Realms In The Firmament

”Follow orders? Under commands…” Bing-Er asked, ”Whose orders? Whose commands?”

The leader of those men rolled his eyes. Ye Xiao and Song Jue were looking at him with wicked smile. He felt terrified. He didn’t dare to lie. He said, ”It’s… Second Prince.”

”Oh, it’s him? You said you have done this many times, right? So you did it for Second Prince? Why does he want so many girls?” Song Jue asked with curiosity.

Steward Song, who was experienced, didn’t understand it.

No matter how randy Second Prince was, he had limited energy after all. How could he have so many girls?

If a prince had dozens of wives, he would definitely lose the opportunity to get the throne. This Second Prince had a good reputation in public after all. There wasn’t many news about Second Prince capturing women, and he didn’t have many wives. He was normal. The man in black didn’t give a persuasive answer.

”You may not know a lot. Second Prince sent us to take some women back, not only because he felt like doing so, but also because he could ask for money and supports from doing it. He had a secret place. It is called Voluptuous Flower Building. In that place…”

He had made a good start, so he didn’t hesitate anymore. He started to tell them everything he knew about it.

”The girls we captured are not all he likes… As long as somebody in his group likes her, he would send people to capture her. When the girls are captured, they will be shown to Second Prince in groups of fifty. Second Prince will try to pick someone he likes among the fifty girls. He will keep the ones he likes for himself, or pick some of them as gifts to his men…”

”Those he doesn’t like will be left in Voluptuous Flower Building… as… as prostitutes… It has been so many years. Second Prince sent his trusted man to run the business. The girls are pretty, so they get a lot of money from them… The officials in the court will go to that place sometimes. Second Prince tries to win their support by giving them privilege in that place. Most of his money comes from this place too.”

Ye Xiao felt a mass of anger burst in the chest.

[This is it!]

”Second Prince is the king’s son. In the Kingdom of Chen, he is in quite an important position. Why does he have to earn money from such dirty business? Isn’t it too complicated?” Song Jue was confused.

”He is the king’s son indeed. He gets quite a lot money from the royal house, but that money is only enough for his daily expense. To gain supports from the officials, to hold some secret activities, to pay the men from noble clans, it is far less than enough…”

It was Ye Xiao who answered Song Jue, ”All in all, Second Prince doesn’t want to just be a prince. He wants more. That is why he tries everything he can to earn money. The king has announced that princes are forbidden to get private connections to officials. Princes shouldn’t take bribe. Once it is found out, he will be kept in captivity. He will lose everything he has…”

”Second Prince wants to do something big. He needs money. He needs a lot of money. However, I could never imagine that a prince would actually run a brothel!”

”That brothel is actually his most powerful tool to earn money! That is such a ridiculous and sad joke!”

Ye Xiao spat with disdainfulness. - Pah! -

Voluptuous Flower Building. What a clangorous name. Whoever had a rich family and loved beauty hunting knew about this place so well. They had two branches just in the capital.

Every big city of Kingdom of Chen had at least one branch of it. Some of them had several!

Second Prince was dirty, but he did successfully gather a huge amount of money!

”A noble born prince… a son of the king, actually forces women to sell their bodies just to earn him money? Money for him to spend lavishly? To devote for his own ambition?” Bing-Er couldn’t believe it.

”That is actually a prince?”

Her small hands were held so tight into fists. She was apparently extremely furious at the moment.

”How many girls are in the Voluptuous Flower Building in the capital?” Ye Xiao asked.

The man in black trembled.

He understood why Ye Xiao asked this question immediately!

As long as he knew the capacity of the Voluptuous Flower Building in the capital, he could figure out how many branches it had in the entire kingdom and what capacity it had was!

The man in black knew that Ye Xiao wanted more than just the number in record.

Ye Xiao definitely wanted to know all the numbers, in record or off record!

He wanted the truth of the sin!

