“Huh?”

The Madam was stunned for a moment, then she saw how serious the nobleman seemed, and confirmed that she hadn’t misheard him.

Her expression changed slightly, and she smiled again and spoke.

“Sir, I cannot even imagine how many powerful and wealthy individuals care for my daughter. Of course, you have a distinguished status, but there are many nobles in the capital who like her.”

The Madam looked at Hongxiu, who was actually Zhang Rui in disguise, and felt as though she had guessed some of the reasons why she currently seemed unnatural.

“Besides, I as the Mother have worked so hard to raise my daughter.¹ Although she is of lowly status, I still worry that she will endure hardship if she is ransomed, and this still depends on my daughter’s own wishes…”

Seeing the Madam chattering non-stop, and her conditions and probing, Ji Yuan interrupted her immediately.

“Madam, Miss Hongxiu is definitely willing, just name the amount.”

The Madam frowned looked at Hongxiu quietly, trying to get some hints from her expression, but Hongxiu didn’t look at her at all.

‘Wow, it seems that the other party truly is a person of great status. This girl must be relying on him and is ready to get away!’

The Madam turned back to JI Yuan with a sad face.

“Sir, this matter is not something I can decide on my own. You also know that there are countless dignitaries who like my daughter. If she leaves with you, my performance boat might not be able to bear it!”

Perhaps she sensed that the atmosphere was too strange, so the Madam reached out a hand and pulled Hongxiu to her, while giving bitter words.

“Sir, I’m going to have a few words with my daughter first. Please take a break first.”

After speaking, she pulled Hongxiu out of the room. Zhang Rui glanced at Ji Yuan, and when he nodded, she got up got up and followed the Madam out.

As soon as the two left the room, Du Guangtong turned visible once more, and Wang Li immediately asked.

“Mr. Ji, Miss Zhang was taken outside, will she be okay?”

Ji Yuan looked at him.

“What’s the matter? She’s not a weak woman.”

Wang Li immediately shut up. He had been thinking superficially, but now he remembered that the other party was not an ordinary mortal at all.

Outside, the prostitute dragged Hongxiu along the corridor and all the way into another elegant room, then closed the door before speaking.

“Daughter, why did you give in just now? All those other nobles wished to ransom you, but at most they wanted you to be a concubine, which would only last a few years before ending in misery…”

Zhang Rui forced a smile.

“Sir is different…”

“What is the difference, you can’t even smile! And if you leave, what will happen to me, your Mother? What will happen to our Daxiu Building…”

Zhang Rui just felt uncomfortable, but she was no ordinary woman, and she was skilled in seeing through people’s hearts. When she heard the Madam’s words, her face turned cold.

“Why, will life be hard without your cash cow Hongxiu? You have made so much money these past few years, but you are still not satisfied?”

“You… ah, you think you have grown wings?² What I said before was no lie, those dignitaries of of noble birth. Don’t think that just because you can chat and laugh with them on my performance boat that you are truly their equal. You are just a plaything in their eyes!”

The Madam narrowed her eyes and said what she thought was a heartbreaking sentence.

“Just like with Young Master Xiao, didn’t also you think that you met your true love? But in the end, he stopped showing up when he was tired of playing. It’s been two years, hasn’t it?”

The Madam remembered clearly that it was at that time that her daughter finally let go of her last layer of restraint.

However, she failed to see the expression she expected on Hongxiu’s face.

“Hmph, you may still get some money if you speak frankly, otherwise you will get nothing!”

Zhang Rui didn’t have the patience to speak slowly. If this didn’t work, she could always fight her way out.³ There were many women who fled from the brothels.

Hongxiu’s aggressive attitude left the madam stunned. How could Hongxiu suddenly be acting like a different person today? Had even her personality changed after getting a backer?

After thinking for a while, the Madam spoke in a gentle tone.

“Tell your Mother the truth, how powerful is that person? Can he be more powerful than the son of the Xiao family?”

Zhang Rui sneered. She didn’t know who this Young Master Xiao was, but she still had some idea of who Mr. Ji was.

She settled on a half-truth.

“The Xiao family? Haha, what does their power in this world matter in the eyes of Mr. Ji?”

The old madam was startled.

“Is he a member of the royal family? But you are no longer a virgin, how can the royal family’s children be with you?”

Zhang Ruiqiang resisted the urge to slap her, opened the door and was prepared to go out.

As a result, she opened the door only to find two muscular women and two strong male escorts standing outside.

“Daughter, you are not the right kind of person to climb up the social ladder. You are too naive and too combative. I will go persuade that gentleman. You should go back to your room and rest. You guys, send Miss Hongxiu back to her room!”

“Yes!”

The muscular woman outside responded, ready to force her to follow.

“You are courting death!”

Zhang Rui was furious and slapped the two women in the face.

The two muscular women, who weighed nearly two times as much as Hongxiu, stagged backwards as they were slapped. They took seven or eight small steps back but were still unable to stabilize their bodies in the end.

With two successive “bang” sounds, they fell down, shaking the boat.

The two men were stunned for a moment, but before they could turn around and do anything, their vision blurred and they were kicked in the crotch, fast as lightning.

“Ugh…”

“Ooooowww…”

The two male escorts turned pale, clutched their crotches, and collapsed to the ground.

“Humph! I advise you not to mess with me!”

Zhang Rui snorted coldly and left with a flick of her sleeves.

This scene shocked the Madam who watched Hongxiu leave but didn’t dare to stop her.

After a while, Zhang Rui returned to Ji Yuan’s elegant room, opened the door, and said.

