粉墨登场
Fěn mò dēng chǎng
Powder, pigment, ascend, stage.
To embark on a career, especially in politics or crime.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Despite the activity around me, I was bored.

The night market was in full swing. The smell of grilled chicken twisted teasingly to me through the night air. It was early in the burning season. The setting of the sun had brought cooler temperatures, so that it was not unpleasant to be outside.

In fact, it seemed the whole town was out, winding their way along streets narrowed by booths that had been set up for the night market. Friends and relatives stopped to gossip in the street, blocking the flow of people, while children ran around their legs, knocking into their elders and everything else.

Vendors called out their offerings. "Cold, fresh fruit! Southern vine wine! Steamed meat buns! Grilled chicken!" Red lanterns, strung from roof to roof, cast a strange red glow over everything: children playing, old people reminiscing, lovers flirting. In the red light it seemed as though the town below was not of this world. A strange red land where people laughed and joked and ate and cared little for tomorrow.

I lay on my back high above the night market, along the roof ridge of Nan'ye's granary building. The ceramic roof tiles had soaked up the heat of the day, and radiated that warmth up through the thin linen of my shirt and trousers in a relaxing way that made me pleasantly drowsy.

A traveling opera had set up on the steps leading up to the town hall across the square. My mind wandered as I disinterestedly watched the opera. It was a rendition of The Golden Emperor's Love and a rather bad one at that. The singer for the part of the Rain Goddess was horrendous, trilling out her part like a strangled bird, and the Golden God looked old enough to be her grandfather. His long beard, an essential for any male character in an opera, seemed to be filled with bits of food, and I wondered whether it was his real beard or he simply didn't bother to remove it when he ate and drank.

The Red Duke and the Green King were notably absent, and the White Queen was played by a potbellied old woman, which made me chuckle. The actress portraying her shook the long metal claws on her fingers at the Rain Goddess as she accused her of treachery, and her formidable belly shook as well.

The only one who was somewhat good looking was the man playing the Northern Lord, and he appeared to be drunk. I chuckled again as he attempted a pose and tripped over his own beard, tearing it from his face.

I looked away from the terrible rendition and at the night sky instead. The last light had faded to a thin band of ocher along the western hills. The first stars were coming out, and I idly traced a line between them with one finger, connecting constellation to constellation. As I did so, the rings on each of my fingers caught the light of the town below and sparkled or shined, as though they wished to compete with the stars in the sky.

The wind shifted, wafting delicious smells my way. I could smell chicken. Chicken dipped in soy sauce and honey, chicken with ginger and vinegar, and chicken with....sniff sniff, was that lime and pepper?

"Lieutenant!" I barked, sitting up and snapping my fingers at a little boy sitting further along the roof ridge. He looked to be about 7 or 8 (I hadn't bothered asking) with long bangs that hung in his eyes and dirt streaked in various places across his skin. His elbows were on his knees, chin in hands as he watched the opera across the square in rapture. His eyes glittered whenever the Golden God swung across the stage, hand on his over-sized stage sword.

He ignored me, and I snapped my fingers again, the many rings on them clinking softly as they slid past each other. "Lieutenant, go get me some of that lime pepper chicken over by the blacksmiths. Now!" The boy continued watching the play through his overly long bangs. "Lieutenant that's an order!"

"Piss off, crabby dajie," he said, scooting farther along the roof ridge so as to better ignore me. Further along the roof, other children who had also climbed onto the roof to watch the opera tittered at his disrespect.

"Don't you want any candy?" I cajoled, taking out the brown paper bag filled with soft peach rice candy I had been using to bribe the children in this town with all week. I had realized early that humanity's uncontrollable greed made their loyalty easy to capture. Well, the loyalty of small candy loving humans at least.

The boy's eyes briefly left the opera and flicked hungrily to the bag, but a great clanging on stage drew them back again. The little boy lifted his hair out of his eyes and stared intently below, leaning forward on the roof ridge, bare feet sliding on the tiles.

