CHAPTER 37 :: A willing apprentice is rewarded with torture, and a brothel hand is blackmailed into a loan

Jade Tao came out to River Blossom’s room and asked Second Bai and Vigor Qian to come to the table. The three of them drank and chatted; there were no other guests, and they did not summon any other girls. River Blossom tuned her pipa and prepared to sing, but Second Bai said, “Don’t bother.”

“Second Bai likes opera. Sing an aria; I’ll accompany you on the flute,” said Vigor Qian. Beckon handed him a flute; he played as River Blossom sang two sections of “Pale Sky, Light Clouds” from A Small Banquet.

This put Second Bai in a good mood, and he followed with “Sitting in a Southerly Breeze” from Viewing Lotus Flowers.

“Would you like to sing?” Vigor Qian asked Jade Tao.

“I’ve got a bad throat. I’ll play the flute; you sing,” Jade replied.

Vigor Qian passed him the flute and sang “South Creek”:

Parting brings endless sorrow

After two months together, I’m suddenly alone …

He finished the whole aria. Second Bai cheered. Taking her chance, River Blossom poured a large cup of wine and urged him to drink. As Jade Tao was rather depressed, Second Bai ordered rice to be served as soon as he had drained his cup. Feeling apologetic, Jade pressed him to take three more cups of wine.

Soon the party was over, and the guests took their leave. After seeing them out of the parlor, Jade Tao hurried back to Water Blossom’s room. As Second Bai walked shoulder to shoulder with Vigor Qian out of East Prosperity Alley, he asked, “Water Blossom’s mother, brother, and sister, as well as Jade Tao, are all very affectionate toward her; there’s nothing to make her unhappy. I don’t understand why she should have such an illness.”

Vigor sighed before he spoke. “Water Blossom should not have gone into the brothel business. It’s really her mother’s fault. Since she ran a sing-song house, Water Blossom had no choice. Even then, her only client has been Jade Tao, whom she wanted to marry. Now, if he were to have taken her as a concubine, she wouldn’t have been unwilling. Unfortunately, Jade insisted on marrying her as his wife. This aroused the opposition of his uncles, his brother and sister-in-law, and all his relatives on the grounds that it’d be a disgrace for the family to take a courtesan for a wife. Water Blossom heard about it. Now, she had never wanted to be a courtesan in the first place and in reality had never worked as one, yet everybody called her a courtesan, and could she have denied it? Her illness came from the pent-up anger.”

Hearing this, Second Bai also sighed. They had reached the entrance to Generosity Alley. As Second Bai had another engagement, he saluted Vigor Qian and went on his way. Qian walked into the alley alone, and as he approached Green Phoenix’s house, he saw a courtesan in front of him staggering alongside the wall, leaning on a maid’s shoulder for support. At first he paid her no attention, but at the door he recognized that it was Gold Flower.

“Mr. Qian,” Gold Flower greeted him and then headed for Second Sister Huang’s little back room.

Vigor Qian walked upstairs. Pearl Phoenix and Gold Phoenix vied with each other to welcome “Brother-in-law” and ushered him into the room.

“Where’s Gold Flower?” Green Phoenix asked.

“Downstairs,” he replied.

In case Vigor had anything confidential to say to Green Phoenix, Gold Phoenix used Gold Flower as an excuse and went downstairs, taking Pearl Phoenix with her.

After Green Phoenix had been talking with Vigor for a while, the grandfather clock struck three. Since he knew Prosperity Luo came every day, he wanted to take his leave.

“Sit for a little longer. What’s the hurry?” she said.

He was still hesitating when Pearl Phoenix and Gold Phoenix came back with Gold Flower to see Green Phoenix, so he said good-bye and left.

The minute Gold Flower saw Green Phoenix, tears welled up in her eyes. “Elder Sister,” she whimpered, “I wanted to come and see you a few days ago, only I couldn’t walk. Today I made up my mind to come. Elder Sister, will you save my life?”

“What d’you mean?” Green Phoenix asked in bewilderment.

Gold Flower lifted her trouser legs to show her. Her calves were marked with long dark streaks—marks left by a whip. They were also covered in blood red dots that looked like stars in the sky—burnt marks left by a red-hot opium pick.

Green Phoenix was moved to pity. “I told you to try harder to please. Why wouldn’t you listen to me? Look at the state you’re in!”

Gold Flower said, “You don’t understand! This mother of mine is different from the mother here. If you don’t try hard, you naturally get a beating, but even if you do, you still get a beating. This time, it was because a client came three or four times, and then Mother said I was too eager to please him and beat me for it.”

Green Phoenix said with a great upsurge of anger, “You have a mouth, why didn’t you speak up for yourself?”

