CHAPTER 56 :: Third Pan, the underground prostitute, plots a theft, and Yao, the daytime patron, stays the night

As Felicity Xia mentioned that he had official business, Third Pan left the room and went upstairs to entertain her other guests. Verdure Xu solemnly asked what business it was.

“What kind of police work are you people supposed to be doing? Did you ever go and investigate our Rustic Retreat?” Felicity Xia.

“Has anything happened there?” Verdure Xu asked, aghast.

“I have no idea,” Felicity said with an icy smile. “But this morning, His Excellency told us that a gambling den in Rustic Retreat draws a big crowd and goes on day and night, and a single game of dice has a stake of thirty to forty thousand. He said things are getting completely out of hand. I’ve been told to ask you if you know about that.”

Verdure laughed. “Hasn’t there always been a gambling den in Rustic Retreat? I thought a bandit was holed up there! You gave me a real fright. I’ll go there tomorrow and tell them to stop gambling, all right?”

“Don’t you take it lightly. If anything went wrong in the future, it wouldn’t reflect well on anybody.”

Verdure moved his chair closer. “Felicity, my friend, I’ve never taken a single dollar from the gambling den in Rustic Retreat. You know very well who’s running it. Lots of their customers are officials, some from our yamen as well, so how dare we say anything when we go there? Now that His Excellency wants to bring them in, nothing’s easier; I’ll gather my team right away and go and arrest the lot of them, how about that?”

Felicity pondered. “If they stop gambling, His Excellency is not actually set on punishing them. Go and pass the word around first. If that doesn’t put an end to it, naturally you should arrest them.”

Verdure slapped his thigh. “That’s what I meant. Several of their customers are actually His Excellency’s friends. We’re not in the same position as the police in the foreign concessions; things are very tricky for us.”

Felicity was clearly displeased by what he said. “The only gambler among His Excellency’s friends is Eldest Master Li, and that has nothing to do with us. Who in our house has been gambling? Let’s hear it.”

Verdure tried to excuse himself at once, “I didn’t say it was anybody in the house. If that had been the case, wouldn’t I have told you?”

Only then did Felicity drop the matter.

Verdure Xu turned to Loyalty Hua and Simplicity Zhao and said jovially, “Our friend Felicity is a man who has what it takes! There’re over a hundred people in the Qi residence working under him, and nothing has ever gone wrong.”

Loyalty Hua made some noise to show polite agreement, while Simplicity Zhao rose from the opium couch and asked Verdure Xu to take his place. Xu deferred to Loyalty Hua. Just as they were pulling and tugging to make each other take precedence, the back room door suddenly creaked open, and somebody tiptoed in, making straight for the couch. They saw it was Longevity Zhang and asked in surprise, “When did you get here?”

Without a word, Longevity bowed low and grinned, turning his eyes into mere slits. Loyalty Hua asked him to lie down and smoke.

“Who is it upstairs?” Felicity Xia asked in a low voice. Longevity responded similarly, saying it was Second Kuang.

“Well, then he should come and sit here with us for a while,” Felicity said.

Longevity immediately held up a hand to stop him. “This is like an underground whorehouse for him. Don’t let’s disturb him.”

“Humph! People are behaving very strangely lately. I wonder why!” Felicity pointed at Verdure Xu. “Just now he came to talk to the maid, and when I called out for him, he tried to run away. Isn’t that strange?”

Verdure Xu grinned at Longevity Zhang. “Our friend Felicity has been rebuking me all this time, as if I looked down on him. I put it to you, is that possible?”

Longevity Zhang smiled but said nothing.

Felicity Xia said, “A brothel is a place where everybody comes to have fun. If Second Kuang thought I’d be jealous, he’s got it all wrong.”

“He’s not hiding from you, though; he’s afraid that if his employer learned about this, he’d get a lecture,” Longevity replied.

“There’s something else I’d like to tell him,” Felicity said. “He should give his employer a word of advice: don’t go to the gambling den in Rustic Retreat anymore.”

