Jade Shadow Pavilion, the most famous pleasure house in Jinmen Prefecture, was also a renowned Gilded Cage.
With the Wu Family Brothers' wealth, unless they held hands and went to a male brothel to play at being intertwined lotus blossoms, attaching themselves to wealthy patrons who would lavish gold on them,
otherwise, no matter how broad their appetites, without the financial means, they could forget about living it up here.
After Xu Qing repeatedly confirmed that "throwing out a shoe to find the road" referred to this very path, he continued deeper into his exploration.
At first, he had thought these two brats had gotten a taste for pleasure and gone completely astray, so they had squandered money the moment they arrived in the prefectural city, plunging headfirst into a land of tenderness.
Yet when Xu Qing entered the pleasure house, he discovered that things were not as he had imagined.
At that moment, Jade Shadow Pavilion was filled with the figures of scholars and talented young men. Quite a few students skilled in calligraphy and painting were still wielding their brushes around the building, drawing crowds who watched and appraised their work.
There were also literati adept at poetry and couplets, composing antithetical lines or standing before lantern riddles, racking their brains in an attempt to solve them.
Xu Qing called over a young servant to ask around, and only then learned that this was an old tradition before the Imperial Examination—the "Yang Xue."
The so-called Yang Xue was about building momentum for oneself in advance. Taking part in poetry gatherings and literary societies, then displaying one's learning during them and earning everyone's recognition and admiration, was Yang Xue.
In addition, making friends with distinguished figures was also an important part of a candidate's preparations.
Put simply, by associating