The streets glittered with lantern light and wine, everywhere swaying shadows of powdered beauties and richly dressed young masters drinking and singing in revelry.
In any chaotic age where starving corpses carpeted the land, there were always places like this, burning oil with blazing fire, drunk amid paper and gold. Shangjing Red Lantern Brothel was the most famous money-devouring den in Central Province. It had the most ravishing women, yet a single cup of fine wine could equal a middle-class household's taxes for an entire year. Countless pampered sons who had never seen a battlefield drenched in blood, who could not even distinguish the five grains, indulged themselves here without restraint.
From the flower houses beneath swaying red lanterns came uninhibited laughter and cloyingly sweet gasps and moans. Wisps of wine fragrance and the scent of roasted meat drifted out through countless open windows.
On a bluestone road outside one of the brothels sat an elderly beggar. Most of his hair was clumped together like withered grass, as though it had not been washed in a very long time. The clothes on his body had long since lost all color, piled over him in strips like rags. Before him sat a blue-and-white porcelain bowl chipped in several places, its interior black with grime. Only the yellow bamboo staff at his side still appeared fairly smooth and clean.
Beggars like this could be found everywhere and ordinarily would not draw any attention. Yet a middle-aged Daoist in yellow robes seemed to appear out of thin air, suddenly materializing not far in front of him.
The middle-aged Daoist's eyes were slightly sunken, but his nose was sharp and high, making his face appear particularly sinister. His hair was pinned with a jade hairpin, and his yellow Daoist robe glimmered with a faint