Chapter 422
Chapter 422
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 422
>Chapter Title: Godmother
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By the time dawn broke the next morning, Lv Xiucai was woken by the pain from his wounds. Without money for an inn, he had spent the night huddled with Tao'er under an eave. Right now, he felt both cold and starving.
He was regretting now why he had squandered all that gambling winnings. If he'd saved even a little, he wouldn't be in this mess.
What despaired him even more was where to go next. He couldn't return to Cowheart Village, and he had nowhere else.
"Hubby, why don't you pawn me off as a concubine?"
"No way!"
Lv Xiucai rejected it without hesitation.
"Have you bear sons for other men? Where would I put my face!!"
Tao'er's face rarely showed a trace of sadness.
"I don't want to be sold either, but without money for food, we'll starve. My dad sold me off because we had no money for food."
Glancing sideways at her famine-yellowed face, Lv Xiucai gnashed his teeth, clenched his fist, and slammed it hard into the ground.
If only he had strength like Li Huowang's, he wouldn't have ended up like this!
No matter what, he finally pulled Tao'er to her feet and headed toward the inn where Bai Lingmiao was staying.
Just as Bai Lingmiao and Chun Xiaoman were about to set off, Lv Xiucai appeared before them again.
He really didn't want to bow to a woman, but the thought of Tao'er under another man made Lv Xiucai clench his fists tightly and grit his teeth hard as he said:
"Miss Bai, sorry about before. I was wrong. Please let me go back to Cowheart Mountain!"
"Is that how you beg? What do you call Li Huowang, and what do you call me?"
Bai Lingmiao stared at the youth before her with a hint of playfulness.
"Li Huowang is my master, so I call you... Master's Wife!"
"That's right. In this world, besides your dad, no one owes you kindness. If you want something from others, you have to give something in return."
Lv Xiucai nodded vigorously.
"Yes! Master's Wife is right!"
"Alright, follow along. By the way, where'd your wife come from?"
Bai Lingmiao's attention fixed on the woman beside Lv Xiucai.
"I bought her. Master's Wife, look over there—just like those people, bought from a human trafficker."
Bai Lingmiao followed his pointing finger. By the roadside knelt several scrawny half-grown children, dried straw stuck in the collars of their clothes. Beside them, a tall, skinny man was haggling with someone.
Seeing this scene, Chun Xiaoman suddenly remembered something, and her expression turned extremely ugly.
Bai Lingmiao patted the back of her hand, then asked Lv Xiucai:
"How much silver per person?"
"Depends on looks and build. I bought Tao'er for five taels."
Bai Lingmiao narrowed her eyes, thinking of something.
"Cowheart Village does need more people. And some of the techniques under the ancestral hall—if just the other fellow disciples practice them, it might not be enough. To get really strong, we need scale, just like my grandpa, dad, and mom back then."
Bringing in outsiders directly risked leaks, but these orphaned boys and girls had nowhere to run. She could control them easily.
Though she'd been too young to know what the Bai family did in secret, Bai Lingmiao remembered a long stretch when her clansmen lived well. During her childhood, there had been meat and eggs every day, and gold bracelets on her ankles.
And they had forced Li Huowang to burn off all his skin—that alone proved their power.
With that in mind, Bai Lingmiao walked over and immediately started negotiating prices with the human trafficker.
Seeing Bai Lingmiao buy them all regardless of size or looks, the trafficker grinned from ear to ear.
"These are my household slaves from now on, right?"
Bai Lingmiao asked the trafficker, who was weighing the silver on a small scale.
"Hey~! What're you saying, miss? We're not those barbarians from Qingqiu. The emperor himself decreed no keeping or selling slaves in Great Liang territory!"
After saying that, the trafficker chuckled again.
"These aren't your slaves at all—they're clearly your adopted son and daughters! Quick, kowtow to your godmother!"
The starved, sallow boys and girls seemed utterly numb already. They immediately knelt on the ground and prostrated themselves before Bai Lingmiao.
"Godmother!"
"Heh heh, miss, here's the deed of sale for your godkids. We're square now."
The delighted trafficker spoke without noticing the cold glint in Bai Lingmiao's eyes behind him.
"Thump thump thump."
The drums sounded. As Bai Lingmiao chanted the soldier-summoning incantation, accompanied by the drumbeat, the two gods slowly made their way toward the nearby deserted street.
"I know you hate these kinds of people. Don't worry—this guy's not making it past tomorrow."
Bai Lingmiao patted Chun Xiaoman's hand again.
"Thanks."
Chun Xiaoman slowly tucked the ritual bell back into her sleeve.
"Isn't that being too polite? Do we need to say thanks now?"
Bai Lingmiao turned to face the group of sallow, skinny boys and girls. To be honest, they really weren't much to look at—crooked melons and split dates, buckteeth and buggy eyes among them.
The good-looking, sturdy ones had been picked first; these were the leftovers. Luckily, Bai Lingmiao didn't care about that—as long as they were human, it was fine.
"Don't be scared, everyone. I bought you because the village has lots of fields that need tenants to farm. You keep sixty percent of the harvest yourselves and hand over forty percent."
Hearing this, their eyes lit up at once. After all, they were her adopted children—even keeping ten percent or nothing at all would have been fair. They'd met a good person!
"Let's go—Cowheart Mountain is still far off."
Bai Lingmiao finished and boarded the carriage directly. The group hurriedly stumbled after her.
One of the women, with a mole at the corner of her mouth, couldn't hold back her hunger any longer and spoke up.
"Godmother, could we have something to eat before we head out? We only had a sip of millet porridge yesterday. Not much—just a handful of grain."
For these people, the traffickers of course cut costs however they could—as long as they didn't starve to death.
"What's 'something to eat'? So stingy! If you're eating, eat till you're full!"
Bai Lingmiao tossed out a big bag of rations.
Seeing this, Chun Xiaoman smiled knowingly. Miao'miao's personality might have grown bolder, but her kindness was the same as ever.
Seeing the coarse-grain steamed buns, flatbreads, and jerky inside, they grew uncontrollably excited and swarmed around, wolfing it all down.
"I was first! Make way!"
Lv Xiucai shoved his way in. When he came back out, he stuffed four coarse-grain buns into Tao'er's arms and gnawed voraciously on the jerky in his hand.
As he chewed, he said to Bai Lingmiao in the carriage:
"Master's Wife, these kids are total wildlings—no manners at all. How about I manage them on the road?"
After shouting it the first time, it came easier each time after.
He had figured it out by now. She was right—without strength, nothing mattered. Bow when you had to; it cost no flesh off his bones.
"No, you can't do anything right. You can't even hide your resentment toward me."
Lv Xiucai panicked inside and denied it hastily.
"Master's Wife, how could I resent you? You're my master's wife."
"True—you're afraid that if you actually did something, Li Huowang would make your life hell."
These words made Lv Xiucai's body shudder. The bloody scenes flashing through his mind made the jerky in his mouth impossible to swallow.
Bai Lingmiao rested her head against the carriage window as she looked down at Lv Xiucai.
"So utterly useless—must feel frustrating, right? I have a method here that can let you cultivate supernatural powers. Want to give it a try?"
Lv Xiucai threw his head back to look at Bai Lingmiao. Recalling how that blind man had effortlessly taken a life that night, he nodded vigorously.
"Good!"
"Who's this stinking woman looking down on? What does she mean 'utterly useless'! I'm just a talent gone unrecognized! Just give me a chance, and I'll definitely become stronger than Li Huowang!!"
(End of chapter)