“I did! I said exactly what you taught me, Elder Sister. I said if she wanted me to do business, she had to stop beating me, otherwise I wouldn’t do business. When she heard this, she locked me in my room and called Old Mrs. Guo over to help her. They pinned me down on the divan, beat me all night long, and then asked whether I dared not to do business.”

“Then you should have flatly refused and let them go on beating you.”

Gold Flower replied with a frown. “Elder Sister, it hurt so terribly, I just couldn’t say no anymore!”

Green Phoenix said sarcastically, “If you can’t stand pain, you should have been a lady in a mandarin’s family. What are you doing as a courtesan?”

Gold Phoenix and Pearl Phoenix let out a giggle. Gold Flower hung her head and sat there in silent shame.

“Well, was there any opium?” Green Phoenix asked again.

“Yes, there was opium in a jar. I tasted a wee bit, and it was horribly bitter; how could you swallow it? Besides, I heard that raw opium would cause all your intestines to burst. Wouldn’t that have been painful?”

Green Phoenix poked two of her fingers at Gold Flower’s forehead, saying between clenched teeth, “You good-for-nothing!” Then she stopped herself.

It so happened that while they were talking, Second Sister and Mama Zhao were in the parlor, where the laundered and starched sheets had been spread out on two square tables for sewing. Hearing what Green Phoenix had said, Second Sister walked in and told her with a smile, “If you want to pass your own abilities on to her, you’ll have to do it in another life. Just think, since she went over there the month before last, only an old client of Perfection’s called Chen has given a dinner party there. It’s been almost two months now, and she’s only had one client, who ordered sweetmeats once and had a tea party three times. It turns out that this was none other than her lover who works in a hardware store. He went there after supper and stayed until midnight every time. That’s why his boss complained and Third Sister Chu beat her.”

“Well, if she had no dinner parties, what about party calls?” asked Green Phoenix.

“I told you she managed one dish of sweetmeats. What party calls are you talking about?”

Green Phoenix jumped up to confront Gold Flower. “So, you earn all of one dollar in a whole month! D’you want your mother to eat shit?”

Gold Flower dared not reply. Green Phoenix repeated her question several times and reached out to push Gold Flower’s head up. “Speak up! D’you want your mother to eat shit while you have a good time with your favorite client?”

Second Sister tried to intervene. “What’s the point of telling her off?”

Green Phoenix was so angry, her eyes popped out and her lips trembled. She shouted, “That Third Sister Chu is useless. If she has the energy to beat her, then she should beat her to death! Keeping her around just means losing more money.”

Second Sister stamped her foot and said, “Enough!” She then pressed Green Phoenix back onto her seat. Green Phoenix slapped the table and gave an order, “Throw her out! Even the sight of her annoys me.” Her hand came down so hard that a gold-trimmed tortoiseshell bracelet on her wrist was broken into three sections.

Second Sister cleared her throat and then said, “Now that’s bad luck we don’t deserve.” She signaled Gold Phoenix with her eyes.

Gold Phoenix took Gold Flower by the hand and led her over to the next room, but Gold Flower, feeling she had lost face, wanted to go home. Second Sister did not detain her. Yet Gold Phoenix was very friendly toward her and saw her out to the courtyard. They happened to meet Prosperity Luo, who had just gotten off his sedan chair. Unwilling to come face-to-face with Luo, Gold Flower stepped aside and waited until he had gone in before saying good-bye to Gold Phoenix. Leaning on a maid, she walked slowly out of Glory Alley and then turned into Treasured Merit Street, where she headed eastward, back to the Hall of Immortals on East Chessboard Street.

Having no idea how to deal with her misfortune, Gold Flower could only hope that Third Sister would not check on her so she could somehow get by. Unexpectedly, the next day after lunch, when she was flirting with several menservants in the parlor, Old Mrs. Guo turned up at the door and beckoned for her. She hurried over in trepidation.

Old Mrs. Guo said, “I’ve found two nice guests for you. Now, you must try hard to please them, understand?”

“Where are they?” Gold Flower asked.

“Here they come!”

Gold Flower looked up to see a slim youth and an older man with whiskers who walked with a limp. Both wore a pale blue gown of mandarin gauze. Gold Flower welcomed them into her room and asked for their last names. The youth was named Zhang; the one with whiskers said he was Zhou. Both were strangers to Gold Flower, and Old Mrs. Guo only knew Rustic Zhang. The menservants brought nuts and sweetmeats that she offered them according to etiquette. She then went over to the divan to toast opium.

Old Mrs. Guo edged near Rustic Zhang and whispered, “The girl’s my niece. Could you look after her a bit? Give what you like.”

Rustic Zhang nodded.

“Shall I order a dinner party for you?” she asked.

Rustic Zhang firmly forbade it.

