Ten-Mile Home

Before Shen Shixu reached the entrance to Ten-Mile Home, he heard strings and flutes, a woman's lilting singing, and men pounding tables in applause.

Mixed together, those sounds made the place seem less like a restaurant and more like a modern karaoke lounge.

Shen Shixu climbed the steps. Seeing another guest arrive, the waiter at the entrance immediately flashed his big white teeth and welcomed him inside with a smile.

The moment Shen Shixu stepped inside, his ears suffered, and his eyes were subjected to an equally unpleasant sight. His timing was impeccable: a drunk was staggering toward the Top Courtesan's performance area, reeking of alcohol and carrying a reddish-brown wine jar. He strode up and grabbed her hand.

With his shameless face thrust forward, he tried to take liberties with her, frightening the Top Courtesan into a scream. The piercing sound left Shen Shixu's ears ringing.

"Let go! Let go of me! Help! Someone, please help me!" Shaoyao, the Top Courtesan of Spring Breeze House, burst into tears, terrified by the drunken brute. A tear truly fell from her watery almond-shaped eyes, and her delicate, rosy face turned deathly pale. Her hair had already been loosely pinned up; as she struggled, the jade hairpin fell to the floor and broke in two.

Crying, Shaoyao begged the men who had just been cheering for her to help, but every one of them avoided her gaze, turning away and pretending not to see.

Shaoyao's heart went cold. Though Spring Breeze House's madam had long told her that men were the least trustworthy creatures in the world, she had never imagined they could be this unreliable. One moment they were showering her with praise, and the next they could turn a blind eye to her being hurt.

Just as Shaoyao resigned herself to her fate and considered letting him have his way, someone seized the man harassing her by the collar and kicked him in the knee, then bent forward and pressed an arm against his neck, forcing him to kneel.

Freed from the man's grasp, Shaoyao hurriedly looked to see who had saved her. It was someone she had never seen before, yet he was as beautiful as a figure in a painting.

She had been dancing at Ten-Mile Home for six or seven days and could recognize most of the people who came to watch her.

This young man alone was someone she had never seen. Today was their first encounter, yet it was precisely this man, with whom she had never had any connection, who had saved her.

Watching Shen Shixu, with his distinguished bearing and face as fine as polished jade, Shaoyao could not stop her heart from fluttering.

Shen Shixu had barely subdued the drunk when the restaurant's owner arrived with several men. When the man began causing trouble, the waiter had realized something was wrong and hurried off to fetch help.

The owner of Ten-Mile Home was a handsome man with an exotic air. Unlike the men of Great Qian, he did not tie up his hair, instead letting his wavy curls hang loose. A braid crossed his forehead from left to right, adorned with a blue tassel.

He had thick brows, large, deep-set, dark brown eyes, and a tall build. He wore a navy brocade robe open at the chest, with a brown leather belt around his waist and a chain of linked silver pieces fastened over it.

Seeing that someone had stopped the disturbance, he first glanced at the man causing trouble in his establishment, then turned to Shen Shixu, who had already straightened up.

"Thank you for lending a hand, young master. As a token of my gratitude, I've prepared a private room for you upstairs. Everything you order today will be on the house."

At his first glimpse of Shen Shixu, Alebrang was momentarily dazzled by his looks, then sensed that this was no ordinary man. If he could befriend him, that would be best.

After that incident, Shen Shixu had intended to leave. Earlier, he had heard the waiter at Heavenly Fragrance House, as well as the passersby just now, speak so highly of Ten-Mile Home that he had been looking forward to it.

But once inside, he found it nothing special. It merely had a larger stage than Heavenly Fragrance House, more elegant furnishings, and an unidentified incense burning with a delicate fragrance. There was little else to it.

If anything, it seemed rather prone to trouble. He would have been better off at Heavenly Fragrance House, where the food was good and he could eat in peace.

But just as he was about to leave, the owner suddenly invited him upstairs and offered him a free meal.

After some thought, Shen Shixu decided to stay. He was already here, after all. If he went somewhere else to eat now, he would be late for his afternoon shift.

So he followed Alebrang to the second floor. Unlike the first floor, it consisted of individual private rooms with plaques hanging outside their doors. Rather than the Heavenly-Class and Earthly-Class designations used at Heavenly Fragrance House, these bore names such as Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, Chrysanthemum; Zither, Chess, Calligraphy, Painting; and Poetry, Verse, Song, Rhapsody.

It certainly looked far more cultured than Heavenly Fragrance House. Shen Shixu was shown into the room marked Zither. As soon as the door opened, he caught the scent of orchids and saw a seven-stringed guqin inside.

A lovely woman sat behind the guqin. When she saw a guest enter, her slender fingers plucked the strings, and the melody of Spring Snow slowly unfolded.

Shen Shixu walked around the screen and sat down. Through its hazy surface, he could see the beauty playing the instrument. That half-hidden view was quite alluring. No wonder it drew so many romantic young scholars.

It was hardly surprising that Heavenly Fragrance House had been hit so hard by the competition. This restaurant's owner had some real ability. Still, Shen Shixu had never expected the owner to be a foreigner. He wondered where the man was from.

Before Shen Shixu could order, waiters came in carrying more than a dozen different dishes, and another brought in a pot of wine.

"Young master, these are all signature dishes of Ten-Mile Home: Azure Dragon Resting on Snow, Qin Mulberries Lower Their Green Boughs, Yan Grass Like Emerald Threads, In Heaven May We Be Birds Flying Wing to Wing, A Window Frames the Western Peaks' Eternal Snow..."

The waiter's descriptions were wonderfully poetic, but the dishes were actually cucumber mixed with sugar, shredded beef with green peppers, stir-fried strips of seaweed, green pepper, and shiitake mushrooms, a pair of roasted squabs, and puffed egg whites shaped into a mountain and sprinkled with sugar...

They sounded lovely, but they were just ordinary dishes. Shen Shixu picked up his chopsticks and tasted Qin Mulberries Lower Their Green Boughs. The flavor was nothing special, and the beef was a little overcooked.

For all the extravagant praise people gave it, the restaurant had become fashionable in the Capital simply because its dishes had clever names, its surroundings were pleasant, and the food was passable.

Once he had eaten his fill, Shen Shixu put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, then had someone bring tea to soothe his throat.

He had not touched the complimentary wine, since he did not know what kind it was. Only when he asked the waiter bringing his tea did he learn that it was grape wine.

Good grape wine had a sweet fragrance, while poorer wine had a sour, astringent taste that Shen Shixu did not particularly like. Besides, he still had to work that afternoon, so he left it untouched.

Shen Shixu returned to the Court of Judicial Review, changed into his official robes, and continued reviewing the case files sent to him. Those without problems went straight into the archives; those with discrepancies were returned for further investigation.

He worked until sunset before leaving the Court of Judicial Review. That evening, he ate the roast chicken Shen Zexi had brought back, read for a while, then washed up. He had only just gone to bed when someone woke him, saying there had been a murder and asking him to come.