Zhao Yushu flicked out a stack of one-hundred-tael[1]A tael, or liang, was a traditional Chinese unit of weight used to reckon silver and other goods; its weight varied across periods. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3735806_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3735806_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); banknotes and fanned herself with them.
“Bring me the best you’ve got. Money’s the one thing I have plenty of!”
The young attendant’s eyes lit up at once.
“Of course, of course! Please wait a moment, honored guest. Have some tea while I go fetch the goods!”
He called over two maids to serve tea, then hurried off toward the rear courtyard.
Before long, while the tea was still steaming, the attendant returned. Behind him stood a row of cages, each holding an adult man kneeling inside.
He said eagerly, “Young Master, these are all the Black Cudgels in our shop. Have a look—does anyone catch your eye?”
Black Cudgels were slaves with unusually powerful builds and strength far beyond that of ordinary people. Bought for a household, they made excellent guards or enforcers.
Zhao Yushu stepped forward to inspect them. Of the four men in the cages, three were especially large and looked strong and sturdy.
She nodded in satisfaction and pointed to the three. “I’ll take these. Bring me their slave contracts!”
The attendant beamed. “Right away, honored guest. I’ll have someone fetch their registration papers.”
Then the one cage she hadn’t chosen stirred. Its occupant was a little slighter than the others, and looked like a boy of fifteen or sixteen who hadn’t yet finished growing. He spoke up.
“Take me too.” His voice was hoarse and unpleasant, still breaking.
Zhao Yushu paused and looked at him in confusion. The boy seemed weak, not like someone who could endure hardship; she had ruled him out at first glance.
He was filthy, his tangled hair covering half his face. The skin he had exposed was caked with mud, and he looked utterly wretched.
“I’m buying men to do hard labor,” Zhao Yushu told him. “You’re still young. You won’t be able to handle it.”
But the boy only grew more agitated. He seized the iron bars with both hands.
“I can do it! Buy me. I can endure any hardship. I’m stronger than all three of them put together!”
When he exposed his hands, Zhao Yushu’s heart gave a jolt.
On his right hand, beside his little finger, was another finger.
He was born different from ordinary people—with eleven fingers in all!
A name flashed through Zhao Yushu’s mind: He Jinghong.
Prince Jin’s foremost general, a young commander who had taken charge of a hundred thousand troops at just eighteen and was famed for never losing a battle. Everyone knew he possessed extraordinary strength and peerless martial skills.
When she had served Prince Jin at close quarters, Zhao Yushu had once seen him in the military tent. That meant she knew a little more than most: He Jinghong had six fingers on his right hand. He was a rare and remarkable man.
At the sudden sight of that hand, Zhao Yushu’s heart lurched. She bent quickly to examine the caged boy’s face more carefully.
“What’s your name?”
The boy curled his fingers—a reflexive gesture of wariness. After hesitating for a moment, he said quietly, “This slave is called Xiaohe.”
Xiaohe?! Zhao Yushu was overcome with delight. It really was him—just as she’d thought!
She turned to the attendant, who had just returned with the slave papers for the other three.
“Quickly, bring me this one’s papers too. I’m taking him as well!”
Once she had the slave papers, Zhao Yushu let the men out of their cages one by one.
All four had been starved for a long time. Once out, every one of them looked sallow and gaunt, little more than skin and bones.
“From this moment on, I am your master. You will obey my orders and do as I say. If any of you disobey or pretend to comply while secretly defying me, you’ll die!”
Slaves in this dynasty had lives worth little. Whoever held their slave papers held their lives in their hands.
After hearing Zhao Yushu’s words, the four men knelt without hesitation.
“This slave greets Master and will obey Master’s instructions!”
Zhao Yushu stood before them and accepted their obeisance without demur. Only after they had finished bowing did she make a small gesture for them to rise.
Then she softened her tone, offering both kindness and warning.
“Of course, you needn’t worry. I’m not a bad person, and I won’t ask you to do anything dangerous.”
“If you serve me loyally and prove yourselves, changing your status so you can live as free people again won’t be difficult.”
What? They might actually have a chance to become free men again?