“Mr. Ji, I’ve thought about it. Do we really need to care about respecting these mortals? At worst, we can just fight our way out. Either way, it will work as long as the end result is proof of Hongxiu leaving the brothel.”

In fact, it was also viable to allow Ji Yuan and the others to leave first, and Zhang Rui to escape later, but she really didn’t want to stay here for even one more moment.

Ji Yuan bowed to Zhang Rui with cupped hands in apology.

“Miss Zhang, don’t worry. Your disturbance just now worked perfectly. It’s always better not to make a big fuss when there is an option to get out safely. To put it bluntly, from the perspective of the Madam, all the women here are commodities to be sold to some extent. If the price is right, it will be easy to negotiate.”

“What if she really dares to ask for a sky-high price?”

Wang Li asked subconsciously.

“We’ll pay for it by playing some tricks. Someone will pay it later… And that someone will be that man!”

Ji Yuan thought for a while and finally spoke. Then he turned around and bowed to the River God Du Guangtong.

“River God Du, this time it’s up to you.”

Du Guangtong drank the tea in the cup in front of him, stood up, and returned the bow.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Ji. I will definitely get it done. I will take my leave first!”

“Okay, River God, take care!”

Du Guangtong then bowed slightly to Zhang Rui and Wang Li before turning into a stream of water and light, sailing out the window without waiting for the two to return the bow.

“Mr. Ji, what is the Lord River God going to do?”

Zhang Rui had just come back and didn’t know what they had been discussing before, so she was very curious. Wang Li coughed and spoke in a storyteller’s tone.

“As soon as Lord River God left, he will have gone to lead the good monsters under his jurisdiction to come ashore and disguise themselves as a team of people, bringing the ransom for Miss Hongxiu.”

They still had to keep up appearances. It was definitely not suitable for someone like Ji Yuan to take out so much wealth.

That night, there were too many things happening in Daxiu Building.

A very noble and mysterious guest came, took a fancy to Hongxiu at first sight, and wanted to ransom her.

Then came a large group of ferocious servants. Just being caught in their gaze caused sweat to beat on the backs of the more muscular servants in the Daxiu Building.

However, the fiercest one was not these outsiders, but Miss Hongxiu herself. This girl, who was proficient in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, was so fierce that night that she suppressed all the women in the Daxiu Building. More than one person sensed that the Madam was a little afraid of her.

Of course, in the end, Daxiu Building did not suffer any loss, and the wealth they obtained made the Madam smile reluctantly. Although her golden goose that laid golden eggs was gone, she still got a lot of money.

But this was all a slap in her face by her “daughter,” which pained the Madam even as she smiled.

A small box of gold, a small box of heavy pearls, and five hundred taels of gold was certainly no small amount, but the pearls were particularly precious. Each one was big and round, a type that was very difficult to buy with just money. It was enough to drive most women crazy.

The Daxiu Ship of the Daxiu Building also contained many women of good repute. They were not supported by Hongxiu alone. The loss of Hongxiu would not hurt them; they had already formed a well-practiced training model, and could immediately vigorously raise a newcomer.

In the daytime the day after, a small boat floated down the Sushui River, dozens of li outside the capital of Chengsu Prefecture. On this boat were Ji Yuan, Du Guangtong, Zhang Rui, and Wang Li.

This boat was a bit like the one that Ji Yuan had taken on the Chunmu River back then. It could easily hold seven or eight people. The one rowing the boat was Ji Yuan.

“We ‘passed off fish eyes for pearls,’⁴ the saying goes. I finally experienced it for myself last night.”

Ji Yuan smiled and chatted with Du Guangtong, who was standing beside him. The River God had been very meticulous. Ji Yuan hadn’t needed to do much afterwards.

“Hey, Mr. Ji, you are too kind. I went to find someone from the underworld of Chengsu Prefecture and checked the ransom prices of several courtesans from Daxiu Building in recent years. A few hundred taels of gold is already a sky-high price. If the individual were older or less good-looking, it would be even less. With the gold we gave, Daxiu Building won’t lose money.”

The gold they had given was all real, but the pearls were fake.

Du Guangtong had “borrowed” a box of gold from the vault of a large bank in Chengsu Prefecture. Ji Yuan would find the person who had hidden away the real Hongxiu to make up for it.

But Daxiu Building did not deserve that box of pearls in the first place. Du Guangtong would personally go “retrieve” it in a few days.

Du Guangtong hopes that the person they were going to find could not come up with the money in the end, that way he could help Mr. Ji solve his problem by finding a way to properly resolve this matter, and make the good relationship between him and Mr. Ji even more stable.

Although the Sushui River was not directly connected to the Tongtian River, there were several small canals for freight transfers that connected them. Ji Yuan was not impatient, so he planned to row to the Capital Prefecture. With his rowing speed, he could reach the capital in less than half a month.

After chatting a bit more with the River God, the latter finally bid farewell and left. Ji Yuan looked at Wang Li, who was dozing in the cabin, thought for a while, and said.

“Mr. Wang, you didn’t sleep at all last night, please rest first. When you wake up, I will have a little story to tell you, or you can compile it in a formal book.”

Wang Li let out a dazed “hmm,” leaned back in the cabin, and continued dozing off. He soon fell asleep.

T/n: Zhang Rui my QUEEN

1. Again, mother and daughter relationship is not literal
2. i.e. “you think you’re so independent?”
3. T/n: YES QUEEN
4. 鱼目混珠 (yúmùhùnzhū): lit “pass off fish eyes for pearls,” idiom that means pass off fake products for genuine. Except this time they did it literally, LOL

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read