Chapter 216: A Breath of Foul Air

While the atmosphere was stagnant, Han Jingru suddenly laughed out loud.

He raised his cup to toast Ding Suian from a distance, “Now that the Duke of Chu County mentions it, it reminds me. Back then, the rebel Prince presided over the grand ceremonies and sacrifices on behalf of Your Majesty, and his influence was unrivaled. Even my father had to carefully accommodate him.”

Han Jingru shook his head with a wry smile, “During the New Year two years ago, my father painfully parted with a painting by a famous master of the previous dynasty, ‘Maid Serving Flowers Under the Moon,’ and gifted it to the rebel Prince. If it is convenient for the Duke of Chu County, could you help this brother retrieve it?”

It appeared to be a request to Ding Suian, but every word was secretly prompting Chen Hong.

He used his own example to prove that at the time, Chen Duan held great power, making it common for people to curry favor with him under the pressure of the situation.

At the same time, he also took the opportunity to divert attention.

In Chen Hong’s heart, Yu Bowen naturally did not carry the same weight as Han Jingru, and the latter’s subtle remonstration, which preserved his Face, was effective.

Chen Hong’s expression softened slightly, as if he had just noticed Yu Bowen kneeling in a state of disarray, and he said with displeasure, “Young Master Yu, why are you kneeling for no reason? I am not an unreasonable person; hurry back and sit down properly.”

“Thank you, Prince!”

Yu Bowen felt as if he had been granted an amnesty and cast a grateful look at Han Jingru.

“Think nothing of it, think nothing of it.”

Seeing Han Jingru speak, Ding Suian put the honeydew melon in his hand into his mouth and responded with a chuckle.

The banquet continued.

The honeydew melon was sweet, with a high sugar content, and his fingertips were inevitably sticky.

As a grown man, he didn’t have the habit of carrying a handkerchief, and looking down, he discovered there were no items to wipe his hands on the table.

So he said to the maid kneeling to the side, “Excuse me, could you bring a handkerchief for me to use?”

This was not a difficult request, and although Ding Suian’s voice was not loud, everyone in the hall heard him.

However, upon hearing this, the maid slowly prostrated herself on the ground, slightly opened her mouth, and stretched her head toward his hand hanging by his side.

Ding Suian was startled, instinctively pulled back his hand, and asked in confusion, “Miss, what are you doing?”

“…”

The hall fell momentarily silent. Seeing this, Chen Hong, seated at the head, clapped his hands and let out a short, wheezing laugh, his fat body trembling along with it.

He deliberately looked at Ding Suian. When the latter noticed and looked up, Chen Hong, acting like a teacher instructing a student—or perhaps teaching a country bumpkin about the world—casually picked up a piece of honeydew melon, took a bite, and then let his hand, stained with sticky juice, hang loosely to the side.

Beside him, the kneeling maid immediately, like a docile puppy, prostrated herself, looked up, and used her delicate mouth to take his short, fat fingers into it, one by one, sucking clean the residual honeydew juice.

“…”

Ding Suian was shocked.

He knew that there was no shortage of extravagant and debauched people among the upper nobility of Great Wu, but he still hadn’t expected that someone could be so pretentious to this extent.

“Duke of Chu County, do not be alarmed. Having a beauty’s delicate mouth clean one’s hands is an elegant practice from ancient times. It perfectly aligns with the State Religion’s Dao of ‘Restoring Ancient Rites’~”

Chen Hong condescendingly lectured him, with a faint implication of mocking his lack of worldly experience.

It was as if he had finally found a place where he surpassed him.

“Oh? The Prince is so refined. I wonder what other elegant practices are in your estate? Could you let this humble official broaden his horizons?”

“Hehe~”

Seeing Ding Suian asking for advice to his Face, the look of smugness on Chen Hong’s fat Face grew even stronger. He raised his hand and clapped twice, ‘Pa-pa’.

As soon as the applause faded, more than a dozen maids walked into the flower hall, each holding a scroll.

The maids first bowed to Chen Hong and everyone present, then, in pairs, each holding one end of a scroll, slowly unfurled them in the flower hall. The scrolls were unexpectedly long, reaching over thirty feet.

But inside the scrolls, it was not flowers, birds, fish, insects, or ink paintings.

Instead, it was filled with circular imprints of varying shades and shapes.

Some resembled full moons, as large as a bowl’s mouth; others resembled fallen petals, as small as a teacup.

Ding Suian stared at them for a while but couldn’t understand what they were, until he focused his eyes and saw the small characters marked below each pair of imprints.

‘Ruolan, taken at seventeen.’

‘Luorui, taken at fourteen.’

‘Taken’. It should mean an imprint or rubbing.

He had heard of stone rubbings, calligraphy rubbings, jade rubbings, and coin rubbings. On this scroll, there were clearly women’s names, and the numbers behind them should be their ages.

Looking at the shape of the imprints, could it be… breast prints?

