Water Mirrored Moon - 水鏡月

Part II - Cosmetics Goddess: 16. Understanding

Of course, the night had not ended there.

Crying foul, the fat man and the nasty 'stone face' were only mollified by free wine and personal services provided by attendant beauties. While the others had acted more graciously, they were still offered a selection of private entertainment in the upper rooms.

However, this had all been within Cui Xi's expectations and everything had been previously prepared for exactly this result. It was actually the perfect opportunity to showcase the pleasure house's new wares to high class guests. 

The one called Zhao Yu simply stated that he had received his money's worth of entertainment and would not pursue the matter, but he insisted that she come to his manor for a visit. Not seeing a down side, she agreed at once.

Even the madam had to admit that Cui Xi had predicted everything to the last detail. Although the madam conceded defeat, her smile was so fake Cui Xi almost laughed. The contract was hastily written up and Cui Xi became an honoured guest of the pleasure house with almost free rein to do what she pleased. In one night, she solidified her reputation as the famous Goddess of Cosmetics, and of course, the dancing girl "Xinyue," became the most famous courtesan in Tiansheng.

Days turned into weeks as she worked doing the makeup for the courtesans and their attendants, building relationships with the other occupants of the pleasure house, but she became uneasy after discovering the lead content of the whitening powder that some of them were using. She had already known about the extensive use of lead in the pre-modern era, but it was unsettling to actually see the results of lead poisoning firsthand.

However, it only reinforced her desire to push her previous plans forward. She had never intended to stay at the pleasure house, but only use it as a springboard to something else. At some point, she was going to run out of the contents of her cosmetics box, and since she had originally intended to open her own beauty shop, there was no better time to do it then now.

However, the last two weeks had been discouraging as the mostly male owners of any vacant shops had turned their noses up at her "brothel tainted" gold and looked down their long noses at her mask. One or two of them had even called her a 'unlucky demoness' to her face. She'd laughed about it at the time, but secretly wondered if she'd truly made a mistake.

Well, no one catches tiger cubs without going into the den...*

"Xiao Yu, we are going to make cosmetics ourselves," Cui Xi said aloud, with conviction.

"Where are we going to get the money to do that?" Xiao Yu sighed, writing something down in her medical journal.

Misreading the tone in her voice, Cui Xi peaked over Xiao Yu's shoulder, glanced at the notes about the symptoms and shuddered.

Ugh...sounds like an STD*, she thought to herself.

"You treated her this morning?" Cui Xi asked.

Xiao Yu nodded.

"Ennn. It's a good thing she plays an instrument. She won't be able to take guests for a bit," she murmured, continuing to write.