Chapter 41: Selling Oneself to Bury a Father

At this moment, a man with a full beard took out several pieces of broken silver: "Stop putting on airs. How could burying your father possibly cost ten taels of silver? Take these three taels and be my concubine."

The young girl firmly refused.

The bearded man was almost starting to snatch her!

Fortunately, someone nearby pulled him back: "The girl already said ten taels of silver. You don't have the money yourself, yet you want to snatch her by force?"

The surroundings were noisy and chaotic.

Yan Ning walked up and asked, "Can you do laundry and cook?"

The young girl was stunned.

The girl in front of her was very pretty, with almond-shaped eyes and a small dimple when she smiled.

The young girl nodded: "I can."

Yan Ning asked again: "Then can you embroider and make clothes?"

The young girl nodded again, "I can."

Yan Ning took out a ten-tael silver ingot: "Alright, take this to bury your father. Just come find me at Hongyun Inn in two days."

"By the way, what is your name?"

The girl met those beautiful eyes and spoke slowly: "Zhao Lianxin."

After Yan Ning and she went to the government office to process the deed of sale, Zhao Lianxin prepared to bury her parents.

Zhao Lianxin seemed to have thought of something and asked: "Miss, you are not from our Haicheng..."

Yan Ning: "What's wrong? I am indeed not from Haicheng."

Zhao Lianxin looked a bit troubled, but seeing that Yan Ning was beautiful, she still couldn't help but ask: "Actually, I have a younger brother. I wanted ten taels of silver to bury my father, but also to buy medicine for my brother..."

Yan Ning thought for a moment: "You can bring him along."

Zhao Lianxin breathed a sigh of relief.

If the other party hadn't been willing, her ten-year-old brother certainly wouldn't have been able to survive on his own in the future.

Zhao Lianxin felt grateful to Yan Ning in her heart; if not for the money she gave to bury her father, she might have been bought as a concubine by those fat, pig-eared men.

After Yan Ning and she agreed on a time, she strolled around twice and then went to Four Seas Tower for a seafood feast.

It was worthy of being a long-established restaurant; all kinds of seafood were prepared very well, and the aftertaste was endless.

Yan Ning poked her little belly: "Delicious, I want to eat more."

Yan Ze was afraid she would overeat, so he said: "You can come back to eat in the future. If it really comes to it, we can pay a high price to hire the chef to go back with us. Just don't eat too much. It's hard to digest."

Yan Ning's eyes lit up. That's right, she could poach the chef from Four Seas Tower.

After the family finished their meal, the number of guests in the restaurant had decreased, and the kitchen was not busy.

Yan Ning snuck into the kitchen. The head chef was waving his knife to slice meat; each slice was as thin as a cicada's wing. His knife skills were superb.

Yan Ning just watched him chop vegetables and stir-fry.

When the chef finished that table of dishes, he turned back to look at Yan Ning: "Little girl, do you have business with me?"

Yan Ning said with a smile: "Yes, Uncle, your cooking is so delicious."

Having been complimented, Li Dadao's serious face also wore a smile.

Yan Ning said with a smile: "Then how much money do you make a month here?"

"Thirty taels a month," Li Dadao said, feeling a bit strange, "Little girl, why are you asking me this?"

Yan Ning said with a smile: "Then can you change jobs? I'll give you three hundred taels a month, and it won't be as tiring as the restaurant; you'll cook much less."

Li Dadao was somewhat tempted.

He began to struggle: "But the current Manager treats me quite well. I cannot..."

Yan Ning interrupted him: "Five hundred taels a month."

Li Dadao: "Fine. I will tell the Manager immediately, but waiting for them to hand over and find a chef will probably take two or three days."

Yan Ning didn't care much about this: "We are leaving in two days. You can come find me at Hongyun Inn then."

Li Dadao's reaction was the same as Zhao Lianxin's: "Little girl, you are not from Haicheng?"

Yan Ning nodded: "I came from Shawan County. Are you worried about your family? You can bring them along. If it's inconvenient to bring them, I can give you two days off a month."

Li Dadao hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded, preparing to bring his wife and daughter along.

When Yan Ning returned, Ji Lan asked: "What did the chef say?"

Yan Ning said with a smile: "He agreed, five hundred taels a month. He said he wants to bring his wife and daughter along. I don't know if there will be a place for them to sleep after they go, and I don't know how those carpenters are doing."

Yan Ning pondered for a moment: "Forget it, never mind. At worst, we'll all sleep in tents."

In the afternoon, Ji Lan accompanied Yan Ning for a stroll. As Yan Ning walked, she arrived at Begonia Spring. Yan Ning originally came to listen to music, but she didn't expect that two girls were arguing with the Steward.

These two girls were the ones Yan Ning said sang beautifully the day before; one was named Zhijin, and the other was named Yunshang.

The Steward of Painted Hall Spring was burly and reached out to slap them both.

He cursed while doing so: "Don't look at what kind of cheap goods you are. Do you really think you can sell your art but not your body?"

A slap mark instantly appeared on Zhijin's face.

The Steward also said: "The young master of the Li family has already named his price, one hundred taels a night. You decide."

Yan Ning quite liked these two, so she walked over and asked: "Why are you forcing good women into prostitution?"

The Steward sneered: "What do you mean forcing good women into prostitution? You've already fallen to the point of selling your art; can you be any kind of good person?"

Since she had seen it, Yan Ning asked: "To redeem them, how much money is needed?"

The Steward found it strange: "You are a little girl, redeeming them, what are you after?"

Yan Ning: "I'm after their beautiful singing."

The Steward gave a light sneer: "Fine then. Zhijin and Yunshang are one hundred thousand taels of silver each. If you have it, go ahead and redeem them."

Yan Ning took off the curved blade at her waist and pressed it against the Steward's neck: "Say it again, how much silver is needed to redeem them?"

The Steward had never seen anyone come in brandishing a blade; she took a few deep breaths, "You, you killing me will do you no good, and you might even be hunted by the authorities, you..."

Yan Ning asked again with a dark face: "Tell me, what is the ransom for the two of them?"

The Steward was truly afraid that this child would act recklessly.

The Steward had a sharp eye; she could tell at a glance that the clothes the child was wearing were made of top-grade Soft Smoke Gauze, and the hair ornament on her head was also an extremely precious gemstone.

Looking at the woman behind her, the style of her clothes was very low-key, but those who knew would immediately recognize that her skirt was made of Moonlight Brocade.

The Steward reached a conclusion: these two were definitely high-ranking officials or nobles even more powerful than Young Master Li.

Perhaps killing her quietly wouldn't even cause any trouble.

The Steward still valued her life, and after a long while, she said: "Ten thousand taels, ten thousand taels each."

Twenty thousand taels was merely a drop in the bucket for Yan Ning; she directly rummaged through her space for Silver Notes, totaling twenty thousand taels, and handed them to the Steward.

Come to think of it, Yan Ning had been using Silver Notes during this period; she had emptied the Imperial Palace before her exile, worried that those banks would be implicated, at which point these Silver Notes would become waste paper.

Yan Ning searched for a moment; her stock of Silver Notes was not much, adding up to about twenty or thirty thousand taels.

At this moment, Ji Lan spoke up and asked: "Ningning, where do you plan to put these two?"