Longevity promised to relay the message. After smoking a pipe of opium, he thanked the four of them and took his leave to return upstairs, where he found Second Kuang and Third Pan rolling around in a heap on the couch. On seeing Longevity, Third Pan sat up unhurriedly and said to Second Kuang, “I’m going downstairs, but you’re not allowed to leave. I have something to say to you.” She turned to Longevity and said, “Sit for a while, don’t go.” After that, she went downstairs.

Longevity took the opportunity to have a quiet word with Second Kuang. Half an hour later, they heard the confused noise of the four men downstairs taking their leave. Third Pan ritually tried to detain them, and then the maid saw them out. The door was closed.

“Come on down,” Third Pan called out.

Second Kuang invited Longevity to come with him to the downstairs room, but the latter had to leave because he still had duties to perform. Second Kuang thought he’d go with him, but would Third Pan let him go?

“Have another pipe of opium, do,” she urged Longevity Zhang as she pulled Second Kuang by the hand and made him sit down in the rattan chair by the bed and then settled herself in his lap for a lengthy heart-to-heart. Longevity could only wait. She talked for a long time, but he did not know what it was about. He saw Second Kuang nodding repeatedly in agreement but making no reply. When she finally finished, she walked away, but Second Kuang was still preoccupied with what she had said, looking lost.

“Are you coming?” Longevity Zhang called out, which alerted Second Kuang. At the door, Third Pan whispered into his ear, and he again nodded in acknowledgment. Finally, he walked out of Security Alley with Longevity Zhang.

“What did she say?” Longevity asked.

“It was a lot of tripe! She said once she’s paid her debts, she’s going to get married.”

“Why don’t you marry her then?”

“Where do I get all that money?”

Presently they separated; Second Kuang went to Grace Yang’s in Generosity Alley while Longevity went to Green Phoenix’s in Prosperity Alley. From the distance, he saw seven or eight courtesans’ sedan chairs at Green Phoenix’s door. He guessed that the party was still going on. As he went in, he met Talisman.

“Are all the girls here?” Longevity asked.

“The party is about to end,” Talisman said.

“Who did Mr. Wang call?”

“He called two of them: Little Rouge and Twin Jade.”

“Is Mr. Hong still here?”

“Yes, he is.”

Longevity Zhang thought that Golden must have accompanied Twin Pearl to the party. He took the opportunity to slip upstairs and peep in at the edge of the door curtain. A loud and energetic finger game was in progress, and the fumes of heated wine hovered over the table. Prosperity Luo and Mallow Yao joined forces to form a bank of unlimited penalty, calling themselves “the bottomless pit,” which naturally aroused the indignation of the others. Lotuson Wang, Benevolence Hong, Amity Zhu, Elan Ge, Whistler Tang, and Cloudlet Chen formed a united front and took turns to do battle. No one allowed their lovers, maids, or servant girls to drink in his stead. Everyone was loud and aggressive, each trying to best the next man. It was an even merrier crowd than usual.

Seeing that Twin Pearl’s maid, Golden, was standing idly to one side, Longevity Zhang took a small whistle from his pocket and blew it softly. Nobody at the table noticed, but Golden heard it and slipped out of the room. She made a secret appointment with him to meet the day after the next. Overjoyed, he went back to stand by downstairs while Golden returned to the room. Those at the table, engrossed in the finger game and drinking, paid them not the slightest attention.

This rowdy dinner party did not break up till midnight, when all the guests were more or less drunk. As the girls called to the party were eager to please, not one left before the men.

About to leave, Mallow Yao saluted Lotuson Wang and the others, saying, “Please honor me with your company tomorrow. You gentlemen are all invited to keep him company.” He turned around to point to the girl he had called to the party, “At her place, Auspicious Cloud Alley.”

Everyone assented and asked, “Is your lady love called Cassia Ma? None of us has met her yet.”

“I’ve only just started seeing her. Originally a friend of mine called her to parties, and then he recommended her to me, so I thought I’d give it a go,” replied Mallow Yao.

