "Rumours whisper of novel commodities in your emporium."
"A modest surplus," Ye Ling drawled, lounging like a contented panther. "Quantity?"
"Every grain." She set the instrument aside, posture rigid as a ceremonial blade. "Yet terms must—"
"Every grain?" Ye Ling's laughter rang like temple bells. "My coffers overflow like autumn floods. *My* treasures require no peddlers."
Miaor's porcelain mask fractured. "Ye Ling! You trample upon decorum!" Her stratagem—to infiltrate his manor through commerce, to escape Chu's marital chains with forged espionage triumphs—crumbled ere her demands took form.
"The Golden Crab trades in argentum, not airs," he sneered, flicking imaginary dust from his sleeve. "No bullion, no bounty."
To his eyes, she remained a gilded songbird—her pride a rusted cage, her allure fit only to beguile ink-stained paupers. What need had he of trinkets when kingdoms lay within his grasp?
Barter and Betrayal — The Cost of Hubris
"Ye Ling, consider well! Without Great Chu's mercantile veins, your wares shall moulder like autumn leaves!" Zhao Miaor's words dripped serpentine malice.
Moon after moon, Great Chu had drained millions from his coffers—a golden river that might swell to tenfold yearly. She clung to delusion: no man would spurn such lucre.
"Let our commerce wither then," Ye Ling answered, airily plucking an imaginary thread from his sleeve.
He abhorred this dance—predators masquerading as benefactors, their feigned largesse reeking of decay.
"...What sorcery is this?" Miaor's arrogance fractured like flawed jade.
"Contracts dissolved." Ye Ling turned, his shadow already claiming the threshold. No parley. No lingering.
Foolish nymph. Did she deem the Earth's axis tethered to Chu's tents? A rootless horde with naught but hides and hunger—their fleeting trade winds had bloated her pride like corpse gas. Such allies? Better fed to jackals.
"Depart now, and this chamber's doors seal forever!" Miaor's pipa shattered against marble, its discordant twang her final aria.
Blind to consequence: henceforth her kin would pay thrice for Da Shang's treasures, miss each innovation's dawn, and watch lesser houses pluck peaches from their grasp.
***
Ten suns later, the Golden Crab's halls hummed with foreign cadences.
Ye Ling and Lü Lü stood resplendent in phoenix silks, receiving envoys from seven kingdoms. Invitations had winged westward with autumn geese, yet the pristine emptiness gnawed at Lü Lü's composure.
"*Bazaar of innovation*?" The term tasted strange as a foreign spice.
"Tarry not before the hour," Ye Ling murmured, his thumb brushing her pulse point.
A tempest of jade and curses breached the gates.
"Madam, without summons—" A waiter's protest drowned beneath gem-studded wrath.
"Insolent worm! The Consort of Xu deigns to tread your filth!" A maidservant's clawed hand struck like a viper.
Fu Xianxian swept through, her perfume cloying as poisoned honey. "So this is the vaunted Crab? More mausoleum than marketplace."
The waiter shrank. Lü Lü nodded regal dismissal.
"Ah, Sixth Brother," Xianxian purred, "does bankruptcy demand you showcase your concubine's *original vocation*?" Her tittering malice echoed—a blade twisted since the Humiliation Banquet.
***
Snap!
Lü Lü's palm met Xianxian's cheek—a sound like ice cracking under midnight stars.
"*You dare—you brothel-born—*"
"Dare?" Lü Lü's smile could frost summer wheat. "I'd paint twin blossoms on that canvas."
***
Machinations and Crimson Retribution
Ye Ling's thunderous applause echoed through the vaulted hall. His consort would endure no slight beneath heaven's gaze.
Since last banquet's moon, he'd decreed to Lü Lü: *"Let your palm chastise all tongues that dare name your past."* Yet even he marvelled at her ferocious grace—a kitten transformed to snow leopard.
