Chapter 149 -

Chapter 149: Chapter

Ruizhe picked up the papers with trembling hands, his dark eyes skimming the heavy black ink. As he read the words aloud, his voice turned sharp with pure disbelief and humiliation.

"A labor contract?!" Ruizhe gasped, his head snapping up to stare at Yimei in total shock. "You want us to work in your shop?! Sweep the floors, carry heavy sacks of grain, scrub grease off the tables, and do menial chores under your orders?! I am a scholar! I am meant to sit for the imperial examinations! How can you ask me to do servant work in a shop for everyone in the village to see?!"

Second Uncle Chengang, still bleeding and gasping for breath on the floor, let out a choked, furious roar. "You wicked girl! You want me your elder, the second master of this family to act as your shop hand and carry heavy loads like a mule?!" 𝐟𝒓ℯⅇ

"I am giving you a choice, Second Uncle," Yimei replied smoothly, her voice as flat and icy as a winter breeze. She didn’t even look up as she adjusted her silk sleeves. "I am simply asking for honest labor in return for sixty taels of hard silver. You can choose to swallow your pride, work in my shop, and save your daughter... or you can let Xuiying spend the rest of her youth in a border brothel. I’m sure she will appreciate her father and brother keeping their precious hands clean while she carries heavy chains."

Listening from the side, Wenxui and Shishi couldn’t hold back their disgust any longer. They stepped forward alongside An Yulan, their faces twisted in sneers as they pointed fingers at Yimei.

"Yimei, you are truly a heartless monster!" Wenxui shrieked, her voice echoing off the high wooden beams. "How dare you humiliate your own second branch like this! You want your own family members to work like common laborers?!"

"That’s right!" Shishi chimed in loudly, pouting with pure hatred. "Acting like a high and mighty queen just because you hold a bit of silver! You are shameless! A proper sister-in-law would bow her head and help her family without forcing her elders and brothers to scrub floors for her!"

An Yulan crossed her arms, spitting on the floor near Yimei’s feet with a loud huff. "A woman with such a dark, twisted heart will bring nothing but curses to this household! Zhengyu ought to beat you until you learn how to treat your family!"

Yimei casually rested her chin in her hand. She turned her head slowly, her pitch-black eyes locking onto the three women with a gaze so dark and freezing it instantly choked the noise right out of their throats.

"Have you three finished shouting?" Yimei asked softly, her clear voice cutting through the hall like a razor blade.

Wenxui and Shishi flinched, instinctively taking a step back behind An Yulan.

"You talk about family respect," Yimei said, her lips curving into a cold, mocking smirk. "Yet when your own brother and father dragged a young girl out in a burlap sack to sell her for twenty taels, not one of you opened your useless mouths to stop them. You were too busy dreaming about the fresh meat and fine wine their blood money would buy you."

Yimei stood up slowly from her chair, taking a calm step toward An Yulan. An Yulan shrank back immediately, her hands flying up to cover her head as she remembered the beating at the inn.

"If you care so much about family dignity, An Yulan," Yimei continued smoothly, staring her dead in the eye, "why don’t you pull out another piece of stolen jewelry from your husband’s pockets and pay the sixty taels yourself? No? You don’t have a single copper? Then shut your mouth and sit in the corner like the useless mouth you are."

An Yulan’s face turned beet red, but she didn’t dare utter another word under Yimei’s sharp stare.

Yimei completely ignored her, turning her razor-sharp gaze toward Madame Liu, who was kneeling on the floor, clutching her chest and crying in pure desperation for her daughter.

"What about you, Aunt Liu?" Yimei asked calmly. "Do you agree with them? Should I take my sixty taels back to my room and leave Xuiying to her fate?"

Madame Liu’s face paled completely. She didn’t care about dignity, shop work, or family pride anymore, all she cared about was saving Xuiying before the traffickers took her away forever.

"No! I agree! We agree!" Madame Liu cried out frantically, wiping her tears with her dirty sleeve.

"Mother! Have you lost your mind?!" Ruizhe shouted in horror. "We will be disgraced!"

"Shut up!" Madame Liu screamed at her son, her eyes wild with motherly anger. "It is your sister’s life on the line! If you don’t work, she dies! If your father doesn’t work, she is ruined!"

Without waiting another second, Madame Liu grabbed the contract papers off the table. She bit her thumb until blood welled up, pressing her bloody thumbprint firmly onto the bottom of the page.

She turned around and grabbed Chengang by his hair, shoving his bloodied face toward the table. "Sign it! Sign it right now, you useless brute! Sign it and go bring my daughter back!"

Chengang sobbed in humiliation, but under his wife’s wild frenzy and Yimei’s icy stare, he bit his thumb and pressed his mark onto the paper. Madame Liu then turned to Ruizhe, shoving his hand onto the ink page until all three thumbprints were secured on the labor agreement.

Yimei picked up the signed documents, blew gently on the wet red ink, and handed the heavy pouch of sixty taels directly to Liu Feng.

"Liu Feng," Yimei commanded, her voice ringing clear across the silent hall. "Go with them to the border market. Ensure the slave traders hand Xuiying back safely... and make sure these two don’t lose my silver on the way."

"Yes, Young Madame," Liu Feng replied, his hand resting firmly on his sword as he gestured cold-bloodedly for Chengang and Ruizhe to lead the way out.