Nightfall Chapter 98

The steward, Huashao, heard a cry and suddenly thought of a certain lad who had often appeared in the House of Red Sleeves during the thirteenth year of the Tianqi era. His heart fluttered as he followed the voice and clearly saw this person's visage beside young master Chuzhu. Afterwards, he found out it was the wicked person who called the girl but didn't pay. His body suddenly became stiff and his face flushed. He painfully thought that they hadn't seen each other for a long time, so what was the reason for today's meeting?

For people in the service industry, their thoughts and behavior could never be synchronized. Though cursing Ning Que in his heart, Steward Hua quickly changed his countenance of embarra.s.sment into a brighter one like flowers and dared not hesitate to offer service. He offered Ning Que a smile across a few wine tables and then cupped his right hand to his lips, shouting at the girls in quiet and lonely upstairs. "All the girls! Young master Ning Que is here!"

Unsure of how many people were stunned by this shouting in the building, students who had pretended to be shy and calm or pretended to be experienced to show pridefulness all turned their suspicious eyes to Ning Que's table. Situ Yilan held up a cup and surprisedly opened her mouth. Jin Wucai could no longer maintain a calm appearance. They both thought of what kind of reception service it was, and that everyone felt like knowing Ning Que in the House of Red Sleeves. Surprised, curious and a little doubtful, the students looked upstairs to see how many girls would come out to see him after hearing the cry of Steward Hua.

On the stage, the bamboo beat and the light song suddenly stopped, making the whole building quiet. There weren't any beauties rus.h.i.+ng out to see Ning Que, no girls who smiled and waved to him, or even surveys by maidservants for their ladies. Witnessing this, some students in the hall felt a little bit disappointed, and some felt a little sense of balance. When Situ Yilan started to feel slightly bored, then there was a sudden sound of many footsteps.

The sound was a cacophony of big and small beads dropping on a jade plate, and heavy and light rain alternatively clattering on the Spring Breeze Pavilion. During the footsteps flapping, pearls shaking, and feminine murmurs, six or seven girls with their personal maidservants filed out from the backyard of the building, flowing into the hall like a river. Then they went to Ning Que's side to quietly accuse, gently care about, or frown to wonder about his absence for those days. All in all, it turned out to be a lively scene.

All of a sudden, a little girl with two lovely tufts of hair stuck her head out from the attic. She was Mistress Jiane's personal maidservant, Xiaocao. She looked around with her dark eyes but didn't see the person she sought. Then she unhappily shouted. "Ning Que, where is Sangsang? You put her in the shop again!"

That night, in preparation for the palace dance, those boring girls hurt a fragile but sensitive Ning Que with ridicule and ran him into the building. After that night, there started to be some subtle changes. Whether the favored concubines like Dewdrop and Lu Xue or other ordinary girls, they all treated Ning Que warmly and cordially for three reasons.

First of all, Ning Que was born with a clean and pleasing face, with decent words and respect for girls; a rare lad in a brothel. Thus they only had a pure relations.h.i.+p so as to get along easily and relaxedly. After gossiping many times in the brothel, they had been very familiar with each other. Secondly, Dewdrop pampered this lad for some purely private factors, so all the other girls naturally valued him more.

The most important reason was that Mistress Jiane had expressed a certain degree of concern for the lad. Although this kind of concern was not conspicuous, for Mistress Jian who has always been cold and even disgusted with men, it was rather rare. It might not make any sense for Dewdrop and Lu Xue, but the rest of the girls would rather to be intimate with Ning Que or even sleep with him for a few nights so as to win Mistress Jian's favor.

The Academy students, however, did not know these reasons, or how many times Ning Que had entered the House of Red Sleeves this spring. Looking at the prosperous scene beside the wine tables and listening to the tender and beautiful sounds, they have already become dull in minds.

Situ Yilan finally slowly put down the cup and closed up her mouth. Seeing Lu Xue who had not accepted the service offer twice gently sitting beside Ning Que and eating the melon seeds to gossip, she could not help looking at Jin Wucai wearing men's clothes and then gasped. "Chu Youxian didn't lie. Ning Que really is a VIP in the House of Red Sleeves. This guy... is much more important than my pretentious cousins."

Before they finished talking, Ning Que came to the end of the conversation with the girls and bowed with hands folded in front to bid farewell. Then he slightly lifted the beauty Lu Xue's hand. They walked towards Situ Yilan's table. He smiled and said, "Miss Situ, I bring you the beauty Lu Xue. Show her compa.s.sion for her hard-working dance practice recently and let her leave early to rest."

Situ Yilan stood up, feigning anger, and then said, "That's between our girls. Just mind your own business." After finis.h.i.+ng this sentence, she turned to bow to Lu Xue and seriously said, "Sister Lu Xue, I've been looking forward to seeing you so as to ask you about the Middle Three Kicking method of Hu Xuan dance. Today, I'm fortunate enough to meet you here, so I hope you can enlighten me with your instructions."

Lu Xue slightly frowned. She did feel a little tired. But, she more clearly knew that in front of the n.o.ble she did not have a privilege to keep the high profile of well-known concubines.