"I am Xu's Phoenix Consort! You—a bedchamber trinket—dare breach celestial order?" Fu Xianxian's jade finger quivered like storm-bent bamboo. "Crimson Silks! Are you clay figurines?!"
Her retinue surged forward, talons bared.
Clangour!
Ye Ling's boots became twin dragons. Bodies fell like autumn leaves—limbs tangled, moans harmonizing with pipa strings.
"Sav… savage!" Xianxian's vermilion lips blanched, her gaze snared by the *buyao* trembling in Lü Lü's night-black coils—a phoenix hairpin of white jade and moonlight gold. *Her* bridal treasure. The relic was pawned to erase her husband's gambling stench.
"Admiring your folly's crown?" Ye Ling's murmur dripped poisoned honey. "Your lord's debts now adorn *my* lotus blossom."
"Falsehoods!" Xianxian's face mirrored bleached silk. This humiliation scalded—her secret shame flaunted by the very viper who'd swallowed her kin's gold! Changfeng owed Chens, not this upjumped fox!
As her nails carved crescents in her palms, barbarian lords in sable furs began flooding the Jade Crab Pavilion, ivory invitations gleaming.
"Celestial patrons!" Servants kowtowed, foreheads kissing jade tiles. "Tonight's celestial market—taste heaven's bounty, command earth's treasures!"
Alabaster jars of dragon-whisker noodles, crystallized sweetroot bathed in solar syrup, and fire-kissed tuber discs nestled in phoenix bamboo—all arrayed beside Ye Ling's newest alchemical brews: amber rice nectar and peach-blossom ambrosia. Attendants hovered with gilded kettles, murmuring each delicacy's lineage to wide-eyed magnates.
"Peddlers of dross!" Xianxian hissed, flicking jade-ringed fingers. "Reduce this farce to splinters."
Ye Ling closed the gap, his whisper a dagger sheathed in silk: "Beloved *sister-of-my-blood*… Shall I paint for all the crescent birthmarks gracing your jade thigh? The one mirroring Chang'e's lunar chariot?"
Her rouge dissolved like morning frost. That mark—known only to her wet nurse's ghost—how…?
"Fortunes shift," he breathed, adjusting her dislodged hairpin with mock tenderness. "Should tonight's celestial market suffer… misfortunes… Imagine what verses might flow from this poet's brush."
Scorn's Spectacle and Virtue's Undoing — The Martyr's Descent
Ye Ling's honeyed insinuations drew voyeuristic gazes like moths to a flame.
"Ye Ling! This hall bears witness!" Fu Xianxian retreated, her pallor morphing into the porcelain mask of a *chaste icon*. "What depraved theatre do you stage?"
"Theatre?" Ye Ling's laughter chimed like shattered crystal. "Was it not *you* who whispered of Elder Brother's… *diminished prowess*?" His teeth grazed his lower lip—a pantomime of reluctant candour. "Since modesty seals Her Ladyship's tongue, this prince shall become her herald!"
He swept a sleeve toward the throng. "Produce your philters and potions—all arts to *resurrect a man's dormant fire*! Let Xu Manor become an apothecary of revival!"
Gasps rippled. *Prince Xu—emasculated?
"Slander!" Xianxian's cheeks flared peony-bright.
"Slander?" Ye Ling's whisper slithered through jasmine-scented air. "Your untouched bridal bed these three winters—does its frost not *testify?"
The crowd leaned as one. Merchants bellowed:
- "My cauldrons simmer *dragon-tendril broth*—revives petrified roots!"
- "Persian moon-tonics! Mightier than a kraken's ink!"
- "Ancestral *steelvine essence*—stirs stone to life!"
Xianxian quivered beneath ogling eyes. A hunched merchant oozed closer, reeking of musk: "Shall these *curatives* grace your private pavilion, Consort?"
Another crooned, "Why polish a rusted blade? Our *daggers* stay whetted!"
"**Silence!**" Red Silk brandished a hairpin like a miniature sword. "The imperial bloodline is sacrosanct!"
