Chapter 146| Chapter 147| Chapter 148
Chapter 146: Ling’er Crying Secretly
“Miss Qing’er, don’t you worry! The next time those traffickers come looking for me, I will absolutely tip you off first! I swear I’ll never cooperate with them to hurt anyone ever again!” Staring at Lu Yunxi’s utterly expressionless face, Fengxian gritted her teeth and made a solemn vow.
Lu Yunxi’s features softened just a fraction. “Very well. I won’t make things difficult for you this time, but since you’ve been actively causing me trouble, you owe me proper compensation.”
Fengxian’s face fell. She was so consumed by instant regret that she came dangerously close to bursting into tears on the spot. She had only agreed to help those traffickers because they had randomly done her a favor in the past and had paid her well for this hit—but this time, she was absolutely going to lose money on the deal!
An powerhouse like Qing’er was clearly not someone to be trifled with. Fengxian had no idea how much coin she would have to fork over to fully appease her wrath and ensure her own safety.
“You… you’re entirely right!” She gritted her teeth, forcing a tight, miserable smile onto her face. “How much do you think is a fair amount for me to compensate you?”
Lu Yunxi offered a faint smile. “I have no use for your money. Instead, you will feed me any and all valuable intelligence you manage to acquire.”
Sweeping her eyes over the room’s decor, it was obvious Fengxian hadn’t actually amassed much of a personal fortune over the years, so squeezing her for coin wouldn’t yield much. It was far more practical to turn a seasoned courtesan who had navigated the Fengyue Tower for years into a personal information broker.
Fengxian blinked in surprise, then quickly nodded in rapid succession, offering eager assurances. “Miss Qing’er, please rest assured! The moment any news reaches my quarters, I will deliver it straight to you!”
With the issue of Fengxian thoroughly settled, Lu Yunxi’s daily existence inside the Fengyue Tower became exceptionally smooth.
However, her peaceful streak only lasted for two brief days. When she returned to her quarters to rest one afternoon, she caught the faint, distinct sound of Ling’er hiding beneath her quilt, crying secretly. Had it not been for her Grandmaster-level sensory stats, she might have missed the muffled weeping entirely.
Although their living quarters technically consisted of a large, communal dormitory, the severe staff shortage meant that she and Ling’er were currently the only two handymen assigned to the room.
Staring at the trembling lump under the blanket, which made Ling’er look exactly like a curled-up silkworm, Lu Yunxi took a step forward to offer some comfort, but hesitated mid-stride. Ling’er was explicitly hiding herself to weep in isolation; it was highly likely she didn’t want anyone to witness her breakdown.
After a moment of deliberation, Lu Yunxi decided it was best to feign ignorance.
Putting herself in the girl’s shoes, if she were to ever suffer a complete emotional collapse, she wouldn’t want an audience either—it would simply be too embarrassing. It was better to give Ling’er a couple of days to stabilize her mood before gently asking her what was wrong.
Unfortunately, the universe rarely adhered to expectations.
Before Lu Yunxi could even find a proper window to approach her and assess the situation, a devastating piece of news swept through the servants’ quarters—Ling’er was being sold off.
The moment her afternoon classes concluded for the day, Lu Yunxi sprinted straight back to the dormitory.
Inside, Ling’er was quietly packing her meager belongings, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. Though she was technically packing, the rough bedding and mattress belonged to the establishment and had to be left behind for the next unfortunate girl who took her place. The only item in the entire room that truly belonged to her was a single, faded gray linen dress.
Staring at Ling’er’s heavily swollen, bloodshot eyes, Lu Yunxi’s heart sank into a cold pit.
“Ling’er, what is going on…” she asked, her voice laced with deep concern.
Under normal circumstances, escaping a red-light district like the Fengyue Tower was a dream most girls could only pray for. But Master Bao had already clued her into the grim reality of the trade: the Madam had already signed the contract with a notorious human trafficker. The girls sold off through those specific channels invariably ended up in far more horrific, abusive environments. It was virtually impossible for them to be transferred to a better life.
Ling’er was weeping so bitterly precisely because she understood the horrific fate awaiting her.
Lu Yunxi felt completely out of her depth, her mind racing frantically as she tried to conceptualize some form of comfort.
“Don’t worry about me, Qing’er, I’m really fine,” Ling’er murmured, wiping her face and sniffing hard as she forced a frail smile. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up being sold to a wealthy estate to work as a domestic maid! I’ve heard the servants in those grand households eat exceptionally well—they might even get served real meat!”
