A broken promise. Persistence spanning beyond life and death.
"You broke your promise first, why can't I broke mine?"
"I keep this name to remember the promise I have once made, the promise I have once broken. Once again, it will be the promise I ke...
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"He-jie , you are no longer young, but you are still so popular. Won't you share your secrets with us?" The voice was coquettish, but there was a tad of envy in her tone.
The person she was talking to, He Xiang, looked into her reflection in the hand-held mirror, while fixing the lotus flower ornament in her hair. There was a lotus blossom also painted between her brows, adding charm to her already beautiful face.
He Xiang's red lips curled slightly, "Xiuqu-mei, you are still young. When you grow older, you will learn how to use your womanly weapons more, ah. Also you'll know what kind of man likes what kind of play in bed. Then, you can collect as many flowers as I have." After she said the last words, she laughed and wantonly displayed her jade-white thigh. A tattoo of colorful lotus flowers adorned her smooth skin.
He Xiang was one commonly known as a comfort woman, and she was considered one of the best in this establishment aptly called Blossoming Fragrance. Blossoming Fragrance was a well-known brothel located near the outskirt of Bei town in Duhan. Being close to the capital, it was frequented by a lot of people, even the officials from the capital city. Bei town was a place of historical culture, popular amongst the scholars and nobles alike as well. The brothel had been subjected to a lot of petitions by the older scholars of the imperial court, wishing nothing more than to close the premise, to stop the Blossoming Fragrances from corrupting the younger generations.
There were a lot of 'flowers' and 'fragrances' who had made the brothel home. There was He Xiang the Lotus Fragrance, the hydrangea flower Xiuqu, the rose, the osmanthus... . Whatever kind of flower a horny gardener wanted to find, he could pluck it himself... with the right amount of gold.
The price to taste a flower was already expensive, thus the service must be exemplary. After a night spent, if the patron was satisfied with the flower's attendance, he would relay this to the head matron. The reward was a twenty percent split of the patron's payment, excluding any tips, for the servicing woman. The other reward was for the corresponding flower type to be tattooed on the courtesan's thigh, as was the custom for all entertainment-for-the-skin establishments in Taishan and Duhan.
In this type of business, the tattoo was considered a courtesan's medal of honor. He Xiang had worked herself up from being a serving waitress, to a normal courtesan, to someone who must be booked months in advance. Throughout her life, she only knew how to sway her hips and coax men with her sweet voice and looks, as well as pleasing them in bed. She had collected substantial savings, more than enough to redeem herself and buy a decent house in some village or small town.
But she never had the thought to do so. If she were to leave the Blossoming Fragrance, what would she do? Farm some chickens and plant wheat? Let her skin be scorched by the sun and her soft hands toil in labor work? With her background, she knew there was no respectable man who would be willing to take her as a wife. Some officials and nobles who had visited her before had offered to take her as their concubine; after all, she could never be their main wife. But why would she leave her comfortable life to serve tea to some lord's main wife everyday as a mere concubine?