Mirth erupted. "What's worth a prince's seal if his *jade stalk* wilts?" jeered a Khotan trader. "Abandon his ice-lotus chamber—our tents burn warm!"
Xianxian fled, her dignity unravelling like torn silk, as vulgarities pursued like rabid hounds. Behind her, merchants descended upon clay urns of fiery tuber stew—their silver clattering into Ye Ling's coffers even as her honour turned to ash.
Gilded Harvests and Veiled Shadows — The Trader's Stratagem
The hall thrummed with the symphony of clinking silver and acrid vinegar fumes as Ye Ling stood encircled by silk-clad envoys.
"Prince Qian," intoned an An dignitary, his hawkish nose flaring above perfumed beard oils, "this tuberous ambrosia dances upon our tongues. Yet can such fragile alchemy endure thirty suns beneath desert skies?"
Ye Ling's grin rivalled the gleam of palace-gilded eaves. "My caravans outpace time itself. Ten thousand amphorae – was your bid?"
"Twenty!" barked a Qiang chieftain, wolf-pelt mantle whispering against still-warm terracotta.
"Five-and-twenty!"
By the time night's inky brushstrokes darkened the scroll-painted windows, a million sealed contracts for preserved delicacies had dissolved like mist—three million silver taels glowing like captive moonlight in ledgers. Lü Lü slumped against lacquered pillars, her coiled tresses unravelling. "The forge-fires shall burn till snow silences the bellows," she murmured, envisioning Master Lu's workshops spewing dragon-breath smoke.
"Have the hollow-eyed wraiths beyond the Phoenix Gate sworn fealty?" Ye Ling enquired, fingertips tracing vermilion district lines on a silk map. Human flotsam reforged into industry's cogs—his dual-edged sword of mercy and dominion.
Before Lü Lü could extol this governance poem, thunderous discord erupted below.
"Deceivers! Oath-breakers!"
Five Chu magnates stormed through cedar doors, their crimson robes bleeding into the lantern light. "Where lies our tribute, Prince?" Their ringleader snarled, jade seal ring cracking against barren exhibition stands.
Ye Ling descended the staircase like a war god alighting from celestial chariots. "Your crab and grape contracts were fulfilled to the final copper. As for new wares..." His laughter carried the whisper of unsheathed jian blades. "Shall I recount how Lady Zhao's *fervent* rejection at the Pavilion of Blossoming Desire left our partnership... severed?"
The magnates paled like rice-paper ghosts. Behind them, spice lords chuckled into steaming urns—silent arbiters of crumbling dynastic commerce.
"Quadruple valuation!" The Chu patriarch rasped, silver certificates fluttering from his sleeves like dying moths. "Half-weight in bullion, paid ere dawn!"
Ye Ling let the proposal hang like an executioner's blade above bowed necks. "Revised terms: full gold weight before shipment delays. Or..." His gaze drifted toward Qiang envoys etching fresh covenants with pearl-dust ink.
As the watchman's drumbeat heralded the hour of the rat, Lü Lü observed her lord balancing compassion's feather against dominion's anvil—an emperor-forger shaping realms from tuber-flesh and mortal yearnings.
Covenants and Moonlit Machinations — The Poet's Gambit
"One million taels in silver scrip—issued by your dynasty's paramount treasury," proclaimed the Chu magnate, his bow deeper than ceremonial protocol demanded.
"We crave enduring alliance with *your* vision, Prince Qian," added a second merchant, venom lacing his dismissal of Zhao Miaor. "That pretender's tongue wags only for her mirror's applause!"
Their guttural Chu dialect spilled secrets: the decennial Moon Festival Lyric Symposium neared, per tradition, hosted in Da Shang's waning glory. Yet Chu's ascendant star, guided by Princess Zhao Ling'er's cabal, sought to wrest stewardship through pre-dawn provocations—a ploy to anoint Chu as civilisation's new polestar.