After dawdling for a while, Mrs. Guo tried again. “Why not ask your friend if he’d like to?”

“D’you know who this friend of mine is?”

She shook her head.

“This is Clement Zhou.”

Upon hearing this, Mrs. Guo grimaced and sneaked out. Gold Flower filled a pipe with opium and offered it to Clement Zhou, who, not being an addict, invited Rustic Zhang to smoke first. Seeing that Gold Flower had little to recommend her in looks, singing, or conversation, Rustic just smoked his fill of opium and then left the Hall of Immortals together with Clement Zhou. They strolled about at leisure and then stood at Fourth Avenue to look at the horse carriages coming and going and finally drifted into Splendid Assembly Teahouse for a cup of tea to kill time.

The two of them had barely sat down when they saw Simplicity Zhao, also dressed in a pale blue gown of mandarin gauze, come in alone. With an ivory cigarette holder with a lighted cigarette in it stuck in his mouth and a pair of dark glasses adorning his ruddy and radiant face, Simplicity carried himself with a new air. He walked straight upstairs and looked right and left. Seeing him as a good connection, Rustic Zhang raised a hand in greeting, but Simplicity ignored him and instead walked around the opium den at the rear before strolling toward the tea tables. When he saw Rustic Zhang, he asked, “Have you seen Fortune Shi?”

Rustic rose to his feet. “Fortune isn’t here yet. If you’re looking for him, why not wait right here?”

Simplicity had meant to cut Rustic Zhang, but the chance to show off in front of Clement Zhou made him accept the invitation to join them. Rustic ordered the waiter to bring another cup of tea while Clement went to get a water pipe and a spill for him. Simplicity saw his limp and asked the reason for it.

“I had a fall and broke my leg,” Clement replied.

Pointing to Simplicity, Rustic said to Clement, “He’s the luckiest of us all. You and I have had rotten luck. You broke a leg, while I’m plain broke.”

Simplicity asked how Pine Wu was faring.

“Pine has been unlucky, too. He was locked up in the police station for a few days and has just come out. His own father tried to borrow money from him and made a big row. Lucky the foreigners didn’t know, otherwise he’d have lost his job, too,” said Rustic.

“Did Crane Li come to town again after going home?” asked Clement.

“Old Mrs. Guo told me he’ll be here soon. His uncle is coming to Shanghai to see the doctors because he has syphilis, and Crane will be coming with him,” Rustic replied.

“Where did you see this Old Mrs. Guo?” Simplicity asked.

“She found her way to my inn to say her niece is in a second-class house and asked me to look in. I went with Clement and ordered a dish of nuts and sweetmeats just now.”

“So that was Old Mrs. Guo!” Clement said in astonishment. “I didn’t even recognize her. Now that was an oversight. In a case I handled two years ago, I sentenced this Old Mrs. Guo for abduction.”

“No wonder she was a bit frightened to see you.”

“And she was right to be. If I want her imprisoned for life, all I need do is file a report,” said Clement.

Something had just occurred to Simplicity, who tilted his head in thought. As he remained quiet, Clement and Rustic also stopped talking. The three of them drank five or six refills of their tea and saw that it was getting dark. Simplicity Zhao realized it was quite impossible to track down the wandering Fortune Shi, so he bade Clement Zhou and Rustic Zhang farewell and returned directly to Tripod Alley off Third Avenue to report to his sister, Second Treasure, that he could not find Shi.

“Then go to his house early tomorrow to invite him,” Second Treasure said.

“If he doesn’t come on his own initiative, why bother to invite him? We’ve got plenty of good guests.”

Second Treasure looked displeased. “I’m just asking you to go and invite a guest, and you’re refusing to do it. All you do is eat your fill and have fun. What else are you good for?”

He changed his tack in a panic. “I’ll go, I’ll go! It was just a thought.”

This placated Second Treasure. By now she was extremely popular, with bookings for mah-jongg parties and dinner parties every night. The leftovers from the parties were sent over to Mrs. Zhao’s room, where Simplicity was free to munch his way through all the delicacies. Stuffed to the gills with food and drink every night, he would fall on his bed and go out like a light, thinking that he was in paradise.

The next day, Simplicity went as instructed to the Old City to invite Fortune Shi, but Fortune was not home, and he just left a calling card. If he went home immediately, he thought, he was bound to be told off again. It’d be far better to go to Second Wang’s and renew their friendship. When he got to New Street, he was specially careful because he had met with violence last time and had his head smashed. He went first to Old Mrs. Guo next door; with her as a go-between, there would be room for withdrawal. Old Mrs. Guo welcomed him joyfully, as if he had dropped out of the sky. She told him to wait there while she fetched Second Wang.

Seeing it was Simplicity, Second Wang minced over to him, all smiles, and said coaxingly, “Let’s go to my room.”

