The Nine Godheads Chapter 15

Chapter 15 “Ancient Zither, Lute and Drums”

Normally no child would come to such a place, but this place was really unusual, cause nobody was surprised that Qingqing came here”

“This really is not an usual brothel” The middle-aged woman said as her vision concentrated on the crowd “This crowd is really diverse! There’s at least six 4-star martial artists here. There’s even a 7-starred one. He dresses as a person from Saint Academy unexpectedly! Eh? Why does he have blood qi on him? Is it possible that he’s injured ?”

“Saint Academy?” Little girl Qingqing said in a low voice “What does a person from one of the Six Great Orthodoxies doing here? Moreover a 7-star martial artist!” After a moment of thought she said, “It is indeed not a simple brothel, let’s see what’s happening here then.”
After entering, Qingqing and the mysterious woman sat in a remote corner to not bring any unnecessary attention. After all, in such a crowd nobody would really care about two persons.

When they sat down, a good looking male of 18 years old came to their table and asked carefully, “Would the two respectable ladies like something to drink ?” He had a black butler costume with on it “Warm Fragrant Building” embroidered with golden thread.

“What are you serving?” Qingqing said confidently, without any restraint. The young male quickly explained, “We mainly serve wine, but we also have some melon juice and the like.”

Normally, a woman would order a cup of wine for herself, but obviously Qingqing was too small to drink so she said, “We’ll just ask for some juice then”

“At this moment!” The young man said, and he asked curiously, “Are the two respectable ladies first time here? I’ll explain, to eat, drink, and watch a show one must pay up the table’s minimum fee. This table lowest cost is four taels of silver.”

“En.” The middle aged woman said as she took a silver plate, the cost of which would be at least an estimated 10 taels, and had thrown it to the waiter and said, “Take it, the rest is yours.” Having earned six taels of silver, the young male had quickly excused himself to bring their drinks.

The rich were treated quite differently, as the waiter quickly came back. “This drink is of a secret recipe that was provided by the Ninth Prince His Highness, it has the effect of clearing the mind. The respectable ladies will surely be satisfied!”

When the woman sniffed her drink, she said with a grin, “Rejuvenating Jade Flower, and a little bit of Heaven Grief Ginseng, good it really has the effect of clearing the mind!” She unexpectedly deduced the materials without even trying the drink!

“This respectable lady sure is fierce!” When the young man heard the woman say the materials, he had almost bitten his tongue of.

“Not worth mentioning.” The woman smiled, and said, “However this place is quite unusual. Could it all be the Ninth Prince’s idea?” When she said that, she unconsciously looked at Hong Xiaobao. Meanwhile Qingqing drank from her cup, and was listening carefully to the man’s explanation.

When the young man heard Hong Xiaobao’s name he said with a worshipping gaze, “Before, our ‘Warm Fragrant Building’ was an ordinary brothel. But in recent years, the Demonic Beasts have been attacking us more and more. More and more of crops were destroyed. Therefore people were training their martial arts in order to protect the simple people. But it meant a lot less traffic for our Warm Fragrant Building.

Listening to his words, the woman nodded. “Practising martial arts to protect common people and their lands is the correct path. But what happened afterwards?”

Because there were Demonic Beast in this world, everybody practised martial arts. For a martial artist closing up for a year of closed-door cultivation was nothing. Therefore who had the mood and time to come to a brothel?

“Afterwards, the Ninth Prince had come to this place and liked it. He gave us money, and he said that this was … uuhh … yes! He called that an ‘investment’! So, after he ‘invested’, he introduced these new things to us.” The young male said with a smile. “The Ninth Prince is a very intelligent person, when he implemented this performance art scene, it received everybody’s praise. The business is also raging!”

“En, these new thing I would really like to see.” The woman suddenly asked. “But in here I saw many martial artist, many powerful characters. Do they come here to relax?”

When they just came in, she had discovered that this place was full of crouching tigers and hidden dragons*. Why would 5-star, 6-star, or even 7-star martial artists come here?

“Respectable ladies may not know that in here we do not only perform arts. Here there are also a lot of weaponry exhibited for show. Also, when the Ninth Prince is in the mood, he will come to our place to explain the World’s Mysteries to these martial artists.”

“En, originally is like this.” The beautiful woman said as she drank from her cup, and spoke no longer.

No matter what in this world, something that could help martial artists would be a good thing. This brothel was truly not simple!

