Yue Xiaochan read on and on, drawn in so deep she couldn't bear to set it down; she desperately wanted to know what the swordsman would do, and at the same time the description had her so mortified she wanted to sink through the floor, her face as red as a monkey's rump. In that moment she finally understood what that look on Meng Lan's face earlier had been about—wasn't it exactly the way she was right now, flushed crimson, stealing glances at him with spring water in her eyes and something in them that was half pout, half reproach?
Xue Mu kept writing away furiously.
The story wasn't long—too long and nobody would read it. In the end, the swordsman's enemies came for him again; Qianqian threw herself in front of him and took the fatal sword strike, and though the swordsman slew his foe, the Qianqian in his arms was already fading. With her last strength she said, "This life is over for me. I only ask that in the next life I may serve you with a clean body."
To Xue Mu, this was called deliberately manufacturing melodrama. But to Yue Xiaochan and Meng Lan, meeting this kind of story for the first time, it truly made their noses sting and their tears go plop, plop, plop.
"Xue Mu, you bastard!"
"Wh-what did I do?"
"Why did you have to let Qianqian die?"
"It's called 'only tragedy moves the heart.'"
"I don't care! You have to write her back to life!"
Looking at Yue Xiaochan's little tear-streaked face, Xue Mu couldn't help laughing. "Of course she comes back to life. Otherwise how would our top girl Qianqian even exist?"
Yue Xiaochan gaped at him, exchanged a glance with Meng Lan, and the two of them sniffled for a good long while before it finally occurred to them that this was Xue Mu's step two.
Meng Lan asked cautiously, "How do we use this story?"
"It's called soft advertising," Xue Mu said with a smile. "Didn't you notice? The story is set in Baihua Garden, and its heroine is Baihua Garden's top girl. Once it spreads, Baihua Garden gets famous, and so does Qianqian. The key is whether the story can sink into people's hearts. Judging by your reactions, I'd say we've got seven or eight chances in ten."
Shaolin Temple is that famous—who knows how much of the credit ought to go to the wuxia novelists...
Yue Xiaochan had more or less caught on too. "So that's why you deliberately wrote that indecent scene in such detail..."
"Right..." In any age, any land, any culture, the fastest-spreading, most captivating thing is always the smut—unless people are sick of it, and that's decided by human nature. Especially in this world, where writing is held in no regard: write something deep and meaningful and nobody reads it, but a dirty story is guaranteed an audience. Xue Mu didn't say that part out loud; presumably Yue Xiaochan understood it too.
Given the education Yue Xiaochan and her kind had grown up with—they'd seen spring palace pictures and studied the dual cultivation arts—if even they blushed at a story like this, the other innocent newcomers had no hope of putting up any resistance.
Xue Mu went on: "As for that tangled, forbidden feeling—it's there because Baihua Garden's own background is exactly like that, which makes it feel true. Using tragedy to draw people's sympathy and sighs is, without anyone noticing, washing your name clean. When people talk about Baihua Garden, when they talk about Qianqian, it'll be a poignant love story, not just a brothel selling smiles. Later I'll put together a few more Baihua Garden stories. Once the first thing everyone thinks of when they hear 'brothel' is Baihua Garden, you'll have a hard time losing money even if you try."
"So that's it." The way Yue Xiaochan looked at Xue Mu shifted once more. She truly had no idea how this man's brain was put together; a single piece of writing carried so many layers of calculation, and every last one of them made perfect sense. She asked, as though seeking instruction: "So now do we take it to a print shop and cut woodblocks?"
"No. Have the girls copy out a few by hand and give them away free to every customer. Given how few stories there are in this place, I'd guess that inside of three days it'll spread through the capital all by itself. We don't need to print a thing."
Meng Lan was brimming with admiration. "Please put your name on it, Young Master."
Putting one's name on it was a serious matter for the people of this world as well. Warriors craved renown; making a name for oneself was the first goal of everyone who set foot in the jianghu, and once famous, a person guarded that name with great care. In Meng Lan's eyes, a story this good was enough to make the Young Master's name.
"My name? No need." Xue Mu waved a hand. "This is to make Baihua Garden famous, not me."
