Chapter 56 The Cruel Bargain
After concluding his interview with his uncle, Chiang Chan stepped out of
the rear entrance of the Black Pagoda into the bright morning sunshine. Walking
briskly he started across the grassy lawn that separated the Pagoda from the
Scorpions' barracks. Along the way he noticed a number of the deep ruts left
when Ci-ci, the Scorpions' ricksha-slave, had struggled to pull the cart through
the rainy quagmire a couple of nights earlier. It struck him that based on the
depth of the wheel ruts it was rather remarkable that she had been able to
complete her trek through the mud at all.
A few moments later the handsome son of privilege drew near to the Pit, the
Scorpions' barracks, where he intended to round up his comrades and proceed to
the lodgings of Ming-tsu as his uncle had directed. As he approached the door to
the building, he saw two female figures slowly making their way in the other
direction, one supporting the other.
Chiang Chan smiled grimly and reflected on the strange bargain that had led
to their exodus...
********
Late on the prior evening Chiang Chan had been poring over a wage-book at
the barracks. The Chans were businessmen, albeit unconventional ones, and
Chiang had been brought up to pay close attention to revenues and expenses. He
was seated at the square table near the entrance to the barracks when he heard
the first tentative tap at the barracks door.
Dao, the Ox, and Lin the Drooler had spent much of the prior day renting
Ci-ci's tender body out to the other Scorpions who shared their Spartan
lodgings. A steady stream of their comrades came off duty in two's or three's
every few hours, and only the unfortunate few among them who had gambled or
drunk away their wages, and were thus unable to afford Dao's price, were
deprived of the pleasure of plundering the pig-tailed teenager's nubile young
body. The three Scorpions' business venture had been temporarily interrupted
that afternoon, when Chiang Chan had summoned them to bring Luk Yee and his wife
back to the Black Pagoda for questioning, but had succeeded only in finding the
latter. Dao himself, of course, had stayed on at the Pagoda to assist Richard
Chan in the interrogation of Qieu.
At that late hour, most of the Scorpions were out prowling the city, some
searching for Luk Yee and the other followers of Li Chang, others terrorizing
the populace into submission to the iron-fisted extortionate rule of the House
of Chan. In Shanghai, surely, darkness had long been the handmaiden of evil.
The long nights and the murky fogs that blew in off the harbor had cloaked the
criminal enterprises of the Chan dynasty in mystery for a generation or more.
With most of their potential customers on duty, at least for the moment,
Lin and Zheng were busy securing Ci-ci for the night in a tiny alcove near the
front of the barracks. The Drooler encircled the poor girl's wrists with a
length of coarse heavy rope and lashed them to a beam that jutted out from a
wall high overhead, and then the Ox pulled the rope so tightly around the beam
that the brutalized sixteen-year old beauty was forced to stand on tiptoes, her
lovely breast-mounds crushed against the uneven surface of the the rough stone
wall.
Not an easy position to sleep in, but Ci-ci was grateful that tonight,
perhaps, she might be permitted some respite from her seemingly un-ending
ordeal. Since her dreadful first night at the Pit -- the fire-building, the
ricksha-pulling, the torturous hot bath etc -- Chiang Chan's men had, with one
noteworthy exception, largely refrained from further torture, flogging her only
(but unmercifully) when she was rebellious or disobedient. Like most gangsters
they were materialistic, and were quick to capitalize on the advantages of
renting her succulent young body out to their fellow Scorpions. An hour of
intense pleasure with a velvet-skinned young beauty in exchange for three hours'
wages seemed a good bargain to most of the Scorpions, and a most lucrative one
indeed to the Ox and Lin, who had appointed themselves treasurers of the
enterprise during Dao's absence.
The opportunistic flesh-merchants had found many takers. During the prior
forty-eight hours Ci-ci had found herself lashed to nearly every one of the cots
that lined the Scorpions' barracks, as she was passed from one depraved gangster
to another as carelessly as a bottle of cheap wine.
*******
Ci-ci had made one attempt to escape, in the wee hours of her second night
at the Pit. Her final Scorpion 'customer' of the night had fallen into a
drunken stupor on top of her after raping her, and she had been able to
extricate herself from his bearish embrace. She had slipped out of the tawdry
cot silently and tiptoed toward the door, hoping to make good her escape.
