Clouds and Rain

I opened my newly rouged lips to speak, but, seeing the expression on my face, the Chujen slapped me again, sending clouds of white powder into the air and a flurry of house servants scurrying about to repair the damage to their hours of work on my face. As luck had it, I still was naked in the wake of the powdering. I would have had better luck if I already had been wound into my red robes. Chujen wouldn’t have dared ruin those with the spray of white powder. As it was, he was wasting a fortune. The intoxicating, yangchu-hardening powder was a dear commodity.

“If you are successful, I may send you to Haikou, to the Shengchang, who has made certain requests. He is the one who selected you for this assignation. If not, I will turn you out into the streets of Xinzhou, where the fishermen of the town will know what to do with you.”

I remained unimpressed. He often threatened me with the randy fisherman of the town below our cliff. He had invested too much in me for that to be a real threat. At the worst, he would sell me to some dried-up ancient with no seed, flatulence, and a limp yangchu.

“We are to provide delay,” Chujen informed me. “You are to make the Kueilo who appears for you to dally as long as possible. the Shengchang does not know if the vessel is a shangchu’an or a chunch’an, a merchant ship or a war ship. There have been rumors of these Kueilo appearing at the fringes of the Central Kingdom, but never here. In either case, they must be made to turn away or go down to the depths of the sea. The Shengchang has sent queries to the emperor, but the situation is momentous; he must know if he can simply kill them or not.”

I adopted my humblest look and kowtowed at the Chujen’s feet. “But I don’t understand, Chujen. Why are they coming here to Xinzhou? We are simply the pleasure resort for Haikou. What do we have to do with such momentous affairs?”