Meanwhile, on the platform four young women had stepped onto the platform. They unexpectedly were a quadruplet, wearing leopard skirts**. This unusual look was really enchanting, and all the man below couldn’t keep their eyes off of them. What was more mysterious, besides two girls holding a pipa***, one was sitting beside the zither. But what was really inconceivable that one of the girls was holding a pair of tambourines.

“Zither and drums?” Such accompaniment was never heard of, and as soon as Qingqing saw it, she instantaneously became curious.

The four girls looked quickly at each other, after which they all nodded. The fourth girl began playing on her drums with two small drumsticks, “Thump, thump, Bang!”

Qingqing exclaimed in surprise. “Ah, this rhythm is certainly strong!”

After a few beats, zither and pipa sounds could also be heard. Normally these kinds of instruments didn’t sound well together, however there was unexpected harmony in this melody. The little girl said with amazement, “Interesting!”

Quickly the prelude had ended, and one of the females started to sing.

The song that she sang was also special, it was not an obscure classical song, in which words were incomprehensible, rather it was a song in which simple words were used.

****”The brush outlines a beautiful pattern, brush strokes becoming lighter.Whiffs of incense smoke bring your troubles to my heart. I pause halfway while painting. The glazing of the lady’s portrait hides her charm. Your smile, to me, like a budding flower. But your beauty dissipates like smoke, to a place I can never reach. The perfect shade of blue awaits the right weather, like how I wait for you. From a thousand miles away, I gaze at the curling chimney smoke. The calligraphy beneath the bottle, elegance of the Han Dynasty. Our meeting I foreshadowed. The perfect shade of blue awaits the right weather, like how I wait for you. Like legendary porcelain obsessed with itself, your eyes full of laughter. My passing by Jiangnan brings me to you. Yet you fade away into the deep abyss of the Chinese painting.”

Not only this ‘Blue and White Porcelain’ song lyrics beautiful by themselves, they also coordinated with the zither and the drums particularly well. Qingqing had closed her eyes, and finally she sighed with a praise, ” Music can actually be interpreted in such a way! This Ninth Prince is very talented, ah!”

These were just simple words of praise, but the nearby woman was extremely surprised at them, and said “Young lady, you never praise anyone! What has brought such change?”

“He deserves to be praised.” Qingqing said with a smile that could cause the fall of nations.

When ‘Blue and White Porcelain’ was over, people under the stage all applauded loudly!

“Good, Good! The Ninth Prince’s musical skills can never be underestimated! The song is gorgeous, the lyrics are also pleasant to hear!”

“The Ninth Prince has such a great ability! This was my first time hearing such song! I did hear pipa and zither, but i wonder what change do these drums bring to the melody?”
“You don’t understand, these drums are called ‘Tambourines’. They are quite a set of musical instruments. They are the Ninth Prince’s own invention! Amazing!”

At this time, a peculiar sound resounded in the hall. Qingqing and the middle-aged woman looked towards the origin of the sound. They saw a man, which was mentioned by a woman before. “Good song, good melody, good lyrics! I’ve heard before that the Ninth Prince had a free and unfettered style. Now i know that these rumors were not untrue!” The man was wearing white and blue robes, with a scholar’s scarf around his neck. He had a five fen***** long beard, his bearing was extremely lordly.

His words were really praiseful, but the people on scene didn’t know his identity, so they thought that he was pretending to be some kind of big fish.

Hong Xiaobao did not actually mind that, as he said with a smile “Overpraised, this kind gentleman definitely overpraises me.”

The man coughed three times as he suddenly clasped his hands in a deep bow, and said “The Ninth Prince has such great ability, but i wonder if the Ninth Prince could possibly compose a poem for us?”

“This Saint Academy fellow.” Qingqing curled her lips. “Writing such a song and lyrics was certainly not easy. What kind of poem can one make in this kind of hasty circumstances?”

“Yes.” The woman also said with a nod. “This is quite normal, Saint Academy persons often convey their emotions through poems, such thing can be considered quite normal.

When somebody asked Hong Xiaobao to make a poem, everybody looked at Hong Xiaobao with expectations.

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TL Notes:

*Yet again chinese idiom in which the words ‘Tiger’ and ‘Dragon’ directly refer to people with special hidden talents. This idiom is used to remind people to never underestimate anybody

*** Chinese lute

**** This is an actual song called “Blue and White Porcelain”. And it sounds better in chinese than it does in english. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Mqw0b9ADs

***** ca. 5 cm

Chapter end