ITVCFITB CHAPTER 15

 Chapter 15 – “Courtesan 101”

Blissfully unaware, Li Mingjin heard Shadow Three’s report and felt as if thunder split a sunny sky, disaster from nowhere!

How had his future consort learned he sometimes went to Huancai Pavilion to “listen to music”?

He sat brooding in his study, picked up a brush, and was about to write to explain himself to Luo Shuyu.

Before the brush touched paper, he paused. He hadn’t done anything shameful, why rush to explain?

Wouldn’t explaining look like covering up?

He thought it through again: Shuyu rarely set foot outside, so why would he be paying attention to a place like Huancai Pavilion? What was he planning? First he’d asked for men; now he was asking about Huancai Pavilion’s Liang Xian’er.

He’d assumed Shuyu wanted men only to investigate his mother’s affair, but clearly not. It seemed his consort knew more than he’d imagined. Talent.

He sent Shadow Three and Shadow Nine over. Shadow Nine would be stationed at Luo Shuyu’s side; Shadow Three returned to report.

Li Mingjin put down his brush. “Why did he ask about Huancai Pavilion? He even knows I listened to Liang Xian’er play.”

Shadow Three: “This subordinate doesn’t know. Luo Gongzi’s main request is that we shadow Shen Mingyun in secret.”

Li Mingjin: “Shen Mingyun?”

Dark Three clarified, “The one who came south last year to attach himself to the Luo family, your lordship’s future consort’s cousin. The one who plagiarized Li Bai’s ‘Bring in the Wine.’ He’s living at the Shen residence now. You crossed paths with him a few times.”

“Oh, him.” Li Mingjin’s face cleared, yes, that person. He’d never paid him mind; at most, a redundant passerby.

“Master, do you recall the recent rumor saying you and Young Master Shen had a… thing? Perhaps Luo Gongzi took it to heart.” Shadow Three, ever the empathetic aide, positioned himself as a worry-soothing, problem-fixing cotton-padded jacket of a guard with a keen sense for useful conclusions.

If jealousy was the reason Shuyu wanted Shen tailed, Li Mingjin found it instantly convincing.

His pulse ticked faster. So Shuyu cared that much about him.

“Then do exactly as the consort wants,” Li Mingjin said. “Shadow whomever he asks you to shadow. And go clean up those rumors, who started them?”

“When Young Master Shen first opened his shop, the store across the way tried to crush him; he borrowed your name to push back,” Shadow Three said. “You didn’t take notice at the time.”

“I recall that this Shen Mingyun shivers like a mouse before a cat when he sees me,” Li Mingjin said. “If he fears me, yet dares ride on my coattails, he must be bold indeed. Clean it up, cleanly.”

“Yes, master. We’ll make it known far and wide you’ve no connection to him.”

Li Mingjin sorted through Shuyu’s recent topics. Li Bai’s poems, then the waterwheel sketches, each had Shen’s shadow. What was wrong with this man?

He remembered him as pathologically meddlesome, always popping up everywhere. Aside from the Crown Prince, both his eldest and fourth brothers seemed to think well of him; they’d even excused his plagiarism as naiveté and being “led astray,” calling him an uncommonly sincere soul. Li Mingjin, however, had never cared.

On his first visit to the Luo residence a few days ago, Eldest and Fourth had offered praise for Shen in passing, even defended him over the poetry fiasco. Still, Li Mingjin ordinarily paid the Luo affairs no mind since the only one he watched was Luo Shuyu. Was Shen Mingyun occupying too much of his consort’s thoughts? What exactly had he done to this mild-tempered consort of his?

He took out the waterwheel diagram Shuyu had given him and studied it again. Even a layman could see it was meticulous and novel. If built properly, it would benefit the commonfolk.

Per Shuyu, if Eldest Brother completed it first, there would be trouble down the line; someone else had to bring it out ahead of him.

But who to set up opposite Eldest Brother?

Court factions were split in two: the Crown Prince and the Eldest Prince.

With age had come experience, and their rivalry had grown vicious, worse by the day. If he shifted the credit for the drawing to the Crown Prince, matters might resolve themselves; the Crown Prince needed public favor to shore up his position, and, crucially, he had no ties to Shen Mingyun, just what Shuyu wanted.

There were court storms, and there were palace storms. The Emperor looked hale enough, but age had its say; the Eldest and Crown Prince were already fighting for the years ahead. It wasn’t just the two of them, it was the clans behind them wrestling for advantage.

The Crown Prince, born of the Empress, had orthodox blood and the Prime Minister’s clan behind him: respected, sprawling, with marital ties spread across the bureaucracy like the roots of an old banyan.

The Eldest Prince’s backing was no less: his mother, Consort Lin, had always been the Emperor’s favorite, even before his accession, she’d been at his side. “Sweethearts of youth,” as people whispered. She outshone the Empress in the harem, and her clan, while not quite the Chancellor’s, was a centuries-old pillar.

This struggle would not end in a day, nor with a single imperial word. The Crown Prince might shine now, but who would sit the throne after His Majesty a hundred years hence? No one could say.

And under such weight, other princes had little room to act.

Li Mingjin had never fought them for limelight. He did as he pleased; he cared little how the world maligned him.