The clanging intensified, one man standing off to the side slamming two brass symbols together like a manic wind-up monkey, and suddenly a monstrous creature leapt from backstage... or at least an attempt at one. The monster was composed of two of the troupe huddled together under one long brown sheet with a wickedly grinning mask held by the foremost of the actors.

Although it looked like the costume had been made from one of the opera troupe's bedding, the mask itself was impressive, with sparkling glass eyes and too many teeth curving from a gaping mouth. The mask was probably the best part of the opera. When I saw it a name ran across my lips I didn't voice aloud.

Liu Zhua.

The children along the roof all shrieked with exuberant terror, joyful at being frightened in a way only children can be. The boy I had selected to be my lieutenant clapped his hands gleefully.

I wonder why children have such a strange fascination with things they should fear?

I snapped my fingers one more time, but my lieutenant steadfastly ignored me.

I stood and paced along the roof ridge towards the boy, fully intending to throw him from the roof if he would not do as I bid.

But before I could reach him, something in the market below caught my eye. Or rather someone. I froze where I stood, on the top of the roof, with the town spread out around me.

Three men were wandering together through the night market. The first of the trio was a huge foreign brute, nearly two heads taller than all those around him. He had a bushy beard and golden hair upon his head, and light colored eyes that twinkled mischievously. Upon his bared forearms the ink of countless tattoos swirled that the crowd around him eyed with unease.

Slightly behind the foreigner walked another man, this one dark and handsome. At least he should have been, with his build and facial structure. However, the shadows beneath his eyes and about the angles of his face, further accentuated by the red lanterns floating overhead, detracted from his natural good looks. His short beard was poorly kept and uneven, as though he had little interest in its symmetry.

The second man's dark eyes, as he carefully surveyed the crowds around him, shone with something. Was it sadness or savagery or uninterested disdain?

The dark-eyed man looked tired, and not in the physical sense. I had seen that world-weary look before, and I knew what it meant, perhaps better than anyone. Just because one's body does not age, does not mean the soul stays young as well. The soul ages, and twists, and warps, as a result of the corruption that it wades through, and if you don't take pains to conceal it, it can show through on the face.

I suspected the dark-eyed man was not human.

But despite the giant, eye-catching foreigner and my suspicions about the dark-eyed man, it was the third and final man of the trio who caught and held my attention.

He was beautiful. That was the first word that came to mind as I watched him stroll through the night market between the other two. His skin was smooth and unlined by care, fresh and alive. His form was masculine, and yet with a grace that lent beauty to his every simple movement, the turn of his head, his easy stride.

I realized from the elegant, unbowed slant of his shoulders he was an aristocrat. He wore a plain tunic and trousers of faded linen, bound at the waist with an unadorned leather belt, yet still he stood out among the farmers and tradesmen.

Although at that time I didn't know who he was, 'Prince' was the first thing I called him in my mind.

I confess, I have always had a predilection, some might even say a weakness, for good looking men. But this was different. Aside from his good looks and bearing, there was nothing especially interesting about the third man. Compared to the giant tattooed foreigner and the dark-eyed man who wasn't a man, he should not have held my attention the way he did. But he did, and I could not look away.

Unintended, my mind flashed to a distant time, a distant conversation. It was something the Green King Lulin, whose realm I now wandered, had said to me once. "It's the people who don't believe in love at first glance who are most susceptible to it."

Shut up Lu, I thought in the present.

I wasn't in love, but I was fascinated. There was something in the way this beautiful man walked, as though this place, this moment in time, was made eternal by his presence. There was something in the way he looked at the world around him, as though he was on stage, and the rest of us were simply members of the audience. Or perhaps it was the reverse, and we were all just players for his amusement.

There was something in the smile that played about his lips and echoed in his eyes, as though he knew a secret no one else did.

I wanted to know that secret.

My new found Prince and his companions wandered through the night market, completely at ease, stopping at the stand selling grilled chicken. I watched hungrily as he slipped a coin from his pocket and purchased a skewer, then slipped a piece of chicken between his teeth.

The prince must have turned and recommended it to his companions, because they each bought some as well. The tattooed giant bought two, holding a skewer in each hand and eating from both.

