“There, that’s the place, now let me go,” begged the man with fewer knives than sense whom Liao Hua was dragging across the Red Light District. By the face, if required clarification. Blue Hand Zhu’s face was actively receiving clarification by the deep, purple bruises Hua was leaving. “Please, I’m begging you.”


    He’d gotten cut along the way by one of his many knives slipping free of its sheathes and there were thin trails of red tracing the path Hua had dragged him along. Hua felt it a very mild punishment for having the audacity to not only threaten her but to also waste her time. What era did these mortals think they were in to think themselves greater than a Cultivator? Especially one of her Clan. Even a fool should have had the slightest hint of a preservation instinct.


    Also, really, who wore no less than twenty-five knives on their person? That was just asking to get cut.


    Hua could understand having a good sword, maybe a matching short sword and a backup dagger. Even a brace of throwing knives hidden away to cover long-range options. But at some point, so many mismatched knives showed a lack of clarity. If your fighting technique involved throwing knives, then you carried a lot of throwing knives, but only that kind to efficiently carry them on your person. Why would a swordsman carry a dozen blades of mismatched quality instead of a single superlative sword?


    It made no sense at all, which was likely why they called Blue Hand the man with more knives than sense.


    They had drawn something of a crowd under the bloodred sunset. Quite a few people with lots of knives but thankfully more sense than their leader. They ranged from stick-thin fighters who hadn’t eaten a decent meal in five years to their more rotund bosses who had benefitted from the efforts of desperate kids trying to survive. Hua would like to clarify, though not with a bruising grip, that rotund here meant a degree of flesh between bone and cracking skin, not any true amount of fat.


    Dumber kids, younger members of the gang, had been pulled back before they interfered, possibly interrupted Hua, and gotten themselves killed. There had still been no less than three idiots who broke through and tried to interfere. Liu Xin’s wooden staves had made quick work of them and Hua didn’t even need to break her stride. He deserves a raise, she had thought approvingly after he cracked the third skull.


    Hua had yet to pay him a single coin or tael. She had also yet to formally take him into her service. Both problems she would handle later.


    Hopefully, no more things would pile up before she left the Red Light District.


    That this District had survived relatively unscathed whilst the Temple of Five Dragons had been swallowed whole felt like a pointed commentary on the relative morality of Daoist priests and the average whore plying their trade with an underfed bandit. Hua would add to the footnotes on that commentary that the gods saw no difference between humans because if they cared about someone being good and just and moral, Qing would not have died because of their wars.


    And so, the gods would die. That one life was worth all of heaven. The hypocrisy of heaven could only be washed away in blood.


    It was a tall building she had been led to. Four stories by her reckoning, wider than the others around it on the crowded street. The black tiled roof sloped far past the front wall, draping the entrance in deep shadows. One would need to walk up a polished set of stone stairs to reach the patio that was further shielded by green banners. The title of the brothel was painted in elegant characters on green banners. It was a private building, the Crimson Leaf Pagoda, one where you wouldn’t be seen once you were past the banners, but everyone would know you visited anyway. Explained why seemingly all the mortals knew some of her kinsmen visited the brothel. Were this a regular day, tale of her visit would have spread across the city within an hour. But normal behaviour had died when the ground broke.


    It was not what she expected of a brothel. For one, it was far cleaner. For two, it lacked the paintings of sexual activities on the paper screens she had seen in brothels before. For three, no one was either being fucked in a nearby alley or fucked over in a nearby alley. And finally, she couldn’t hear the music and dance that usually accompanied higher-end establishments.


    Let no one accuse Liao Hua of being a purveyor of brothels. She just sometimes got distracted by the bodies drawn on the paper screens, the breathless moans the women faked for the men they service, and sometimes the sight of exposed skin on her way to her far more reasonable activity of beating the shit out of some idiot who annoyed her and thought a Daoist was too dignified to approach a brothel. Hua never spent long, obviously, and never looked at any of the women on display, and truly never forgot about her target because someone smiled with their potent, dark eyes. She’d never had to track a person across three separate brothels and then to another town because she kept being distracted. And most certainly her favourite teahouse wasn’t a poorly disguised brothel.


    She shook her head of all the things she had never done and dropped Blue Hand Zhu. His head hit the ground hard, and he yelled out a curse. She planted her foot on his chest to keep him from slithering away. He seemed the type to vanish if you didn’t pay him enough attention.


    “Liu Xin, I have grown very tired of mortals today. Deal with this,” she commanded, sparing him a short glance.


    Eyes wide, he bowed low. “Yes, Young Mistress.”


    She was curious what he had read in that command and what he would do. If she was lucky, the Sealord’s daughter would appear right in front of her.


    “Please let me go,” Blue Hand croaked. Oh, she had forgotten about that mortal. Hua lightened the pressure crushing his lungs. “I gave you what you want. Fuck, I don’t want any problems with the Sealord.”


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    “I never mentioned Sealord Song.”


    “The fuck other reason would you have for coming here but his daughter? Even an idiot like me can figure out the Sealord is throwing around his connections.”


    Irritating. She didn’t like the implication that the Liao clan were merely a connection for the Sealord. It gave him far too much clout. She’d have to curb that power going forward. Having favour and having influence were different things. Favour could be dispensed or withdrawn by a superior whenever they pleased. Influence felt far too much like the Sealord controlled how the Liao Clan would behave.


    It was true to an extent. Hua was doing him a favour. He’d asked and they negotiated. But other mortals would grasp at the Liao Clan if they thought there were ways of getting a Cultivator to support them. Their rival clans would think them weak if they listened to mortals. Even if it was true, that impression could never exist.


    “I think you should be more afraid of my clan.”


