Eyes. Pair after pair of hateful eyes.
The purest beauty of dance was being appraised and watched as a plaything by the most sickeningly evil gazes.
Baozhu silently vowed: This humiliation must be washed away with blood.
Beautiful youths were nothing rare to the powerful; many had long since grown weary of beauty. But a filthy, bloody secret, the forbidden thrill of desecrating the sacred, could stir the darkest desires in human hearts, leaving these hungry ghosts too excited to sit still.
When the dance ended, Baozhu and Mi Moyan knelt toward the seat of honor due north, as custom demanded. Mercifully, there was no need to circle around begging for rewards.
Under Mi Moyan's careful guidance, Baozhu had mastered most of the techniques of the Zhezhi Dance. All she lacked was the fawning manner essential to a dance performed for guests; cold indifference was the mildest expression she could muster. Fortunately, Li Yu believed that a bearer of auspicious omens must have something unusual about her. Otherwise, her expression alone would have earned Baozhu untold reprimands and beatings.
As the Prince of Qi always required, she returned to the annex after dancing and knelt beside him. Vast quantities of luxurious banquet utensils were carried into the princely residence one after another. The fragrance of osmanthus was so thick it made her dizzy.
The Golden Osmanthus Banquet was tonight. Baozhu and Li Yu, both descendants of the Imperial House, had fixed their thoughts on the same moment, though their purposes were utterly different.
Household Steward Dong Shiguang came before Li Yu's seat and gave him a detailed report on preparations for the evening banquet.
Li Yu listened patiently for a while, then asked, "What did Dou Jing say?"
Dong Shiguang answered cautiously, "We have sent invitations twice. As he did