The three men made their way slowly into the crowd that was watching the opera in the town square, stopping near the back. I crept forward so I could continue to watch them, my bare feet cautious on the warm roof tiles.

My pretty prince was facing away from me, toward the stage. I could just see a thin strip of cord tied at his neck. From the thickness of the braid, I suspected an official seal of some sort. Was he an official? That would explain the elegant bearing.

The prince-like man turned to look over his shoulder, and I almost flinched backwards before remembering that I was in the shadow cast by the curve of the roof eaves, and he could not see me. If anything, all he would see would be a dark outline against the sky. I could be a stone guardian for all he could tell, placed on the roof to protect the building from fire.

The dark-eyed man also glanced behind them, then leaned in and said something to the other two. They left the square, the giant foreigner polishing off both of his chicken sticks and licking his fingers as he went.

I turned and sped up the roof with a soft clatter of tiles. I grabbed my lieutenant by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him to the edge of the roof.

"Lieutenant, follow those three men and tell me where they are staying," I directed as I pointed them out.

"I want to see the end of the play!" the little brat said, twisting and trying to pull his shirt from my grasp.

I glanced at the stage. The Golden Emperor and the others were rushing to the save the Rain Goddess from the clutches of Liu Zhua, after she had been tricked into releasing the monster. I snorted. Yes, because that was how it happened.

"I'll tell you what happens, now GO!" Without waiting for further argument I swung him out over the edge of the roof. His little legs kicked as they dangled over the empty air between him and the street two stories below. His eyes bugged, and he started to shriek as I dropped him....

.....into the hay filled manger of a row of horses tethered below.

I leaned against the carved dragon head at the edge of the roof crown and looked down. The boy got out of the manger and looked up at me, making an obscene gesture with one dirty fist before scampering off after the travelers.

Sighing, I sat down on the roof ridge, leaning against the carved figurehead. I reminisced about a time when I could have obliterated his entire family for making a gesture like that at me. Instead I stuck a piece of candy between my teeth and chewed.

I stared blankly at the opera ahead of me. The last glow of twilight had fully faded now, and the only source of light was the red lanterns bobbing above the night market and the bronze lamps angled to reflect onto the temporary opera stage.

And there was the light of the stars, far above, though their light was weak in comparison. There was no moon tonight.

My eyes drifted back into focus as the Golden Emperor Jinyan drew back his giant saber over the head of the masked monster. He brought it down, and the frightening mask clattered to the wooden slats of the stage, the two men under the brown sheet slumping beside it.

I guess Liu Zhua died in this version.

"It's the big inn at the end of main street, the Apricot whats-it one." The small boy said, scrambling back to his place at the top of the roof beside me. He was fast. I had chosen my lieutenant well.

"Good work" I said, handing him the bag of peach-rice candy. He had glued his eyes to the stage the moment he had returned, but now he glanced up at me in surprise. He had clearly only been expecting one candy, as I had been giving them out sparingly all week. Lean followers were keen followers.

I nodded to him. "They're yours," I said, ruffling his hair as I turned to go. "See you around, lieutenant."

"See you, grumpy dajie," he said, sticking a piece of chewy candy into his mouth and returning to the opera.

Turning away from the boy and the opera, I skittered down the roof tiles like a crow. I leapt to a low overhanging roof of the next building, and then to another, lower roof. From there, I lowered myself to the alley below, dropping the last few feet and landing in a crouch. I stood, brushing off my hands, and headed to the main street.

I stopped briefly at the chicken stand. "One of each please," I asked, passing the man his coin. Then I moved off towards the inn, ripping chicken from the three skewers as I went.

*~*~*~*~*~*

As I entered the Apricot Blossom Inn my eyes swept the ground floor for signs of the three travelers. I was somewhat relieved that they were not in sight. I need to clean up first.

I had retrieved my few belongings from the haystack I had been sleeping in and they were now slung across my shoulders. They consisted of a small rucksack, my four stringed lute, my paper umbrella, and a drinking gourd. All I had to my name.

"A room, please," I said to the man behind the bar, who was idly polishing drinking mugs.

He eyed my worn linen outfit and my meager possessions slung over one shoulder. "And how are you going to pay for it boy?"

