Chapter 1094 — At Least You Have Some Sense

"So what if you die?" Little Mule replied with perfect indifference. "Since time immemorial, who among men has not died? If you die, you die!"

"You..." Yu Ren was so angered by Little Mule that he nearly choked, yet he dared not lose his temper. He hesitated a moment, then ventured, "Suppose I go fight for you - would you let my wife and daughter go?"

"No, Dad! Don't you go. If anyone goes, it's me!" Yu Yuanyuan was ever the devoted daughter. She knew that stepping into the ring meant certain death. Common folk like them, with no training to speak of, were no match for those professional fighters.

And so Yu Yuanyuan reasoned: if her own death could buy her parents their safety, then it would be worth it.

"Yu Ren, have you gone soft in the head? When I hire a fighter for one match, I pay a hundred or two hundred thousand at the outside - and you think you alone are worth five hundred thousand? What a dream!" Little Mule snorted, disdain dripping from his voice. "I'd feel cheated even if your whole family climbed into the ring!"

"You... you're driving us to our deaths!" Yu Ren cried in fresh alarm. If the whole family went up there to fight, they would surely never come back.

"So what if I drive you? If you've got it in you, go die; if not, pay the money!" Little Mule snorted.

"I... I..." A bitter taste rose in Yu Ren's mouth. There was truly nothing he could do about it.

At the thought of this, Yu Ren could not help but sigh and hang his head.

"Don't make things hard for my father. A father's debt falls to his child. I'll go fight for you!" Seeing the anguish on her father's face, Yu Yuanyuan could not keep quiet and stepped forward.

"You? How much could you earn in the ring? But I'll say this much, little girl - you're not bad-looking. Tell you what: I'll sell you to a brothel, and when you've earned me back your five hundred thousand, we'll talk!" Little Mule narrowed his eyes at Yu Yuanyuan, and as though a bright idea had just struck him, he spoke.

"Ah -" Yu Yuanyuan gaped, dumbstruck at Little Mule's words. She did not care about dying, but to be sold into a brothel and insulted by a different man every day? She would sooner be dead! Yu Yuanyuan shook her head at once. "How could I? I'd rather die!"

"Heh, then die by all means! If you're dead, I'll drag your parents into the ring instead!" Little Mule said, utterly unmoved. "Who do you think you're frightening with death?"

"How... how can you be so heartless..." Tears spilled at once down Yu Yuanyuan's cheeks. She had never met people so unreasonable, so overbearing. Still, she would never agree to sit as a hostess in a brothel - not in a thousand years!

"Well now? This little one's not bad - quite to my taste!" Master Li, who had not uttered a word until now, finally spoke up. He gazed at Yu Yuanyuan with a lecherous look, eyes narrowed to slits. "Not bad, not bad at all..."

Though Yu Yuanyuan was no peerless beauty, she had a fresh, untouched innocence about her - the kind of face that grows on you the longer you look. As for Master Li, he had had his fill of women of the demimonde, and it was precisely that innocent type he craved. Had it not been so, he would never have become so fixated on Yu Yuanyuan and stirred up all this trouble.

Still, he did not mean to have Yu Yuanyuan once or twice and be done with her. He wanted to keep her as a long-term concubine at his stronghold - and preferably one who served him willingly, for that was where the pleasure lay. Coercion was never to Master Li's taste.

"Oh? Master Li, you've taken a fancy to this little girl?" Little Mule asked, feigning surprise he did not feel.

"That's right - I have!" Master Li made no effort to hide it, blustering as he nodded. "Little girl, the master here has his eye on you. Come home with me and be my concubine at the stronghold. Serve me well, and I promise you the best of everything - food, drink, wealth, and glory besides. Your father's debt will be wiped clean. What do you say?"

"Ah - I -" Yu Yuanyuan was at a loss. To bind herself to a villain she felt nothing for went wholly against her heart. But what good would her unwillingness do? She did not want to - yet she knew that this way, neither she nor her father need die, and the family's crisis would be behind them.

"What's all this 'I' and 'me'?" Little Mule knit his brows, a flash of impatience crossing his face. "Let me spell it out, Yu Yuanyuan. Either you serve Master Li and him alone, or you go to the brothel and earn me back five hundred thousand. The choice is yours."

"I..." Yu Yuanyuan bowed her head in helplessness, tears brimming in her eyes. In that moment she truly did not know what to do. Had she been free to choose, she would rather have died. But she knew too that her death would bring her parents no peace - they would all die.

And if everything Master Li said was true, then sacrificing one to spare the whole family... Serving that villain Master Li was a prospect she hated, but still it beat being sent to a brothel.

"Hmph, a windfall like this and you're still dithering?" Little Mule turned his head away in irritation and said to Master Li, "Master Li, this girl doesn't know when she's being offered a kindness. Why not forget her? Pretty girls are a dime a dozen - why waste time on her? I'll find you another later. Let's just sell her to the brothel instead. A melon plucked by force is never sweet - just look at her, sniveling and faltering. When the time comes she won't serve you properly either. What use would she be?"

"No need - I've had my eye on her, and that's that!" Master Li swept his large hand through the air. "Little girl, your name's Yu Yuanyuan, isn't it? Let me tell you: I may be a rough man, but I know how to dote on a woman. Come with me and you'll never come out the loser, I promise."

"I..." Yu Yuanyuan hesitated, then looked to her father, Yu Ren.

Yu Ren's heart was no easier at that moment. But what could he do? With villains like Little Mule and Master Li, his whole family's lives were clenched in their hands; he dared not offer the least resistance.

"Yuanyuan, what do you think?" Yu Ren was, in the end, a man of principle, and he wanted his daughter to choose for herself. "If you're unwilling, then the three of us in this family can simply go down to the underworld together. One death settles everything - and you'd never have to suffer that humiliation."

"Dad, I... I... I'll go with him!" Yu Yuanyuan faltered for a moment, then finally nodded through her tears. The whole family dying was not what she wanted. And now she need serve only one man - that, at least, was a blessing amid so much misfortune. So long as her parents came to no harm, Yu Yuanyuan would accept it.

"Heh, now that's more like it, little girl - you've got some sense after all!" Little Mule was thoroughly pleased with how things had turned out. He had handed Yu Yuanyuan over to Master Li without a blade ever being drawn - no arrangement could have suited him better.

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