The zither-MILF's performance was very relaxing. After a few minutes, a different serving girl arrived with a platter of small fruits, two different types of cheese and little sausages, as well as a glass of what might be wine, and a carafe of water.
I watched the girl go and had the complicated feeling that this was pretty nice! Was this what it was like to get bottle service at some exclusive club? I was feeling complicated because it seemed as though I had wasted most of my money by saving and investing it in my past life! If I had been a bit more of a profligate lush, I would have ended up in this same place probably but with a more enriching experience base.
Sighing, I glanced at the food but paused. It occurred to me that a woman's natural weapon was poison. Detect Poison was a divine magic spell, so I couldn't use it. The general way to detect poison with arcane magic involved specialised magical devices, of which I had none. However, once one had at least a beginner's knowledge of transmutation, you could open your senses up to things, including food, and more or less detect if things were inside them that didn't belong.
It wasn't fool-proof by any metric, especially with some of these small fruits that I didn't recognise and had no experience with, but nothing was in the cheese, sausage or alcohol as far as I could tell. I took some nibbles.
Wait... if poison was a woman's natural weapon, should I go buy some poison then if I was a woman now? After a moment, I shook my head. No. I had no idea how to actually use it effectively, and Merildwen's experience with poison was the same as her experience with explosives—making it by accident when practising alchemy.
I took a sip of the alcohol, coughed, and sputtered. No need to go searching poison out; this was poison right here! It must be eighty-proof! Not exactly "wine" like I had been expecting.
I carefully set the glass aside. I wouldn't need any more of that. Merildwen didn't have super great alcohol tolerance anyway so that one sip was more than sufficient. I did make a meal out of the fruits, though, while listening to the performance.
After it was over, the zither MILF left the stage, and other performers replaced her, and I realised that this was probably just a continual thing. This one wasn't a musical act, either. It seemed to be something close to a stand-up comedy act. While all the jokes were flying above my head, they were appreciated by those below.
Oh. I had just brought a bag with me, but none of the plants were actually in it. I stood up, walked over to another table in the booth and casually reached into the bag, causing a lotus to appear as if I had pulled it out of the bag.
This was a figleaf of a precaution in case someone was observing me. Realistically, I should have put them in the bags earlier, but these flowers were quite delicate.
A little precaution was in order, though. With brothels, you just never could tell. They usually fell into one of two camps: the vast majority were highly discreet, but the alternative was they were kompromat factories.
Not that I would know, of course! Ha ha ha! Coughing, I lined up the lotuses on the table, the air already starting to cool as the booth's temperature dropped a couple of degrees.
Just as I was getting bored with the comedy act, someone pushed open the curtains separating my booth from the hallway and stepped it. My eyes couldn't help but stare a bit because it was zither MILF herself.
She looked like a black-haired Chinese Jessica Rabbit and moved like it, too. The clothes she was wearing seemed less designed for modesty and more prepared to accentuate and heighten interest in particular areas of her body, to the point where I thought her wearing such clothes might be more erotic than her being naked.
She noticed my stare and smirked ever so slightly before saying melodiously, "Greetings, Fellow Daoist. I haven't seen you before at the Frolics. Is this your first time?"
Did they all speak in innuendo? Before I could answer, she continued, "Ah, forgive me. I should introduce myself. I am called Liu Ruxue, the humble manager of this establishment." She paused and smiled, "As well as the Outer Sect Elder and deacon for my Hidden Flowers Fairylands here in city. I was told you have some things to sell, and so I see them. Might I have the pleasure of your name?"
"Uh.. y-yeah, of course," I sputtered for some reason, internally frowning. Was she using some technique on me? I had a resistance to madness-inducing effects—on account that I had already been rendered, at least temporarily, barking mad. I had hoped this might extend to mind-altering effects in general, but this didn't seem to be the case as it had already been demonstrated that she could, at least, relax me with her music.
Liu Ruxue was stronger than me to the point where I couldn't really estimate at what level she was. This, combined with her title of Elder, had me assume that she was probably in the Foundation Establishment realm, so I likely wouldn't be able to detect it if she had used a technique against me and wanted to be subtle about it.
