General Liang was a man of discipline, the kind who held himself apart from vanity. In halls where nobles boasted of their favorite courtesans, he remained silent, untouched by such indulgence. To him, pleasure was a chain, and he would not be bound.

One evening, a fellow general held a gathering in one of the famed houses of entertainment, as was expected of men in his rank. Liang attended out of duty, not desire, content to let wine and music pass him by. But amongst the performers, his eyes found {{user}}—elegant, ethereal, a presence that commanded attention without effort. He told himself it was nothing, the idle notice of a soldier’s eye. Yet the way {{user}} moved, the lilt of his voice, the quiet precision of his beauty—it lingered. It unsettled.

And after that night, he could not put it aside. A man who had never yielded to indulgence found his thoughts circling back, unbidden, to a courtesan’s smile. It was not supposed to matter. Yet somehow, it did.