With that desperate, optimistic thought, she reached into her small wooden locker, rummaged beneath her mattress, and fished out two pristine copper coins, pressing them firmly into Lu Yunxi’s hand. “I won’t have any need for pocket change once I’m serving a wealthy family. This is the money I managed to save up over the past year. Please, take it and spend it well.”
Staring down at the two copper pieces resting in her palm, Lu Yunxi slowly rubbed her thumb over the metal. The coins were visibly worn down from being held tightly in small hands, yet they were immaculately clean. It was painfully obvious that their previous owner had treasured them deeply, constantly polishing the metal with a scrap of cloth.
A heavy, suffocating sensation settled over Lu Yunxi’s chest.
When she had first spawned into this region, neither the thugs who had abducted her nor the staff running the Fengyue Tower posed any real threat to her stats. Because she was functionally invincible, she had navigated her captivity with complete detachment, viewing the entire ordeal like an amusing, immersive theatrical performance.
But now that a genuine tragedy was unfolding right in front of her eyes, she felt a profound, deeply unsettling wave of anger.
“Ling’er, is there truly no other way? Can’t I just pay the Madam to buy out your contract? Or, once the traffickers drag you out of the city, I can arrange for someone to covertly intercept the carriage and buy you back…”
Ling’er blinked in surprise, then slowly shook her head, a hollow look in her eyes. “It’s useless, Qing’er. Buying a human life out of a contract requires an astronomical amount of silver. Besides, the trafficker the Madam hired is her personal agent; he specializes in transporting girls to incredibly remote, isolated territories where no one can ever trace them.”
She had slaved away in this building for an entire year just to accumulate two measly coppers. Qing’er had only just arrived as a penniless captive; where on earth was she supposed to conjure a fortune in silver?
Lu Yunxi lowered her head, her gaze hardening as she sank into deep, calculated thought.
That very afternoon.
The collection of girls selected for the quarterly liquidation were assembled in the main hall, their faces pale masks of sheer confusion and existential dread regarding their impending futures.
However, right before the human traffickers could arrive to load them into the transport carts, an unexpected bulletin disrupted the entire operation: the Madam had suddenly fallen critically ill.
Deep within the backyard of the Fengyue Tower, inside a lavishly appointed, private courtyard.
A dense crowd of hostesses and courtesans of varying ranks had gathered together, speaking in hushed, urgent whispers as their glances continuously darted toward the closed master bedchamber. The women harbored entirely mixed emotions—some faces were twisted in poorly concealed schadenfreude, others showed mild anxiety, and a few maintained entirely blank expressions. But regardless of their internal politics, every single woman in the courtyard felt a profound, secret sense of relief.
This was especially true for the terrified girls who had been slated for the slave carts.
The sudden medical emergency had bought them a critical reprieve. Even if the liquidation sale went through eventually, the logistics would be delayed by at least several days.
As the courtesans navigated their private thoughts, the heavy wooden doors accented with ornate gold molding swung open.
The leading courtesan immediately glided forward, her brow knit with an expression of intense worry as she pressed for answers. “Physician, how fares our Mother?”
The elderly doctor stepped across the threshold, calmly stroking his long white beard as he delivered his diagnosis. “It appears she has simply contracted a severe environmental chill, which has caused her core temperature to plummet drastically. Have her staff layer additional heavy quilts over her bed to induce sweating. Once she breaks the fever, she will recover perfectly fine.”
“So… there is no need to prescribe any medicinal draughts?” the courtesan asked, a flash of surprise crossing her features.
The old physician merely shook his head in silence, stepping past the crowd and departing the estate without another word.
The courtyard plunged into a dead, knowing silence.
Though no one voiced the thought aloud, every woman present understood the implicit truth of the situation. While the Fengyue Tower didn’t pull in the astronomical profit margins of the capital’s premier mega-brothels, its nightly revenue stream was still incredibly lucrative, generating a massive fortune each day. Yet, the Madam was notoriously, pathologically stingy when it came to expenditures.
Even for the elite courtesans, while their baseline daily meals were decent, that was the absolute ceiling of the establishment’s generosity. If a girl harbored a craving for premium delicacies like abalone or ginseng, she had to personally bribe the kitchen staff out of her own pocket, because the house budget would never cover it.
