Lu Shang spared no effort in this regard.
She brought A-Pan to the Nülü and ordered her to witness live scenes of lovemaking with her own eyes—to watch how the women there deployed their full repertoire of skills, casting seductive glances and stirring hearts, easily rousing men’s desires.
But A-Pan was unwilling.
She could spy on enemy movements, gather military intelligence, even commit actual crimes or kill and rob—but she refused to learn such filthy things.
Unwilling, she lowered her gaze and looked away.
But Lu Shang was the kind of person who always kept her eyes fixed on A-Pan, and she was always filled with malice.
She knelt behind A-Pan, forcibly tilted her face up, and compelled her to watch everything in full detail and listen to every sound.
A-Pan could not break free.
A person who trained with the sword year-round possessed strength A-Pan could hardly imagine.
Those calloused hands were like pincers cast from bronze, clamping down on her so firmly that she could not move an inch.
And to make it worse, Lu Shang would whisper mockingly in her ear, enunciating each word as if afraid A-Pan might miss a single syllable: “Look at you—you’ve already been a Yingji. By all rights, you should be battle-hardened by now. Everyone in Qianjimen knows it. Why play the innocent maiden in front of your instructor?”
The damp, cold breath brushed against A-Pan’s neck—sinister and terrifying, sending chills down her spine and raising goosebumps all over her skin.
A-Pan’s heart was heavy, but she did not argue.
Who would dare argue with that she-devil?
Relying on her favor with the Sect Master and her position as training instructor for this batch of newcomers, she wielded her authority without restraint, stopping just short of outright violence—and no one dared to rein her in.
Forced to watch the entwined figures behind the red gauze curtains—their lovemaking, their moans of pleasure, their flirtatious laughter, their panting breaths, their playful curses—A-Pan was also compelled to listen to the voice behind her whispering with poisonous sarcasm: “I hear the King Father of Wei Guo is indiscreet in his private conduct, insatiable in his desires, often indulging in daylight debauchery… Tsk. If you don’t learn this thoroughly, how will you ever win him over? Tsk tsk…”
A-Pan’s mind suddenly reeled. She felt lost and dazed, as if she had lost her bearings entirely.
She had always known she was to be a spy, but no one had ever told her she would need to seduce the King Father of Wei.
Lu Shang seemed to suddenly recall something else of great importance and hastily added, “Oh! Right! You don’t know yet, do you? The King Father of Wei—he’s an old man of hideous appearance!”
A-Pan’s heart was tormented, her mind in agony. After a long moment, still shocked and bewildered, she murmured, “Senior Sister Lu, is this the Master’s intention?”
She thought to herself: she had only wanted a path to survival, a measure of stability. How had she ended up here, step by step?
Lu Shang let out a derisive laugh. “If it’s not the Master’s intention, do you think it’s mine?”
A-Pan stiffened, too disheartened to collect herself.
So the Master had never intended to keep her after all.
Then she heard the voice by her ear turn cold. “Let me hear you moan.”
“What does Senior Sister Lu want to hear?”
“Moan like those prostitutes do.”
A-Pan refused. She clenched her jaw and sealed her lips shut.
Lu Shang reached out and pinched her mouth. “If you can’t learn, you won’t survive. You know I want you dead more than anyone.”
A-Pan asked in bewilderment, “Why does Senior Sister Lu want me dead?”
Lu Shang twisted her spine and let out a low laugh. “Because I can’t stand your spinelessness, that pathetic look of yours.”
A-Pan’s heart was heavy with gloom, but even in pain she refused to make a sound in front of Lu Shang.
Was she spineless?
Perhaps she was.
She simply didn’t want to live through a mountain of blades and a sea of fire—she only wanted to be a carefree mountain dweller.
If she could stay by the Master’s side, even as a servant sweeping and attending, doing anything at all—there was nothing wrong with that.
Did she have a pathetic look?
