Yun Zhonghe shifted his gaze and said languidly, “Is the first route reliable? I’m not implying anything, just asking.”

 When he finished saying that, he could feel Sister Xu Antiing looking at him with scorn.

 He whispered in his heart, “Hey, why are you looking at me like that? I was just simply asking out of curiosity.”

 “You can ask any handsome man. If they could make money lying down and avoid 30 years of actual work, wouldn’t any of them be tempted by that idea, deep down?”

 “But, of course, this is just a daydream; if a man truly wants to be happy, he needs to work for it.”

 Xu Anting asked carefully, “Mr. Yun, what do you mean by ‘reliable’?”

 Yun Zhonghe said, “What is the modus operandi, exactly?”

 “There is a brothel under our control,” Xu Anting explained. “It is a very high-class one, top-notch. It is called Tianyu Pavillion. Lady Musk is a frequent customer.”

 “So, you are saying that you are going to arrange for me to work in Tianyu Pavilion, and once I’m chosen by Lady Musk, I will be brought to the residence of the castellan?” Yun Zhonghe asked.

 “Yes, although ‘work’ might be too strong of a word to describe your duties,” Xu Anting answered.

 Yun Zhonghe then said, “Would I need to serve some ugly women before I was chosen by Lady Musk? Would I have to do weird stuff?”

 “Don’t worry, the character we arrange for you is a guqin player,” Xu Anting assured him. “I saw in your file that you can play guqin, and although your skill isn’t remarkable, your handsome face should compensate for that. Lady Musk is a woman of great taste, and she especially likes men who are gifted in chess, calligraphy, painting, or playing the lyre. So, if you chose the first route, we won’t let you serve customers.”

 “Is Tianyu Pavilion a property of the Order of the Black Dragon?” Yun Zhonghe asked.

 “No, but we have someone on the inside whose words carry great weight,” Xu Anting said.

 Yun Zhonghe had another question. “And, if I take the second route, who will you go through to arrange for me to become a servant in the residence of the castellan?”

 “The chamberlain of the castellan’s residence is a henchman of Jing Zhongyue’s mother. His name is Li Tang. He is a powerful man within the castellan’s residence,” Xu Anting told him.

 “Is he an agent of the Order of the Black Dragon?” Yun Zhonghe asked.

 “No, he just loves money,” Xu Anting said with a shrug. “And I have something on him. We do have agents in the residence of the castellan, and they will be activated after your arrival to support you. However, in order to keep the risk of blowing your cover as low as possible, the way we send you into the residence of the castellan cannot directly involve the Order of the Black Dragon.”

 “That makes sense. You guys are definitely pros at this,” Yun Zhonghe complimented.

 “So, which route are you gonna take?” Xu Anting asked. “I would advise you to take the second one. Although you won’t start in an important position, you will have more freedom to operate. The first route will place you close to an important member of the household, but being a gigolo is rather embarrassing, and you will be looked down upon. It will therefore be much harder for you to approach Jing Zhongyue. Once you are tainted with the name ‘gigolo,’ you will never be respected.”

 “I agree with you: being a servant is more dignified,” Yun Zhonghe said.

 “So, you choose the second route?” Xu Anting nodded his agreement with the decision. “I will begin the preparations immediately. You will be sent into the castellan’s residence to be a servant three days from now.”

 “No…” Yun Zhonghe said, “I choose the first route. I don’t have any intentions on the side, but I just can’t resist the challenge.”

 What?!

 Yun Zhonghe asked again, “Is this Lady Musk really pretty?”

 “Yes, she is. She is radiant,” Xu Anting replied.

 “Shopkeeper Xu, I’m really not doing this for my own benefit. We, who work in the service sector, can’t choose our clients, right?” Yun Zhonghe continued, “How old is this Lady Musk? Is her skin still firm?”

 “She is in her thirties, but she looks younger,” Xu Anting said.

 “That’s great, that’s great,” Yun Zhonghe said. “I don’t have any other intentions, I really don’t. Working in the service sector, we can’t pick our clients. Clients are God, after all.”

 “Mr. Yun, you have made up your mind? This route is much harder. As a gigolo, you will be despised to the bone by Jing Zhongyue,” Xu Anting warned.

 “Anting, the way you think is old-fashioned,” Yun Zhonghe countered. “We can totally interpret this in another way. Because of a misfortune that happened to his family, a very talented, extremely gorgeous, innocent, and pure man had no choice but to escape to the Land of No King and end up in a brothel. Although he has a very pretty face, he keeps his integrity and refuses to soil his hands. He only sells his skills, but he adamantly refuses to sell his body. However, he is too handsome and too talented, so he is chosen by a female gangster, Lady Musk. She forces him to follow her home. This domineering woman uses him every day, and he always sheds tears till dawn. Nevertheless, despite being in such a dark place, he still has a kind heart and looks forward to a beautiful life. Can you call a handsome and noble guy like that mean and low? Can you say that he is filthy? You can’t!”

 2A heavy silence fell upon the room.

 Xu Antiing decided to cling tighter to her resolution to never marry.

 Men in this world were too despicable.

 “What? What I said does make sense, right?” Yun Zhonghe asked.

 Not deigning to respond to that, Xu Anting said, “Lady Musk has refined tastes. It isn’t enough to only have a handsome appearance; you need to be talented as well. She likes guqin music in particular. I have read your file, and your guqin skill is mediocre. It may be sufficient to fool innocent girls, but for this job, we will need a professional guqin player to coach you.”

 “I don’t need it!” Yun Zhonghe said. “My guqin skill is the world’s best.”

 Xu Anting gave him a wry smile. “I’m afraid that your opinion on this will matter little until we get a professional guqin player to judge your skills. If you are certain that you want to take the first route, your guqin proficiency must be confirmed before the mission begins. We will give you an assessment.”

