Don't Be a Kept Man
Chen Miao Ping’s hands were in his sleeves, expressing the immovability of his views towards love through his posture and the expression on his face. With the warm tone of the burning lanterns, and this ideal image of a timeless man, it created a drastic comparison between the two men, highlighting Liu Zhen Hu as an ugly clown.
Women were naturally more easily susceptible to run with their wild fantasies, and with that undoubtedly attractive face of Chen Miao Ping and his deep poetic words of love, those naive and young girls who had just been sold into the entertainment district were completely mesmerized.
At this time, in a corner of the open space in front of the stage on the first floor, appeared a young man, followed by a group of servants. Seating himself in the corner hidden by shadows where no one was paying attention towards, his eyes locked onto Chen Miao Ping.
Up on the second floor, covered by translucent curtains that concealed the delicate clientele, were a group of extraordinary beauties looking down at the spectacle below them. They were the ladies of Chun Xiao House that one could throw away his entire fortune and never be able to catch a glimpse.
One of their maids said out loud, with a face full of yearning and naivety,
“Young Miss, that Flower Seeker is not only handsome, but also a rare man infatuated by love.”
“There are too many men who are cold-hearted and flippant in this world, only using shallow phrases of love to take advantage of us. A pair of lips that can blur the lines of black and white, lying to girls to tear apart their bodies and use them up. You are young, and your ears are weak. You need to know that these words can never be trusted.”
A woman garbed in purple poked her maid’s head as she scolded her, her face as cold as a snowing blizzard.
A nearby young woman dressed in green coldly snorted in response,
“All he has is a mouth that knows how to sweet talk. Although that Liu Zhen Hu is not a good man, in my eyes that Chen Miao Ping is just average. Wang Da-Ge did not get on the rankings with his intelligence and broad knowledge, all because of these useless and worthless scholars who are parasites leeching off their in-laws! Just watch how I am going to take care of him!”
The expression of the lady in purple immediately shifted and she quickly held up her hands to block her,
“Xue Yi, no–“
But it was already too late.
The girl dressed in green had already peeled back the curtain and resolutely walked out towards the central hall, bringing a group of maids behind her. Her lips were bright red, a shining beacon between her white silky skin. In the middle of her eyebrows was a red beauty mark. Layered on with a green dress, she looked as if she was walking along lotus leaves, an angel walking on a lake of green, creating massive waves amongst the men. Every man stopped their movements, dazed by her appearance.
“Ah! It’s Lady Xue Yi!”
“She normally does not show her face in public. What a rare occurrence today.”
At her presence, even Liu Zhen Hu subconsciously threw aside the literary beauty in his embrace and locked his eyes on her. If you took a look around, there was only proof of the killing power of this woman. But Chen Miao Ping was the only one to unconsciously take a step back, feeling like this woman was coming at him with no good intentions.
And as expected……
Everyone’s gaze turned speculative towards Chen Miao Ping. The conversation was led astray by Liu Zhen Hu and even Xue Yi’s eyes changed, looking at him like he was Chen Shi Mei1, like he was a piece of dirt.
“No, no, these words from Brother Liu are far away from the mark.”
Chen Miao Ping was very calm and composed, despite what he has just been compared to. He paced back and forth in front of Liu Zhen Hu, looking the other up and down, up and down over and over with his hands behind his back. Judging him for a while before saying with a very meaningful tone,
“A human and another human, there is always a difference between the two. Humans can be split into different tiers, so of course, these injuries can naturally have their own hierarchies.
“Second Master Xie has gone out to the battlefield since he was young. Battling against Dong Han, fighting against the barbarians, protecting our country from the sea to the river. A wealthy young man, a gong-zi with a powerful backing, crawling and living through freezing ice and snow. What sort of suffering one experiences in these conditions, only a few people could know.
“And why did he become a cripple? It was because he went to fight Dong Han, leading only forty thousand men riding on black horses to battle Dong Han’s army of eighty thousand. The very reason why he suffered that injury, the very reason why he is alive now, is from the exchange of laying down his life along those forty thousand men to fight back.”
“This honorable Chen, you are, of the utmost, a very particular person, and Xue Yi cannot be someone other than one who is most definitely humbled by you. A few days ago, Yin Feng Jie-Jie2 received a poem from the previous Flower Seeker Meng Zhang Ling, Meng Da-Ren…… Since we have met coincidentally like this, may this Xue Yi have the honor to ask brazenly for Chen Gong-Zi to gift me such a gift?”
