Chapter 1: Enter the palace
The scent hit Li Wei first—sandalwood and rose oil, thick and cloying, like walking into a temple where someone had spilled expensive perfume. It clung to the back of his throat. He shifted on his feet, the marble floor cool through his thin sneakers, and glanced at the other guys from campus. There were five of them, all shuffled into this stifling room under the vague promise of “lucrative patronage opportunities for promising young scholars.”
Right.
The office was less an office and more a museum of someone’s creepy obsession. Dark ebony panels were inlaid with ivory flowers. Antique paintings of courtly scenes—women with elongated necks and downcast eyes—watched from the walls. But it was the other wall that held his gaze: row upon row of gilt-framed certificates, each tied with a red silk ribbon. He squinted at the closest ones. ‘Awarded the Rank of Noble Consort,’ one read. ‘Faithful Service, Grade of Imperial Concubine,’ read another.
“What the hell is this place?” muttered the guy next to him, a basketball player named Chen. Li Wei just shook his head, a cold trickle of understanding starting to form.
A door whispered open on hidden hinges.Mr. Zhang was a small man, impeccably dressed in a tailored silk suit. His smile was a practiced, thin curve as his eyes traveled over them, assessing, cataloging. He didn’t walk; he glided, stopping before the central table where a grotesque golden trophy, shaped like a cluster of elaborate hairpins, sat gleaming.
“Welcome,” Mr. Zhang said, his voice soft. “You come recommended by the university’s arts and humanities faculty. Your grades, your aesthetics… they are of interest to me.”
“Interest for what, sir?” Chen asked, his tone politely confused.
“For my project. The preservation of a certain historical dynamic. A patronage system.” Mr. Zhang picked up a jade paperweight, turning it over in his hands. “I maintain a… household. A court, if you will. It requires new blood. Young men of culture and pleasing disposition.”
Li Wei’s stomach tightened. The words were elegant, but their meaning hung in the perfumed air, ugly and plain.
“You’re hiring us as, what? Social companions?” another student, Jin, ventured.
“A crude term,” Mr. Zhang sighed, as if disappointed. “Think of it as a scholarship.A full-ride. Your tuition, your apartment, a substantial monthly allowance. In return, you pledge loyalty, companionship, and discretion. You will be ranked, given a title. Your progress through the ranks depends on your dedication and my favor.”
He gestured to the wall of certificates. “My Hall of Fame. Every young man here has found purpose, security, under my guidance.”
Li Wei felt a hot wave of humiliation wash over him. This was a selection. An auction. And they were the livestock.
“You want us to be your… concubines?” The word left Li Wei’s mouth before he could stop it, flat and challenging.
Mr. Zhang’s smile didn’t falter. “I prefer the historical terminology. Consorts. It carries a weight of artistry, of chosen status. ‘Concubine’ is so… transactional.” He walked down the line, stopping directly in front of Li Wei. His gaze was a physical touch, lingering on Li Wei’s face, his build, the cheap fabric of his shirt. “You are Li Wei.Art history. Your essay on Qing dynasty portraiture was surprisingly nuanced.”
He knew his name. He’d read his work.
“The financial package is listed here.” Mr. Zhang snapped his fingers, and an assistant seemingly materialized, handing each young man a sleek tablet. The number on the screen made Li Wei’s breath catch. It was more money than his entire family saw in two years. It was freedom from the crushing part-time jobs, from the looming debt. It was his degree, guaranteed.
Chen scoffed, thrusting the tablet back at the assistant. “This is insane. I’m out.” He turned and left, his footsteps echoing. Two others followed, their faces masks of disgust and confusion.
Only Li Wei and Jin remained, holding the tablets like they were burning their hands.
Jin’s voice was shaky. “The apartment… it’s the one by the river?”
“The penthouse, yes,” Mr. Zhang confirmed, his attention already refocused on Li Wei, the more promising candidate. “Fully serviced. A wardrobe appropriate to your new station will be provided.”
Li Wei’s mind raced. His mother’s tired voice on the phone last week, talking about the loan they couldn’t get. The scholarship that had fallen through. The way the fluorescence of the library gave him headaches after the eighth hour. This room, with its oppressive scent and golden trophies, felt like a different kind of trap. But it was a gilded one.
“What… what would I have to do?” Li Wei asked, his own voice sounding distant.
“Attend gatherings. Cultivate beauty and conversation.Be present. Your primary duty is to be… amenable. To belong to me.” Mr. Zhang reached out and, with a touch that was startlingly intimate, adjusted the collar of Li Wei’s shirt. “You have the look of a Ming porcelain vase. Delicate, but with a quiet strength. I see you in the rank of ‘Guifei.’ Precious Consort. It is a high starting point.”
He turned to the table, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a certificate, pre-printed. He took a vermillion seal from a lacquered box, pressed it into a pad of red ink, and stamped the paper with a decisive thud. The sound was final.
“Do you accept this honor, Li Wei?”
Jin was staring at him, his eyes wide. Don’t, they seemed to scream. But Jin’s father was a surgeon. Jin didn’t have a village of relatives depending on the first college graduate to make it.
The weight of the number on the tablet, the crushing weight of his own circumstances, tilted the scale. He felt a part of himself detach, floating up near the painted ceiling, looking down at the young man in the cheap shoes.
“I accept,” Li Wei said. The words tasted of sandalwood and ash.
Mr. Zhang’s smile widened, becoming genuine. He rolled the certificate, tied it with a red silk ribbon, and placed it in Li Wei’s numb hands. Then he presented him with a single, ornate hairpin—a replica of the trophy on the desk—cold and heavy.
“Your token of belonging. Welcome to my court.”
The assistant ushered Jin out. He left with a last, pitying glance. Li Wei was alone with Mr. Zhang, the certificates on the wall, and the cloying smell of roses. He clutched the pin and the scroll, the promises they represented and the thing he had just sold folding together into a single, indistinguishable lump in his gut. The door behind him was still open, leading back to the ordinary world.
He didn’t move toward it. The first step, he knew, would be in the opposite direction, deeper into the perfumed dark.