The Madam’s legendary tight-fistedness was so absolute that even when her own physical vessel broke down from disease, she refused to spend a single copper on proper prescription medicine.
Night fell.
The moment Lu Yunxi returned to the servants’ quarters, she caught the look of absolute relief laced with lingering panic written all over Ling’er’s face. She offered a small smile, pitching her voice to sound thoroughly comforting. “You can rest easy tonight, Ling’er. A standard environmental fever usually takes a week or two to fully clear out of a mortal system. Tomorrow, I’ll sneak out of the district to see if there are any…”
Before she could even finish her sentence, Ling’er let out a sharp, terrified gasp, her hand flying out to frantically clap over Lu Yunxi’s mouth to silence her.
Ling’er scanned the empty corridor in an absolute panic, ensuring no one was lurking outside the door. Dropping her hand, she exhaled a shuddering breath and glared at her roommate. “Are you entirely insane?! You absolute fool! You must never utter such treasonous things aloud under this roof! If an informant catches you celebrating the Madam’s illness, you’ll be skinned alive, and there won’t be a single thing I can do to shield you!”
The corners of Lu Yunxi’s lips curved into a confident smirk, her tone dripping with subtle amusement. “Don’t worry.”
She knew with absolute certainty that they were safe—because the Madam hadn’t contracted a random environmental chill at all. Lu Yunxi had personally spiked her evening tea with a highly specialized toxic compound.
The substance carried absolutely no adverse long-term effects on human biology. In fact, once the chemical cycle concluded, the target’s internal organs would be thoroughly purged of latent impurities, leaving them significantly healthier than before. But the true beauty of the formulation lay in its incredibly specific, excruciating manifestation period: while it was actively reforming the body, it triggered intense phantom symptoms that lasted for a minimum of three consecutive months.
In other words, for the next ninety days, the Madam would be entirely paralyzed by a rotating carousel of phantom aches, sudden fevers, and agonizing chills, leaving her with absolutely zero cognitive energy to oversee the estate’s logistics or execute slave sales.
Lu Yunxi maintained her smug, relaxed smile, completely failing to notice the faint look of deep suspicion flickering across Ling’er’s face.
Qing’er… seems remarkably certain about the timeline.
Following the sudden incapacitation of the Madam, an unprecedented era of absolute comfort descended upon the inhabitants of the Fengyue Tower. The highly ambitious courtesans utilized the lapse in supervision to aggressively grind their parameters and rehearse their arts, while the more laid-back staff members happily slacked off, indulging in a period of pure relaxation.
Unfortunately, the golden age was abruptly cut short.
Out of nowhere, Lu Yunxi received a direct order from the acting management: the Madam had requested her immediate transfer to the main entertainment hall to serve the clientele.
Naturally, the assignment didn’t involve sweeping floors or wiping down tables.
Recognizing the shift, Lu Yunxi offered no resistance, submissively reporting straight to the main pavilion as ordered.
The entertainment hall at night was a chaotic, deafening sensory overload—vibrant courtesans twirled across the center stage in a blur of singing and dancing, while crowds of wealthy patrons packed the surrounding tables. Some audience members clapped rhythmically to the music, others slumped over in varying states of slurred intoxication, and groups of affluent merchants traded rowdy jokes, laughing boisterously over the din.
Lu Yunxi paid no attention to the patrons. Her gaze was locked onto her system interface, watching her experience bar steadily tick upward in real time. The sensation of passive, consistent optimization was so profoundly satisfying it felt exactly like downing an ice-cold cola in the dead of summer.
However, slacking off in a den of debauchery was never a simple task.
“Hey! Little maid over there!” a slurred, booming shout erupted from a nearby table. A heavily intoxicated patron waved an aggressive hand in her direction. “Get your rear over here and pour me some more wine!”
Chapter 147: Guests
Lu Yunxi stepped forward dutifully to pour the man’s wine, but before she could finish, her arm was suddenly seized.
The patron, reeking of stale alcohol, let out a booming laugh and yanked hard, attempting to drag her into his lap. “Come on, little lady! Have a drink with your master!”
However—
He pulled with all his might, but the young maid stood rooted to the spot, entirely unmovable.
The patron: ???
How strange! How could a scrawny little serving girl possess such terrifying core strength? He couldn’t budge her an inch!
Unfortunately, his alcohol-soaked brain was completely incapable of processing the anomaly. Shaking his head to clear his vision, he prepared to flash a wicked, leering smile.
