Action Time (1)
Li Ming felt someone waking her up. Didn't know why people couldn't let others sleep?
"We are at the back entrance of the Xi Qiu City. I think you should wake up now Sleepyhead!" Li Ming heard the soft familiar voice and then she realized that she's not in her bed but in a carriage.
She straightened up and peeked outside from the carriage window. They were indeed at the entrance of the City and by the look of it, it was probably the back entrance.
"Do you think they are also dealing with the brothels here?" Li Ming asked as she looked at the rest of the children who were sitting inside the carriage with them.
If you guys are now thinking about the time when these two were being lovey dovey in front of these children, then let me clear the Misunderstanding!
Li Ming planned to use puppets in place of real children. She was a mage after all.
With a little bit help from Ruoshan, who was known as the Master of Dark Arts, she finally succeeded in producing four puppets children, out of which two were girls and other two were boys. She herself was portraying as the third girl and fifth member of the group as she was also of the same age.
Because of Ruoshan's powers, it was nearly impossible to find out that the children were not real. That's why she was not worried about getting caught.
After a minute or two, the carriage finally started moving again. Li Ming put on an invisibility spell on Ruoshan and reminded him to not cause any problems.
The carriage continued towards the end of a dark alley and finally stopped outside a very small building. By the look of it, the building appeared to be the worst looking and probably the least earning business of Xi Qiu City.
A man opened the door of the carriage and nearly dragged all the children out of the carriage. Another man showed a guard at the building's gate, some kind of token and then they (Children) were ushered inside the building.
As Li Ming predicted, the building looked like a small inn which was worse looking from inside then it was from outside.
By the look of the situation, it was probably not used in ages.
They all were taken to one of the rooms. Li Ming was actually confused by all of this. She had no idea what was going to happen next. The only comfort was coming from the man who was in the shadows hiding under the invisibility spell.
"Li, do you think they are taking all of you to offer some sort of sacrifice!"
Li Ming wanted to kill this idiot who was clearly taking fun of her situation. How did she ended up with this little monster?
"Snowy you better keep your mouth shut for the rest of the day, otherwise I'll end up giving you as a sacrifice!"
The warning was clear in her voice and Snowy was not idiot enough to test her in such a situation.
The next moment a trapdoor opened in the floor and Li Ming could see stairs going down.
The four men started walking down the stairs and the children followed them.
But the scene that greeted her down there left Li Ming shocked. The entire place was an underground market.
Brothels, slave shops and drug stores lined up the street. There were more than a dozen shops in there and the look of the area was making Li Ming both angry and nauseous.
They were taken inside a slave shop and the men locked the five of them inside a room. After they left, Li Ming put another puppet of her own and teleported outside the room with Ruoshan. She was already under the invisibility spell.
There were three more rooms. Li Ming checked all of them and sure enough there were at least more than two dozen children inside those rooms.
She heard some voices coming from one of the room upstairs. As she followed the voices, she found the men who brought them here talking to a woman who, in every manner was either a prostitute or the owner of one of the brothels. Li Ming voted for the later one.
"Here's the money. I'm taking all those pretty b****es with me. My brothel is enduring looses for past two months since everyone was craving for new meat!" The woman said as she put two big pouches of money on the table.
"Why not take even a single boy this time?" One of the man asked as he opened the pouch to take a look at the glittering gold taels.
"Ah! Two days ago, a special carriage was sent by the master. There were three boys inside. Their looks is even more beautiful than most of those fairer rich beauties of the Official families. Right now the three of them are the most demanded ones in the market!" The woman chuckled shyly as she told the men in lowerd voice.
"Where did Lord get these boys from?" Another man asked curiously.
"Nearly a week ago there was a rumour spreading in the Imperial City that three servants offended the Eldest Miss and as a punishment our Lord sold off the three of them after punishing each of them with 20 strokes. But one of my inner informer told me that the three servants are actually the sons of one of the maids of the Madam. The three boys are very good looking. She told me that when Eldest Miss saw them she wanted to take them as her personal slave and wanted to you know.....!" The woman stopped as she again pretended to be shy about saying the next words.
"Then?" The men were more curious to know about the inside rumour then caring about the overacting of the woman in front of them.
"Then what? Those stupid boys can't see good from bad as they declined. The Eldest Miss even tried to offer them so much money and high position in the manor but those foolish boys were too arrogant and ended up enraging the Eldest Miss."