Autumn's Final Dynasty

Modeling for art, Bon Bao half sat, half reclined on what passed for a bed in the room he rented down by the Feng River. The artist painting him had arranged the sheets in order to give them good shadows – while making sure they didn't obscure anything magnificent. In response to a request, Bon Bao lifted his arms above his head, turned to face one of his bulbous biceps, and leaned back against the wall.

But not too hard. 

Roughly a third of the wall had decayed into windows without panes. Onlookers in the next room therefore saw parts of Bon Bao's back and the tops of his supernatural glutes. In order to keep from falling through the wall and making one huge window, Bon Bao improved his balance by tightening his abs. They were glorious. The muscle hunk could have stuck his legs out to provide a counterweight for the pose. The artist had a specific look in mind, however, so Bon Bao kept his feet on the floor as instructed.

"What kind of pose did you call this?" he asked.

"Answering Lord Bon," replied Ri Ran, "it is a 'scandalous come-hither pose.'"

In order to save money, Lord Bon only rented half a room down by the river. Ri Ran rented the other half. Most rooms in Lady Wu's Riverside Mansion had four tenants. All tenants in the building other than Bon Bao were starving students studying for imperial exams. Bon Bao was a starving underground boxer. Because he occupied the volume of three students, he paid double the rent. Lady Wu was a businesswoman, and would have charged triple, but was willing to accept rollicking good times as partial payment.

Ri Ran could not have been more different than the Gargogryeon muscle hunk. A native of the river plains, Ri Ran was taller than the Fourth Prince but weighed less. His almost emaciated body was barely able to hold up his large head – which Bon Bao thought resembled a sleepy potato. Ri Ran had been born the third son of a down-and-out baron. Then the Emperor eliminated the rank of baron completely. The aristocracy's bottom rung found itself in need of hustle and bustle. Some rose to the challenge. Others sank further into debt, despondency, and despair. 

Though he could only rent half a room in Lady Wu's Riverside Mansion, Ri Ran had received an education which gave him a good shot at outperforming his cohort in the exams.

He was also a gifted painter.

When the painting was finished, several rooms worth of starving students pressed around it. Ri Ran had not captured Lord Bon literally. Instead, he turned Bon Bao's geological body into a landscape. Ri Ran had good intuition for positive and negative space. The firm lines of Bon Bao's masculine shape defined the contours of towering cliffs. The voluptuous curves of the muscle hunk's puffier shapes became clouds and mist. As for the central appendage, it had transformed into a raging stream which crashed down over two enormous boulders. The boulders formed an arch above a portal into a fairy realm. A wreath of nightmare brambles surrounded the fairy portal.

"Mousy Rascal," said Bon Bao. "My fairy portal is not that intimidating."

"Lord Bon," said a starving student, "your fairy portal is more intimidating than depicted."

"Is it?" asked Bon Bao.

The students nodded in unison. Bon Bao wanted to pinch their cheeks whenever they did that.

"Who buys these paintings?" he asked Ri Ran.

"The gallery doesn't tell me," said Ri Ran.

"Dirty old men," said one student, "who must remain anonymous."

"Well, every scrap of silver helps," said Bon Bao. "Now back to studying."

The students groaned. Bon Bao flexed his magnificent muscles. He might have been the youngest person in the room, he wasn't sure, but the students went back to studying anyway. 

Bon Bao went in search of Lady Wu.

Prior to the Lechun Dynasty's implosion, her riverside mansion belonged to some marquis. Back then, the riverfront was fashionable. When Great Yao's founder took the throne, he purged half the nobles in Tianming Town. The marquis was unlucky; his grand house fell to ruin.

Lady Wu acquired it ten years ago. Prior to that, the disappearance of squatters under paranormal circumstances was to be expected. Lady Wu proved something of an exorcist, however. No starving students had been lost on her watch. There were close calls, but the mansion's more dangerous shadows generally stuck to its most inaccessible corners.

Bon Bao found Lady Wu in the kitchen.

She was a powerful, heavy woman. Gargogryeon, of course. Less powerful, less heavy (but still powerful and heavy) women scurried around her like ducklings. Lady Wu was chopping pig carcasses into chunks with a cleaver. Her ducklings stopped what they had been doing and bustled around Bon Bao. Lady Wu took one look and pointed at the door.

"You can't walk around in the kitchen naked!" she said. "Do you want to give everyone hepatitis? Go around back and wait for me in the hot tub!"

Bon Bao went around back – to the "riverfront" of Lady Wu's Riverfront Mansion.

Like a rock lying on a broken mirror, the monolith of Jade Palace Mound rested inside an oval of much shorter, tilted ridges. The most common myth storytellers told about the Mound was that it fell out of Heaven and broke the Earth during a great war. According to the minority report, however, the Mound bubbled up from Hell and broke the Earth after a night of wild partying. The minority version was only presented in establishments providing more adult entertainment.

The tilted ridges under Little Gargogryeo were barely bumps. That allowed easy access to the water. Lady Wu's Riverside Mansion was built on higher ground along the district's eastern edge. Even higher ground formed a granite cliff to the mansion's east. Though part of the estate, the elevated rock to the east was inappropriate for construction.

The mansion's northern boundary was a straight drop of about fifty feet to the river. There wasn't much space between the back walls of the house and the drop – but there was enough room for a hot tub. Bon Bao slipped into the oily water and enjoyed the view. There were natural hot springs in Gargogryeo. Here, the water was heated by a fire in the haunted basement. 

Bon Bao lifted an arm.

The way liquids accentuated the grooves in his muscles excited him – particularly when they splashed on his corrugated abs. Bon Bao flexed his corrugated abs and lifted them out of the water.

Hypnotizing. He lowered and raised his abs several times. Maybe Jade Palace Mound was like his rock-hard abs, and the minority myth was correct. Satisfied with both his abs and his contribution to mythological science, Bon Bao let his magnificent butt sink down to the bottom of the tub and closed his eyes. Then he put his magnificent arms behind his head. Then he lifted his heels out of the water and rested them on both sides of the tub. His bulging calves were to die for.

He wiggled, seductively.

"Come hither," he said to no one.