But suddenly, the entire world shifted before his eyes.
The sleazy remark died in his throat. He stared blankly at his surroundings in absolute horror.
The pretty little serving girl had vanished entirely. In her place hovered a grotesque, wild phantom with a rotting face and massive, glowing green fangs. He was no longer sitting in the luxuriously decorated entertainment hall of the Fengyue Tower; somehow, he had been transported to a desolate, fog-shrouded cemetery.
Worse still, he looked down and realized he was romantically clutching the wild phantom’s decomposing hand…
“AAAAHHHHH!”
With a blood-curdling scream, the patron’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fainted dead away.
The scream was so piercing and frantic that it nearly shook the dust from the rafters. The noisy, chaotic hall instantly fell dead silent as every single guest snapped their heads around to stare at the commotion.
Originally, Lu Yunxi was simply going to pour the wine and leave, but she certainly hadn’t appreciated the sudden, aggressive grab.
She stood her ground and was just preparing to deliver a discreet, agonizing counter-blow when she caught sight of the Madam patrolling the perimeter of the hall.
Tsk!
Although the specialized toxin she had slipped into the Madam’s tea wasn’t lethal, the relentless cycle of sudden chills and aggressive vertigo should have kept her bedridden. It was a genuine miracle that the woman’s sheer willpower and greed were strong enough to drag her physical body out of bed to oversee operations!
Not wanting to draw the Madam’s ire, Lu Yunxi subtly reached into her spatial inventory, retrieved a pinch of custom medicinal powder, and lightly flicked her wrist.
No one in the crowded hall noticed the microscopic cloud of dust.
A second later, the patron who had been gripping her arm let out a terrified shriek and collapsed onto the floorboards.
Seeing the man drop, the surrounding guests immediately swarmed the table. The Madam rushed over in a panic, hastily ordering her muscle to carry the unconscious patron to the nearest physician.
Once the crisis was handled, the Madam spun around, glaring daggers at Lu Yunxi. “What exactly is going on here?! How are you doing your job?! Why did that man suddenly drop dead in a faint?!”
Lu Yunxi: ???
She was just as bewildered! The specialized powder she had deployed was only designed to trigger mild, temporary sensory hallucinations. After a decent night’s sleep, the man would have woken up perfectly fine. Why did the guy react like he had just stared into the face of a literal demon? He had terrified himself into a coma!
She had absolutely no idea how close she was to the truth.
“I have no idea what happened! I was just pouring his wine, and he suddenly started screaming and fell over!” she said, her tone the picture of absolute innocence. It really had nothing to do with her! She hadn’t dosed him with an elephant-grade tranquilizer this time!
The Madam shot her a suspicious glare but didn’t press the issue. She quickly plastered a wide, apologetic smile back onto her face to pacify the disturbed crowd.
While no one actually figured out what had transpired at the table, the sheer bizarre nature of the incident served its purpose: for the rest of the evening, not a single patron dared to harass the new serving maid.
The days bled into one another.
Just as Lu Yunxi was settling into a highly efficient routine in the main hall, the Madam suddenly transferred her up to the exclusive second floor.
Naturally, this wasn’t a promotion. Her designated role was simply to act as an attendant for the premium courtesans—kneeling quietly beside their tables and continuously refilling their clients’ wine cups.
The private VIP rooms on the second floor operated under a much heavier, erotic atmosphere. Positioned just outside the immediate sphere of interaction, Lu Yunxi struggled to suppress her yawns. Even without trying to eavesdrop, the sheer volume of the boasts and flirtations bleeding through the thin walls of the entire corridor was impossible to ignore.
“Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Oh, Master, you must be a truly extraordinary figure.”
“Haha, you know it! I happen to be the cousin of the nephew of the second uncle’s wife’s sister-in-law of the personal attendant assigned to the Ninth Prince! With His Highness’s backing, I’m destined for absolute greatness! Stick with me, and I’ll make sure you never suffer another day in your life!”
…
“The fragrant silk curtains sway in the evening breeze, while blossoms drift into the pavilion. The high-pitched melody of the zither washes away the sorrows of the night. The maidens of Fengyue Tower truly possess unparalleled beauty and peerless talent!”
“You flatter me, my lord. I am truly unworthy of such poetic praise.”