I smiled. With my hair tied in a top knot and my skinny figure in loose clothing, I was often mistaken for a boy. It made no difference to me.

"With coin, of course," I replied. "Though I was hoping you would let me play for my meal," I gestured to the lute.

The bartender thought about it for a moment. "Alright then. But you pay for the room now. Four angles. "

I took out my purse from my pocket and let the coins clink together. "Three gentlemen checked in here earlier. One of them was a big, foreign man. I want a room next to theirs."

He looked at me suspiciously. He thought I was a thief, or a sing-song boy. "We're going to be traveling together," I finished, not untruthfully. After tonight, we would be.

The bar man took a key from beneath the bar and held it out to me. "The gentlemen are in rooms seventeen and eighteen. You can have number nineteen." I nodded and reached for the key, but with a twist of his wrist he flicked the key out of my reach.

"Coin first," he said, pointing to my purse and holding out a calloused hand. I glowered and fantasized about severing the hand from its arm as I dropped four triangle shaped silver coins onto his palm. He placed the old bronze key, tied to a wooden strip with '19' carved on one side, onto my palm.

I padded up the stairs to the second floor, the age-darkened wood creaking beneath my feet. As I was half way up, someone began to descend.

It was the blond giant from earlier. The stairs squeaked under his weight.

As he passed me on the stairs, the man caught my eye and smiled kindly. To my surprise, I found myself smiling back.

Then I had reached the top of the stairs. I heard the blond man order from the bar tender below in a hearty voice as I walked to my room.

It was the last room on the right. The rooms were organized by even and odd. That meant that room seventeen was next to mine.

I opened my door and looked around as I shut it behind me and locked it. It was a simple, clean room. A dressing table with a mirror sat against one wall, a quilted bed against the other. Across from the door was a window, through which I could see the bobbing red lanterns outside.

Dropping my items on the bed, I walked across to the window and pushed it open. I leaned on the window sill to look down at the night market below. It was still in full swing, though the children were less numerous, and the number of couples had increased. A group of adolescent males across the street were tittering loudly at some joke, pushing and jostling each other in a pseudo friendly show of dominance.

"You can't go off with a different girl at every other town we come to." The voice came from my right. I leaned out my window to look. The window of the room beside me was also open, and close enough that I could hear the voices of the occupants over the noise from the market below.

"Why? Jealous?" A second voice teased. I knew instantly from the mischief in his voice that this was my prince. The voice matched the smile I had seen earlier.

"It makes it difficult for Zakhar and me to do our job," the other man answered. This must be the voice of the dark-eyed man.

"I don't think the farmer lass in the last village was an assassin," my prince replied. My ears sharpened.

"We are traveling on official business, need I remind you, not so you can sample every girl in the southern hills," the dark-eyed man chided. I heard the sound of rustling and clinking as one of the two men rifled through their belongings.

"I like that, Sho Sensei. Perhaps that should be your next book, 'Sampling Girls of the Southern Hills'." The voice moved toward the window as he spoke, and I slid back so I was out of sight, just inside the window.

"No," replied the dark-eyed man abruptly.

"Haha, just a joke. But if it makes you feel better I'll sleep in my own bed tonight. I doubt there's anyone to tempt me in this town anyway." Though I could not see him, I imagined him just yards away, leaning on the window sill next door as he surveyed the town below him. Across the street the youths laughed again.

"Let's just go eat." The rustling stopped and I heard the other man move towards the door.

"Wasn't that delicious chicken enough for you? Be careful, you're going to get fat, Sho Sensei," the smiling prince said. His voice moved away from the window. I heard the sound of shoes on wooden flooring as the two men crossed the room. The dark-eyed man muttered something under his breath I couldn't catch as the two left, the door shutting behind them.

Interesting... I thought, running over the conversation in my mind. The casual remark about assassins had intrigued me. Had it simply been a joke? And yet it had seemed as though the other two men were traveling with my handsome prince for his protection. Why did he need two men to protect him? Was he from a wealthy family? Nobility? Or perhaps an official on an important mission?

I was more fascinated than ever now.

