The Celestial Whore 1- Siege

10th CENTURY. ANNAM PROVINCE

“...You did her right?”

Her curious voice was like silk, and the delirious, sweet gentle way she said it, with the perfect curve of her drunk lips sounded both lost and aroused.

But her eyes, her drunken eyes, stayed on the pretty, head which laid before her. .

As if she was infatuated its blood shed. And his part in having taken it.

“Yes...my lady.”

This was all to his surprise of course, and for some hours this day, he had indeed wondered who had taken it off from the high stake pierced on the battlements. Now apparently, had placed it in front of her, of all women. The only woman left in this fortress that is. Naked that is. Utterly naked before him, and utterly did not care about the scandalous intrusion of his eyes, nor the copious, indecent, leakage of oily slime divulged from her soft, folded legs.

Instead, he could tell, she simply watched that once- bewitching head, with its jet black coiffures and mother- of- pearl hairpins, lying in the thin gore of its blood, its half opened, forever parted rouged lips like a fish's at a market fish stall.

“You are very good.”

She was marveling at it. His handiwork, enthralled.

Her drunk, smiling eyes were raking leisurely over it.

The head of her long, grievous, rival.

Considering the realities of a decapitation, and the current state of that bitch's headless discarded body, resting bent over beside the barrack urinal, stuffed with enough to be pregnant by each soldier several times over had she been still alive, and of the happy dogs claiming her yawning, congee squirting holes. The head it left behind was a work of some art. She only looked like she was asleep and, like a bulb of some flower, plucked away while left her dreaming.

But instead of~ as he had expected, his Lady gloating with esurient delight as he had initially thought upon spotting her own wad of lacquer on the floorboards. Instead. The way she asked of it, of that once- hated head, was more like she was asking of her long departed friend. Of the faint, half- formed O, dying in only a sigh.

Oh that she had shared the same husband with that dead woman, all knew. All the garrison here knows. For the last decade pretty much. As they interchangeably destroyed each other over that pig-in-armor's lustful attention. But friends? They were the furthest thing.

**In the conservative Confucian societies of East Asia including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, much like the Islamic world, polygamy was practiced. East Asia counted wife (which usually is regarded as the official wife of the husband- and thereby the clan) while additional married women were designated as concubines. Concubines were counted as part of the family in census and burials, but often they have a much more precarious position than the wives.

The war did this to her. He thought.

The killing did. The killing of her son did. Helped by that rival bitch.

And yes, she should not be here. Here enough to be stuck with the legion of armored men, doomed armored men that is, already watching that outer city killed away. Leaving her here with them. All that pigheaded dreamer got left, left with them.

The fool, with more pretension than an actor, and his bid for the Mandate of Heaven. And his punishment. His soldiers, his Nam treasures, his lust pets. Here, the bonfire funeral pyre for his vanity. And he won't even be here. Just his war, on autopilot.

But his son did. His son with her that is. What's left of Ah Yao's pieces, ...and his head.

They may call her the Người Hoa chó cái tuyết, the "Snow Bitch" from the cities, the leering village men certainly did, his mother and sisters certainly did, as did his little nieces too~

After all, behind their snowy backs, all joke that these ghosts are as depraved as devils.

**Story takes place during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, entering in this time, Annam, of what is today's Vietnam was still part of a larger Chinese empire. Despite this, the locals retained their distinctive language, and local prejudice against haughty Chinese Hoa (Chinese) governors appointed from the northern metropolises. Over time the native Viets achieved ever greater local autonomy as many local Chinese warlords destroyed each other.

But what mother, even Hoa Snow Bitches, could see her own son butchered beneath those walls? Made into pieces before her eyes. And not mind his head, and limbs, and armor staked high on poles under these walls facing her?

“Oh” she gasped.

As if for the first time, piercing through the haze of her wine, truly sense he was here, as herself.

“You've came.” Then seem to remembered she had greeted him.

Daintily, she wetting her red- painted lips. And, with some propriety made a fuss to smoothed out some wires of her stray hair.

“Yes,” she added, clearing her throat with her gentle throat, a desperate attempt to remaster herself. “Yes, you are very good.”

Then, realizing her body, realized that his eyes had already long ago seen the puddle of her own making beneath her hips, like sap of a wounded rubber tree, she realized she was seen in her during her excitement.

Somehow, she always knew it was him. Even without him announcing himself. And...though he do not think she ever knew his name, she knew him, to an extent.

But instead of castigating his forbidden gaze, or his presence here, of which she was sure she had likely personally summoned him to see her thus, she turned to him. And with her, the fullness of her swelling white bosoms.

Then he saw it, her puffy eyes, swollen by tears and covered by kohl and abalone shell powder. But her eyes were not bloodshot and haunted by her son's gore, as had been like it was in the previous fortnight, they were alight with kindness. And an intoxicated smile, totally unbecoming of her shy old self, like the world told her a secret joke that only she knew.

“As you can see, I have done away with all my shame.”

A strangely girlish voice, a nubile voice several octaves higher than her usual controlled demeanor. And he was unsure whether it was the wine talking or that this was actually her real voice.

And as she turned more fully to him. Her naked supple legs parted, and for the briefest of moments saw several spider silk of her sticky sap clinging between her exposed hips and the boards.

“...and all my fears.” she swallowed, repressing a gurgle of wine. And a smile blossomed.

“I...” she began, exactly and explanatory, “had began to fear for so much when Ah Yao was conceived...”

“...without Ah Ya...” in that flicker of his name, which dissolved in a whisper,

“There won't be anything, every day that is new.” her face balled, lost in the haunting flashes of him that only she could see. She wrestled with her drooling face that held his name like a treasure.

Ah Yao was also his baby name, which was not used again by most when his balls dropped and started wearing training armors. But was still only used by his mother.

“Grew up so fast.” this time, amorously with tears as if only to herself. And her glossy eyes began to liven. A faint flirtatious blush.

"It's nothing mother. The lads are waiting for me."

“Oh he loved Amber Pork so...” kindly to the misty, half formed sticky memory which only she could see. Which, with drink, lived again before her eyes. “I always spoiled him...” this time, greedily and fully girlish. 

“So you see~ I won't mind be nothing” her smiling face returned.

He could smell it,

There was something crisp mixed with her usual distinctive cool perfume of tea rose and jasmine, her perspiring excitement which fires up every pore of her gorgeous, unaged body. No, it would seem, that the wine, the miraculous wine for those moment gave her back Ao Yao, despite his current state. And flesh and likeness upon that well- rotted heartbreaking face.

“He was...even beginning to challenge his father...” he was not sure if these words were meant for him or didn't know if someone else was listening, that she was talking to herself, or to the old ghosts that lived in that fortress's manor room, or the absent God. Then she found herself, and realized she was mumbling.

Awoken once more, her soft eyes flickered,

Sparing a measuring look at him

Then, the priceless woman turned to him, this time yearningly, displaying a reverent lowering of her full hips as she bent to his direction. The kind that he only saw she did to her lord-commander husband and his pompous colleagues at banquets.

“Sh~ should I leave, my Lady?”

She licked her lips.

“No my friend, you will take away all my tears”

At last he realized. What the spark was.

When she was regarding that expertly, artfully severed head.

It was envy.

She...would allow them to make it look like a mutiny.

And those hateful soldiers outside, and their general, who had gibbeted her son will know, that the righteous garrison men inside had slew the both of the Hoa Bitches that had resisted their doomed siege. Like the former, now she would happily give him the proof of the second.

STORY CONTINUED IN PART 2