 Xu Anting had received a very detailed file on Yun Zhonghe, including a 1000-word description on his guqin playing skills. Yun Zhonghe was only an intermediate guqin player, and his style was quite pretentious and meretricious. Such skills would only work on the naive and innocent.

 On the other hand, Lady Musk was quite the musician. While she couldn’t play the guqin at a master level herself, she had an expert ear.

 Therefore, according to Xu Anting’s plan, Yun Zhonghe’s skills would be at an upper-intermediate level after he was trained by a professional guqin player. What he lacked in skill could be made up for by choosing exactly the right pieces of music. The music pieces were already prepared, having been composed by a guqin expert in the Order of the Black Dragon. They were absolutely stunning, and they had never been used in any performance.

 After Lady Musk’s arrival, Yun Zhonghe would play one of the pieces. Even though he wasn’t the best player, people would still be fascinated because the piece was way too outstanding. Plus, with Yun Zhonghe’s gorgeous appearance, snagging Lady Musk’s attention shouldn’t be too hard.

 Yun Zhonghe said, “In that case, let’s start the process now. You can assess my guqin playing skills all you want.”

 “Are you sure?” Xu Anting asked.

 “Yes, I am,” Yun Zhonghe confirmed.

 Xu Anting ordered, “Go, bring a guqin over here.”

 A moment later, two guards moved a guqin into the room. Yun Zhonghe knew, at first sight, that it was at least 100 years old. It was one in a million, and it must have cost a fortune.

 The Order of the Black Dragon was fantastic.

 “Mr. Yun, you may start now.”

 “Who is the guqin expert who is going to assess me?” Yun Zhonghe asked.

 Xu Anting looked at his sister, Xu Antiing.

 Yun Zhonghe was startled. “Sister, you… you are the professional guqin player?”

 “Xiao Tiing has been playing guqin for 21 years,” Xu Anting said. “She was acknowledged as a string instruments prodigy when she was five years old. She was supposed to be a great master of music, and the order would make her world-famous.”

 She would have been a celebrity on the world stage, the most popular courtesan in the world, celebrated by tens of thousands of gifted scholars.

 “She was disfigured in an accident, so she couldn’t continue on that path. That’s why she came to Anting Tavern. She is still the guqin teacher of all the high-class brothels in the City of Torn Gust, and seven out of the ten most popular courtesans were her students. Tell me now, is she qualified to assess your guqin skills?”

 Xu Anting looked heart-broken as he told the story.

 Yun Zhonghe couldn’t help but gaze at Sister Xu Antiing, but he didn’t ask what accident had disfigured her.

 One thing was for sure; she would have been extremely beautiful if she wasn’t disfigured. Besides, with her sexy, lush figure, she would definitely have been world-famous.

 Although Yun Zhonghe had never heard her play, he knew somehow that she was a great master musician.

 Xu Antiing said calmly, “There is something you need to know beforehand; you will only have one chance to perform, and I will assess your skills. If you fail the assessment, we won’t be able to improve your skills in the time we have. So, in case of failure, the first route will no longer be an option. You will follow orders and go to the residence of the castellan as a servant. Don’t dream of attaining success in one leap. If you pass the assessment, I will spend another two weeks helping you polish your skills. Whenever you are good enough, you will go to Tianyu Pavilion to entice Lady Musk.”

 Yun Zhonghe said, “If I pass the assessment with flying colors, does that mean I can enter Tianyu Pavilion to execute the plan tomorrow?”

 “That’s impossible,” Xu Antiing said flatly. “I’ve seen your file. You were too eager for quick success, and your music was pretentious and overblown. In my opinion, the first route is not for you. Lady Musk is a connoisseur.”

 Instead of arguing with her, Yun Zhonghe just sat in front of the guqin and said, “I will just play two bars, 14 notes in total.”

 Everybody was startled. They thought that they had heard him wrong.

 Yun Zhonghe emphasized, “Yes, I will only play two bars, 14 notes. If it isn’t good enough, I will give up my hands. I’ll chop them off and hand them to you on a platter. If my music can’t give you goosebumps, make your hair stand on end, and make you shudder, I will never touch a guqin again for the rest of my life.”

 When Xu Antiing heard this, she was startled, but that emotion quickly gave way to derision.

 She had been playing guqin for 20 years, and she knew how hard it was.

 She had heard all kinds of pieces of music. As a student of the empire’s greatest guqin teacher, she had seen lots of high-quality performances.

 He wanted to make her hair stand on end? His music would need to touch her soul.

 Even her teacher couldn’t do that, let alone Yun Zhonghe, who was a mere pickup artist.

 Besides, good skills weren’t the only thing that he’d need; a good music piece was crucial.

 The song they had prepared had never been performed. It was a masterpiece that one would only encounter once in a century.

 It was already hard enough for a low, pretentious player like Yun Zhonghe to pass the test, and yet he wanted to move her soul with only two bars?

 That would be harder than touching the sky.

 Yun Zhonghe closed his eyes and chanted quietly, “Patient Eight, Beethoven, Patient Eight, Beethoven, possess me, possess me.”

 Patient Eight, Beethoven.

 The greatest musician in the universe. His music could drive people to bash their heads into a wall until they killed themselves. Yun Zhonghe had been forced to tie the man up because of that. Beethoven was commonly considered the most dangerous patient in X Psychiatric Hospital.

 How incredible was he?

 Suddenly, Yun Zhonghe shuddered, and a chill went down his spine.

 Yun Zhonghe discovered that he was in total darkness. He couldn’t see or hear anything.

 Gosh!

 Beethoven had possessed him.