“I wonder, would you grace me with a musical performance? It breaks my heart to let such a breathtaking view go to waste in silence. I wish for your fairy-like melodies to weave themselves into this divine scenery.”
“I would be honored, my lord.”
A moment later, the soft, elegant strumming of a zither echoed into the hall.
Listening to the endless stream of pretentious dialogue filtering through the lattice doors, Lu Yunxi’s eye twitched violently.
It truly was a blessing that the elite courtesans of the Fengyue Tower were required to master such diverse talents. Some specialized in classical poetry and prose, others were masters of calligraphy and painting, and a few were peerless in singing and dancing. No matter the patron, they always had a specialized skill to flaunt.
If she were forced to sit inside a room and engage in that specific brand of flowery, mind-numbing conversation, she would have died of sheer annoyance.
She let out another sleepy yawn, but a sudden, deliberately suppressed voice caught her attention.
“So this is the famous Fengyue Tower? Is this really the standard they pride themselves on?”
The voice was laced with tightly suppressed anger, profound disdain, and a heavy dose of biting sarcasm.
Lu Yunxi shuddered slightly, snapping fully awake. It wasn’t the arrogant tone that caught her off guard—it was the timbre. That voice… was distinctly feminine!
“Young… Master, please calm your anger! It isn’t worth ruining your health over someone like him!” This second voice also belonged to a young girl, though she sounded far more grounded and anxious. She paused for a moment before continuing, “I am absolutely certain your future son-in-law didn’t come here to fall in love with any of these women. He was likely just dragged along by his colleagues for a casual drink.”
“Hmph! Absolutely not! I have to see exactly what kind of wretched woman he’s been sneaking out to visit every single day!”
“But… we don’t even know which specific girl the young master is seeing.”
The first girl remained silent for a long moment before snapping, “That’s easy enough to figure out! Just ask the staff who the newest arrival is. My brother never set foot in this district before this week; his visits correlate perfectly with a new acquisition.”
Listening in with immense interest, Lu Yunxi suddenly froze. A deeply ominous premonition washed over her.
No way! She was literally the only new arrival the Fengyue Tower had acquired recently!
What kind of twisted logic were these two operating on?! How did a patron’s sudden interest automatically correlate to a new girl? Couldn’t the man have simply discovered the brothel existed a few days ago?!
Unfortunately, her premonition was entirely accurate.
Not long after, Lu Yunxi was summoned into the private room by the cross-dressing duo.
“Speak! Where did you hide the man who has been secretly visiting you?!” the “Young Master” demanded, slamming a hand onto the table.
Lu Yunxi: …
“I believe you have suffered a terrible misunderstanding,” she said smoothly. “There are absolutely no patrons visiting me!”
“Lies! I heard it with my own ears—he’s been coming to this specific establishment to court a new girl!” The young lady glared at her, her eyes blazing with fury.
Lu Yunxi stood her ground, observing the furious girl with a placid expression.
“Are you the new arrival?” The girl disguised as a wealthy young master arched an eyebrow, sitting at the head of the table and trying to project an aura of intimidating authority.
“I am indeed the newest hire, sir,” Lu Yunxi replied with a polite, professional smile. “How may I assist you? If you are looking to purchase a companion for the evening, I’m afraid I haven’t come of age yet to entertain guests… but I would be more than happy to escort you to the upper quarters to browse the catalog.”
The two girls, who had been fully preparing to unleash a torrent of verbal abuse, were instantly stunned into silence.
“This… have you truly never entertained a scholar recently?” the “Young Master” asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
Lu Yunxi offered a flawless look of bewilderment. “My apologies, sir, but the Fengyue Tower hosts an ocean of patrons every night, and naturally, a great many of them are scholars. I wonder, which specific gentleman are you searching for?”
The maid disguised as a servant opened her mouth to interject, but her mistress held up a hand to silence her.
“We are searching for a scholar possessing phoenix eyes, willow-leaf eyebrows, and an exceptionally gentle voice. He has a distinct mole just beneath his chin, and a second mole hidden behind his right ear,” the girl disguised as the young master stated, her expression turning dark and severe. She gestured sharply to her maid. “If you manage to locate him, deliver the news immediately.”
The maid retrieved a small silver ingot from her coin purse and pressed it into Lu Yunxi’s hand.
“We are currently residing at the main inn at the far end of this avenue. Just ask the clerk for Young Master Song. If you bring us actionable intelligence, you will be heavily rewarded.”
