Qin Yan

Talent and beauty — that pairing has been writ to death in tales.
It seems every fair courtesan falls for some penniless scholar of rare talent; Bai Xuezhi proved no exception. She gave her heart to a scholar surnamed Guo, so poor his pockets jingled hollow, unable to produce even a single large coin. Yet Bai Xuezhi loved him with all she had. She let him take from her without pay, slipped him gold and trinkets, and even mused at sponsoring his attempts at the examinations.

When a story nears the point of elopement, there is always, as if by rule, a maid to aid the lovers. This pair were no different. Bai Xuezhi pinned all hope on Xiao Yu, charging the girl with letters and the rendezvous.

Perhaps she had forgotten how brutally she had tormented Xiao Yu.

Xiao Yu did not hurry when she received the letter. She stalled half an hour before setting off.

By the small river Bai Xuezhi waited and waited. Her lover did not come. Li Mama arrived instead, with a troupe of pimps and thugs.

They dragged Bai Xuezhi back in tatters, beat her until bruises blackened her body, and shut her away in confinement.

Xiao Yu, for her great service, was rewarded a few taels of silver and freed from the lowest chores. No longer a mere maid, she need not fetch and scrub as before.

A courtesan is still a courtesan. Even after grievous faults, the madam will not strike a finger; she will pamper and feed, only curbing freedom for a season. Everyone knew: if Bai Xuezhi repented and returned to toil for Spring Breeze Pavilion, she would remain its unrivaled star.

Yet this time Bai Xuezhi seemed touched by madness. She refused food, shrieked like a spirit, and wandered in misery.

One day Xiao Yu volunteered to bring Bai Xuezhi her meal.

She knocked. Bai Xuezhi leapt at her like a demon, eyes ablaze as if to rend the girl limb from limb.

But Xiao Yu did not flee. She stood calm and asked, “Bai Xuezhi, do you know where Master Guo is now?”

As if struck, Bai Xuezhi convulsed. She howled, “Do not harm him! Do not harm Master Guo! Tell Mother—tell them—if you spare Master Guo, I will do anything! Anything at all!”

Xiao Yu smiled with cold humor. “Rest assured. Master Guo fled before your captors arrived. Though a scholar by trade, he runs swift; several men failed to catch him. Those gold coins you carried? He took them. By now he rides for the capital—buying land, finding a proper wife. That sum could well buy a house and heirs, no?”

Bai Xuezhi stood as if turned to stone.

Xiao Yu left the mealbox, and slipped away like a wisp.

That night Bai Xuezhi ate from the mealbox, then set fire to burn all—her own body and the house with it. The blaze was stamped out before it fully took, but curtains and garments were half-charred, and the left half of her face was destroyed. She thought at last she might be free.

Li Mama laughed at that. “Think losing a face frees you? Child, you’ve been in my pavilion too long to think you own your fate. If your face is marred, you still have hands and feet—launder, cook, empty chamber pots, take lashes for others. I will work you like cattle, and when you are old and useless I will burn you and scatter you as fertilizer. You shall never leave Spring Breeze Pavilion!”

So ended Bai Xuezhi’s chapter; the tale passed to Xiao Yu.

At thirteen, Xiao Yu rose from scullion to “girl” — a novice courtesan unbed and unpresented. Business at Spring Breeze waned after Bai Xuezhi’s ruin; Li Mama fretted and set to nurture a new blossom. Xiao Yu stood among the candidates.

By ordinary looks she would do; she lacked the realm-shattering beauty, yet Li Mama decided to fashion her as a cultivated woman of talent.

She hired tutors and masters: letters, virtue, bearing, music, dance — every art to charm a patron. Xiao Yu proved extraordinary: quick of eye and memory, she learned verse and text in a single reading, spinning extempore poems with even rhyme and balanced form.

The tutor sighed: what a waste to have such talent in a girl of the brothel.

Besides verses, she trained at instruments and the many arts of pleasing. These hours left only scraps in the memory—trifles the Bosuo would later skip.

One small episode: as her rank rose watchfulness slackened. On a day when guards slackened, Xiao Yu slipped away.

From eight to fifteen she had not left the pavilion in seven years. No kin, no friends, no home — so she returned to the home that had sold her.

What followed unfolded before Gongsun Bai and me.

Her father and stepmother were terrified upon her return: her birth mother, unable to endure shame, had taken her life; her father had remarried with the silver from selling his child; the siblings she had tried to guard had been sold into servitude.

Xiao Yu bowed and begged her father to shelter her, offering the coin she had saved. They took the money and immediately summoned Li Mama. Selling a girl twice — perhaps history knew no equal.

Li Mama smiled like a viper, dragged Xiao Yu back, and beat her. When Xiao Yu did not weep, Li Mama herself wept, blowing her nose between tears: “Child, I thought you clever. Fool! You went back to the hand that sold you; and you gave them reason to sell you again. What difference between you and Bai Xuezhi?”

With those words Xiao Yu woke. She never fled again. She took her lot and learned.