In the capital, it was the biggest brothel. However, in the record, it had only dozens of girls…

”Just say it. Tell me all you know and I will give you a quick death.” Ye Xiao kindly spoke, ”You should know there are so many ways to die. Sometimes, when one wants to die, he just can’t. In my hands, it is not a rare thing that a man begs to die but he never gets what he wants.”

While he was speaking, he made some slight moves. That was really small moves. He just made some strange finger gestures and that was all.

The men in black all turned gloomy. Their faces changed!

The small moves Ye Xiao made were weird, but the men in black happened to know them. That was a way to torture people that was famous in Land of Han-Yang, the martial art Death or Life Hand!

Whoever was hit by that would end up rather miserable. It was even more terrible than Bone Twisting Hand. [1] In fact, these two skills were not even in the same league.

The Death or Life Hand could make the victim beg for death. It was the most brutal way to torture people in the world.

Ye Xiao finished making the gestures. He kept moving his fingers though, trying to make some sounds. He blandly spoke, ”You should better just tell me. I usually don’t have much patience, especially now. I promise you that you will never get a second chance today.”

”The capacity… of the Voluptuous Flower Building in the capital…” The leader of the men was gloomy. He faltered and then gritted his teeth, ”The output is about… twenty thousand girls in a year…”

”Twenty thousand girls in a year!”

Song Jue exclaimed!

Second Prince truly was greedy bastard!

It was only the number of the Voluptuous Flower Building in the capital.

If all the branches in the kingdom were counted in, it should be a rather horrible number.

It was a number that showed the entirety of that place. That meant twenty thousand girls got in the brothel and twenty thousand girls left every year.

Ye Xiao took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. He said, ”It is such a huge number. What happens to those who ran out of value to the business?”

”The lucky ones will be sold to some small brothels. They can survive…” The man in black lowered his head. His voice was getting lower and lower.

”What about the unlucky ones?” Bing-Er asked with fury.

Bing-Er made a guess, but she didn’t want to believe it. She was hoping that she could get a different answer from the man in black!

Nobody noticed that Bing-Er’s face was totally cold and her eyes were filled with darkness.

”The ones with bad luck… unluckily… will be killed… Their bodies will be destroyed. Nothing will be left…” the man in black spoke. His eyes were filled with gloom.

”So you do the after works?” Ye Xiao asked.

He sounded peacefully.

However, everybody knew that a horrible flame of anger was hidden under his peaceful voice. It would burst and explode at any second!

Ye Xiao had never thought of this.

In the peaceful and wealthy Chen-Xing City, a place that seemed to be full of happiness and leisure, there was actually such a brutal, lunatic, and painful sin!

The thing he couldn’t believe the most was that… the hand of such a sin was from the royal house!

The second son of the king!

One of the rightful inheritors!

That was ridiculous!

Such a man was fighting… for that throne, which meant an extreme power in the kingdom!

Who knew what would happen to the world if such a man got on the throne!

Full of miseries? Pain in people’s lives? Death all over the kingdom?

It might be much more than that!

[No wonder the Second Prince is so confident. Nobody understands why he is so confident! The Crown Prince is decided, yet the Second Prince still didn’t give up.]

[It turns out he has an ace card!]

None of the men in black dared to answer Ye Xiao. They all had cold sweats on their backs.

Surely, not only they were working for that prince. It was such a big organization. He should have a great number of people to use.

”You don’t want to answer me? Fine. Another question. Who is his alliance?” Ye Xiao lightly asked, ”This is too big a plan for just a prince. He doesn’t have enough capability to run such a business without being found out!”

”There are a few people… They are…” The man in black gave a few names of some officials. ”I… I only know these names. There must be some more. I have no idea… Hmm. Wang Zhong is the most trusted man to Second Prince. He must know much more!”

”Hmm. There seems to be a mysterious figure on Second Prince’s side. He is a grandmaster level cultivator…”

Ye Xiao nodded.

He looked up to the sky and closed his eyes.

Killing intent burst in his chest. He couldn’t suppress it anymore!

…

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[1] Bone Twisting Hand. It should be a special martial art that is particularly used in torturing people. It will be mentioned in the chapters after this.