“She’s very nice,” they all said. After that, everyone took his leave, and they trooped downstairs one after another. With the maids and servant girls supporting them in front or covering them from behind, no one was in danger of falling down drunk. Having seen them off, Prosperity returned to the room. Green Phoenix took a glance at him and saw that he was not too drunk, so she sat down to keep him company.

“Why is everybody giving dinner parties in honor of Mr. Wang?” she asked.

“He’s been given a posting in Jiangxi. As his old friends, we naturally have to ask him to a farewell dinner,” Prosperity replied.

Taken by surprise, Green Phoenix let out a sigh. “Oh, dear! Now Little Rouge will really have a tough time. If Mr. Wang stays, she can try to please him, and he might renew their relationship, which will be a good thing for her. Now that he’s leaving, she’s in for it!”

“Just now it looked as though Mr. Wang was showing some fondness again for Little Rouge. I wonder why,” said Prosperity.

“It’s no use now however fond he is. Little Rouge got it all messed up right from the start. If she had married Mr. Wang, everything would’ve been all right now. She could either go with him or, if she wanted, go out to work again.”

“Little Rouge was intent on having a good time, and she got hooked up with an actor. Would she have been willing to get married?”

Green Phoenix sighed again. “Plenty of courtesans have relationships with actors, but she’s the only one who suffers for it.” Having commented on this, the two of them got ready to go to bed.

The next day was Sunday. In the afternoon, Prosperity wanted to visit Luna Park and ordered Promotion to call two carriages. Just then, Second Sister happened to drop in. When she came into the room, she greeted them as “Mr. Luo” and “Eldest Maestro.” Green Phoenix still called her Mother and invited her to sit down. After the usual pleasantries had been exchanged, Green Phoenix asked how her business was doing.

Second Sister frowned and shook her head. “Don’t even mention it! With you there, business was always quite brisk, but now things are impossible. Even Gold Phoenix seems to be getting fewer party calls. I wanted to buy a girl but was afraid she’d turn out no good, like that Gold Flower. It won’t do for me to muddle along like this. That’s why I’ve come to talk it over with you to see if there’s any way out.”

“That’s up to you, Mother. I’m in no position to say anything. Buying a girl is terribly difficult, it’s true, and even if she’s good, there’s no guarantee as far as business is concerned, is there? I myself don’t have much business either,” Green Phoenix replied.

Second Sister, deep in thought, said nothing. Green Phoenix just ignored her. A moment later, Promotion came in to report, “The carriages are here.” Second Sister had to take her leave and walk home, a forlorn figure. Prosperity Luo, attended by Promotion, and Green Phoenix, attended by Mama Zhao, each took a carriage. When they reached Luna Park, they ordered tea in the main parlor.

Prosperity made a comment about Second Sister. “Your mother is hopeless. She’d be better off with you keeping an eye on her.”

“Why should I do that? I told her to buy a girl, didn’t I? But she scrimped on the money and wouldn’t listen to me. Now that her business has declined, she turns around and asks me if there’s any way out. Should I just give her some more money?”

This made Prosperity laugh.

Green Phoenix turned to the subject of Little Rouge again. “Little Rouge is what I call a hopeless case. When Mr. Wang went with Constance, it was the best thing for him that could have happened. Now, you didn’t tell Mr. Wang directly what you knew, but you pushed him to a revelation; that was really shrewd.”

As she was speaking, Little Rouge strolled by alone, so Green Phoenix said no more. Prosperity saw that Little Rouge had the sallow complexion of an opium addict and was visibly thinner than he had noticed at the party. Little Rouge also saw them but pretended not to notice and cut across to the foreign-style building. A while later, the male lead of the Panorama Theater, Little Willow, came along. He had on brand-new clothes of summer silk and lined gauze that showed his trim figure to great advantage. On his feet were thick-soled Peking shoes that made a clicking noise as he walked. A thick shiny braid trailed down his back. He came straight into the main parlor and deliberately circled round Prosperity Luo’s table, scrutinizing Green Phoenix. Now, Green Phoenix was dressed all in white and wore very little jewelry,¹ but the pair of black gold bracelets on her wrists had been bought at the Japanese Jewelry Exhibition and was worth a thousand dollars. Having heard about it some time ago, Little Willow thought he’d take the opportunity to look at such a rare item.

