As the night deepened, the bustling Flower Street was wrapped in the scent of cheap wine and the distant sound of piano music.
"Hurry up, faster!"
Several figures slipped into a back alley, disappearing into the shadows before sneaking into Zui Xiang Lou, the most famous pleasure house in all of Kyoto.
Inside one of the rooms—
A man roughly tossed the sack on his back onto the sofa. A plump old woman in a red dress swayed her wide hips as she entered. "What is it this time? That girl from last time was too ugly, so I sent her to scrub floors! If this one's just as hideous, you can carry her right back out!"
The two men glanced at each other skeptically.
"She's... even uglier than the last one."
"What? Are you two here to flirt with Auntie Wu?" she snapped, frowning. Just as she turned to leave, the men quickly blocked her path.
"No, no, no! We're not asking for payment this time!"
"No payment?" Her thick eyebrows lifted suspiciously. Since when did anything come free in this line of work?
"Well... she offended someone important..." One of the men drew a finger across his throat with a gleam in his eye.
Ah, so that's it.
Auntie Wu clicked her tongue. "Fine, fine, I'll be generous this once. Since you're not charging me, I'll reluctantly accept." She reached to untie the sack and gasped, "Heavens! She's too ugly! Even the servants would scare off customers with this face!"
"How bad could it be? Just cover her face!"
"No good! She'll ruin Zui Xiang Lou's reputation!"
While they bickered, none of them noticed that the woman inside the sack had slowly opened her eyes.
Her vision gradually cleared. Su Yiyi frowned slightly. Where... was she? Above her, an unfamiliar silk canopy. In her nose, the overpowering stench of cheap perfume. And someone was being loud in her ear.
A flood of memories rushed in all at once.
She had been on a mission—undercover. But instead of a stash of diamonds, she had found her favorite roast chicken. Who knew someone would be so vile as to hide a bomb under it?!
"Ugh! Always the food!"
The room fell silent.
The three turned to look at each other. Who just spoke?
They whipped around to find the woman lying still on the sofa—unmoving.
Auntie Wu was quietly pulled aside and handed a silver ingot. She blinked in surprise. In all her years running this kind of business, this was the first time a trafficker had paid her.
"Forget it. Let's just finish the job," one man said. "We've been working together too long to fuss over this. Let's find two thugs to 'train' her... the usual way."
With wicked smiles, the two men followed Auntie Wu out the door.
On the sofa, the woman finally moved. She reached up and pinched her cheek.
Was she dreaming?
Suddenly, she sat up and looked around. Wait—she was alive?
But where was this place? And more importantly—whose tiny, soft hands were these?!
Su Yiyi immediately began patting down her body.
Something was off. She was flat as a board before—when did she get such curves?!
A long silence. Then—
"Oh no... it's all gone wrong!"
But... maybe God felt guilty and decided to give her a beautiful body to make up for the humiliation? With a spark of hope, Su Yiyi reached for the bronze mirror beside her... and was instantly plunged from heaven to hell.
"Holy crap! My face is swollen like a pig! What kind of sick joke is this?!"
Was this the legendary combination of an angel's figure and a devil's face?! Before she could even process the horror, she felt something wrong inside her body.
Wait... was she poisoned?
As a former military doctor in a special forces team, Su Yiyi could diagnose anything in a glance. One look at the faint black shadow on her forehead in the mirror told her all she needed to know.
Just then, the door creaked open.
"Hey? She's awake?"
The two goons returned, one of them already reaching to tear at her clothes—then froze. "Damn! Where the hell did this demon come from?!"
They stumbled back, visibly shaken. Was Auntie Wu seriously expecting them to break in this she-devil?
"You call me a demon?! Your whole family's a bunch of demons!"
Excuse you, Su Yiyi used to be a modern goddess! Men lined up for a glance at her face—how dare these punks call her ugly?
The men looked at each other. Weirdly enough, her voice was... really nice.
"Maybe... we do it with our eyes closed? Her voice alone is enough."
With a long sigh, they trudged toward her like martyrs heading to the execution block.
What followed was the sound of tortured squeals—like pigs being slaughtered...
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Author's Note:
If you enjoy Zhu Sha's stories, please bookmark and follow! More surprises ahead, muah~