Perhaps it was because Xue Mu had kept hammering away since their first meeting at the idea that he could "help develop their sect," or perhaps it was simply that he carried himself with such easy confidence and infectious conviction. Either way, Yue Xiaochan did not suspect him of bragging. Instead she poked at his hand with her chopsticks, eyes shining with anticipation. "Let's hear it."
Meng Lan lowered her head a little, her expression somewhat strange. To be honest, she still couldn't work out where Xue Mu had come from. Even if he were the Sect Master's relative, the Young Sect Mistress had no business being this casual with him... Which meant her earlier attempt to hook him had basically been asking to die—wasn't it a bit like competing with the Young Sect Mistress for a man...?
"First, let me nail down a few things." Xue Mu held up one finger. "One: are the capital's brothels all run pretty much the same way—putting looks and talent on display, no other tricks?"
Meng Lan answered, "They're all about the same. Sure, some make a gimmick of selling art but not their bodies, but sooner or later they take their first patron anyway."
Xue Mu nodded. "Two... do you mind offending the righteous path?"
Meng Lan blinked. How had they gotten onto offending the righteous path? If he meant to compete with other houses, wouldn't the people he offended be his fellow trade?
Before she could answer, Yue Xiaochan jumped up. "Who are we? As if we'd be afraid of offending that pack of hypocrites! We only regret they don't die faster! And anyway, offend them or not, don't they come looking for trouble all the same? They just made a scene down south—and you expect us to keep the peace and make money?"
"Alright, then..." Xue Mu leaned in close to Yue Xiaochan and beckoned.
Yue Xiaochan instinctively brought her little head nearer, and Xue Mu leaned over to whisper. A man's breath came closer to the little girl's small ear than ever before, and suddenly she felt as if something electric was crackling and darting all over her body. Her heart began to race; heat welled up from somewhere unknown and in an instant burned her cheeks scarlet.
That little translucent earlobe began to change color right under Xue Mu's eyes, going straight to pink, then spreading to her face, then down her neck. Xue Mu stared, dazed for a moment, and unconsciously swallowed.
You really can't tell—the girl's this green, huh... No wonder she was so unhappy about that earlier misunderstanding; she really is innocent through and through... That pink, tender little earlobe seemed at this moment to radiate endless temptation—so fresh and soft, utterly adorable. A powerful urge to kiss it welled up in Xue Mu's heart, but his reason knew that was far too depraved. The girl was only thirteen; no matter what, he should not be getting ideas about a little thing who hadn't even grown up yet...
You could only say that a young girl's natural, bashful beauty was more moving than any seduction art.
The air between the two seemed to stand still. Off to the side, Meng Lan propped her chin on her hand and watched with great amusement.
Their sect did not hold with the Hehuan Sect's doctrine of essence plunder; they actually still harbored some expectations where love was concerned. But a demon sect was a demon sect in the end—using women's innate advantages to enchant men and turn their heads was second nature to them.
The Young Sect Mistress had been hailed as a talent the sect saw once in a century; she ought to have waited for her cardamom years, then gone out into the jianghu to bewitch the masses and bring the whole world to its knees...
Yet who would have guessed that before she ever set foot in the jianghu, she'd be shamed into this state by a man while still in her green, unripe phase. If the Sect Master saw this, you had to wonder whether she'd cough up blood.
Seeing Meng Lan's amused expression, Yue Xiaochan sat back down in a fluster and glared at Xue Mu. "If you've got something to say, spit it out. Your scheme needs your senior sister to carry it out too—so what's with the whispering? Are you deliberately toying with this young lady?"
Now that she had moved away, Xue Mu let out a soft breath. "I'm not interested in snot-nosed little girls."
Yue Xiaochan glared furiously. "You—!"
Xue Mu swiftly changed the subject. "Oh, right, I forgot to ask you two—do the great righteous sects have uniforms? ...Er, I mean standard sect garb."
Yue Xiaochan knew perfectly well he was changing the subject, but she had no choice except to swallow it. "Most of them do. Why?"
"Then we've got our method." Xue Mu stopped playing mysterious and rattled it off. "You have the girls change their look... Say, dress one up in Daoist robes and have her tell the customers she's a Daoist nun cultivating at such-and-such a great sect... Or put one in a hero's outfit with a sword and have her wear the cold, sharp air of a jianghu swordswoman, claiming she comes from such-and-such righteous sword sect. The key is to really act the part..."
Yue Xiaochan had been stewing in a mix of resentment and embarrassment, her heart still racing. But as his words went one by one into her ear, that girlish blushing, heart-fluttering feeling flew clean off to the ninth heaven. Her big eyes grew brighter and brighter, and her little face gradually lit with a glow of extreme excitement.