A lady from these entertainment houses spending their entire fortune to ask for a reputable man to write a poem for them was a very normal thing. It was considered a smart and clever move as it would raise the value of your name. That Meng Zhang Ling was an individual crowned to be one of the best at poetry and drawing, but these kinds of things were privately done. For Xue Yi to ask for such a favour in front of everyone, in the public eye, it was definitely to cause trouble for Chen Miao Ping.
If the poem he created was terrible, he would be mocked and humiliated; if it was average, it wouldn’t match his title; if it was brilliant….. how could it be asked from someone with the position of a Flower Seeker?
No matter what Chen Miao Ping did, he was really walking to his own death.
Right as the last word came out of her mouth, a maid immediately presented a calligraphy set to him. Chen Miao Ping shook his head inwardly. Ancient civilizations really had no other leisurely activities. It was either horseback riding, playing pitch-pot3 or competing with poetry. No matter where you go, you’ll just be surrounded by these.
To gift him with precious and prized calligraphy sets, it wasn’t unacceptable, but Xue Yi was a lady from Chun Xiao House. To write poetry about these types of girls, he could only do one —
A pair of delicate elbows become the pillow of a thousand humans, a pair of lips tasted by ten thousand humans.4
…… Which if he dares to write that out today, you can be sure that he won’t be walking out of this Chun Xia House alive. So he blinked his eyes a few times but did not immediately agree. He only said after mulling it over a bit,
“I have a limited pool of knowledge and poetry is not my strength. Not to fool this lady here and her passion, but actually, this Master Liu is not bad in the literary arts……”
“But Xue Yi only wants Master Chen’s.”
Xue Yi stepped forward to look at him, her clear dew-like eyes were full of expectation and yearning. No man should be able to reject those eyes.
Notes:
*1 Chen Shi Mei is a character from a very old story about a man who was like a white-eyed wolf, greedy and puts himself over everything else, tossing aside his wife the moment he gains what he can, tossing away all the people who helped him the moment their usefulness is gone and he finally met his demise and his judgement by probably the most famous judge of all time, Bao Zheng, the very embodiment of justice.
*2 Jie-Jie: like Ge-Ge or just Ge, it means sister, like how brother is referenced, as an older female who is close to you but is not that old.
*3 pitch-pot: an activity like archery/basketball, where you throw a stick into a pot a certain distance away. You earn points and if you lose you have to take a penalty like drink a cup of wine (the more you lose, the more you drink, etc).
*4 This is a line from a poem that’s passed down but no one knows who the author is, and it contains crude references to prostitutes and sex, referencing a wife who is lamenting on her complicated feelings and heartbreak at her husband going to the red light district. And she forgives him for that, but also is very aggressive towards the women doing these activities.
Chapter 50: CH 50
Women were naturally more easily susceptible to run with their wild fantasies, and with that undoubtedly attractive face of Chen Miao Ping and his deep poetic words of love, those naive and young girls who had just been sold into the entertainment district were completely mesmerized.
At this time, in a corner of the open space in front of the stage on the first floor, appeared a young man, followed by a group of servants. Seating himself in the corner hidden by shadows where no one was paying attention towards, his eyes locked onto Chen Miao Ping.
Up on the second floor, covered by translucent curtains that concealed the delicate clientele, were a group of extraordinary beauties looking down at the spectacle below them. They were the ladies of Chun Xiao House that one could throw away his entire fortune and never be able to catch a glimpse.
One of their maids said out loud, with a face full of yearning and naivety,
“Young Miss, that Flower Seeker is not only handsome, but also a rare man infatuated by love.”
“There are too many men who are cold-hearted and flippant in this world, only using shallow phrases of love to take advantage of us. A pair of lips that can blur the lines of black and white, lying to girls to tear apart their bodies and use them up. You are young, and your ears are weak. You need to know that these words can never be trusted.”
A woman garbed in purple poked her maid’s head as she scolded her, her face as cold as a snowing blizzard.
A nearby young woman dressed in green coldly snorted in response,
“All he has is a mouth that knows how to sweet talk. Although that Liu Zhen Hu is not a good man, in my eyes that Chen Miao Ping is just average. Wang Da-Ge did not get on the rankings with his intelligence and broad knowledge, all because of these useless and worthless scholars who are parasites leeching off their in-laws! Just watch how I am going to take care of him!”
The expression of the lady in purple immediately shifted and she quickly held up her hands to block her,
“Xue Yi, no–“
But it was already too late.
The girl dressed in green had already peeled back the curtain and resolutely walked out towards the central hall, bringing a group of maids behind her. Her lips were bright red, a shining beacon between her white silky skin. In the middle of her eyebrows was a red beauty mark. Layered on with a green dress, she looked as if she was walking along lotus leaves, an angel walking on a lake of green, creating massive waves amongst the men. Every man stopped their movements, dazed by her appearance.