Thus years passed until her sixteenth year — the coming-of-age. By custom she would begin to receive patrons and be given a flower-name. A name matters: it fixes an image in a patron’s mind. A coarse name conjures vulgarity; a delicate name summons an otherworldly grace.

Li Mama consulted storytellers, fortune-tellers, and scholars. Names were offered and argued until at last she gave Xiao Yu the list and bid her choose.

She glanced and plucked the slip that read: Qin Yan.

“Qin” — the pall; “Yan” — vapor: wrapping for the dead and a thing about to vanish. The name itself hinted at her fate.

Before her debut Li Mama primed the gossip mills. Flyers and storytellers spread her name until the whole state knew that Spring Breeze housed a beauty of renown. They called her skin like cream and brows like ink; not only lovely, they said, but wise. When a lie is repeated a thousand times it smells of truth; men who heard began to believe.

Thus Qin Yan’s fame rose before she set foot upon the stage.

On the thirteenth day of the ninth month a stage was set beneath the elm. Qin Yan danced in a gown of red gauze, face veiled. Petals drifted; her white arms traced flight; the arch of her instep and the curve of her body made an image as of the moon.

When the veil fell her face shone — perhaps but nine parts of perfection, yet the scene lent it a hundred and twenty.

Thus she rose as the foremost courtesan of Yichuan.

Fame brought wealth and patrons. Li Mama, ever calculating, did not hasten to squander the tree of gold. Patrons came: nobles, wandering knights, and a notorious flower-thief — Luan Feng.

No man knew Luan Feng’s true name or face. He wore a demon mask, moved like shadow, and his lightness skill was unmatched. By night he drifted through women’s chambers; many were sullied, some ended their days.

One morning a note pinned to Spring Breeze declared that on a day Luan Feng would take Qin Yan; he ordered her to be prepared and kept clean.

Li Mama paled. Qin Yan remained serene. To her, whether taken by Luan Feng or another, little difference was made; courtesans had no choice.

Still Li Mama panicked, strengthening guards, posting pimps at every corner, and setting two stout matrons to watch Qin Yan around the clock.

Yet Luan Feng still mocked them. He left notes, stole a slip, stole a lock of hair; once Qin Yan found a tiny heart-shaped kiss upon her neck.

Li Mama posted a reward — a thousand taels — for the capture of Luan Feng.

Under that bounty a white-clad youth stepped forward. He called himself Jiang Han.

Twenty years or so, Jiang Han carried a gravity beyond his years. A moonlit long sword at his waist, a silver ribbon binding his hair — his manner bespoke a gentleman. Not one to stoop for mere coin.

Gongsun Bai and I watched him and felt unease.

“Does he look poor?” I asked.

Gongsun Bai eyed him. “At worst a fallen scion. At best the scion of a house.”

“Such a man cares for reputation — why stoop to earn coin here?” I asked.

Gongsun Bai was struck. “Is a thousand taels little? Even nobles must eat. If this were not a memory-wrought realm, I might take the job.” He chuckled.

Jiang Han slipped into the pavilion life as if born to it. Maids “lost” handkerchiefs, tripped, and collapsed into his arms; he aided each like a gentleman, adding a gentle smile that conquered every heart. Again and again the same scene.

Qin Yan watched coolly. The partnership was plain: Jiang Han guarded, Qin Yan paid.

The day Luan Feng named arrived.

The pavilion locked for the midnight. Qin Yan was confined, watched by many. She did not think Luan Feng would dare in broad daylight.

At noon a maid sent for food disappeared. Smoke rose — the kitchen aflame. Chaos. Staff rushed to stamp out the straw blaze; no great injury yet.

When Li Mama returned, Qin Yan’s locked room stood empty.

We saw it plainly: Qin Yan walked out herself. She seemed to go gladly, as if expecting to be taken.

The missing maid returned—Autumn Moon—smiling before Qin Yan. A white veil covered Qin Yan’s eyes; she felt herself lifted and the wind roared.

Scent of grass and flowers, blue sky and white clouds. Luan Feng had disguised himself as Autumn Moon.

Li Mama had guards at every gate but did not see that Luan Feng had cloaked himself and lay near Qin Yan.

They ran until the wind stilled. They set Qin Yan down on soft grass; a man’s heavy breath hovered.

“At last,” he murmured, “no interruption. Surprised to find me here?”

Qin Yan shook her head. “I cannot see.”

He laughed. “Ah, you are blindfolded. Do you wish to see my face? Is he what you dream of?”

He drew the veil. For the first time she saw him — a young man of swordlike brows and bright eyes; not a rakish lecher but a handsome youth. Luan Feng’s smile revealed dimples.

“Afraid?” he asked.

Qin Yan plucked a small red blossom and held it to her face, eyes calm on sky and cloud.

“I have not felt such ease in a long while,” she said. “Do as you will — only do not block my view of the blue sky and white clouds.”

Luan Feng laughed, pleased. “You are curious. I expected a famed beauty and found a spirit far more fair than flesh.”