There can some… confusion regarding the musical instruments here, and I’m afraid it’s not always clear what exactly is being played. Two chapters ago, the Prince asked for a “qin”, which typically refers to a guqin, but can also refer to a variety of stringed instruments. Here, I swapped it for “instrument” for clarity.

Here the Prince is playing what looks like a wuxian (five-stringed) pipa, while what Golden Mask is playing is… I’m actually not sure?

It has a bent pegbox (although it seems to be bent sideways, which doesn’t make a lot of sense mechanically, so I’m assuming that despite how it looks, it’s actually bent backwards). Pipas with bent pegboxes exist (quxiang pipa), but I don’t think they ever have five strings? Additionally, on some panels it seems to have a more clear distinction between the neck and the body, rather than being pear-shaped, making it look more like a Middle-Eastern oud, plus the way Golden Mask talks about it, he seems to distinguish his own instrument from the pipa.

I’m probably vastly overthinking this, but anyway. I called him a “pipa player” here - the original phrase is ambiguous and also grammatically untranslatable to English, but I think even if it’s not actually a pipa, the phrasing still makes sense.

“The Great Zhao” - you can often see a similar expression regarding the Great Tang, but here it feels like a bit of extra emphasis on it being not just the imperial court, but the court of the Zhao dynasty - Empress Wu’s dynasty. Seems particularly significant coming from a person who was dethroned so this dynasty could exist.