Water Mirrored Moon - 水鏡月

Part III - Beloved of the Seventh Prince: 45. Bathhouse

With her Master refusing to see her, Cui Xi felt like a caged animal. As winter melted into a wet spring gradually followed by warmer weather, Cui Xi became restless with new ideas.

By now Xiao Hei was quite used to the strange things that his mistress designed, and the new bathhouse was no exception. She had spent days and days drawing and then weeks discussing with craftsman and metal workers. He had watched the little wooden building go up and finally today they were going to start the actual construction of the interior. He had asked a few times about it, but Mistress had only smiled mysteriously.

"Don't worry, Xiao Hei. When it's done you and Xiao Yu can use it too!" she laughed.

Xiao Hei smirked to himself. Mistress was quite spoilt...all this fuss for a bathhouse? He sat for quite some time observing the workman going in and out of the little building. At one point three men carried in a large metal barrel girded with wooden slats... and then they carried in what look like copper tubes.

Seven days later, Xiao Hei, Xiao Yu and Cui Xi stood in front of the bathhouse.

"It's not perfect and the water heater must be turned on an hour before, but come and see!" Cui Xi clasped her hands together gleefully.

After trial and error and multiple discussions with craftsman, she finally had her shower and bath. Although a hand-pump had been installed to bring the well water into the copper pipes, this was still better than manually carrying the water. The water was then piped directly into a specially designed boiler tank. There had been no way to create a heating element within the metal barrel, so she had had to settle for a fire pit. This caused the metal barrel to become burning hot, so she had had it suspended within a cage to prevent someone from burning themselves on it. It had taken her quite some time to figure out how long to boil the tank without melting the bottom, while heating the water enough that it wouldn't be cold after travelling through the downstream pipes that connected to the shower and the bath. A hand pump operated the water for the shower, and one operated the bath. Although the shower was not continuous, this was fine and would suit most of her needs. The sunken bath was just a luxury.

Her delight in showing all these things to Xiao Hei and Xiao Yu was only intensified as she watched their eyes widen in amazement. Xiao Hei stood for a long time with one hand under the shower head and the other hand operating the pump, watching the water splash over his fingers onto the floor and into the drain.

Cui Xi showed them the wooden tags hung on the door. One was red and the other was green. She explained that the red tag was to show the bath was occupied and the green that it was empty. Of course, this made sense as Cui Xi had no intentions of having Xiao Hei walk in on her while she was using the bathhouse. She gave each a key.

Later that evening she hung the red tag on the door and went in without noticing that an intruder had come into her courtyard.

Wandering uninvited into the garden, the Seventh Prince noticed a wisp of steam coming out of the side of a newly constructed wood building and wondered what it was.

Where is she?

He could see that a small window was propped open, and he squeezed through the opening with a little effort. Smiling, he immediately determined that the sound of humming was Cui Xi. The sound of water splashing enticed him as he surreptitiously entered the inner room.