Behind the curtains, soft voices murmured urgently.
A seamstress tugged at silk folds, another dabbed rouge with a squirrel-hair brush, a third adjusted the position of a jade hairpin so it caught the lamplight just so.
They were perfecting Lady Yueshan.
The newest, brightest jewel the Flower Garden Tavern had ever acquired.
She was no ordinary senior courtesan. Her beauty sat a full step above the rest: skin like congealed morning dew, eyes narrower and more luminous than any fox-spirit painter could dream of capturing, lips the color of crushed raspberries after spring rain.
But it wasn't only the face and figure. She could pluck a seven-stringed qin elegantly, sing in a voice that seemed like a choir of angels, and most recently she had begun brewing pear wine so fragrant and smooth that even old alcoholics swore it tasted like an immortal's work.
She completely snatched the curiosity of every official in Immortal Cloud City.