Still, it was clear, like most bards, that most of her points went into charisma. After considering things for a moment, I decided that, no, I just stuttered all on my own when meeting her. I wasn't sure if that was better or worse than being enchanted, though.
I finished introducing myself, "I'm Mei Wen, just an itinerant cultivator at the start of her journey. I happened upon these flowers, and it was recommended that I sell them here. I'm also interested in buying some things, and possibly paying for specialised training."
"Hmmm... indeed, the Hidden Flowers Fairyland is a special place for precious flowers of all kinds," she murmured, lidded eyes staying on my face, and I had the feeling she wasn't talking about the lotuses.
Grandma Mei had given me a little bit of background information on this group. They were pretty famous because they only accepted female disciples. The only way a man could enter the sect was if they were the Dao companion of a disciple. I was pretty sure that "Dao companion" meant magic husband, basically, but I wasn't a hundred per cent on that.
They also ran businesses like this across many, many cities and interacted with so-called "mortals" much more than was common for a group of cultivators. Most so-called Sects of their size retreated from secular society into areas of the world with significantly more density of heaven and earth energy.
Privately, Mrs Mei told me that they were considered, strictly speaking, a Demonic-path sect, but they were so mild about it that nobody hassled them. They might cause a few deaths here and there, she said, but it was hard to really tell if they were behind them or not. And it wasn't like righteous sects might not cut random people down now and then, either, if they got too uppity.
Compared to Demon Sects that would put entire cities to the sword if they could and refine the souls of everyone inside into a spirit tool, they were hardly villains.
I hadn't realised precisely what she had meant until I noticed the auras of the men leaving the building earlier.
Ever since practising the Heavenly Dance of Moonlight scripture, I had become quite a bit more sensitive to both yin and yang type energies, to the point where I could almost see them now if I squinted just right. The happy-looking men leaving the building had a dearth of yang energies compared to what I was used to seeing in random men in the city—to the extent that I was sure that there were more things than the obvious being sucked dry here.
I wasn't a doctor, spiritual or otherwise, but I had the intuition based on my budding understanding of yin energies that such men would likely be fine, so long as they didn't get their yang devoured too frequently. But still, I bet now and again someone's heart did go out, or one of the budding disciples was a bit too vigorous and took too much. That was probably what Mrs Mei was talking about when she mentioned they didn't cause too many deaths, with the implication that they did cause some.
I absently wondered if I could modify Vampiric Touch to drain either Qi or yang energy instead of pure vitality. The nuance between yang energy and vitality was slightly different, after all. Simplified, it was the difference between your stamina points and your hit points. Even I, as full of yin energy as I was, had a smaller core of yang inside me, as did every thing that lived.
The idea had merit, but I wasn't sure if it would help me at all. It might even introduce impurities into my own Qi that I would have to eliminate, too. I made a mental note to research it. Vampiric Touch was my only current, reliable way to heal myself without using potions or healing pills that I could source in this world.
Liu Ruxue glided over and sat on a chair facing perpendicular to me, crossing her legs, smiling, "We will, of course, buy the flowers from you, dear. However, you have to have a very special constitution to even harvest such delicate plants. Would you consider joining our Hidden Flowers Fairyland? I could induct you as an outer sect disciple on my own authority, and you won't find people more knowledgable in yin techniques than us around."
Mrs Mei said they probably would offer to recruit me, and I thought it might have been her way of giving me an out if I didn't want to travel around with Xiao Li. I didn't think I had fate as a sword cultivator, so i wasn't too interested in visiting the Silver Serenity Sword School, but I figured I'd go there anyway.
I didn't have to join, and even if I did, I didn't have to be a sword lady to do so. Just because they focused on the sword didn't mean that they'd shun anyone who wasn't a sword fanatic. At least, I hoped.
It was nice of Grandma Mei to politely arrange options, and while the zither MILF was probably correct about their knowledge of yin techniques, I had enough of a foundation with just the cultivation method Mrs Mei gave me, for now.
On paper, it seemed like a good match. However, more importantly, their sect seemed to be focused on certain things that I was not in any sense interested in. I didn't really care how strong it would make me; I just wasn't interested in becoming a magical prostitute. Now, hiring magical prostitutes—that might be different.