Meng Lan's eyes lit up too. She exchanged a look with Yue Xiaochan, and the two of them rose to their feet at the same time. They barely needed to think it over—they knew this trick would work. Would work extremely well...
Those great sects sat so high above everyone that on ordinary days they wouldn't spare a common person a glance. Any ordinary jianghu traveler who got so much as a word out of one of them would probably be happy for two or three days. This sort of role-play would absolutely satisfy countless people's inner cravings—they would flock to it. It didn't matter that the deception wouldn't hold up; all people wanted was that feeling of desecrating a goddess. Meng Lan could practically see the crowds filling Baihua Garden's door. There was no suspense about it whatsoever.
This move was thoroughly wicked and thoroughly bewitching—it made money and it rubbed the righteous sects' noses in it. It was exactly to the taste of demon girls like them; one look at Yue Xiaochan's shining eyes was enough to tell. Her little head was probably already spinning off who knew what even more outrageous ideas...
And no one else could copy this trick. Anyone with an ordinary background would never dare offend super-sects like the Wenjian Sect or the Xuantian Sect—but who were they? They were already set against the righteous path to begin with! If they could make them die of rage, so much the better.
Only the Hehuan Sect, another great sect of the demon path, would dare learn this trick—and if it got copied, so what? It would share the pressure of the righteous path's revenge, and the Hehuan Sect's business might even end up the better for it. The Star Moon Sect would no longer be the bird that stuck its head out.
This was a marvel of a move tailor-made for them! Nothing invested, everything to gain, several gains in one stroke, and fast results on top of it. Meng Lan was so impressed she nearly dropped to her knees. How had he even come up with this?
Yue Xiaochan paced back and forth in high excitement.
"The Wenjian Sect's look has the most flair—white robes like snow, a body like a sword, hahaha... I hear Mu Jianli is on a ten-thousand-li pilgrimage to pay homage to the sword. If she found out that getup was being held in a customer's arms, would she die of rage right there on her ascetic road? And the Xuantian Sect's stinking Daoist nuns, hahaha—those robes are pretty recognizable... I'll get people together right now to hunt down those hypocrites with their eyes on their foreheads and strip a few outfits off them for us to use."
Seeing how obviously overexcited Yue Xiaochan was, Meng Lan cautiously reminded her, "This should really be reported to the Sect Master. After all, it could bring down massive retaliation."
Yue Xiaochan waved a hand. "Master will only praise it when she hears! I'll go tell her right now."
With that she couldn't even be bothered with the door—she flew out through the window. But the instant she set foot on the windowsill, something else occurred to her, and she turned her head back with a half-smile. "If you really are interested in a woman's earlobes, you can kiss your senior sister's—didn't you come on to her already?"
Having flung down that line—no telling whether it was jealousy or just a jab—her figure blurred and vanished.
Xue Mu and Meng Lan looked at each other, sinking together into awkwardness. Honestly, Meng Lan's age and figure were much more to Xue Mu's taste; if the time and place hadn't been so completely wrong, he would have been very willing to develop an unspeakable sort of story with her. But the mood had long since gone off. Forget picking up where they'd left off—even exchanging a single word alone together was unbearably awkward.
After a good long while, it was Meng Lan who recovered first. She raised her cup to Xue Mu. "Thank you for your clever scheme, Young Master."
Xue Mu struggled to drag his mind off the whole man-woman mess. He sipped his wine and said thoughtfully, "A brothel can't be a long-term plan in the end. You really could develop in other directions, you know."
Meng Lan shook her head.
"Does the Young Master not know? Ten years ago we didn't even have a business out in the open. We spent our days hiding from one encirclement after another. It was the Sect Master—a heaven-sent genius—who broke through the Heaven-Human limit while still a young woman, cowing both the black and the white paths, and only then gave everyone the chance to settle down and grow strong. And none of us are any good at running businesses. A brothel here is about the one thing we're suited for; as for anything else, we wouldn't even know what to do."
Xue Mu said mildly, "To me it looks far too simple... It's just a pity..." His voice trailed off. What a pity he wasn't truly Xue Qingqiu's relative—how could they ever follow his every word?
At the same time, over at the Six Doors, Xue Qingqiu was called out by her disciple. Hearing that it was this kind of nonsense, she was already out of patience; hearing the rest, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "That's a nasty idea. Did Xue Mu give it to you?"
"Yes, yes, that's right!"
"Heh... So it seems that Xue Mu does have some real skill about him after all. Our rescuing him wasn't for nothing. Go ahead and do it—if the righteous path squawks, your master will bear it."
Truly, the demonic streak ran true through the same lineage. Yue Xiaochan had been right—her master only praised it...