Peach Blossom Pavilion
Behind the doors of the pavilion, a world of sensuality and intrigue awaits…Xiang Xiang’s life as an innocent girl is about to change beyond recognition.Falsely accused of murder, Xiang Xiang's father is executed, and her mother forced into a Buddhist nunnery. Xiang Xiang, alone and friendless at thirteen years old, is tricked into entering the Peach Blossom Pavilion, where she is given the name Bao Lan – Precious Orchid.There she is trained in the fine arts of womanhood, studying music, literature, painting, and more importantly, the art of seduction and pleasuring men; and becomes one of China’s most successful courtesans.However, Precious Orchid is determined to avenge her parents and sets out on a journey that includes passion, adventure, danger, fame, and finally, her chance to achieve the justice she has sought so long.An enchanting tale of opulence and desire, perfect for fans of Anchee Min and Memoirs of a Geisha.
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Peach Blossom Pavilion
Mingmei Yip
Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Copyright © Mingmei Yip 2008
Cover photographs © Natalia Campbell / Getty Images (woman); myu-myu / Getty Images (bird); Shutterstock.com; Kevin Hua Long Jiang / Getty Images (background).
Mingmei Yip asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007570126
Ebook Edition © February 2014 ISBN: 9780007570133
Version: 2014-07-25
For Geoffrey, Who gives me both the fish and the bear’s paw.
When there is action above and compliance below, this is called the natural order of things.
When the man thrusts from above and the woman receives from below, this is called the balance between heaven and earth.
–Dong Xuanzi (Tang dynasty, AD 618–907)
Table of Contents
7. The Jade Stalk and the Golden Gate
15. The Prestigious Prostitute
18. The Jade Stalk Refuses to Salute
19. Last Journey in the Red Dust
25. This Woman Is Not My Husband
26. The Monk and the Prostitute
The California sun slowly streams in through my apartment window, then gropes its way past a bamboo plant, a Chinese vase spilling with plum blossoms, a small incense burner, then finally lands on Bao Lan – Precious Orchid – the woman lying opposite me without a stitch on.
Envy stabs my heart. I stare at her body as it curves in and out like a snake ready for mischief. She lies on a red silk sheet embroidered with flowers in gold thread. ‘Flower of the evil sea’ – this was what people in old Shanghai would whisper through cupped mouths. While now, in San Francisco, I murmur her name, ‘Bao Lan,’ sweetly as if savouring a candy in my mouth. I imagine inhaling the decadent fragrance from her sun-warmed nudity.
Bao Lan’s eyes shine big and her lips – full, sensuous, and painted a dark crimson – evoke in my mind the colour of rose petals in a fading dream. Petals that, when curled into a seductive smile, also whisper words of flattery. These, together with her smooth arm, raised and bent behind her head in a graceful curve, remind me of the Chinese saying ‘A pair of jade arms used as pillows to sleep on by a thousand guests; two slices of crimson lips tasted by ten thousand men.’
Now the rosy lips seem to say, ‘Please come to me.’
I nod, reaching my hand to touch the nimbus of black hair tumbling down her small, round breasts. Breasts the texture of silk and the colour of white jade. Breasts that were touched by many – soldiers, merchants, officials, scholars, artists, policemen, gangsters, a Catholic priest, a Taoist monk.
Feeling guilty of sacrilege, I withdraw my nearly century-old spotty and wrinkled hand. I keep rocking on my chair and watching Bao Lan as she continues to eye me silently. ‘Hai, how time flies like an arrow, and the sun and moon move back and forth like a shuttle!’ I recite the old saying, then carefully sip my ginseng tea.
‘Ahpo, it’s best-quality ginseng to keep your longevity and health,’ my great-granddaughter told me the other day when she brought the herb.
Last week, I celebrated my ninety-eighth birthday, and although they never say it out loud, I know they want my memoir to be finished before I board the immortal’s journey. When I say ‘they,’ I mean my great-granddaughter Jade Treasure and her American fiancé Leo Stanley. In a while, they will be coming to see me and begin recording my oral history.