I created some dimples with my smile and said, "Senior, for the moment, I am attached to my current path and independence, although I very much appreciate the offer."
I couldn't just tell her I didn't want to be a tart. Besides the fact that it would be needlessly rude of me, she was so significantly stronger than me that she could splatter me easily.
I had been given a crash course on cultivator culture, and those significantly stronger than you were considered Seniors and being intentionally disrespectful to a Senior was basically asking them to smack you down. In whatever way they desired. Not only would nobody help you, but most would consider it appropriate, and you a fool for bringing it on yourself.
She made a pretty moue of disappointment but shrugged, causing one of the straps of her gown to slip down her shoulder and expose her bare shoulder, the nape of her neck and even more décolletage. I had always been a nape enjoyer, and I wondered how she knew.
She said in a slightly disappointed tone, "We don't force anyone, little flower... but the offer will stand. Perhaps you'll change your mind when you discover how heartless this world is?" She sighed and somehow conveyed to me in that one sigh that she actually expected that I had a better probability of dying than realising my mistake and coming back.
How incredibly emotive. In one sigh, it was like she had said a sentence. I was impressed, and I felt it was likely that all of their disciples did hardcore theatre training, like budding actors, just to have this much control over their expressions and the chosen emotional affect they were displaying.
Which also meant that nothing I could see in her body language could be trusted. They were also likely experts at judging other people's body language, too, then, which caused me to squirm and the zither MILF to smile widely as if she could read my mind.
She hummed and said, "These six lotuses are in excellent, excellent condition. We don't often see this plant due to how delicate it is. That doesn't necessarily mean that rare means valuable, though. I suppose I could offer you a hundred low-grade spirit stones per plant."
Grandma Mei told me that this was about what I would receive if I went to one of the other two organised cultivators groups in the city but that the girls at the Frolics would be willing to pay more. I frowned and said, "I think I should get at least one hundred and fifty. I know how useful they are to you."
The zither MILF grinned widely as if she enjoyed haggling. And since she was a bard, I had no doubt that she did. I had the feeling that I was a little bit out of my depth when we went back and forth, but she seemed gentle enough, and in the end, we settled on a hundred and fifteen stones per flower.
I was now rich! Well, sort of. Xiao Li said he spent ten spirit stones to rent the villa he was in for three months, and that included the use of its basic Qi concentrating formation. There was no real exchange rate between spirit stones and gold, but people would say that one low-grade stone was worth about a thousand golden taels.
Realistically, though, nobody exchanged the currencies much except in small quantities when a cultivator wanted regular money, usually to pay servants and the like or for some other reason, so the real rate was negotiable only at the time of exchange. They wouldn't let a cultivator drop down a dozen high-grade spirit stones and abscond with all the gold in the city, as it would ruin the economy.
After we concluded the deal, the zither MILF reached over, gently placed her hand on my thigh and asked archly, staring at me with bedroom eyes, "You mentioned purchasing training? I think I would be willing to train you for free, little flower."
I sputtered, water almost going up my nose. She had timed that perfectly, waiting until I had taken a sip of water. This caused her to laugh and lean back, placing her hands down in her lap before smiling, "But, really, what do you want to buy, and what training or manuals do you seek? We're only willing to sell the most common manuals and skills if you're not a disciple, you understand."
"I'm interested in learning more about talisman artistry. I want beginner's information, manuals and possibly lessons with one of your talisman artists," I said and paused, "I'd also like a movement or footwork technique suitable for me to practice in the Qi Gathering realm."
Most of the techniques Grandma Mei had she was forbidden from sharing. It was almost a protagonist's luck that some of the better cultivation techniques she had found in her adventures by flukes suited Xiao Li and myself.
She did have movement techniques suitable for me, and even a couple she could teach me. However, they all had a minimum requirement of already establishing your Foundation, so I couldn't practice them until then. I needed a stop-gap technique for now.
Now that I thought about it, Xiao Li was really lucky. Before I could consider that anymore, zither MILF hummed, "I could sell you the Qi Gathering chapter of a footwork technique suitable for females of your stature for fifty spirit stones. A book detailing some very common low-level talismans will cost one hundred spirit stones, and a book on basic talisman techniques is another hundred. These are all manuals that almost everybody has, so the price is pretty standardised. Still, you would need to swear a Dao oath not to share the footwork technique until at least you form your Golden Core."