Jin Wucai also stood up, using his hand to fold a fan to gently knock the tiger's mouth in his other hand. Then she smiled and said, "Lu Xue, my sister Situ wants to learn this dance's Middle Three Kicking method for the Yunhui general's 60th birthday at the end of this year. She'd like to offer this dance as a gift but doesn't necessarily have to learn it today, just hoping you can leave some teaching time for her."

"Oh, I see." Lu Xue smiled and said, "I'll just dance for a short while tonight then. Next time Miss Situ needs me, just inform me in advance. It doesn't matter whether you come here or I go to your mansion. Both of them are very convenient."

Hu dance had nothing to do with the Tribe of Savages in the gra.s.sland but came from the Yuelun Kingdom. Rumors said that its root cause was a rainforest tribal ritual dance in the Yuelun Kingdom. It was known for its quick and pleasing rhythm. Especially when the upper half of the dancers posed as a static celestial beauty scattering flowers and the lower half of their bodies rapidly trembled with the moving waists, abdomens as well as thighs along with the song, it would form a very clear sense of contrast beauty.

This dance was extremely difficult. Down Three Kicking was relatively easy to achieve, but it was rather difficult if one wanted to complete the Middle Three Kicking or even the Up Three Kicking by maintaining the upper body still. The best Hu dancer in the world was in the Chang'an city of Tang Empire, namely Lu Xue in the House of Red Sleeves.

Among the tinkling sound of small lutes floated a slight pipe sound. By the dim light inside the quiet building, Lu Xue exposed her waist, wrapped her hips in a fiber dance gown and came to the audience when the curtains opened. With her gentle eyes slightly looking down and both hands crossed in front of her white chest, she did not tremble her fingertips or even eyelashes. But, she slowly moved her bare snow-like feet along with the music. With the increasingly more and more rapid lute sound, she moved the feet faster and faster on the stage and kept trembling her thighs and her fiber-dance-gown tightly wrapped hips, with her bare waist showing some fine lines...

After the dance song, countless cheers sounded like a thunder. And then it returned to being lively and warm inside the building. Situ Yilan seriously toasted to Lu Xue with a gla.s.s of wine and everyone randomly said a few words. Tired Lu Xue gently expressed her apology and then went back to her own yard to rest.

Beauties and Hu music were the most suitable companies for wine drinkers. Tonight, there were more than twenty lively and young students in the hall of the House of Red Sleeves. Suddenly, the drinks had been finished up when sounds of elegant book guessing and drinking games were mixed with the bang-bang sound of throwing the dice. The hall was full of noise and cheerfulness.

Tonight, because of Chu Youxian and the brothel steward, Ning Que has enjoyed a big triumphant display, naturally becoming the center of the wine drinking. Regardless of being familiar with him or not, those students all held wine cups to approach him, impolitely urging him to drink for a variety of reasons. At the beginning, they had used some drinking games such as wine boxing with him. But after they found that the Ning Que could be described as a genius of wine games, who actually had won more than ten rounds, they changed the wine games into direct wine drinking.

Ning Que liked drinking in nature and preferred the after-wine taste. For these years with Sangsang, he basically did not stop the wine drinking. Unfortunately, however, after so many years of wine drinking, his alcohol consumption did not increase at all, basically belonging to the state that one was greedy for drinking wine but never had drunken escapades after drinking too much.

After so many students fiercely urged him to drink five or six cups of wine, Ning Que suddenly felt drunken to the previous degree of only seven points to twelve points. He forced himself to open his confused eyes, trying to pretend to be still sober so as to scare them off. His lisped words, however, had exposed his own weak drinking capacity. Therefore, he wanted to hold up the wine cup to look at the moon so as to avoid them, only to find no moon in the sky that night. He would've liked to lean against the handrail, pouring wine into the lake to get fishes drunk, and then read a poem to imitate a poet's despair. But, he found that he was unable to reach the handrail or remember any poems.

Whether it was afterlife or in life.

There was no knowing when his wine table was moved to the side of handrail behind the building, just close to the small pool of wet bamboos. He, however, had been half paralyzed at the table edge, long forgetting what he had intended to do.

The environment around the handrail was much quieter than the hall. Situ Yilan sat next to him with her foot on the handrail, squinting to vacantly watch the stars and gently shaking a small pot of chilly Yu Louxue wine over the handrail. It was clear that the n.o.ble lady's wine capacity was a lot better than Ning Que's. With a bright l.u.s.ter in the eyes, she suddenly asked.

"Oh, Ning Que. How did you meet the Princess?"

Ning Que raised his head, rubbing his eyebrows, and raised his chopsticks to keep looking for vinegar-pickled vegetables. And then he casually replied, "We met on the road."

"How did you meet on the road?" Situ Yilan turned her head and stared at him with interest.

Ning Que stuck the pair of chopsticks into a small pastry, clutching his forehead to annoyingly answer. "I picked her up on the road, so we met each other."

Situ Yilan helplessly said, "I think you probably mistook something. The Princess could not be picked up by you on the road."

Drunken Ning Que laughed and said, "I was indeed confused. What I picked up on the road were all precious things. It can not be an idiot I picked up. Where did I and the Princess meet? Oh, you know, I was a soldier of the City of Wei... "