Upstream on the Huai River.
The five-story Boat Tower aboard the pleasure boat was bustling, the men's cheers and crisp drumbeats clearly audible both aboard and below:
"Boom, boom, clang~ boom, boom, clang..."
"Four, five, six! Small loses, big wins!"
"So tender..."
Xie Jinhuan quietly leaped onto the pleasure boat's deck. Once he was sure he had alerted no one aboard, he posed as an ordinary visitor and walked to a corner of the Boat Tower.
A quick look revealed few people on deck, all gambling-house enforcers maintaining order or servants serving tea and water. None seemed particularly formidable.
The sight inside the Boat Tower, however, genuinely startled Xie Jinhuan!
The five-story Boat Tower was quite large, its interior open through the floors, with a central hall supported by enormous pillars that would take joined arms to encircle.
Gambling tables surrounded the hall. A raised platform stood in the center, holding a huge drum, with ribbons hanging from the vaulted ceiling.
A dancer in colorful clothes wound the ribbons around both hands and swung back and forth through the hall, occasionally tapping the drumhead with bare feet to produce pleasing beats, while drummers around the platform pounded away.
The spectacle itself was merely lavish, nothing too extraordinary.
But when Xie Jinhuan looked closely, he discovered that the colorfully dressed figure swinging above the hall wore a multicolored mask, while the gauzy skirt veiling the body in clouds and mist was outright translucent. Now and then, the dancer even performed a midair split.
Anyone standing directly underneath should have been able to look up and see the gates flung wide open...
That was why heads thronged the hall, everyone pushing inward in clusters. Spectators also packed the railings on several floors, constantly letting out wolf howls:
"Whooo~!"
"Do another one..."
"What