    “Not like I can do shit about fuckers with silver hair. Why the fuck would I be afraid of someone that’ll forget I exist the moment she looks away?”


    Hua’s brows pinched. Was that wisdom, nihilism, or stupidity? From Blue Hand, who had replaced his sense with knives, it could have been any of them.


    Should she kill him just to be certain? Not being afraid of her felt insulting.


    “Will this establishment be welcoming the Young Mistress alone or with her guest?”


    The voice broke her from her thoughts of casual murder.


    An older woman had spoken, watching from the tallest step and looking down at Hua. Her hair was caught up in a bun held by an elegant gold pin. Her robes were layers of alternating green and red that could have looked garish but were harmonious instead, anchored by a diaphanous gauze outer layer in white. Hua almost felt underdressed until she remembered she was a Cultivator who didn’t spend her days on her back. She could walk around naked and inherently be more dignified than the Madame of a brothel who painted her teeth black.


    Certainly, one of the odder choices. Did men like pretending they were married? Wasn’t the whole point to get away from a legal wife? Or did unmarried men enjoy the idea of a motherly figure running the establishment?


    “Blue Hand, if you have more sense than knives, you and your men will report to the imperial soldiers at the Central Counting House to offer assistance. If you lack any sense, we’ll learn how many of your knives can fit in your body before I get bored.”


    The man wheezed out an agreement and made what she charitably chose to interpret as a polite gesture. She removed her foot and ignored him completely, focusing on the Madame. Whether Blue Hand chose to live or die was a problem for later.


    “Madame, this Young Mistress will accept your welcome.”


    And so it was the Liao Hua, eldest daughter of the Liao Patriarch, entered a brothel in the city that bore her name. Her ancestors were dying again from shame.


    The grain on the stairs had been sanded away in some places more than others, the places where most walked. Hua intentionally stepped on less worn areas and with her enhanced strength, scraped off a layer of wood. Just to even out how worn everything could be. Give it a nice patina. Work off some of her irritation.


    They slipped first past the green banners that shaded the patio, and then through a pair of large wooden doors. Each was carved to depict falling leaves though, if one turned their head slightly and squinted their eyes just right, the way those leaves fell gave the impression of a buxom woman kneeling before an ambiguously male figure. To offer service in the ways only a brothel could.


    Even though the earth had broken, the interior entrance was polished to a fine shine. Hua’s boots made the tiniest of clicks against the gleaming wood boards which had her frowning. Her footsteps were always silent unless she chose otherwise. Either the boots were bad, or the floors had been treated with something. Possibly even an array of some kind hidden beneath the floorboards.


    Mortals liked small talk, right? That was something to be done. The Sealord had asked her not to burn the place down and Liu Xin was inside anyway. So, she needed to… not make friends, but also not make enemies. A stupid enemy was one who would challenge Hua and Hua wouldn’t let that go.


    “How has the Madame’s establishment faired? The parlour carries a certain brooding elegance.”


    The woman paused in the strangely empty entrance parlour and then gave Hua a look of such studied confusion that Hua almost died inside from sheer embarrassment. Right, I missed the mark completely. She missed Liu Xin with a startling intensity right then. He’d have said the right thing to Madame on her behalf.


    “The Madame would not force the Young Mistress to make false compliments under any circumstances. It is unnecessary and demeans us both.”


    “And yet, my question remains unanswered,” she challenged. “Mortals have a strange habit of answering everything but what I ask.”


    “Perhaps there is a reason for that. But, to answer the honourable Daoist, We were spared much of the destruction. This establishment has been a safe harbour for those women who ply their trade in this district. We have even been protected from looting and banditry by that man you dragged kicking and screaming across the district.”


    “He’s extorting you for money, then.”


    “Are taxes not the same thing in practice and theory?”


    “It is natural for one’s lesser to pay for the protection of their betters. It is why my clan holds the Imperial Mandate to rule and receive taxes, and the man Blue Hand must operate in the shadows.”


    “This old lady sees no difference. Both demand I open my purse and spread its flaps to be plundered to its depths. This old lady also knows many who brag that they underpay their tax obligation. Were it a natural process, no one would have a complaint. But I can tell you, Young Mistress, that I have heard even my so-called betters complain about the dragon demanding greater treasures for its hoard. Power does not make people different, it simply shields some from consequences and provides better opportunities.”


    “That mentality is how you spend your days cursing the misfortune of your birth instead of becoming something greater.”


    “As the esteemed Young Mistress of the venerable Liao Clan says.”


    Hua tilted her head. “Do you think we did not earn our place through our actions?”


    “Did you know that before Blue Hand, the Red Light District was overseen by a series of increasingly corrupt Magistrates? I watched that boy be beaten blue and hauled away to the mines for the mere act of existing in the wrong place at an unfortunate moment. When he escaped, he made his way back and formed his gang. He chose to do something about the corrupt system that had harmed him and continued to harm us. It was after the third official was strung up that the Imperials got the message and left us to govern in peace. It was only then that we could walk in peace.


    “All the while, the Liao Clan watched and left us be, because the place they patronised was not worth protecting. When the Magistrate himself was booted from the area and thrown in the Liao River, the vaunted members of your clan looked away and did not discharge their duty to protect a member of the Empire. It mattered little. You received your tribute all the same. Can you see now why there is little difference between a protection racket and taxation?”


    “So long as you pay your taxes to us, I really don’t care for your personal struggles.”


    “Did you know brothels are exempt from taxes?” the Madame asked with a smirk. “And when the Liao Clan comes knocking, they treat this old lady with respect. Now come, Young Mistress. Let me show you what my establishment has to offer. You may find some use yet in us mere mortals.”