The next morning, the main hall of the Hundred Flowers Manor was transformed into a makeshift boardroom.
Xue Qingqiu sat at the head table, looking majestic and slightly bored. Yue Xiaochan sat beside her, swinging her legs. Meng Lan and several other senior managers stood nervously.
Xue Mu stood in front of a large chalkboard he had requested. On it, he had drawn a crude graph.
"This," Xue Mu tapped the board with a stick, "is your current business model. It's trash."
Silence. The senior courtesans looked insulted. Xue Qingqiu raised an eyebrow. "Explain. And make it quick. I have cultivation to attend to."
"You are running a volume business," Xue Mu said. "Low margin, high turnover. You rely on selling physical intimacy. This has three problems."
He held up three fingers.
"One: It's scalable only by adding more girls. That's expensive and slow. Two: It degrades your brand. You are a premier martial sect, yet you operate like a common street pimp. Three: It attracts the wrong clientele. Cheap men bring cheap money."
"We are not cheap!" a manager protested. "Our entry fee is five taels of silver!"
"Peanuts," Xue Mu scoffed. "In my hometown, people paid thousands just to shake a woman's hand."
Yue Xiaochan giggled. "Thousands to shake a hand? Your hometown sounds stupid."
"It's called the 'Idol Economy'," Xue Mu corrected. "And it's going to save your sect."
He erased the board and wrote a single word: STAR.
"Right now, your girls are interchangeable. A customer comes in, picks a pretty face, does his business, and leaves. He doesn't care who she is. He cares about the service."
Xue Mu turned to the room. "We need to change that. We need to make them care about the person. We need to sell their personalities, their stories, their dreams."
He pointed at Meng Lan. "Take her. She plays the flute, correct?"
"I do," Meng Lan nodded.
"Is she good?"
"I am the best in the manor," she said proudly.
"Does anyone care?"
Meng Lan deflated. "Most customers... prefer me to stop playing and start..." She trailed off.
"Exactly," Xue Mu snapped. "Because you're selling the wrong product. From now on, Meng Lan doesn't serve customers in private. She performs. Only on stage. Only three times a week."
"Then we lose money," the manager argued.
"No," Xue Mu smiled, a shark-like grin. "We charge an entry fee just to enter the hall when she plays. We sell VIP seats closer to the stage. We sell flowers that customers can buy to gift her. We create a ranking system. The customer who spends the most gets a smile. The one who spends double gets to drink a toast with her—from a distance."
The room was silent. They looked at him like he was speaking an alien language.
"You want us to... charge them for not touching her?" Yue Xiaochan asked, incredulous.
"Men want what they can't have," Xue Mu said. "The more unattainable she is, the more they will pay. We turn her from a prostitute into a Goddess. A Star."
Xue Qingqiu tapped her finger on the table. The rhythm was slow, thoughtful. "You propose we use the 'Seduction Arts' not on individuals, but on a crowd?"
"Precisely," Xue Mu bowed. "Mass hypnosis through media and performance. Why charm one man when you can charm a thousand?"
Xue Qingqiu stood up. Her presence filled the room. "It is... unconventional. But our current path leads to ruin. I will give you one month."
She looked at Xue Mu, her eyes sharp. "But we need a proof of concept. Meng Lan is good, but she is not enough to shake the capital."
"I know," Xue Mu said. "We need a main event. A debut that will make the entire city talk."
"There is a contest next week," Meng Lan spoke up. "The 'Flower Maiden' competition. All the top brothels compete."
"Perfect," Xue Mu said. "Who is the favorite to win?"
"The Zither Fairy," Meng Lan said, her voice filled with a mix of admiration and envy. "Liu Qingyan."