“Ah! It’s Lady Xue Yi!”
“She normally does not show her face in public. What a rare occurrence today.”
At her presence, even Liu Zhen Hu subconsciously threw aside the literary beauty in his embrace and locked his eyes on her. If you took a look around, there was only proof of the killing power of this woman. But Chen Miao Ping was the only one to unconsciously take a step back, feeling like this woman was coming at him with no good intentions.
And as expected……
Everyone’s gaze turned speculative towards Chen Miao Ping. The conversation was led astray by Liu Zhen Hu and even Xue Yi’s eyes changed, looking at him like he was Chen Shi Mei1, like he was a piece of dirt.
“No, no, these words from Brother Liu are far away from the mark.”
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“A human and another human, there is always a difference between the two. Humans can be split into different tiers, so of course, these injuries can naturally have their own hierarchies.
“Second Master Xie has gone out to the battlefield since he was young. Battling against Dong Han, fighting against the barbarians, protecting our country from the sea to the river. A wealthy young man, a gong-zi with a powerful backing, crawling and living through freezing ice and snow. What sort of suffering one experiences in these conditions, only a few people could know.
“And why did he become a cripple? It was because he went to fight Dong Han, leading only forty thousand men riding on black horses to battle Dong Han’s army of eighty thousand. The very reason why he suffered that injury, the very reason why he is alive now, is from the exchange of laying down his life along those forty thousand men to fight back.”
“This honorable Chen, you are, of the utmost, a very particular person, and Xue Yi cannot be someone other than one who is most definitely humbled by you. A few days ago, Yin Feng Jie-Jie2 received a poem from the previous Flower Seeker Meng Zhang Ling, Meng Da-Ren…… Since we have met coincidentally like this, may this Xue Yi have the honor to ask brazenly for Chen Gong-Zi to gift me such a gift?”
A lady from these entertainment houses spending their entire fortune to ask for a reputable man to write a poem for them was a very normal thing. It was considered a smart and clever move as it would raise the value of your name. That Meng Zhang Ling was an individual crowned to be one of the best at poetry and drawing, but these kinds of things were privately done. For Xue Yi to ask for such a favour in front of everyone, in the public eye, it was definitely to cause trouble for Chen Miao Ping.
If the poem he created was terrible, he would be mocked and humiliated; if it was average, it wouldn’t match his title; if it was brilliant….. how could it be asked from someone with the position of a Flower Seeker?
No matter what Chen Miao Ping did, he was really walking to his own death.
Right as the last word came out of her mouth, a maid immediately presented a calligraphy set to him. Chen Miao Ping shook his head inwardly. Ancient civilizations really had no other leisurely activities. It was either horseback riding, playing pitch-pot3 or competing with poetry. No matter where you go, you’ll just be surrounded by these.
To gift him with precious and prized calligraphy sets, it wasn’t unacceptable, but Xue Yi was a lady from Chun Xiao House. To write poetry about these types of girls, he could only do one —
A pair of delicate elbows become the pillow of a thousand humans, a pair of lips tasted by ten thousand humans.4
…… Which if he dares to write that out today, you can be sure that he won’t be walking out of this Chun Xia House alive. So he blinked his eyes a few times but did not immediately agree. He only said after mulling it over a bit,
“I have a limited pool of knowledge and poetry is not my strength. Not to fool this lady here and her passion, but actually, this Master Liu is not bad in the literary arts……”
“But Xue Yi only wants Master Chen’s.”
Xue Yi stepped forward to look at him, her clear dew-like eyes were full of expectation and yearning. No man should be able to reject those eyes.
Notes:
*1 Chen Shi Mei is a character from a very old story about a man who was like a white-eyed wolf, greedy and puts himself over everything else, tossing aside his wife the moment he gains what he can, tossing away all the people who helped him the moment their usefulness is gone and he finally met his demise and his judgement by probably the most famous judge of all time, Bao Zheng, the very embodiment of justice.
*2 Jie-Jie: like Ge-Ge or just Ge, it means sister, like how brother is referenced, as an older female who is close to you but is not that old.
*3 pitch-pot: an activity like archery/basketball, where you throw a stick into a pot a certain distance away. You earn points and if you lose you have to take a penalty like drink a cup of wine (the more you lose, the more you drink, etc).
*4 This is a line from a poem that’s passed down but no one knows who the author is, and it contains crude references to prostitutes and sex, referencing a wife who is lamenting on her complicated feelings and heartbreak at her husband going to the red light district. And she forgives him for that, but also is very aggressive towards the women doing these activities.
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