Chapter 3

Chapter 3

From that day on, I became the managing madam of Yujing Tower.

The first thing I did after taking charge was count the silver, dress myself properly, and pay a visit to Mingyue Tower.

Ah Rong’s rotten gambler of a husband had only two things in his eyes: greed and lust.

She had taken home the silver Li Zuiwan gave the courtesans as dismissal pay, and in less than half a day, that man of hers had sold her off again to Mingyue Tower next door.

Li Zuiwan had made this mess, and yet here I was, forced to clean it up.

In my heart, I cursed the Grand Princess viciously, but in front of the people of Mingyue Tower, I put on a show of absolute confidence.

The manager of Mingyue Tower was not easy to talk to.

When Ah Rong was sold in, her husband had only gotten fifteen taels of silver for her.

But if I wanted to redeem her, Mingyue Tower named a price of one hundred and fifty taels.

I had finally managed to get some money out of Li Zuiwan, and before it had even warmed in my hands, I had to spend it on Ah Rong.

But there was nothing for it.

We were all in the flesh trade, true, but the manager of Mingyue Tower was especially vicious.

For the sake of style and reputation, Yujing Tower at least screened the customers for the women in the house.

Mingyue Tower, on the other hand, accepted anyone at all: hawkers, porters, and all manner of lowlife.

With Ah Rong’s beauty, if she fell into a place like that, she would be used until she was nothing but a ruined heap of flesh in less than half a month.

Still, one hundred and fifty taels of fine silver was an outrageous price.

I ground my teeth hard.

If Ah Rong had not often looked after my mother back in Yujing Tower, if she had not been such a decent sort, I would never have gone rushing to fish her out.

With a dark expression, I paid the money and brought Ah Rong and her indenture contract back to Yujing Tower.

After she had washed and tidied herself, and after the calming medicine had been placed by her bedside, I was just about to close the door and leave when she spoke.

“Xiao Chun, can you help me with something?”

I thought of how Ah Rong would always sneak me the pastries guests had left unfinished, and my heart softened.

“Sister Rong, tell me.”

“Help me kill him.”

The marks from where her husband had strangled her were still on Ah Rong’s neck, but her expression held a ferocity I had never seen in her before.

Well, now.

Back in Yujing Tower, she had often talked about how that husband of hers would one day repent, turn over a new leaf, and redeem her. Why the sudden change of heart?

“Why?” I asked, rather curious.

Ah Rong pounded the bed and burst into heart-wrenching sobs.

“That bastard deserves a thousand cuts. When I went home this time, I heard him talking to a human trafficker. He wanted to sell Xu Jie’er into a brothel…”

Xu Jie’er was Ah Rong’s own daughter. She was six this year.

I felt a ball of fire slowly begin to burn in my chest.

Men. Unless they were buried in the East City Mass Grave, they would never behave.

“If the trafficker hadn’t said Xu Jie’er was too young and too skinny, that he was afraid she wouldn’t survive long enough to raise, her own father would have sold her off right then and there…”

Ah Rong was still crying, crying until her once alluring eyes were threaded with blood.

“Xiao Chun, I heard the manager of Yujing Tower is you now. If you help me, I’ll work like an ox or a horse for you in this life and the next.”

I had no use for oxen or horses.

But I did need a trusted aide who could be of use.

So I agreed to Ah Rong’s request and called over the guards Li Zuiwan had left me.

Li Zuiwan had a girls’ academy under her name, and Xu Jie’er was just the right age to move in, study, and begin learning her letters.

Once Xu Jie’er was settled, dealing with Ah Rong’s husband was easy.

Setting a trap in a gambling house, dragging him out, and beating him half to death was very simple.

Six hours later, that night, the man was dragged into Yujing Tower covered in blood and thrown before Ah Rong and me.

“Ever killed anyone?”

I tossed a knife onto the ground and turned to look at Ah Rong.

Ah Rong’s hands were still trembling. It was the fear of facing her abuser after years of savage beatings.

Half the man’s teeth had been knocked out. He seemed to realize what was happening, and with his mangled, bloody mouth hanging open, he kept begging Ah Rong for mercy.

“Rongniang, you and I were happy once…”

It would have been better if he had not said that. The moment he did, Ah Rong’s expression changed.

“I married you when I was sixteen. I kept house for you, spun and wove for you, and you still pawned me off to a brothel to sell my body and repay your gambling debts!”

“Fine, I could accept that! I told myself I was cursed by fate and had married the wrong man! But what about Xu Jie’er?”

“Every bit of money I managed to save in the brothel, I had someone take home because I was terrified Xu Jie’er was not living well!”

“But after I finally received mercy and left that place, I found my Xu Jie’er raised by you into a dark, skinny little thing, picking up crumbs of pastries other people had dropped on the ground!”

“And you were even discussing selling her too, just to get a little more silver to spend!”

Ah Rong picked up the knife from the ground and stabbed the man hard.

But when she saw the blood staining her hands and silk skirt, she was so frightened that she fainted.

That little bit of nerve. I could not even be bothered to scold her for it.

I looked at the man, who had only been seriously wounded, then at Ah Rong, who had passed out cold, and sighed.

I had no choice but to pull the knife out of the man’s body myself and stab him again.

Killing someone for the first time did not feel wonderful. The blood on my fingers was sticky and wet.

But I knew that in the future, there would be many, many more people I would have to kill.

Sooner or later, I would have to get used to it.

So I forced myself to “appreciate” the corpse for a good while before ordering the guards to bury the man in the back garden of Yujing Tower.

When this man was alive, he had never nourished his wife or daughter. Now that he was dead, letting him nourish the flowers counted as a fitting end.

No point letting anything go to waste.