At her words, all four looked up at once. The eyes of three of them shone with delight.
Only Xiaohe pressed his thin lips together. Beneath the mud covering his face, his expression was hard to read.
Zhao Yushu noticed his reaction and sighed inwardly. She didn’t know what he had gone through in her previous life.
At eighteen, he had swept across the battlefield and won the greatest honors. But she knew that gaining power too young was not necessarily a good thing for him.
At nineteen, he had died in battle, his body mutilated. It had been Zhao Yushu who led people into a pit filled with ten thousand corpses and found his body by the distinctive hand.
They had both been pawns. In the end, both had lost their lives at the hands of the players moving them.
In this life, since fate had brought them together early, Zhao Yushu had no intention of letting him take the same road again.
Rather than fight across the land only to die for nothing, he would be better off cherishing his own life. She would give him a peaceful future, one better than a gruesome death.
Zhao Yushu walked up to Xiaohe and looked down at him.
“You dared to speak up for yourself just now, so you must be brave and good with people. I need someone like you. Would you be willing to lead the four of you and serve me?”
Xiaohe looked astonished. He hadn’t expected the person who had just been unwilling to take him along to show him favor now.
But a moment later, he dropped to one knee and made an impassioned bow.
“Thank you for recognizing me, Master. Xiaohe will obey your every command and never shrink from death!”
Seeing this, the other three knelt again in unison.
“We will obey your every command, Master. We will not shrink from death!”
The attendant watched Zhao Yushu leave with the men, smiling as he counted the banknotes.
He’d gotten rid of four at once—and even sold the six-fingered freak, the hardest one to shift. What a windfall. He’d really met the God of Wealth[2]Caishen is a Chinese deity associated with wealth and prosperity, often invoked when hoping for good fortune in business. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3735806_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3735806_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); today.
Just then, the door of the slave-brokers’ shop was pushed open. A young man strode inside. His features were ordinary, utterly unremarkable, but his presence was sharp and cold. He was like a sword sheathed in its scabbard; anyone could sense at a glance that he was dangerous and not to be provoked.
He headed straight for the attendant and said, “I heard you took in a six-fingered freak. Bring him out. My master wants to buy him!”
At some point, a carriage had appeared outside the slave-brokers’ shop.
It was pitch-black from end to end, without a single ornament, and looked exceedingly plain.
Yet it was made from the sturdiest, most expensive timber. It could keep out snakes, insects, rats, and mice—and even blades and arrows.
Inside, a man dressed in black sat alone, leaning back lazily with one hand propping up his chin.
Half of his face was covered by a silver mask, hiding his upper features completely.
Below it, his nose was high-bridged, his jawline sharp, and his thin lips lightly pressed together, their curve both dangerous and alluring.
It was none other than Prince Jin, whom the Sage had rejected when he was thirteen, granting him the bitter, desolate lands of the Northern Frontier as his fief. Afterward, the Prince had been ordered not to return to the capital without an imperial summons.
At that moment, his eyes were closed as he sank into a nightmare.
In the dream, thin smoke curled from an incense burner. A woman in green sat on the floor.
She looked to be in her early twenties, with a graceful, voluptuous figure.
Her waist was slender as a willow, and her fingers long and jade-white. She sat by the bathing pool, her clothes half-slipped from her shoulders, her skirt draped lightly around her legs.
Beneath it, her bare feet were as white as jade, without shoes or stockings, exposed to the air like two tiny lotus blossoms.
Dragon’s-breath incense burned silently. The woman’s face was veiled by the drifting smoke, dreamlike and indistinct, impossible to make out clearly.
But her figure alone was enough to evoke a lingering, bewitching allure.
In the dream, he walked toward her and stretched out an arm, gathering her fragrant body into his embrace.
The woman seemed like a bewitching creature from a Strange Tales story, seductive and bold.
When he held her, she did not panic. Instead, she welcomed him, her hands sliding beneath the front of his robe.
Her voice was soft and enticing. “Your Highness’s heart is beating so fast. Did I pass today’s test?”
Prince Jin’s heart pounded like a drum, and all his senses tensed and grew hot wherever her fingers touched him.
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