It sounded like that qualifier was just a way to make sure you didn't have a hanging oath over your head for your entire life and was likely a courtesy that they extended only on manuals that were already widely propagated. Grandma Mei was still bound by an oath not to reveal most of the things she knew, after all.
I nodded. That was a good portion of my earnings, but you had to spend money to make money. I would spend even more when I finished reading the book and had to buy the materials to actually make the talismans, too. I was about to say something, but she asked, "A lesson with one of our low-level talisman masters would likely be about ten stones per lesson... but... how is your attainment in calligraphy?"
I frowned. Merildwen was very accurate with transferring letters exactly as expected. You had to be to be a scribe, especially a magical one. But neither she nor I knew the first thing about calligraphy—especially here, where they used brushes.
I opened my mouth, closed it, paused and then said, "I don't know. People can understand the characters I write." At least, Xiao Li had when I had been practising writing the unfamiliar logograms. I had a base literacy now!
Faster than I could see, a traditional-looking folding fan depicting painted plum blossoms was deployed in front of the bottom half of the zither MILF's face, obscuring her mouth from me. I hadn't even seen her move, but I had the sudden idea that I might have made her smile genuinely, probably in amusement, and she decided to hide it from me.
From behind the fan, she said, "How precious. Let me make a recommendation, little flower. It would be much more affordable to, before getting lessons from a talisman artist, to get instructed by mortal masters of calligraphy. Even the lowest-level talisman artist needs to be considered a master in calligraphy. I know of seven Grandmasters in the city, four of which would be willing to give you lessons for a suitable donation of gold. I'll have my assistant include the names and locations with your other things."
That... that was really good advice. It was so good that I wasn't even offended that she probably thought I was a complete fool for not already having a background in calligraphy before wanting to study talismans.
Then, she stood up, and I did so as well. It seemed almost automatic. The fan was already gone, "You can pick up your things downstairs. Here, take this." She used one hand to take one of my hands into hers, then used the other to place a small, thin object into it and then closed my hand around it. It felt surprisingly more intimate than just handing me something.
"This is a token; if you find yourself in another of our establishments, you can produce it, and they'll know that you have a positive relationship with us," she said with a smile before departing.
I opened my hand and hummed curiously. It was a piece of jade in a small circle, almost like a gambling chip. From my time in the Navy, I recognised it as white "mutton fat" jade. It was supposedly quite valuable in my old world, but I didn't sense any Qi from it, so I expected it to be mostly mundane.
On one side, there was depicted a number, while the other had the characters for the characters for "paper fan." I didn't really know the significance, except that perhaps the number depicted this franchise of the Frolics while "paper fan" was her designation. The Paper Fan Elder? That didn't quite sound right, but I left it there, placing the token in my pocket.
I'd place it in my dimensional space later, just in case it could be tracked.
I picked up all the spirit stones I was owed, as well as the books I had purchased. They had a piece of paper with the oath I had to swear first, and it was what I expected.
When I left the premises, my last thought while watching a tired but satisfied-looking young master leave was that Mrs Mei was right. Xiao Li shouldn't come here. The zither MILF would gobble him up and not even have the decency to spit his bones out.
---xxxxxx---
I waited a couple of more days before I decided to contact Judge Wu. I had found a regular library fool of normal books, and I looked rich enough that they didn't even quibble about giving me a library pass for a nominal fee.
Rather than a public library, this place mostly served as both a depository for local and provincial records as well as books that any of the imperial officials might need to consult to do their business. However, that was such a broad and ambiguous possibility that they had a pretty comprehensive library, including fiction. If you were wealthy enough like me and didn't look like you'd set the works on fire, they'd give special dispensation to use it or even copy the books, scrolls and records if you wanted.
I spent two days researching the Netheworld Kingdom, at least what was known by mortals here which wasn't a whole lot. A lot seemed like mythology, but a "Yama King" was supposed to be a title for someone in charge of both judging and sentencing mortals after they died.
Depending on your actions while you were alive, you could be expected to be reincarnated in one of six places. Heaven as a Deva, as human, as an animal, as a type of ghost, or to be placed in hell.
