After her first dance performance, the Prince of Qi immediately assigned Mi Moyan to learn Dan Niao's movements in turn, polish her awkward, unpracticed steps, and choreograph the dance anew, in an attempt to recreate the Zhezhi Dance the Noble Consort had performed at a palace banquet years ago.
Having spent decades steeped in sensual pleasures, Li Yu was worldly and discerning, with a keen eye and an expert appreciation of every sort of music and dance. His troupe of dancers, singers, and musicians had likewise been painstakingly assembled from the finest talents, their skill in no way inferior to that of the imperial entertainment bureau.
Whether Baozhu wished it or not, Li Yu summoned her every day. Sometimes he watched her practice; sometimes he made her kneel beside his throne as a pleasing ornament, immersing himself in fantasies of all the auspicious omens she brought.
The two fellow disciples responsible for abducting the Guanyin Attendant, Xu Shiyi and Zhang Gougou, were the Prince of Qi's personal guards. The two experts took turns attending him.
To prevent Baozhu from hurting anyone, she was chained to the coiled-dragon lamp like a pet, her movements restricted and her dignity stripped away. The pain of this humiliation was so intense that she sometimes experienced a strange illusion, as though her soul had slipped free of her body and was looking down from above at the absurd, pitiful scene.
The Prince of Qi and his younger half brother, the emperor, shared a father and bore a considerable resemblance. The patterns of their wrinkles, their voices and expressions, and their desperate struggles to prolong their decline rather than accept old age were all cut from the same cloth. With their sun sinking in the west and one foot already in the grave, the brothers had