Madam Wu's lips curled into a smile, but it was anything but friendly. "You may have seen many, Minister Wang, but I guarantee you, none will compare to what I have brought tonight." She looked toward the stage, where Yao Tao stood trembling, the crowd's eyes still fixed on her, hungering for what was to come.
"Now," Madam Wu said, a wicked gleam in her eye, "if Minister Wang insists on reducing the value of our most prized gem, we shall allow him to take his chance. But I would caution him to remember one thing—there are always other buyers, and there is always a price to pay."
Minister Wang's face reddened out of embarrassment and slowly, he raised up his green flag. "Give her to me!" He sneered, tossing ten thousand shellings to the ground.
"How wise of you Minister Wang." Madam Wu fell to the ground, picking up the shellings like her life depended on it. She rose from the floor, each girls being sold out at different prices until it got to my turn or should I say Jia Lian.
The room became silent, every men pouring out their priced Golden treasure to the table. "Ee have come to the end of today's bidding. I apologize that Jia Lin wouldn't be sold because someone mightier has already booked her before the auction started. Minister Zhou Chang, can you come up to the stage to take Jia Lin as your toy?"
My body coldened as the man next to the corner straightened himself up from the chair. His face was extremely calm and unreadable but within me, I felt a ripple of stiffness rise in my joints.
His strides got him on stage and coldly, he grabbed my jaws into his palms. "I finally get to see why Jia Lin is the most sought out woman in your motel. She is truly a gem waiting to see what I have beneath my legs."
God!
I so much wanted to throw up with disgust at his words and his wrinkled skin toughing my jaws was just a turn off. I was pulled down from the stage and taken away just like a puppet all this sluts were.
To be used and disposed off while the motel made hell out of money from them.
"A toast to the emperor!" She laughed with elegenace, her feet taking every inch off the stage and to her hood room.
************
The water was ice cold, every bit of it coursing through my delicate skin accompanied by a soft hand. She didn't say anything rather than nod or smile at me when I had something to say. From the blue sache she had draped over her neck, her name was Madam Yin, the chief maiden of Zhou Chang.
The one who trained the girls. The one who washed away the stains before the real defilement began.
Her touch wasn't kind, but it wasn't harsh either. Just... detached. As if she had long stopped seeing random female bodies as anything more than her duty.
"You can wait in the sauna room opposite us. I want to get Master Zhou prepared for his own bath." She excused herself and that was the ever first time I heard her speak and not just nod.
She retraced her steps out of the bathroom and gradually, her footsteps vanished. I couldn't take it anymore and shivered, rasing my frozen body out of the cold water bath.
"Who bathes in cold water? Jeez!"
"The Zhous believes that a woman who is able to withstand the iceberg water proves worthy to sleep with their master for a night."
I coughed at the sudden ntrace of Xue Lian and with her help, rose from the bath, my teeth still clattering against each other. From my timeline, bathing in cold water was to cleanse a criminal before they're beheaded.
Rolling my eyes, I donned myself in a clothing of wool made robe and proceeded out of the bathroom and into the sauna room. I sat down close to the heating tube finally getting myself back together.
"While she is at it, I bet you want to know more about Zhou Chang."
"Why do I feel you are up to something?"
Xue Lian's odd smirk only meant one thing: she went a step ahead of me. "Wear this. I have cleared the guards, no one there again."
"Smart!" I clapped my cracked hands, unfolding the towel meant for me and wearing it on. Carefully, I went around and out of the sauna, following Xue Lian.
*******
The heavy wooden door widened and I slipped through it amazed by the series of stacked up books in every shelves. As we turned the corner, I froze. A scroll floated in mid-air, glowing faintly with red seals and held above a stone pedestal.
Xue Lian's face turned serious. "That's the 'Blood Soul Binding Pact'. He uses it to enslave girls—body and soul. Once the ritual is done, they crave him, serve him, even die for him."
My stomach twisted. "So that's what tonight was supposed to be?"
She nodded. "He planned to perform the binding ritual on you. That's why Madam Yin bathed you. It's part of the preparation."
I staggered back. "So you made me dress all seductive just to be bind to him forever? I don't know if I should say you are for me or against me!"
"The system has its way. Just keep out and don't complain. I won't do anything that would hurt you or the mission" Xue Lian stepped closer to the pedestal. "The ritual is performed by the spiritual Wiseman of Zhou Chang, a dark magician. You'd have to take control before he does. We can reverse the ritual—bind him to you instead."
My fingers trembled, but I nodded. "Hence, I would be able to control him while he....he becomes my puppet? Tell me what to do."
"Not much, After Zhou Chang bath. He would pour you wine in a wooden bowl. It is normal tradition, don't drink it. It has been laced with Diazepam and Rohypnol."
"Rape drugs? Zhou Chang really knows no boundaries."
Xue Lian's nod was all I needed to get my answers. Dusting a chair, I sat down watching depictly as she took out books after books till she got what she wanted. My eyes spotted an olden carved but sacred stone behind the shelves.
"Isn't that...?" I blurted out, my hand itching to touch it and just when it did, a streak of blood flowed through my palms. I stepped away, my face deepening with a scowl. "Xue Lian, mind checking out what this is?"
I called her attention to it and hastily, she came around, pausing to examine what it was. "Never did I think I would see a Suô Hún in my decades of being alive. What manner of power do these ministers want?"
She muttered under her breath, her fingers glittering in white as she said some chants and then touched it.
A loud crashing sound echoed in the room, more like an alarm and few seconds later, it died down. I exhaled, my heart pounding thrice the rate it did on norms.
It fell to the ground, shattering and revealing a red fibered bubble like atmosphere.
"I'm not the only one hearing this right?" My ears tinged with cries out of the bubble prison and luckily I wasn't the only one who thought that.
"The cries are from girls like you. People who he defiled and trapped up here after performing the blood binding ritual on them. He feeds on their innocence and also their sufferings. Their cries enriches his power and poise."
"You telling me that....?"
"Yes. We just got closer in bringing Target 001 down to his demise."