The present nuisance was that the man his consort watched—Shen Mingyun—was tangled up with the Eldest Prince. The good news: nuisances could be dealt with.

Thinking it over, he found just the man. If he handed the sketches to him, that would be safest.

Muddy the waters a bit—wouldn’t that be more fun?

---

On Luo Shuyu’s side, he had no idea how Li Mingjin would handle the diagrams. The reply letter said nothing. But he trusted Mingjin; the prince was no fool. Raised in the palace’s ceaseless power-struggles, small maneuvers were child’s play and likely beyond anything Shuyu had guessed. Otherwise, how had he broken out of a fortress-like prison to save Shuyu and the child, only to be betrayed later?

He hadn’t read of any tasks specifically targeting him and Mingjin, so he still didn’t know what Shen wanted with Liang Xian’er.

All he knew was that Liang Xian’er knew Li Mingjin. Was Shen trying to use her to lure Mingjin out and do something to him? The worst part: there was no way to know which mall props Shen might use or how to avoid them.

Think. What props did Shen have at this point? How did he use them?

He needed physical contact to activate most props; they couldn’t be transferred to others—only he could use them. If it was something like a recipe, he could make an item with local materials and give that away, fewer limits there.

Shuyu reviewed how Shen handled such incidents in the book. If Shen wanted someone gone, how did he do it?

One: the simplest is drug them and stage a “kidnapping.” Two: gather riffraff, pose as rescuers, and slap a prop on the target.

With the wedding nearing, Shuyu’s hopes for the future burned brighter. He ran the book’s details through his head again and again.

A few more days passed after he got Shadow Three and Shadow Nine from Li Mingjin.

The wedding robes were still in the hoop frames, not yet finished. The seamstresses were said to be working around the clock. A prince’s wedding was a state affair, no corners to cut.

In these days, Luo Renshou had sent silver to Shuyu’s courtyard; whatever from Lady Chen’s dowry could be reclaimed had been reclaimed; what couldn’t was converted to silver and shops. In the end, Shuyu hadn’t taken a loss. He wouldn’t haggle with Lady Liu, only with the one in charge, Luo Renshou. The row had been had; now Renshou was a bit afraid of him. Better to pay up and be done. Shuyu, for his part, knew when to stop and made no further demands.

The Old Madam oversaw the preparations with care. She could be muddled in small things, but not in great ones. She’d considered having Shen Mingyun help, then remembered the recent disgrace and thought better of it. The present Luo Shuyu could not be strung along.

With all as he wanted it, Shuyu finally relaxed and began packing.

This time, he would take everything he could. Piece by piece into the chests.

In his last life he had thrown out what he “didn’t need.” Now, each item held his memories, he would take it all.

After half a day’s work, just as the maids finished tying the chest cords, Qingwang burst into the courtyard, eyes shining.

Feng Momo said nothing; Shuyu ruled here, so she would not overstep.

Qingwang flourished a sheet of paper, rushing inside. “Master, I found something!”

Shuyu rolled his wrist to ease the stiffness. “What is it?”

Qingwang thrust the sheet at him. “Look, master.”

Bold characters across the top: “Courtesan 101”?

Qingwang bobbed his head. “Right. This is Young Master Shen’s latest scheme. I heard them say he’s partnering with Huancai Pavilion and other big houses to launch a ‘Courtesan 101’ contest! It’s a flyer, pre-advertising. The streets are buzzing already, all waiting for this ‘Courtesan 101.’ I got the rules: they’ll pick one hundred and one from several brothels to compete, performing in groups; onlookers vote to rank them, and in the end eleven will ‘debut.’ The big houses will host exclusive shows for the winners afterward.”

Shuyu had heard of this courtesan event; it was about this time it appeared. He’d almost forgotten.

He even remembered Luo Renshou secretly sending servants to vote for his favorite “courtesan.”

“Courtesan 101” came with the slogan “If you love her, vote for her,” and a brazen theme song: “Choose me, choose me: I’m the fairest of all.”

The show wasn’t Shen’s invention either, it was copied from variety programs in his original world.

For their era, “Courtesan 101” was novel and flashy. Shen raked in a fortune. At the same time, the fallout was ugly. Who knew how many people poured their savings in to vote for favorites—some even took usurious loans from underground banks, winding up ruined.

In his last life, “Courtesan 101” hadn’t affected his wedding with Li Mingjin. Was Shen planning to use it now as cover for something else?

He recalled the book noting that, in Shen’s own time, brothels were a state-banned trade, prostitution and solicitation with entire police divisions dedicated to cracking down.

If Shen wanted to import “Courtesan 101,” then Shuyu could just as well import what Shen had once called a “crackdown on vice.”

---

That night, Li Mingjin stared, troubled, at Shuyu’s new phrase in the letter.

He asked Shadow Three, “This ‘crackdown on vice’ what does it mean?”

Ever-helpful, Shadow Three explained, “Master, Luo Gongzi said brothels must be shuttered in accordance with the law.”

Li Mingjin pressed his lips together. “…”

This was jealousy of an unprecedented, historic scale.

---

Author’s Note:
Third Prince: Wife, pick me, pick me—let me be center!
Luo Shuyu: …

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