Lu Yunxi accepted the silver ingot, offering a bright smile as she promised to keep a sharp lookout.
The moment she stepped out of the private room, she rolled her eyes. A brilliant idea had already formed in her mind.
A few days later.
A quiet, highly lucrative rumor had completely saturated the lower echelons of the Fengyue Tower: Anyone who manages to locate a patron with a distinct mole beneath his chin can report directly to the servant girl Qing’er to split a massive silver bounty.
Instantly, every single waitress, barmaid, and cleaner in the establishment mobilized. They began scrutinizing the faces of the male clientele with terrifying intensity, utterly desperate to find a match.
After all, the workers at the absolute bottom of the hierarchy rarely encountered opportunities to earn external bounties. The elite courtesans, who were already flush with cash, didn’t care about the rumor and promptly forgot it.
Yet, against all odds, several days later, it was an elite courtesan who actually spotted the target.
Figuring that since the man had already been identified, it would be a complete waste of free silver not to claim the bounty, she dispatched her personal maid to summon Lu Yunxi.
“This man isn’t a patron of our Fengyue Tower at all! He’s a regular client at the brothel across the street! No wonder we couldn’t find him earlier!”
Hearing the courtesan’s report, Lu Yunxi was left utterly speechless.
I cannot believe this!
The young lady had marched out to catch her cheating fiancé… and she had stormed into the wrong brothel?!
Chapter 148: Silver Reward
The establishment the scholar actually frequented was called the Xueyue Tower, not the Fengyue Tower.
As the most elite talents in the business, top courtesans often visited rival houses to participate in performance competitions or study the arts of more prestigious establishments. It was purely a stroke of luck that the courtesan who claimed the bounty had been visiting the Xueyue Tower that evening, where she happened to overhear the local gossip and spot the target.
After thanking her for the tip, Lu Yunxi slipped out of the district the moment her shift concluded. Once she verified the courtesan’s lead was solid, she immediately tracked down “Young Master Song” at the inn.
Armed with the actionable intelligence, the young lady rushed over to the Xueyue Tower with her personal guards to wait for the perfect moment. It didn’t take long for them to catch the unfaithful scoundrel red-handed.
“This is unacceptable! You swore an oath that you wouldn’t lay a finger on another woman once you married into my family! How dare you betray my lady?!”
The cheating fiancé turned deathly pale for a fraction of a second, but he quickly recovered his composure, adopting a brazen, self-righteous attitude. “We haven’t even officially wed yet! Besides, you’re entirely too overbearing. I merely came out tonight to appreciate some fine music, and you still insist on policing my whereabouts! You have absolutely no concept of wifely virtue!”
The lady’s face darkened with fury. “An agreement is an agreement. If you lacked the discipline to keep your word, you should have never accepted the proposal!”
“Hmph! Show me a man in this world who confines himself to a single woman. It’s not as if we’re so destitute we can’t afford to eat!” the scholar sneered. He was entirely convinced his wealthy fiancée wouldn’t dare break off the engagement. Without him, what other respectable scholar could she possibly find?
Hiding in the shadows nearby, Lu Yunxi watched the young lady’s brawny guards methodically surround the defiant man. Shaking her head at the pathetic spectacle, she turned on her heel and glided away.
Upon returning to the Fengyue Tower, Lu Yunxi smoothly split the bounty money down the middle with the courtesan.
When the elite hostess saw the glittering pile of silver, her eyebrows arched in sheer surprise. “So much?” Compared to her standard cut of the house earnings, this payout was exceptionally generous.
In a red-light establishment, every copper earned from patrons went directly into the Madam’s coffers; the hostesses were only permitted to keep gifts of jewelry and personal trinkets. While these ornaments were incredibly expensive to display, they fetched very little actual coin when fenced on the black market. Consequently, while the top courtesans looked lavishly wealthy in their premium silks and fine silver, they rarely possessed any fluid cash.
The bounty resting in her palm was equivalent to what she would make by liquidating an entire chest of her personal jewelry.
A bright smile split the courtesan’s face. “Miss Qing’er, if any similar commissions cross your desk in the future, please do not hesitate to let me know. I will give you my absolute best effort.”
Lu Yunxi nodded in agreement, traded a few polite pleasantries, and took her leave.
