Floating World Bitten Peach Ch. 07

"No virgins," the captain had blustered. "I've told you that the men of Chu want experienced jinan."

Having gained permission for a separate section of the house, Shun did not want to press his luck on the virgin issue, so he decided to save that for another day. "I'm not sure then how we will obtain jinan," he said. "In Wu we train them up from their early years."

"Why, we'll contract a zhaodaojen—procurer—then," the captain had said—as if Shun should know what a zhaodaojen was. But when Shun looked at him with confusion, he patiently explained. "We have nanleshijia in the capital, Danyang, too—mostly for the court. And they use the services of a zhaodaojen. A zhaodaojen buys appropriate young men—usually from poor parents—and prepares them for service as a jinan and sells them to the nanleshijia when they are properly trained. We have such zhaodaojen here at the lake. Most of them are boatmen with pleasure boats. They bite the peach of young men and then take them to the capital. That is where the nanleshijia were centered before the army decided to set one up here."

"So, they don't come as virgins?" Shun asked, incredulous. "The zhaodaojen uses the most expensive service of a jinan?"

"I have said to forget this virgin nonsense," the captain said in exasperation. "The men of Chu want their jinan experienced and will slack holes to take our yang chu."

"We would have to find and contract one of these zhaodaojen then?" Shun said. He just could not believe that the captain had this right.

But so exasperated was the captain now that he went down to the lake himself. When he returned, he brought two men before Shun, one a solid, handsome man of rough demeanor and the other a young man so beautiful that Shun would not have doubted him if he said he was from Nantung, which was renowned for its beautiful young men.

"This is Wangtao," the captain said, indicating the older man. "He is a boatman, but he is a zhaodaojen too. He supplies nanleshijia in Danyang, but I have paid him to supply to us as well."

"And who is this?" Shun asked, placing his hand on the arm of the younger man and pulling him forth into the light. He was shy, and Shun's first instinct was to think that the captain had everything all wrong and that he was a virgin as well. The sale of his innocence would bring the nanleshijia quite a tidy fortune, Shun thought, and his mind was already racing on who in the area of Tai Hu Lake would be interested in bidding.

"Wangtao poles a pleasure boat on the Danyang Lakes," the captain continued. "I have convinced him that business will be better here on Tai Hu Lake, though, and he has agreed to work with the nanleshijia, and we will include pleasure cruises on his boat in our services."

"This is Pai," Wangtao spoke for the first time. "I have prepared him for jinan."

Shun looked at the rough boatman and then at the beautiful, lithe Pai, sure that "prepared" for Wangtao meant something different from what it meant for the captain. But then his thoughts were arrested. Pai was looking at Wangtao with a look in his eyes that Shun had seen before. Yes, he thought, somewhat bitterly, not only does this youth admire and love this brute of a boatman, but he has lain under him as well. No doubt the boatman has a magical yang chu that can entrap foolish younger men. I have seen enough of this to know what has gone between them. This young Pai is so smitten that if the zhaodaojen asked him to lay down here and open his legs to both him and the captain at the same time, the youth would do it.

It was hard for Shun to countenance, but he could not deny it was true.

Shun sighed and looked upon Pai with concern as the captain struck the deal with Wangtao for Pai's services as a jinan. In the bargain, however, Wangtao was to remain Pai's handler and Wangtao and Pai would ply their trade on Tai Hu Lake rather than in the capital.

This can only end in tragedy, Shun thought. He would have preferred to separate the two and take Pai directly into the nanleshijia. One of the basic laws of the jinan is not to fall in love. And especially not to do so with someone in the business rather than some rich old and sick man who can leave you both rich and young. But this was the arrangement the captain had struck, and Shun decided he needed to take baby steps in establishing this procurement process.

Shun could hardly wait to be alone with Pai to satisfy his curiosity on where such a beautiful young man came from, what brought him here, and how he had come to love the man who had debauched and sold him.

When he had heard the story, he was not surprised, but he was very sad. And he was even sadder when he had to experience what subsequently happened to Pai's love.