Chapter 63: Buying the Slaves
Chapter 63: Buying the Slaves
"My identity is none of your business." Xiang Ling responded in a calm but powerful tone as she took a few more steps toward the group of men. "What should matter... is that I’m interested in buying them."
She nodded in the direction of the slaves as she announced her proposal, surprising the dealers who weren’t expecting to see a buyer all of a sudden. Each one of them studied her as if they were trying to decide whether she was telling the truth or not.
"Why do you want to buy them?" One of the men asked as he looked past Xiang Ling and scanned the alley behind her. Unfortunately, the darkness didn’t allow him to see anything.
Xiang Ling knew that her sudden appearance had alerted these men and while they didn’t think of her as much of a threat to them, they were worried that she had backup. "Another question I don’t need to answer because that’s again none of your business. I need these slaves and I’m ready to buy them. Just tell me how much you want."
"Do you have money?" Another one of the men asked as he looked at her suspiciously.
A knowing smile appeared on Xiang Ling’s lips and she took out her money pouch to show the dealers. Just the size and heaviness of the pouch were more than enough to tell the dealers that she had more than enough money.
The men shared quick looks among themselves as if they were trying to decide their next action. After a minute or two, one of them finally turned toward her and asked, "How many of them do you want and which ones?"
Xiang Ling spared a glance at the group of slaves before she once again surprised the group of dealers with her response. "I want all of them." There were around nine or ten of them and she had decided to take them all.
The men once again shared looks among themselves before they all turned their attention back toward Xiang Ling. They didn’t speak immediately and once they did, they proposed a ridiculous amount. "We can sell all of them to you... in hundred silver taels."
Xiang Ling scoffed at the outrageous price. She only had ninety silver taels left in her possession after the little expenses she had done in the past ten days. Keeping a calm expression on her face, she spoke, "Offer a reasonable price."
"Hundred silver taels is already a good price. We bought them each for seven silver taels. We should at least get three extra taels as profits." One of the dealers replied, making it obvious that they had no plans to negotiate the price.
"You are lying! You only gave three or four taels when you- AAHHH...!" A young boy from the group of slaves tried to debunk the dealer’s statement and was immediately punished with a whip.
"STOP!"
The man did stop at Xiang Ling’s command but the young boy was already sobbing in pain from the whip that he had already received on his back. Controlling her anger that was threatening to teach all those men a lesson, she spoke calmly. "Let’s seal the deal in eighty silver taels."
"Never!" One of the dealers, who appeared to be the leader of the group as he was doing most of the talking, immediately rejected Xiang Ling’s proposal. "Hundred silver taels or nothing."
Xiang Ling smiled at their absurdity. If not for the fact that she was controlled by the divine rules of Immortals that stopped her from using her divine powers on a mortal, she would have already taught these men a great lesson. However, the body she possessed was not a trained one and without the aid of her powers, she wouldn’t be able to handle all these men together. Therefore, the best option for her at the moment was to save the slaves and get far away from those men.
"You all know very well that I’m offering you a great deal. Let’s say you take these slaves to a slave auction and auction them off. What then? According to the rules of slave auction houses, you will only get forty percent of the auction money. Do you think anyone will pay more than ten or fifteen taels for these slaves?" She questioned the dealers, making sure that her words would corrupt their brains and make them agree to her proposal in the end.
Without giving them any break to think properly, she continued, "And if you decide to sell them to a brothel, you will need to travel to a big city. The nearest big city from here is Dongzhi City but that is my area. If you refuse to sell these slaves to me now, I will make sure that you will not be able to sell them in Dongzhi City as well. This will make you travel to the next big city which is at a distance of a thousand miles from here. This will cause you several days of traveling expenses, food expenses, and expenses of the Inns where you will stay. In the end, even if you sold them in hundred silver taels, you will only get seventy or eighty left after deducting all the expenses. And who knows if they will buy each of your slaves or not."
The wheels started turning in the dealers’ brains even before Xiang Ling stopped speaking. This time, they didn’t even share any looks among themselves before one of them took out the slave contracts and handed them over to Xiang Ling. "Let’s end the deal in eighty taels."
A huge smile made its way to Xiang Ling’s lips as she took out ten silver taels from the pouch and handed the rest to the dealer. She stored the ten silver taels along with the slave contracts inside the Summer Cottage before she ordered the men to take down the chains that were binding the slaves.
"All of you, follow me."