However, that single success triggered a chain reaction. Whether it was due to direct word-of-mouth recommendations from “Young Master Song” or a shift in the local rumor mill, a steady stream of cross-dressing young ladies began filtering into the Fengyue Tower, all desperately seeking help to track down unfaithful men.
One evening, yet another young girl disguised in male attire stepped through the entrance.
This particular client was clearly an amateur. Though she wore a standard scholar’s robe and had her hair bound up in a traditional topknot, her soft features and petite frame made it glaringly obvious to any observer that she was a female.
Lu Yunxi spotted her from across the crowded pavilion and prepared to weave through the tables to intercept her. But before she could bridge the gap, a rowdy patron noticed the girl’s presence and aggressively lunged toward her.
Lu Yunxi’s eyes narrowed. She tried to accelerate, but a sudden influx of wealthy guests flooded the main entrance, creating a dense wall of bodies that proved difficult to swiftly squeeze past without exposing her superhuman parameters.
Watching the intoxicated merchant close the distance, the young girl shrank back, her voice trembling violently as she raised it to its absolute limits. “W-What do you think you’re doing?!”
“Haha! Well, look what we have here—a delicate young miss sneaking into the Fengyue Tower to amuse herself!” the patron boomed, breaking into a leering laugh. “Are you feeling terribly neglected at home, little sister? How about I step in and keep you proper company tonight? I promise you won’t feel lonely anymore!”
The girl possessed adorable, chubby cheeks, and her wide, round eyes brimmed with absolute terror. Blinking back a sudden rush of tears, she tried to manifest a fierce, defensive snarl. “Get away from me! All of you, back off!”
Unfortunately, to the surrounding crowd of rowdy men, her attempted ferocity only made her look infinitely more endearing and helpless.
The girl spun around, desperate to bolt for the exit, but her distress had already drawn the attention of the wider hall. A dozen smiling patrons closed ranks around her, their faces twisted into oily, predatory grins as they systematically forced her back into a narrow, dark alley adjacent to the pavilion.
With no way to break the perimeter, she could only retreat deeper into the shadows.
Lu Yunxi’s gaze turned ice-cold. Ensuring no one was tracking her movements, she slipped silently into the parallel alleyway.
Back in the dead-end corridor, the terrified girl watched the cluster of filthy hands reach out toward her clothes. She squeezed her eyes shut in resignation, braced for the worst—only for a series of sickening, rapid thuds to shatter the silence.
She waited for several long seconds, but the expected assault never came.
Tentatively, the little miss blinked her eyes open.
Within the dim moonlight of the alley, the aggressive thugs who had cornered her were now sprawled across the dirt, groaning in agony and desperately begging for mercy. They bore absolutely no resemblance to the menacing predators from moments prior.
Staring at the serene maid servant who had effortlessly dismantled her attackers, the girl blinked, her eyes suddenly sparkling with unbridled adoration. “Sister, you are absolutely magnificent!”
Lu Yunxi let out a helpless sigh. Every previous client who had sought her out had at least possessed the foresight to bring hired muscle for protection; this was the first time an amateur had stormed the district entirely unassisted. Furthermore, this little miss looked incredibly young—sixteen at the absolute oldest, the literal prime of vulnerable youth. Venturing onto a notorious pleasure avenue in the dead of night was a recipe for disaster; honestly, an adorable girl like her required a full security detail just to walk the streets in broad daylight!
“Do not return to this district,” Lu Yunxi warned gently. “This environment is far too perilous for someone like you.”
The little girl let out a massive breath of relief, her shoulders dropping. “Thank you for saving me, Sister… I swear I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I was desperate to locate a maiden named Qing’er.”
“Qing’er? The maid servant from the Fengyue Tower?” Lu Yunxi blinked, entirely unfazed. “That would be me. What specific business do you have with me?”
She figured the girl was simply another client looking to catch a cheating lover or a straying fiancé. She had processed an entire mountain of those exact commissions over the past week, amassing a considerable fortune in private silver. In comparison, refilling wine cups at the Fengyue Tower felt like a mundane, low-paying side hustle—especially since the house had yet to pay her a single copper in official wages.
“You’re the famous Qing’er?” The little miss nervously pinched her fingers together, looking up at her with a cautious, reverent gaze.
To ensure their privacy, Lu Yunxi guided her out of the alley and into a secure, deserted courtyard nearby.
Once the pressure eased, the girl relaxed. “I came to beg for your assistance. I need you to help me locate my missing father.”