Green Phoenix, however, misunderstood his intention. She stood up abruptly, flapping her sleeves in irritation against the table, and said to Prosperity, “Let’s go.” Prosperity naturally acquiesced. They visited the various parts of the park before boarding their carriages at the garden gate and driving back to Prosperity Alley. When they entered the house, they saw Jade Wenjun seated alone at the window of the side chamber, bending over the table, totally absorbed in a book. Prosperity Luo approached the window to peek in, standing on his toes. The book was A Thousand Classical Poems, and Jade Wenjun’s eyes were only two inches from the page. She was oblivious to the fact that somebody was looking at her through the window. Green Phoenix quietly tugged at Prosperity’s robe, forbidding him to tarry. Biting back his chuckle, he went upstairs, and as soon as they were in her room, he asked in a low voice, “Jade Wenjun is quite well known, isn’t she? How come she behaves like this?”

Instead of replying, Green Phoenix merely pulled down the corners of her mouth to show contempt. Mama Zhao, who was standing to one side, said in a low merry voice, “It’s funny, isn’t it, Mr. Luo? We run into her sometimes and talk to her, and it’s such a tickle! She says Shanghai is like an empty place, with not one creditable courtesan in the foreign settlements. Fortunately, she’s here now to set an example of a good show.” She chuckled, and Prosperity laughed long and hard.

Mama Zhao continued, “We asked her, ‘Have you managed to put on a good show yet?’ She replied that she had indeed, but unfortunately there weren’t any creditable clients in Shanghai. If there were, they’d all patronize her and no one else.”

This made Prosperity laugh uproariously. Green Phoenix hastened to signal that this would be audible downstairs, and Mama Zhao stopped talking.

At nightfall, Promotion submitted an invitation slip to Prosperity. Seeing that it was from Mallow Yao, he set out at once. When he walked past Jade Wenjun’s door, he heard the sound of poetry chanting. Who in Shanghai would patronize a courtesan like that? he wondered. Promotion helped him into the sedan chair, and he was taken straight to Cassia Ma’s in Auspicious Cloud Alley, where he was met by Mallow Yao. When all the others had arrived, they took their seats at the table, giving each other precedence.

Mallow Yao, as host, naturally exerted maximum pressure on everyone to indulge his capacity for wine and merrymaking. Lotuson Wang drank so much that he felt sick and bent over the table. “What’s the matter?” Little Rouge asked. He just held up his hand and suddenly gagged and threw up all over the floor. Amity Zhu, realizing he, too, had had too much to drink, left the table and lay down on the opium couch, where White Fragrance prepared a pipe of opium for him. Before he had taken a couple of puffs, he dozed off.

Elan Ge, who at the beginning made excuses to avoid drinking too much, ended up clamoring for more when he got drunk. Snow Scent barely said a word to stop him, and he was already up in arms. They almost got into a slanging match.

Seeing Elan in such high spirits, Prosperity yelled repeatedly, “Great fun! Wonderful! Let’s play the finger game.” He played Elan for ten large cups. Elan lost three times and barely managed to get the wine down. Prosperity, who prided himself on his ability to hold his liquor, had already drunk quite a lot, so after these seven cups he could not stay upright. The only ones who remained clear-headed were Benevolence Hong, Whistler Tang, and Cloudlet Chen, all of whom took evasive measures whenever wine was set before them. Seeing their four friends in such a drunken state, they pleaded with the host to put away the wine and end the party, after which they escorted their friends to their sedan chairs before going their separate ways.

