Chapter 217: Leone, Who Signed a Slave Contract

After a short while, Leone pulled Lingyun into a tavern.

"Hey, waiter, bring us a serving of the best food and drink you have here!" Leone called out to a waiter.

"This?" The waiter looked at Leone, then looked at Lingyun on the side.

"Just do as this young lady says!" Lingyun said with a smile.

"Alright, little brother, your big sister is named Leone. Just call me by my name from now on. Calling me 'young lady' always makes me think of some rather unpleasant things!" Leone patted Lingyun on the shoulder and laughed.

Watching as plate after plate of delicious food was brought over, Lingyun raised his eyebrows slightly: "Leone, you ordered so much, is that really okay?"

"Of course it's okay, your big sister here can really eat!" Leone patted her own chest.

Lingyun shook his head: "No, no, no, I mean, you ordered so much, will you have enough money to pay the bill later?"

"Uh, this, this..." Cold sweat instantly broke out on Leone's face.

At the very beginning, she had chosen the most luxurious tavern in the vicinity, and then ordered a huge pile of items. Looking at the astronomical prices on the menu, and then thinking of her wallet, which had grown thin due to frequent drinking lately, Leone felt her life turn gray and bleak.

"I see that you don't seem to have enough money on you, Leone. Let me cover the meal this time; you can treat me to a meal next time when you have money!" Lingyun looked at Leone's expression and spoke while holding back his laughter.

"Really? You really are a good person, little brother!" Leone looked at Lingyun with a face full of joy and threw a 'good person card' at him without hesitation.

Lingyun just smiled and didn't say anything more.

Soon, the food they ordered was served. Leone looked at the sumptuous meal, her eyes narrowing into slits, and she began to eat and drink without the slightest hesitation. Although Lingyun was also eating, his movements were far more elegant than Leone's, yet his speed was not a bit slower than hers.

Leone happily poured a glass of wine into her mouth, narrowed her eyes, and said: "Being able to drink such fine wine in broad daylight, life is truly very satisfying!"

While drinking, Leone was also quietly sizing up the young man who had helped her out of a tight spot. In the Imperial Capital, there were quite a few nobles who looked refined and courteous but were actually completely rotten to the core. However, from the moment she met him until now, Lingyun's eyes had always been very clear, without the slightest hint of darkness mixed in. Moreover, Leone's intuition had always been very strong, and her intuition told her that this young boy had no malice toward her. He was probably just a sheltered young master from a wealthy family; such people were already rare in the Imperial Capital, almost extinct. Such a person was a rare and precious existence; he had to be well protected!

"I say, little brother, looking at you, you seem to be quite wealthy!" Putting down the wine glass in her hand, Leone leaned close to Lingyun and spoke softly.

"Money? My family has never been short of such things!" Lingyun said with a smile.

To tell the truth, for him, money really wasn't a rare thing. If he were truly short of money, he only needed to take a trip to the family treasury of some corrupt noble to obtain a large amount of wealth. Relying on his methods, he could completely come and go without a trace, so the famous master thief Phantom in the Imperial Capital during this period was none other than Lingyun.

"Not short of money? You really are a wealthy young master!" Leone muttered.

"Are you very short of money, Leone?" Lingyun asked.

In his understanding, Leone was a member of Night Raid, engaged in assassination work. And usually, people engaged in such high-risk work shouldn't receive such low compensation.

"Cough, cough, it's just that I've been spending a bit too much lately, so my income hasn't been meeting my expenses," Leone said with an embarrassed face.

"So that's how it is!" Lingyun thought of Leone's personality of loving to drink, and understood in his heart.

"Since you're so rich, little brother, can you lend me some?" Leone quietly leaned toward Lingyun and said.

"No problem!" Lingyun nodded, "As long as it doesn't exceed one hundred thousand, I can still make the decision myself!"

"One hundred thousand?" Leone couldn't help but widen her eyes, and her eyes instantly turned into money symbols.

"That's right, I can only lend you one hundred thousand at most. If it's more, I'll have to discuss it with my family!" Lingyun said while keeping a straight face.

"No need, no need, it's enough if you can lend me one hundred thousand!" Leone hurriedly waved her hands. She had only asked to borrow money because Lingyun seemed easy to trick; if she followed him home, this matter would likely fall through. Besides, one hundred thousand was enough for her to spend for a long time.

"Little brother, then what if I don't have that much money to pay you back when the time comes?" Leone asked.

"That is a problem!" Lingyun tilted his head and thought for a moment, then his eyes suddenly lit up, "If you really don't have the money to pay me back, Leone, you can come work at my house. The wages for work at my place are quite high! Why don't we sign a contract? If you don't have the money to pay me back then, you can come to my house and work for free!"

Leone also suddenly realized: "That's right, then let's sign a contract!"

The two borrowed paper and a pen from the tavern staff and signed a mutual agreement. The gist was that Lingyun lent Leone one hundred thousand, and if Leone was unable to repay it, she would have to work for Lingyun for free to pay off the debt until it was cleared. In this, Lingyun also kindly lowered the interest to the minimum, making Leone teary-eyed as she kept saying Lingyun was a good person.

After signing the contract, Lingyun took a bag of money directly from his pocket. Although there weren't many coins in the bag, they were the highest denomination, and such a small bag definitely contained one hundred thousand.

Leone took the money bag from Lingyun's hand and carefully put it away. This was her wine money for a long time to come; she absolutely could not lose it!

After finishing the meal in the tavern, Lingyun said he still had things to do and left the tavern first. After Lingyun left, Leone took out the contract and rubbed it slightly, and the entire contract turned into fragments.

"To think he wanted me to sign this thing, which is similar to a slave contract, for a mere one hundred thousand—he's really too naive! However, that little brother really is a good person." Leone swirled the wine in her glass. "Ah, shoot, I forgot to ask that little brother's name. Forget it, when the Revolutionary Army invades the Imperial Capital, it shouldn't be a problem for me to protect that little brother with my influence; that would count as repaying the favor of the wine money! Maybe I can even get another sum of wine money for saving his life then. Yeah, let's decide on that happily!"

After Leone left the tavern, not far from the table where she had just been sitting, a person slowly raised their head—it was actually Lingyun, who had already left the tavern.

"The contract signed with me isn't so easy to destroy. I really want to see Leone's expression when the time comes!" Lingyun watched Leone's departing figure and laughed heartily. In his hand, the paper of the contract shimmered with faint light, then turned into specks of starlight and disappeared from Lingyun's hand.

Completely unaware that she was definitely in for big trouble in the future, Leone was walking happily down the street, thinking about how to spend this money well and what good wine to buy to treat herself. Just at this moment, she felt a chill on her spine and shuddered violently.

"What's going on? Could it be that someone is plotting against me? It's probably that guy Lubbock planning again how to peek at me in the hot spring. Looks like I'll have to teach him a lesson when I get back!" Leone muttered, then walked toward the direction of the city gates.