“Your father?” Lu Yunxi noted mentally. Hunting down a straying patriarch was a refreshing change of pace from tracking cheating boyfriends.
But as the girl unpacked her narrative, it became clear this wasn’t a standard domestic dispute; it was a genuine missing persons investigation.
The little girl’s parents were lifelong residents of the city, having settled down to raise their family within the urban sectors. Recently, her mother had been struck down by a bizarre, aggressive illness. The local physicians stated the condition could only be cured by a highly rare, exotic spiritual herb that radiated a natural inner luminescence. The family had scoured every apothecary and marketplace in the province, but their search yielded nothing.
That was until her father intercepted a private tip: an elite courtesan residing on the flower street had recently accepted a glowing, mystical plant as a gift from a wealthy patron.
Desperate to save his dying wife, her father had marched straight into the pleasure district to verify the rumor.
Tragically, from that exact afternoon onward, he had vanished off the face of the earth. The little girl had waited weeks for his return, pooling what little coin she had left to pump the local contacts for information, but she couldn’t uncover a single clue.
Having committed the father’s physical description and the timeline to memory, Lu Yunxi offered a reassuring pat to the girl’s head. “I will do everything within my power to track him down for you. But remember your promise: do not venture into this district ever again. It is incredibly dangerous for an unescorted maiden. We will arrange a secure alternative location for our future meetings.”
The little miss nodded rapidly, a look of lingering terror flashing across her face as she recalled her near-miss with the thugs.
The moment the girl departed, Lu Yunxi utilized a portion of her compiled break hours to execute a major logistics move. Using the massive reserves of silver she had quietly accumulated from her investigative bounties, she purchased a premium commercial property—featuring a spacious storefront facing the main avenue and a secure, private courtyard residential sector tucked away in the back.
It took her roughly ten days of discrete, rapid labor to renovate the interior and mount a clean, professional wooden plaque above the entrance: [The Qing’er Detective Agency].
She installed a reinforced lockbox directly beside the storefront entrance. Since her duties at the Fengyue Tower required her presence for large blocks of the day, any prospective client simply needed to draft their specific requests, establish their deadlines, and drop the parchment into the secure mailbox. Lu Yunxi would routinely stop by during her off-hours to harvest the correspondence.
With this system operational, vulnerable young women no longer had to risk their safety navigating the dangerous pleasure quarter just to seek her counsel; they could seamlessly submit their cases from a safe public street.
Lu Yunxi systematically cataloged the intelligence gathered from these letters, subsequently leveraging her network of waitresses and barmaids inside the Fengyue Tower to help cross-reference the targets. One should never underestimate the logistical value of lower-level brothel staff; because they operated continuously within high-traffic, chaotic environments, they passively absorbed a staggering volume of local secrets—they simply lacked a safe outlet to discuss them.
Naturally, this entire corporate operation was kept strictly classified from the Madam.
As the weeks bled away, business boomed. The Qing’er Detective Agency expanded rapidly, and thanks to the generous kickbacks and information-broker fees Lu Yunxi distributed, the daily income of every waitress, barmaid, and kitchen servant inside the Fengyue Tower skyrocketed.
Unfortunately, while her network grew more formidable by the day, the little girl’s missing father remained completely untraceable. On a brighter note, using her advanced medical skills during her covert night runs, Lu Yunxi had personally treated the girl’s bedridden mother, successfully stabilizing her system and bringing her back to full consciousness.
Then, one afternoon, a critical piece of negative intelligence disrupted her routine. A runner from the upper decks reported that the Madam had officially re-established contact with her preferred human trafficker.
The quarterly liquidation sale was back on the schedule. Instantly, the fragile peace that had settled over the handymen evaporated, and the girls plunged right back into a state of intense panic.
Lu Yunxi’s eyes narrowed into a dangerous glare.
The Madam clearly hadn’t learned her lesson. Her physical vessel was still actively undergoing a forced spiritual purification cycle, yet despite being riddled with severe body aches and dizzy spells, her sheer greed was driving her to crawl out of bed just to torment her staff!
Thinking of Ling’er, who had spent the last two nights quietly weeping into her mattress again, Lu Yunxi’s expression turned thoroughly merciless. She resolved to permanently cure the Madam’s management ambitions.
She decided to spike the Madam’s personal tea blend once more—this time deploying the exact same high-potency, mystical concoction she had once used to permanently freeze Qiu Yan out of commission.
