Act 2: Basically a Story About Lady Gan and Lady Mi Getting Fucked in the Imperial Palace
"A meridian... massage chamber? What is that?"
Neither of the two ladies had ever heard of such a thing.
"It means opening the acupoints and meridians through which the body's vital energy flows — drawing out the impure qi that has settled in the flesh, and replenishing it with clean, clear energy."
"Opening the acupoints... so you're going to stick needles in us again?"
Lady Gan's wariness sharpened at once. The memory of the needles that had put Guan Yu to sleep the night before was still vivid in her mind.
Lady Zou shook her head, her voice gentle.
"No, my lady. There will be no needles. The imperial palace's masseuses will perform acupressure on you."
"So they'll be kneading our bodies, then? Having a stranger put their hands on us is a bit..."
Lady Mi looked uncomfortable, and Lady Gan nodded in agreement.
"When it comes to an audience with His Imperial Majesty, even warriors who once held the battlefield in their grip often grow so tense that their bodies lock up rigid, and breaches of etiquette become all too common. After such lapses of protocol grew frequent, our gracious Emperor commanded that they have their bodies loosened and made supple before being received."
Repeatedly invoking the Emperor's command was Lady Zou's strategy. These were Liu Bei's wives, after all — women who had accepted even surrender to Cao Cao under the justification that they were, in truth, surrendering to the Emperor himself.
"What should we do, Sister...?"
"...We've already bathed, and our bodies feel quite loosened as it is. Surely we don't need the acupressure on top of that?"
"His Majesty has particularly emphasized that those attending their first audience must receive the treatment. Since the Emperor issued that command, not a single person has entered an audience without first receiving acupressure."
That was where Lady Gan crumbled.
She's right... we can't be the first to break protocol. If word got out that Liu Bei's wives had behaved discourteously in the imperial palace...
Once the two ladies consented, Lady Zou clapped her hands twice, lightly.
Two women dressed in the same white robes as Lady Zou approached with quick steps and dropped to their knees.
"And these are...?"
"We are honored to present ourselves before the two ladies. I am called Hong." She had a face that smiled like a puppy's, and a cute hairstyle that looked as though a pair of dumplings had been perched atop her head.
"I am Yeon." A woman of calm expression and a sleek, athletic figure, her hair bound in a ponytail that fell all the way to her waist.
"They are the imperial palace's masseuses. They will attend to you both."
That was when Lady Mi spoke up.
"The masseuses look just like generals."
"...Come again?"
For a moment, silence hung over the bath.
"M-Mi-rin, what do you mean, they look like generals...?"
"...Oh my, perhaps I shouldn't have said anything. It's just that the masseuses have such a gallant air about them..."
Neither masseuse's expression changed in the slightest.
Come to think of it, something had been bothering Lady Gan as well.
"I notice both masseuses use only their given names, without surnames — they must be of common birth, then. For people who work in the imperial palace, their station seems rather low. How curious."
The masseuse called Hong dipped her head slightly. Yeon's expression remained as unmoved as ever.
Lady Zou offered a faint smile as she explained.
"These two masseuses are renowned throughout all of Xuchang for the excellence of their skill, and so they were specially appointed to serve in the palace. Even Her Majesty the Empress receives acupressure from them."
"Ah — even the Empress..."
Liu Bei's wives — who, by way of the Emperor's secret edict, had become Cao Cao's enemies — held a particular affection for the imperial couple.
Especially now, after Cao Cao had beaten to death Consort Dong, one of the Emperor's wives who had drafted that secret edict, and exterminated her entire clan. Empress Fu, who had survived, must have been walking a path of thorns...
And if even that Empress received treatment from these masseuses, they could hardly help but trust them.
"Very well, then. We shall ask you to perform the acupressure... Whew. Though I must say, drowsiness seems to be creeping over me."
Lady Gan's eyelids had been growing heavy for some time. Her judgment, too, was beginning to cloud.
"Sister, you must have stayed in the bath too long."
Lady Mi moved to support her. Watching this, Lady Zou turned to Lady Mi.
"Lady Mi, you bathed together — are you feeling all right?"
"Ah, I... I seem to be fine. Thank you."
Lady Zou addressed the masseuse Yeon.
"Please escort Lady Gan to the massage chamber first. She appears quite exhausted, so let us relieve her fatigue without delay."
Lady Gan nodded and stepped out of the bath. Her naked body, flushed a deep red from the heat, rose from the water. Yeon approached and wrapped a large towel around her.
Ah, that feels cool... I really did stay in the bath far too long.
Lady Gan struggled to keep her drooping eyelids open.
"But then Mi-rin... I mean, Lady Mi...?"
"Lady Mi may proceed to the massage chamber a little later. Please, have another cup of tea as well."
Lady Zou offered the teacup to Lady Mi once more.
"But..."
Since arriving in Xuchang, the two of them had not been apart even once. Would she be anxious, left alone? Lady Gan felt a pang of worry.
"I'm fine, Sister. The tea is delicious — I was hoping for another cup anyway."
Lady Mi answered with a bright expression, and Lady Gan had nothing more to say. All she wanted was to lie down somewhere, and quickly.
...Sleepy. So sleepy.