"Illuminating," Ye Ling murmured, even as connections sparked. *Zhao Miaor—royal bloodline's mark in her fox-narrow eyes… A discarded chess piece?* His former self's negligence now glared like unhealed wounds.
"Tidings reached Chu but lately," the magnate elaborated, jade rings clinking against prostration. "Envoys approach with autumn's first frost." Their true motive shimmered beneath courtesies: to monopolize trade arteries before political storms rendered them toxic.
Ye Ling accepted the silver notes with a tiger lord's grin. "Such forthrightness warrants reciprocity. Existing contracts fulfilled, Chu shall drink from our second harvest."
As Lü Lü secreted the fortune into pearl-inlaid coffers, Ye Ling's mind danced with lunar possibilities: *The Symposium—a theatre for humiliation or coronation.* And Zhao Ling'er—that untamed phoenix who'd evaded his nets—would her wings grace this stage? As for Miaor… Better chained as a bedchamber ornament than left to sharpen claws elsewhere.
***
Xu Manor's courtyards choked under "tributes" of mockery—ginseng tinctures labelled *Dragon's Awakening*, deer-horn elixirs dubbed *Tiger's Roar*, and silk folios depicting Kama Sutra acrobatics.
"Your Highness…" A pageboy trembled. "Shall these… *offerings*… grace the vaults?"
"Feed them to courtyard flames!" Changfeng's roar shook persimmon trees. Each package carved deeper into his unspoken shame—the merchants' jests now materialized as physical taunts.
Rage and Reckoning — The Mid-Autumn Gambit
"Your Highness… The couriers insist these… *items*… were procured by Prince Qian from overseas merchants and dispatched directly to your estate," the attendant murmured, gaze fixed upon the floor.
He proceeded to detail Fu Xianxian's ordeal at the Golden Crab Pavilion—the merchants' crude taunts, the mounds of virility elixirs stacked like siege engines, the insidious rumours of princely inadequacy now echoing through the capital's marble corridors.
A page entered, bearing a missive sealed in vermilion wax. Ye Changfeng ripped it open, his visage darkening as he read:
>*Most Honored Elder Brother,*
>*Word of your… *condition* has pierced my heart with sorrow. In gratitude for your magnanimous *loan* of two million taels, I have sourced revitalizing draughts to rekindle your dormant vigor. May they hasten the day your halls ring with the laughter of heirs! With deepest sympathy—*
>*Your Ever-Devoted Younger Brother, Ye Ling*
"**That viper!**" Changfeng bellowed, hurling a jade inkstone through a silk-panelled screen. "Mobilize every blade-for-hire in the city! I'll carve his beating heart from his chest!"
Chen Huai, arriving unbidden, observed the theatrics. "Your Highness, recall your mother's intercession!" he intoned, voice a scalpel sheathed in velvet. "Her Majesty's pleas scarcely lifted your confinement. Recklessness now would unravel her stratagems—and crown your foes victorious."
Changfeng's fists trembled like caged thunder. "That gutter-spawned cur derides me! Sends *potions* as though I were some… some…"
"A wounded boar charges headlong into spears," Chen countered. "The decennial **Mid-Autumn Lyric Symposium** approaches—envoys from three-score realms will throng the capital. Chaos births opportunity. Let Ye Ling's lifeblood nourish the moonlit peonies then."
The words quelled Changfeng's storm. The symposium—a theatre where empires like Da Shang and Chu waged wars of verse and calligraphy—now glimmered with sanguinary promise.
"Let him strut awhile longer," Chen whispered, observing servants gather shards of celadon. "His mercantile gambits bleed our coffers, true—but hubris begets vulnerability. When poets gather, we'll stage a tragedy… *untraceable."
Changfeng's eyes lingered on a scattered scroll illustrating the *Forty-Nine Postures of Heavenly Union*—another of Ye Ling's "gifts." "The architects must be… *meticulous."
"Unquestionably." Chen's smile mirrored a scholar honing a sacrificial dagger. "What is a moon festival, after all, without… *poetic misfortunes*?"
To be continuous…