I also had names for two of the three men. Zakhar I assumed was the blonde foreigner waiting down in the bar. And Sho Sensei was the dark-eyed, disgruntled man who was not really a man.

The name of my pretty prince still alluded me. I wondered how I could obtain it. Though judging by the men's conversation, there was one very simple route, one that I did not mind taking at all.

"I doubt there's anyone to tempt me in this town anyway," the handsome man had said.

Hmm, no one to tempt him, eh?

I started to unpack my few belongings on the bed. I pulled out a long silk tunic. The color, originally a sea blue, was faded in places, but luckily the rich embroidery distracted from that. Long lithe dragons and whirlpools swirled across the material, each scale and wave worked out in exquisite five colored thread. Beside it I placed a silken undershirt, long white silk trousers, and matching white silk slippers.

I let down the reed blinds and stripped off my dirty linen clothes. Then I went to the dresser and washed my body the best I could using the jug of water and basin waiting there. There was not enough water to wash my hair unfortunately, so I sprayed a mist of jasmine oil on it to cover up any smell. I slipped on the undershirt, and the embroidered tunic over that. I debated leaving the trousers and wearing the tunic as a dress, but decided to go with modesty and pulled on the trousers.

I slipped on the silk slippers. They felt smooth and cool against my feet when compared to the hard wooden sandals I usually wore.

Then I removed the most important item in my arsenal from my pack. It was a small wooden box, the length and width of my hand, and about three times as high. The box's corners were broken and smoothed with age, and scratches zigzagged across the dark varnish. Various miniature drawers lined its sides.

I took the box and sat in front of the mirror at the dressing table.

First I attended to my messy hair. I untied the string that held it in a topknot, and a few straws fell to the floor, golden needles sticking into the worn carpet. Considering I had been spending the past few nights sleeping in a haystack, I expected it.

I ran my fingers through my hair to get rid of any more hay. I enjoyed the feel of it, smooth like silk, cool like water. A long black curtain falling from my head to just below my shoulders.

After I was certain there was no more hay, I twisted it back up and secured it again, this time with a simple wooden comb I had take from one of the drawers of my little chest. Then I began my makeup.

I took out a thick fluffy brush. I dipped the brush in the white powder of another of the small drawers. Then I used the brush to move the powder over the skin of my face, neck and throat in smooth, swirling motions. When I was done, I waited, and then applied another layer, and another, until my skin, darkened by days spent outdoors, was an unnatural shade of pale that was for some reason considered desirable by humans.

Next I took out a long thin brush from the box. The bristles tapered to a narrow point. I dipped it in brown-black kohl found in yet another drawer, and used it to line my eyes, accentuating my eyelashes, and then my eyebrows, drawing perfectly symmetrical crescent moons over each eye.

Finally I removed another brush, this one the smallest, with a rounded tip. I dipped it in a third drawer, this one containing red rouge. I lined both my lips with it, pressing them together, and then put a dot of color at the corner of my eyes as was the style of courtesans of the Eastern Isles.

I sat back to admire my handiwork.

This body I had been given was considered beautiful by human standards. My large dark eyes peeked mysteriously from curving lashes. Smooth brows like waves. Full lips. Without powder, my skin was darker than was considered fashionable, but still even and flawless. My form was tall and willowy. And my hair was a long black curtain that hung to my waste when down.

But it was not my body. Not really.

I drummed my finger smartly on the wooden dresser, wondering if I was ready. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Lastly, I looked down, to check my rings were still in place. One ring for each finger or thumb, ten in all. Every ring different from its neighbors. Some were simple bands of metal, bronze or silver. Some were more elaborate, braids of copper, carved iron, soft molded gold. There was a single ring made of jade, a cool green like the sea.

Some of the rings had semi-precious stones inset, a round yellow topaz here, a triangle of turquoise there. A silver ring on my right little finger had tiny, coral colored pearls set into it like sea foam in the dawn.

All the rings were in their proper places, and secure.

Reassured, I looked at myself one more time in the mirror and smiled.

I was ready for battle.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Cover made by Sserendipity98 . 😊❤️🙏