A Lonesome Fragrance Waiting to be Appreciated 1

4

Sound suddenly erupted, as most girls were crying over their misfortune. Pingting opened her eyes and looked around slowly.

Yep, they're all really pretty. I should be the ugliest one here, right?

Human traffickers were always after pretty girls. They could be sold off as a concubine for a high price. Pingting thought of Fu Erge, and how he estimated her value of fifty coins and chuckled. It was definitely easy enough to drown him with the amount of money her Master gave her every week.

Who knew what expression Fu Erge would make if he knew who she was.

"Um Sis..." A girl beside Pingting touched her shoulder shyly, "Did you get captured by them too?"

She was really cute, no wonder she'd been caught by the human traffickers. She nodded. "Yeah."

"Aren't you scared?"

"No."

The little girl looked at her in surprise. "You're not scared?"

Pingting saw that she was probably going to say something else, so she began first. "What's your name?"

"My...name's Qing. What's yours?"

"I'm Hong." She automatically lied about her name. She definitely wouldn't use such a fancy name like 'Bai Pingting' but it wouldn't do to have no name at all.

"Okay Sis, then..."

"Do you know where we're going?" She interrupted Qing again, taking advantage of her situation. She wasn't scared, just a little excited. It was a bit like accompanying her Master, figuring out the enemy's motive from the different clues. Except this time, she was fighting alone.

"According to that fat guy and mean guy, we would be sold in Dong Lin."

In the enemy's country? Pingting's eyebrows creased even more.

Her Master's last battle at the border was against the troops of Dong Lin. Pingting had the Dong Lin army purposely being directed into the mountains and then by controlling the river flow, the enemy were forced to full retreat in the threat of a flood. Back then, her Master had said, "Now the whole army knows that we have a female military advisor. When we get back, I'll get Father to reward you. What would you like this time?"

If she was recognised in Dong Lin, the consequences would be...

It seemed that using the human trafficker's carriage to escape the King's wrath was impossible. She'd need to find a good time to escape, leave their carriage and then find her Master by herself.

In the midst of her thinking, her body suddenly heaved forward. Pingting felt her energy draining away as she began to cough again.

"Cough, cough..."

"Sis..." Qing looked at her worriedly.

"I'm fine." She had finally stopped but she was left with a foul, blood-like taste in her mouth. Pingting suddenly froze, did she just cough up blood again?

First things first, how could she escape?

She wasn't unhealthy, but her illness was slowly eating away at her. She hadn't told her Master back in the battlefield, because she didn't want to worry him. And then that incident happened the night they went back.

Her thoughts were still a mess, no wonder her illness had gotten worse.

Pingting thought for a little longer and sighed, "Fine, Dong Lin it is." She had decided to go to Dong Lin with the human traffickers.

After all, the command to capture the one thousand members of the Jing-An Ducal Residence was only valid on Gui Le territory.

The enemy's country wasn't a bad option — as long as her identity remained a secret.

A couple of days later, the carriage had arrived in Dong Lin.

But the human traffickers were not stupid to sell the girls at the poor villages on the outskirts of Dong Lin, so they continued to travel for a couple of days. When they arrived at capital of Dong Lin, Moen, they forced the girls off the carriage, have them cleaned at an inn and gave them fresh clothes to wear.

Despite the war, trades of women from the other countries weren't unusual. There seemed to be a section for human traffickers in almost every major city's trading markets. Each of them was pushed on to a stage, one by one, and auctioned.

Pingting was the most unpopular and was placed towards the end of the line. The silk clothes she had originally been wearing had been given to Qing, who was labelled for a high price.

"Beauties from Gui Le! Hey, beautiful women from Gui Le!"