Peerless Beauty on the Slave Block
Even in hell, there was one existence everyone dared call a peerless beauty: Yujin. She couldn't hide the flush burning across her face.
Who was Yujin? Until just recently, she'd been the wife of Shimada Kenchi, the man hailed as a political heavyweight. And that fact still held true. The only change was that the title of "political heavyweight" had vanished.
Just two days ago, Kenchi had chosen suicide as his businesses—pushed too far by reckless ambition—collapsed one after another. It was a predictable choice, really. Better to escape into death than struggle to prop up a crumbling empire.
Yujin had been that man's wife. Though the age gap between her and Kenchi was vast, no one around them had opposed the marriage. Powerhouses like him often took trophy wives—it was commonplace. Hell, you could call her daughter-aged without raising eyebrows.
Yet Kenchi's and Yujin's friends had envied them both. Whether it was the fortysix-year-old Kenchi, widowed from his first wife and now with a young beauty like Yujin... or Yujin herself, landing a power player at twenty-seven. It didn't matter who they envied. One unchangeable truth remained: Yujin possessed a beauty anyone would acknowledge.
Her sharply shadowed features, double-eyelidded large eyes, brightly shining brown irises, and jet-black hair like polished obsidian. Her nose and jawline were razor-sharp yet regal, her skin gleaming with luster. Even in a plain kimono, she shone like she wore the finest silk. And every man who laid eyes on her surely swallowed hard in secret. Her curvaceous figure didn't match her refined face at all—Kenchi's friends had undoubtedly lusted after her.
Maybe that's why they stood before her now: men she'd always seen as Kenchi's friends. The difference? Back then, she'd faced them as his wife. Now, she was the object on the Slave Auction House block.
A slave auction target—unfathomable from a modern perspective. But reality outstrips even the wildest novels, doesn't it? There was no realistic way to repay the massive debts Kenchi left behind.
Call it Kenchi's lingering grace, perhaps. Men had stepped up, offering to cover his debts. Of course, everyone knew their real aim was Yujin.
Whether that counted as grace was debatable. In any case, those men now stood before her. And they weren't just any men—they were heavyweights themselves.
Yamato Guruchi, president of one of Japan's top ten corporations, a name anyone would recognize. To Yujin, he was just "Kenchi's friend." She'd always noticed the lecherous glint in his eyes during visits to their home, so his presence here wasn't shocking.
But the other two? They stunned even her: Tojima Samaoka and Li Tianhao.
Tojima Samaoka, an old friend of Kenchi's she'd known since their first meeting. Word was he had a wife, daughter, and son. Kenchi had always said, "I want to be as family-oriented as Tojima someday." For such a man to be here? A massive shock.
She'd dared hope he might be here to save her, but his flushed face and trembling eyes dashed that illusion.
Li Tianhao she knew only as one of Kenchi's subordinates. She didn't know the details.
"Tojima-san, I never thought you'd stoop this low. I'm truly disappointed."
"Disappointed? What a naive thing to say. I'm no saintly gentleman. This is just natural."
Tojima's laugh stabbed at Yujin's heart. As she opened her mouth to retort, Yamato Guruchi raised a hand, as if displeased.
"Auctioneer, we're not people with time to spare. Do we really need to listen to this slave's prattle? Besides, there's a standard procedure for slave auctions, isn't there?"
The auctioneer flinched at his words. With targets this prominent, he'd deviated from protocol.
At the auctioneer's signal, men in fundoshi loincloths—ropes in hand—approached Yujin. Ropes? More like the cheap red cords from trashy erotic novels. Her face burned redder at the sight.
Was this how a fragile beast felt, thrown before a pack of predators? Every eye devoured her with naked lust.
The men closed in around Yujin's body, pressing the ropes against her skin. As the cord brushed her, she snapped in fury.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
She twisted wildly, thrashing. The auctioneer strode forward. Slap—the crack of a palm striking cheek echoed.
"Insolent bitch. Know your place as a slave and stop resisting."
He spat in her face.
"Hey, tie her limbs tight so this slut can't thrash around."
Yujin bit her lip in humiliated rage. The men wrenched her arms behind her back, binding her wrists securely, then looped the cord forward to cinch around her heaving breasts.
She tried to endure the shame, but failed. In the struggle, her kimono gaped open, revealing a glimpse of black lingerie between the folds.
As if to hammer home her humiliation, the men's words were vulgar filth.
"Scream all you want—let it out. Your tits are so ripe and swollen, nothing like that pretty face."
"Kenchi probably died from a heart attack fucking her, huh?"
Yujin's nipples stood stiffly erect beneath the fabric. Considering how the kimono concealed her form, it was obvious her breasts were voluptuously full. The men's reactions needed no describing.
"Ahem. Shall we begin the auction now?"
With a clearing of his throat, the proceedings finally started in earnest.
"After liquidating all real estate and assets to pay off as much debt as possible, Mr. Kenchi's remaining balance is 370 million yen. Factoring in auction fees and interest, it's estimated at roughly 400 million yen."
"Bids will proceed in sequence. Once the final bid stands for 10 seconds with no raises, the highest bidder wins."
400 million yen—nearly 39 billion won in Korean currency. A staggering sum. Few would burn that much on one woman's body, no matter how beautiful.
But the men gathered here could pay it without blinking.
"400 million yen!"
Naturally, Yamato Guruchi bid first. Tojima countered without hesitation.
"410 million yen!"
"420 million yen!"
Even quiet Li Tianhao from the corner joined in. But skyrocketing bids weren't ideal for the auctioneer. As prices climbed, the mood soured. It was his job to temper that.
His line was obvious.
"Haha, the heat is rising! Such casual spending on huge sums—mind sharing your intentions?"
Asking motives was taboo here. The purposes behind underground auctions were obviously shady. But these men's aims were transparent.
Li Tianhao fired first.
"A taxidermied president's wife? She'd fetch a fortune. Name value plus that looks—Chinese billionaires would line up. They always crave what others don't have."
"Taxidermy" darkened the atmosphere further. He'd seemed crazy, but this exceeded expectations. Tojima and Yamato's faces hardened. Yujin looked most horrified, desperate not to fall to him.
Taxidermy? Horrifying even to imagine. Already humiliated on the block, eternal display as a trophy? Titled something like The Taxidermied Woman. Too shameful to contemplate.
The other two didn't seem much better. Their bloodshot eyes told the tale: sex slavery. Yamato wanted total ownership, sadism included, befitting his nature. Tojima craved ruining Kenchi's wife.
Neither appealed to Yujin.
These were men for whom money was everything—humanity clearly lacking. Bids had hit 470 million yen, called by Tojima and Yamato. Li Tianhao, planning resale, wasn't going that high.
It boiled down to those two.
"Hold on. This isn't pocket change—we deserve a taste first, right?"
"A taste?"
The auctioneer bristled, hearing pre-bid groping.
"Not what you think. One of us will buy her anyway. We just want a show to drive the price higher."
Yamato had a point.
"Yeah, last auction, they whipped the slave for a show and jacked up bids. No reason we can't do the same."
Tojima chimed in, leaving the auctioneer in a bind. These were whales—he couldn't refuse. Last week, bids had stalled, so they'd whipped a bound slave for spectacle.
No choice.
"Understood."