A Deva was a type of entity that was born from the heaven and earth energies, having no mother or father, and it was born directly into the Xantian or pure lifeform state. Us regular human slebs could only be said to be "Xantian" after we reached the Foundation Establishment level, or if you were a Martial Artist, the Grandmaster stage.
The other huge advantage of being reborn as a Deva was that you regained the memories of your last life after a certain time, while all others allegedly had to drink the tea made by an old lady that wiped your memories. I was very curious if that was just an allegory or if there was really an old lady shoving tea down ghosts' throats continuously because it sounded funny.
In either event, it took a significantly strong soul to even have the chance to regain your memories after that, although some claim that every now and then, a former cultivator close to immortality would die without their soul dissipating and then reincarnate, gaining some of the memories of their previous life.
I couldn't find any reason why an assistant judge in the afterlife would want souls, nor what use he would have for them. I hoped not as a spice for his tea or something horrible like that.
After I learned enough, I set up the standard ritual to contact Oriella. I assumed that the "call" would now be forwarded to Judge Wu. After finishing, I checked it once, twice and thrice. Mistakes when you were summoning a devil were bad, even if it was only her incorporeal attention.
I assumed it was the same in the Netherworld Kingdom. I could see if you made a mistake, just hearing, "This junior dared to call me while disrespecting me by screwing up the ritual?!" Then splat.
I pulled out my dagger and held it ready, perpendicular across my lap, as I relaxed and used my palm to inject qi into the circle to start the connection.
The basic timing circuit and magical capacitor clicked twelve times a second until enough energy was concentrated, and then it stopped. This wasn't a visual call but something along the lines of long-distance extraplanar telepathy, and instantly, it felt as though the world around me froze. I couldn't move, and one of the leaves from a tree in the courtyard was frozen in the middle of the air.
I felt the presence of a mind much larger and vaster than my own, and a voice said, "Hello? Who is it?"
"Your Excellency, my name is Merildwen, also called Mei Wen in this world, and I have the three souls I owe you," I said respectfully. One of the things I had been looking in my research was the correct way to address a judge of the dead. I couldn't really find one, so I decided to just use the title for the highest mortal judge in the current Empire I was in.
"Hmmhmm... Merildwen, Merildwen... oh yes, the outsider girl. Mei Wen is a good name. Why was this call routed to me? Didn't I assign that Chun Wu kid to you as a liaison?" he asked, sounding slightly annoyed. I wasn't going to correct him, but I was pretty sure that wasn't the correct name for my former familiar. I felt pleased that his boss didn't even know his name—odd, I was pretty sure I hadn't been that catty when I was a man back on Earth.
I heard a sigh, but, then he said, "Well, whatever. Let's have them, then."
I let the three souls, spirits and all, slide out of the soul jar, and they instantly vanished. I could hear him hum, and then I literally heard him suck his teeth at me. He went, "Tsk. These are dregs, Mei Wen. Also, this last one is not acceptable at all. I'll take the two, though."
Dregs? Not acceptable? I was a bit confused because Devils didn't have very many quality concerns about souls. All would be grist for the Blood War. I frowned, a bit upset, "Your Excellency, do you mind elaborating? By what quality metric are you using to value them?"
"This is an answer that I would normally charge for, little girl, but I think it would be best if I gave it to you for free. I think you need a little background on my business here if we're to continue on," he rumbled. Business?
He continued, "It's the same thing I use to judge souls who appear before me in court. Sin! The more sin, the more valuable." he exclaimed.
Although I couldn't see sin or merit on a person, I was pretty sure they were all sinners, "Your Excellency, those three are all murderers, surely, at least."
"Ah. Yes. I can see you are confused. Yes. But it's small potatoes," he said, his voice still sounding as though it appeared from all around me. Wait, there are potatoes here, after all? Where? I wanted french fries desperately.
It was starting to give me a headache. He hummed noncomittally, "This one, James Durell, aka Jim, is unacceptable. Although he is a sinner, you must have brought him with you. The ties of karma have all been thoroughly severed or occluded. He'll definitely be punished, but there will be no karmic virtue awarded for punishing him."