“It’s all right here,” Simplicity said as he took off his gown and hung it on the bamboo pole that held up the bed curtains.

Second Wang asked Mrs. Guo to have a word with the old maidservant, while she made Simplicity sit down on the edge of the bed. She then settled herself in his lap with her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you so badly, yet you never thought of me after you made a fortune. I won’t have it!”

He took the opportunity to put his arms around her and asked, “Does Mr. Zhang come here?”

“Don’t even mention him! He’s down and out now. He owes us more than ten dollars, and we’re yet to see a cent of it.”

Simplicity told her everything that Rustic had said the day before. She jumped up at once, saying, “So he goes to a second-class house when he’s got money! Tomorrow I’ll see what he has to say about that.”

Simplicity made her sit down. “If you go, don’t mention me.”

“Don’t worry, this doesn’t concern you.”

As they were talking, the old maidservant brought opium and tea and then went back to keep an eye on the empty house next door. Old Mrs. Guo, hearing that all was quiet inside, figured that the ship was well docked. To prevent anyone from disturbing them, she stood at the front door to keep watch. After a long while, she suddenly heard a scuffling of feet in the rear room. Puzzled, she went in and saw Simplicity trying to put on his gown while Second Wang was snatching it away from him. The two were tangled together in a struggle.

“What’s the hurry?” she intervened.

Second Wang complained in a huff, “I asked him nicely for a loan of ten dollars, which we’d count toward his opium bill. He told me he hasn’t got it and then stood up to leave!”

“I really don’t have it on me. When I have the money in a couple of days, I’ll bring it over, all right?” Simplicity pleaded.

Second Wang would have none of it. “In that case, leave your gown here. You’ll get it back when you bring me ten dollars.”

Simplicity stamped his foot in frustration. “You’ll be the death of me. What am I to say if I go home without my gown?”

Old Mrs. Guo assumed the role of the good guy and offered to be Simplicity’s guarantor. Asked to fix a date for delivering the money, Simplicity said the end of the month. “That’s all right, but you’ve got to keep your word,” Mrs. Guo said.

Second Wang gave him back his gown and also told him emphatically, “If you don’t bring the money at the end of the month, I’ll be coming to Tripod Alley to have it out with you.”

He made his promise repeatedly before finally getting away. On his way home, he bitterly regretted having gone there, but what was done was done. As he approached Tripod Alley, he saw two mandarin sedan chairs standing at his door and a white horse tethered there. When he entered the parlor, he saw a steward occupying a high-back chair, with four sedan-chair bearers seated on either side of him.

Simplicity went upstairs to make his report. Second Treasure was entertaining guests, however, so he dared not disturb them. Stealing a look through a gap in the door curtain, he saw two guests but only recognized Elan Ge. The one he did not know was handsome and well-built and had a distinguished air. Simplicity had never come across anybody comparable. He quietly went back downstairs and invited the steward to go sit in the bookkeeper’s office at the back. Upon inquiry, Simplicity learned that his master was Third Young Master Shi, widely known for his wealth and connections. A native of Nanjing, he started his career as an official in a scholarly post in the capital. Now aged about twenty, he was known by the name Nature. He was visiting Shanghai for health reasons and had rented a grand foreign-style house at Big Bridge, which was cool and breezy. There, he spent his days conversing with a couple of close friends over a cup of wine. The only thing lacking now was a girl after his heart who could keep him company and add to his pleasure so that the romantic hours of the day would not be wasted.

When Simplicity heard this, he did his best to get on the good side of the steward. He found out that his name was Wang. Known to all as Little Wang, he was Third Young Master’s personal steward and had responsibility for his money. Simplicity plied him with endless rounds of tea, opium, and snacks in order to please him, and sure enough Little Wang was delighted.

Soon it was time to light the lamps. The maid, Tiger, relayed the order for the menservants to send for dinner and deliver the invitations. When Simplicity heard this, he asked his mother’s permission to order separately four cold platters and four main dishes for the steward. Mrs. Zhao readily agreed. By the time dinner was served upstairs, a table was also set in the bookkeeper’s room, with Little Wang in the seat of honor and Simplicity at the humble end. The food and drink put them in excellent spirits, and they indulged their appetite without the least inhibition.

In contrast, the party upstairs had only two guests—Iron Hua and Amity Zhu—so things were on the quiet side. What was more, Third Young Master disliked the heat and was not inclined to stay long. The departure of the summoned girls was the cue for hosts and guests to leave the table together. They gave orders for their sedan-chair bearers to light the lanterns. Little Wang had no choice but to take a little rice in a hurry and then rush out to stand at attention. After Third Young Master had seen the others off, Little Wang attended on him as he got into his sedan chair and then mounted the horse himself. They left in a file.