Lady Gan slipped into a state that was half walking, half already asleep. She was certain her own feet were carrying her, and yet each time her mind surfaced as if from a dream, she found herself leaning against Yeon's shoulder, or hanging from the woman's arm, or feeling as though she were being dragged along the floor.
It's hard. Walking is too hard. I want to lie down.
Just when she thought she could not endure another step, she was laid down upon a table.
A hiss of steam filled the massage chamber, pouring from a boiling kettle until the air itself grew dense and warm. The faintly hot vapor was drawn in through her nostrils, and even the inside of her skull seemed to grow pleasantly warm.
Haa... that's nice... so sleepy...
A deep comfort settled over her, and drowsiness surged up from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head, swallowing her whole.
My lady.
My lady, I shall begin the acupressure. Please tell me if it hurts.
The masseuse Yeon's voice reached her like a distant echo.
"As you like... do as you like..."
The acupressure began.
Softly... fingers worked the hollow between her collarbones and eased the muscles of her shoulders. A warm touch caressed the tender nerves of her neck, then swept up along the base of her skull, banishing the knots of stress that had gathered there. Gently, the hands stroked her ears... then pressed firmly at her temples, moving on to her eyes... her forehead... her scalp, all the way to the Baihui point at the very crown of her head, until everything unwound in a rush of cool relief...
"You are carrying a great deal of tension, my lady."
"No doubt you have been through much hardship."
Wherever those fingers pressed, a tingling, electric stimulation raced down through Lady Gan's body, which hovered on the very brink of sleep. To a woman already drunk on that sweet drowsiness, even such sparks felt like a fragrant spice stirred into her slumber.
It was not painful so much as deeply comfortable — and somewhere in it, a faintly indecent sensation as well.
This must be... heaven...
When fingers slipped into her armpits and worked the deep muscle there, the rush of relief was so novel she nearly opened her eyes.
The acupressure began to travel downward. Shoulders... arms... fingers...
Breasts... the sides of her ribs... her navel...
What...? My breasts...? Ah... why would they...
A feeling that something was wrong flickered through her, but even that thought grew heavy and sank away beneath the surface.
"You have excellent abdominal muscles, my lady."
"It is as though your body has been trained."
"That's... embarrassing, to say such things..."
She wanted to cover herself, but she had reached a state where even lifting her arms was beyond her.
Ah... my body... it's been... stripped, hasn't it...
The air in the massage chamber was so thick with hot steam that she felt no chill at all. That was why she realized only belatedly that the towel which had wrapped her had fallen open.
Lady Gan's taut, well-made figure lay fully exposed to the masseuse Yeon, every inch of her being rubbed and worked without a scrap of concealment.
What Lady Gan did not know was that a fragrant oil had been poured over the whole of her body as the massage proceeded, until her skin glistened as though she had been slathered from head to toe in semen.
...Nnh...
A nasal little sound slipped out of her.
Yeon's hands reached her toes for the first time. They threaded between all ten of them, one gap after another, stimulating the meridians of each digit. They tickled the sensitive hollows of her ankles, then worked the muscles of her calves with a pressure just shy of pain... The fronts and backs of a woman's knees held their own weak points, and Yeon found them. Then those sturdy thighs... kneading every part of them, weakening Lady Gan further, until at last those hands climbed to the secret place between her legs.
"I shall loosen this area as well."
"Please tell me if it hurts."
"...Nn... th..."
"My lady? Please speak."
"Mm... nnh..."
"I am beginning."
Hhaaah—
As Yeon's long, dazzlingly nimble fingers traveled back and forth across her lower body, Lady Gan lost even the ability to finish a sentence.
"My lady, I shall turn you over now."
Lady Gan could not remember whether she had rolled over herself or whether Yeon had flipped her the way one flips a tuna. Without her knowing, she found herself face-down, legs spread, palms on the floor on all fours like a dog.
BANG!
"Hah—? Wh-what..."
The sudden loud noise jolted Lady Gan's mind awake.
"I dropped a bowl, my lady."
"Forgive me, my lady."
Ah... a bowl... that's all it was...
"You may rest at ease, my lady."
At ease... yes...
That was when Lady Mi's voice reached her.
"Ah, Sister... are you... in here...?"
Mi-rin's voice, too, wavered as though worn thin by drowsiness.
"Mi-rin, I'm... here..."
Lady Gan's voice escaped her like a sigh, barely more than a breath.
"Ah... Sister... you're here... thank goodness..."
Mi-rin could not finish the thought. The moment she was laid down, it seemed, she too had lost the strength to speak.
Ah... then the other masseuse must have come in as well... I don't particularly want more people seeing me like this, naked...
Lady Gan managed to crack her eyes open, and in her field of vision a screen had been drawn like a folding wall. It divided the couch where she was receiving her acupressure from the one where Lady Mi was receiving hers.
Woven of densely packed bamboo, it let the silhouette on the far side show through in outline — but fortunately, not the entire body in any detail.
The Lady Mi who had been laid down over there seemed, unlike herself, to have had her towel stripped away at once, and her ample breasts appeared to be getting thoroughly kneaded — but Lady Gan no longer possessed anything like the mental fortitude required to make an issue of it.