"Why does that matter? Why would any of that matter? Wouldn't you or someone else see them in your court anyway, eventually, if I let them pass on?" I asked, completely confused as to his motives.
"Yes, but I receive only at most one-quarter of one per cent of the merit awarded for sentencing and punishment of a normal sinner if they arrive in my court, girl. The rest goes to the Netherworld Kingdom, the Hells and my bosses," he said reasonably as if he was explaining something to a child. "However, if I happen to receive souls in an unofficial way, I can punish them myself. Virtually all of the merits would come to me. Anybody can do this. Doing bad things to bad people is a good thing. That's advice, by the way."
I was slackjawed, "Your Excellency, are you suggesting that you operate a private, off-the-books secondary Hell?" Talk about the privatisation of prisons, I thought, completely gobsmacked.
"Precisely. You finally get it. Once I punish them enough so that they have neutral sin, I let them go, and then they'll appear in court with a neutral balance, and they'll be directly reincarnated. Most judges moonlight this way, providing things of value to mortals in exchange for the souls of sinners," he boomed, pleased with himself.
My head was really starting to hurt, but he continued, "It's forbidden for Yama Kings to advertise this service, of course. It usually takes someone at least three or four stages ahead of you or with deep attainments in the Daos of the Soul, Death, Karma or Samsara, to deduce a way to get in touch with one of us. Otherwise, people have to be introduced."
I wanted to rub my temples, but I was frozen. So, instead, I asked, "Your Excellency, why are you explaining this to me?" There had to be a reason. I didn't even know what cultivation realm this guy was at or if they even had one, but he was telling me a lot for no discernable reason.
"Well, you already have a way to contact me now. Might as well make use of it. I want better souls next time. Also, it isn't forbidden for you to advertise on my behalf. I offer significant benefits for those who contact me directly, which you qualify as. Specifically, you could earn up to five per cent of the net virtue generated by your downlines and up to one per cent of the virtue that their downlines generate, as well. Each person you sponsor has to buy in with a one-time payment of a soul or souls worth at least five thousand karmic sin units, though, but after that, they can start earning," he said pleasantly. He then paused and asked, "Do you want this fellow Jim back? I can get rid of him for you."
I was struggling to process what he had said just now. Finally, I said, "Surely he is worth something. He's a soul from a different cosmology. Surely, he'd be at least an interesting reagent, if nothing else."
"Well, that's true... but... no. You're right, but he'd be useful for only a few types of things, and all of them are very bad things to do. Plus, I'd have to call in an expert in the Dao of Qiankun to certify him as an outsider. Also, the margins for dealing with really evil people are low, too. I have to budget in all the sin I am taking on by helping them, you see."
His next voice sounded final, "He might sit on my shelf for aeons. I'd be taking all the risk here; the most I could offer would be five hundred karmic sin units, and you'd still owe me another soul. It really isn't acceptable as the contract is written, I'm afraid," he said, and then I could feel a frown, "Hurry up. Your brains might start leaking out of your ears soon. Your soul is running on the Netherworld Kingdom's subjective time rate, while your body is not. I don't think I've ever taken a call from someone so weak." The last sounded incredibly amused.
That explained why I couldn't move and why that leaf was hung in mid-air. Maybe it also explained what I was thinking of a paradox of a limited number of Netherworld "employees" judging and sentencing so many, many more souls. This world was vastly larger than Earth, and there were trillions of minor realms in this cosmology, too.
If the Netherworld Kingdom, and presumably Hell, operated at an insanely ridiculous accelerated time factor, then they'd be able to keep up. How boring that must be, though. I thought being a lemure would be bad, but what if my fate was to be some low-level functionary in a vast ghostly bureaucracy? I could spend a million years toiling away only to discover only a second or two had passed since my death in the "material planes"!
I wanted to get everything cleared out today, but I said, "Fine. That's fine."
"Okay. Your business is appreciated; call again," he replied, and the connection terminated.
Immediately, I groaned in pain and reached up to feel blood leaking out of my nose. I sat there with a piece of white silk held up to my nose, with my head tilted back.
My head was banging, and the only thing I could think was... didn't this sound a lot like Herbalife or one of those MLM schemes?