The truth was, Xue Mu simply felt that signing his name to smut was a bit too lowbrow—the fame wouldn't be the good kind, so what was the point. But Meng Lan was visibly moved, and Yue Xiaochan's eyes went bright and glassy; it was a long while before she said softly, "I know you're not doing it for yourself, but sign it anyway. Otherwise I won't use your story."
"Fine..." Xue Mu picked up the brush, mused for a moment, and wrote four characters: "Three-Good Scholar Xue."
"Is that a nickname you gave yourself?" Yue Xiaochan asked, puzzled. "What does it mean? Fond of what, exactly? Which three?"
"'Good' as in 'fond of,'" Xue Mu said, tossing down the brush. "Fond of full breasts, fond of long legs, fond of slim waists. The jianghu calls me Three-Good Scholar Xue."
"'The jianghu calls me'—is there no limit to your shamelessness?" Yue Xiaochan burst out laughing at him, shot him a sideways glare, and then said in a honeyed voice, "So you're really into that? You could have fooled me."
Xue Mu looked expressionlessly at her flat chest and said nothing.
Yue Xiaochan clutched her chest and fled in tears. "Anyway, Senior Sister's are big!"
Off Yue Xiaochan ran, weeping, and Xue Mu's gaze drifted, without his quite meaning it to, onto Meng Lan. Meng Lan displayed her shapely, well-proportioned figure without a trace of self-consciousness, and even threw him a flirtatious look. "Young Master..."
"Hm?"
"Much as I'd happily oblige the Young Master's three fondnesses, I'm more afraid of the Young Sect Mistress making my life miserable." Meng Lan smiled, gathered up the manuscript, and left at a glide; at the door she looked back with a smile. "I'm going to see to actual business now."
She wasn't using the seduction arts this time, and yet her natural coquetry was still enough to melt a man's bones. Xue Mu showed no particular reaction, only smiling and gesturing for her to go on. A flicker of disappointment crossed Meng Lan's eyes; she turned again—and Xue Mu suddenly called her back. "Has the Sect Master come back from the Six Doors yet?"
"I don't know," Meng Lan said in surprise. "Does the Young Master need to see the Sect Master?"
Xue Mu pressed his lips together and said nothing.
Say what you like: the Star Moon Sect was held in Xue Qingqiu's grip through absolute martial strength and absolute prestige, and nothing could be done without her nod. If he could win Xue Qingqiu's trust the way he had won Yue Xiaochan's, then with the Star Moon Sect as his base, the sky would be high and the sea wide, and he could play to his heart's content.
There was also a certain wish in his heart that he could not say aloud... Yue Xiaochan was too young, and Meng Lan was only an outer-affairs disciple with no real power. If—only if—he could somehow land Xue Qingqiu...
He was still in the middle of this fantasy when a violent explosion came from somewhere in the distance, along with a tremor that shook earth and mountains, an aftershock he could faintly feel even from here. Meng Lan's expression changed abruptly. "That's the direction of the Six Doors! Could the Sect Master be fighting someone?"
Xue Mu couldn't sit still either. He and Meng Lan ran out together, and at the gate of Baihua Garden they found Yue Xiaochan holding back that Senior Aunt Qingqing and saying something to her.
"What happened?"
Yue Xiaochan turned, saw that it was him, gave an irritated humph, but explained anyway: "The Six Doors won't release our person. Master lost her temper, tore down their outer prison and let a few convicts escape. She says if they don't hand the person over in a day, she'll tear down one prison a day."
Xue Mu was dumbstruck.
The impression he'd been given before was that the Demon Sect's quarrel with the righteous path was out in the open, while with the court some sort of reconciliation had been reached—and even where they did oppose the court, it would be done in secret. Besides, you've got businesses in the capital. On the surface, isn't the government the very last people you'd want to offend? What's this about jumping up and going head-to-head with the Six Doors? Do you still want your businesses or not?
Is there something wrong with my earlier reading of all this?
A moment later Xue Qingqiu drifted in, tossed over a set of constable's clothes, and said with a perfectly innocent expression, "Chan'er, go find a girl to put these on. Tell the customers that here, they can play with a Six Doors constable too."
Xue Mu stood with his hands tucked in his sleeves, staring speechlessly at Xue Qingqiu's utterly unconcerned look, and thought: So that's what a big shot looks like...