The second scroll displayed behind them contained imprints shaped like symmetrical, withered lotus petals, with the skin texture even faintly discernible.

Below them were also names and numbers. If Ding Suian guessed correctly, they were likely buttock prints.

The next moment, Chen Hong’s smug words confirmed his guess, “Duke of Chu County, these are the Physical Body albums left behind by beauties I have collected from all over Great Wu. I do not show them to people lightly. Looking at them, Duke of Chu County, are they not more naturally vivid than the paintings of ladies by those stiff-handed artists?”

Chen Hong stood up, walked over to Ding Suian, enthusiastically pulled him along, and walked to the front of the scrolls.

Probably thinking that Ding Suian was also a person who enjoyed such things, he stretched out a short, fat finger and pointed to a pair of full moon imprints, boasting, “This was left by Aying. When she first entered the estate, she was still a bit wild and untamed, but after a little’sculpting,’ now, hehe, she is the most sensible and well-behaved one by my side.”

His words were vague. The so-called’sculpting’ might have been that the woman saw wealth and changed her mind, or perhaps she saw that resistance was hopeless and was eventually worn down and submitted.

Chen Hong’s finger moved to another imprint of a withered petal that looked slightly messy, with edges that even bore traces of struggle, “This is Xiaoyue, the one I loved the most, but she was stubborn and didn’t know how to adapt. Early this year, she fell ill and unexpectedly passed away.”

Chen Hong showed a look of sorrow, shaking his head and sighing, as if he were truly a collector who had lost a beloved object, “It truly made me quite sad for a while.”

Ding Suian suddenly felt a bit nauseous.

Not just psychologically, but also accompanied by physical nausea—not because of the scrolls, but because of Chen Hong, who was affectionately grabbing his arm.

Six scrolls, each over thirty feet long, contained the imprints of at least one or two hundred women.

Being lustful is not a problem; a gentleman can be lustful, provided it is done in the right way.

But this Chen Hong did not treat people as human beings at all.

Opposite, Han Jingru took a small sip of wine, keeping an eye on Ding Suian all the while.

Seeing his expression tighten slightly, he assumed it was because he was encountering physical imprints for the first time and was momentarily shocked.

In Han Jingru’s mind, since Ding Suian had been enfeoffed, he had entered the circle of nobility and would naturally view the world through the eyes of the new nobility.

The common people of the world are like cattle and sheep, and they are born to be the shepherds holding the whips. Expending energy and laboring over state affairs on weekdays, and engaging in some romantic and elegant matters for amusement in their spare time, was nothing out of the ordinary.

This time, by letting Ding Suian open his eyes and broaden his horizons, the Prince of Linping could not only close the psychological distance with him but also become the guide who would lead him to experience what life as a noble was all about~

“Haha~”

Over there, Chen Hong had gradually gotten into the swing of things, and he waved his hand generously, “Duke of Chu County,”

Seeing Ding Suian’s gaze wandering between the scrolls and the maids, Chen Hong assumed he had developed an interest and couldn’t help but laugh out loud, waving his fat palm heroically: “The Physical Body albums of these beauties holding the scrolls are all within these six volumes. Why doesn’t the Duke of Chu County take a guess? Who corresponds to which imprint? If you guess correctly,”

He said generously, “I will gift that beauty to you, hahaha.”

Originally, Ding Suian had come to the banquet with the attitude of repaying a favor to Xu Jiuxi, thinking that he would just handle it one way or another.

But Chen Hong’s current Face made him suddenly recall an old matter. Last year, on Yulin Street, Zhao Yan and Ruan Ruan had been harassed by that Lai Sanhu, who had said something about ‘a fortune to be delivered, a noble’s estate recruiting maids.’

Wasn’t that guy just a dog scavenging for beauties for Chen Hong?

At that time, after killing Lai Sanhu, Han Jingru’s attitude was extremely respectful, yielding the street-cleaning silver of two wards and apologizing to Zhao Yan and Ruan Ruan, so Ding Suian did not pursue the matter further.

Thinking about it now, it was just because he had recently achieved a new merit at that time and had value to be courted.

If he were still just a small Squad Leader, would he have been able to keep Zhao Yan safe?

Thinking of this, that breath of foul air that had been pressing in his chest for a long time could no longer be held back.

“Prince, are these words true? If I guess correctly, are you willing to part with and gift me any female member of the Prince’s estate?”

“Naturally! A gentleman’s word is as good as a team of horses! Haha~”

Opposite, Han Jingru suddenly sensed that something was wrong with Ding Suian. It wasn’t his expression, but a certain Aura that suddenly seeped out from him.

However, Ding Suian quickly swept his eyes over the scrolls and said seriously, “Then I would trouble the Prince to have the Physical Body albums of the Princess of Linping and the concubines made as well~”

A bolt from the blue!

“…”

‘Clang~’

Yu Bowen, who had been a minor background character throughout, was so frightened that he dropped his chopsticks.