She had a shameful past, yes—she had been through the Wei Ying and lost her chastity—but she still considered herself a person of self-respect and self-love. Where was the “pathetic look” in that?
There wasn’t.
A-Pan shouted in her heart in fierce rebuttal: There wasn’t!
Yet regardless of whether she was willing or unwilling, whether she had learned or not, the test of Meishu came soon enough.
All six newcomers were sent into the Nülü together. None of them knew who their examiner would be—just as none of them had known whether the Wei Guo noble they were originally meant to serve was a man past fifty, a ferocious brute, or a rough-skinned soldier.
Perhaps a potter.
Perhaps a beggar.
Perhaps a eunuch.
Perhaps a peddler, a groom, or a field slave.
The people of Qianjimen came from all walks of life, all trades and professions, so anyone was possible.
One by one they entered the Nülü, as if marching to their deaths.
A-Pan walked in with a heavy heart. Only as she approached the door did she notice that Lu Shang’s face was dark enough to drip ink, her eyes like sharp blades that seemed to have pierced countless holes into A-Pan’s body.
When she spoke, her words were cold and dripping with sarcasm and ridicule: “The Master said that if you don’t pass the test, you won’t leave Qianjimen alive. I’ll be right here watching. If you dare to slack off or play tricks, I’ll see to it that you enter the coffin.”
Jinguansiguo was a punishment of Qianjimen—A-Pan had heard of it from her fellow disciples.
It was said that people were nailed alive into the coffin—at least one day, at most three—and only released once they had sufficiently reflected on their wrongdoings.
A-Pan dreaded entering the coffin more than anything; it was ten times more terrifying than Guixiang.
Seeing her face turn pale, Lu Shang cast a contemptuous glance her way and added another jab. “Useless thing. What’s the point of keeping you around?”
A-Pan swallowed her anger and entered the room, where someone was already waiting on the couch.
The red gauze curtain hung in a hazy drape, obscuring the figure’s form. With their face turned inward, she couldn’t make out their appearance at all.
Knowing that Lu Shang’s lingering presence was surely watching her closely, A-Pan steeled herself, shrugged off her outer robe, and scrambled onto the couch in a few quick moves.
The moment she was up, her heart began to churn with hesitation. The courage that had filled her moments ago had already drained away by seven or eight parts, and so she started to dawdle.
She truly couldn’t bring herself to do it.
The person lay with their back to her, utterly still—as if, having waited so long, they had simply fallen asleep.
But at least they appeared young and clean, their loose robe carrying the scent of the orchids from the room.
Smelling more closely, beneath the orchid fragrance there was also a faint, subtle trace of medicinal herbs.
A-Pan knelt on the couch, dragging her feet, wrestling with herself for a long while, when she suddenly heard the person outside tapping their knuckles against the door in a lazy rhythm, as if saying, “Into the coffin, into the coffin, into the coffin.”
Knowing it was Lu Shang’s reminder, A-Pan steeled herself, squeezed her eyes shut, and reached to undo the person’s long robe.
But the person turned over.
But the person turned over.
A-Pan’s heart lurched—she nearly lost half her soul.
She froze in place, dazed and lost, and cried out in shock, “Master?”
The person lifted their gaze, eyes cold and clear, and asked her, “Why did you stop?”
The candle flame flickered, casting shifting shadows across his expression.
A-Pan’s heart pounded wildly in her chest, unable to calm down. She kept her eyes lowered, not daring to move, and her voice lost all its confidence. “A-Pan did not know it was Master.”
The person said, “A beauty trap only has one chance to succeed. If the man tonight had been the King of Wei, ten of your lives wouldn’t be enough.”
Yes, A-Pan knew.
She had known from the very beginning—a spy walks the edge of a blade, learning to deceive heaven and cross the sea, to preserve herself. Once exposed and fallen into enemy hands, it would be death by iron axe, death by cold steel.
She understood all the logic. But he was her master.
The person’s gaze was heavy and calm as he commanded, “Continue.”