Mallow Yao, a good drinker, did not feel the effect of the wine until he stood up to see his guests out, when all at once he felt dizzy and wobbly on his feet. But for Cassia’s supporting him from behind, he would have fallen down. When all the guests had gone, Cassia and her maid helped him over to the bed to lie down and then took off his outer garments and put a blanket over him. Oblivious to all this, Mallow Yao fell soundly asleep. The next morning, he woke up to find that he was not in his own bed and that someone else was lying beside him. Only then did he realize he had spent the night at Cassia’s.

Mallow Yao’s wife kept a tight rein on him. He had to report home every night by ten, and the least delay invited immediate sanction. If he had official business that prevented him from going home, he had to send someone to inform her, and she would check that it was all genuine before she let it pass. Formerly, when he was seeing Sunset Wei, though they were quite fond of each other, they had never spent an entire night together. Ever since her humiliation by Sunset, Mrs. Yao had made a scene several times, adamant that he should not see Sunset again. Mallow Yao thus had no choice but to effect the break.

To cater to business connections, however, he could not avoid entertaining some prominent people in the brothels, as Mrs. Yao well knew. It happened that one of their maids, named Ma, was a distant relative of Cassia Ma’s and often sang Cassia’s praises in front of Mrs. Yao, with the result that Mrs. Yao actually encouraged Mallow to patronize Cassia. Even his daily homing hour became slightly more flexible: he was allowed to stay out till midnight.

Now Mallow had spent a night at Cassia’s quite unintentionally, because he was drunk. This was his first time and the best thing that had ever happened to him. But he could only think of his wife and the doubly fierce scene awaiting him. If he told her a lie, and then the sedan-chair bearers exposed him, things would be even worse. He kept worrying about this and could see no way out.

Cassia, thoroughly exhausted, was still asleep. Though he could not sleep, he was loath to get up. He lay there with his eyes open until noon, when the menservants suddenly called out in the parlor, “Miss Cassia called to a party.”

The maid, who was in the next room, asked, “Who’s the client?”

“The name’s Yao,” the manservant replied.

At the very word “Yao,” Mallow’s heart jumped into his mouth. He sat up in bed and cocked his ears to listen.

The maid responded. “Among our clients only Second Young Master is named Yao; there’s nobody else besides him.”

The menservants chuckled. Their voices dropped, and there was a lot of twittering that Mallow could not make out.

Mallow shook Cassia to wake her and then hurriedly dressed, got out of bed, and called the maid into the room to question her. The maid had a call chit in her hand, which she submitted to Mallow, grinning, “Mrs. Yao is said to be in Sky in a Wine Pot and is calling our miss there. It was none other than your sedan-chair bearer who delivered the ticket, Second Young Master.”

As if hit by a lightning bolt, Mallow stared, dazed and speechless. Cassia, however, seemed very sure of herself. A smile slowly spread across her face as she said, “Coming,” and told the sedan-chair bearers to get ready. She then sent the maid to fetch warm water so she could immediately wash and do her hair.

Having composed himself a little, Mallow conferred with Cassia, saying, “I suggest you don’t go. I’ll go instead. It doesn’t matter for me; she can do whatever she likes. She can’t chop off my head, can she?”

Cassia was momentarily puzzled. “But she called me, so why can’t I go?”

Mallow frowned. “If you go and she makes a scene in a Western restaurant, how would it look?”

She broke out laughing. “You just put your mind at ease and sit here! If she wants to make a scene, she can do it anywhere, why go to a Western restaurant? D’you think your missus has gone mad?”

Mallow dared not say anymore. He looked on helplessly as Cassia finished her toilet, got changed, and went out to get into the sedan chair. He bade the maid to tell the sedan-chair bearers to report back to him if anything untoward should happen. The maid assented and set off behind the sedan chair.

::

1.  [True to her word, Green Phoenix is still wearing white, the color of deep mourning, in honor of her dead parents. Such an outfit is of course also very effective in showing off her elegance. In portraying her thus, the author, Han Banqing, obviously has in mind an episode from chapter 20 of The Story of the Stone, when Green Phoenix’s namesake Wang Xifeng dresses in white mourning to visit her rival and also manages to appear stunningly beautiful. E.H.]