She had opened the heavy door soundlessly, and paused briefly to shiver
when the chill of the night air enveloped her nudity, stiffening her
tear-drop-shaped nipples in the process. She stood there silently in the
doorway for a moment trying to clear her head and regain her bearings, when
suddenly a giant shadow loomed in the darknesss to her right.
The shadow of the brutish behemoth, Zheng, the Ox.
Ci-ci had darted away quickly, but having been bound to one cot or another
for much of the prior thirty hours had stripped her of much of her foot speed.
Her heart pounding frantically, she ran in the opposite direction away from her
massive pursuer and across the cartpath and into the grassy area between the Pit
and the Black Pagoda with the lumbering giant in hot pursuit.
At first she put a little distance between herself and Zheng, stretching
her lead to three yards, five yards, seven yards. But the grass was still
slippery from the prior night's downpour, and was soon her undoing.
The first time she slipped she merely broke her stride momentarily allowing
the Ox to close the gap. But the second time she hit a slippery patch her feet
went completely out from under her and she fell awkwardly to one knee. And that
was all the time Zheng needed to tackle her from behind, putting his massive
shoulder into the center of her back with the force of a steam locomotive,
driving her naked body face down into the damp grass. Ci-ci was a strong girl,
as evidenced by her struggles with the ricksha, but the Ox, whose weight was
nearly three times her own, overpowered her as easily and as ferociously as a
ravenous wolf would an innocent fawn.
She had struggled futilely as she felt the goliath's meaty thighs wedging
themselves between her own bare legs, spreading them wide apart. Moments later
she felt the horrific pressure of the Ox's huge irresistible cock-bludgeon as it
pressed against the rear entryway to her raw girl-sex, and then its punishing
invasion which seemed for a moment as if it would cut her in two.
His cudgel seemed to stretch the walls of Ci-ci's sensitive vaginal sheath
to the bursting point, turning the sensual thrill of male penetration into a
painful ordeal. The Ox had punished her viciously with his cockshaft while he
held her face down in the grass in the moonlight, pounding his meaty manhood
into her with pile-driving force.
At first, Ci-ci was not entirely certain that the imbecilic giant was even
aware of the savagery of his assault. But after he raped her the man-beast had
grabbed her by the pigtails and dragged his exhausted victim through the wet
grass over to a nearby tree.. Holding her by the hair with one hand he broke a
sparsely-leaved bough from a tree branch with no more difficulty than a normal
man would have had picking a mandarin orange. Then he threw Ci-ci roughly
face-first against the tree and flogged her moonlight-dappled thighs and
buttocks until every last leaf had fallen from the bough.
When he was done, blood was streaming down Ci-ci's legs. He marched her
over to the well, and gestured for her to wash away the grass and blood. When
she had finished her cold-water ablutions Zheng pushed his meaty index finger
into her breastbone midway between her ripening breasts and gruffly muttered the
only words of their brief but traumatic encounter.
"I don't like to run."
********
Zheng had just finished lashing Ci-ci's wrists overhead, while Lin
watched, lash-strap in hand, when Chiang Chan, who had been about to begin his
journey home to his father's estate, had been startled by a soft tap at the
heavy wooden door at the entrance of the Pit. Chiang walked over to the
entrance thinking that perhaps one of the Scorpions had inadvertently locked
himself out. But when he opened the barracks door, he was pleasantly surprised
to find a young woman in a long cloak standing before him, her beautiful face
pale in the moonlight. Her eyes were intelligent but seemed possessed of a
great sadness. She looked vaguely familiar and Chiang wrestled with his memory
as he tried to recall where he had seen her.
The young woman, held a small embroidered handbag in a death grip, and
gave the appearance of trying to look over his shoulder. She smiled at him
nervously. "Sir, forgive me for disturbing you, but I am looking for my sister;
I have not seen her for several days."
A barely perceptible smile crossed Chiang Chan's face. "One moment, miss."
He closed the door and turned toward his men and motioned for Zheng to pull a
dark curtain across the entrance to the alcove, thus blocking the visitor's view
of the slave-girl whose nude young body was cruelly distended by the
wrist-ropes. Zheng stood in front of the curtain blocking it with his bulk;
Lin, armed with his leather strap, was stationed behind it, alongside their
naked prisoner.
Chiang Chan re-opened the door allowing the attractive young woman to peer
inside the Scorpions' lair. "What makes you think that your sister might be
here?"
The woman's voice was no more than a whisper. "I overheard a conversation
at ... at my place of employment, sir."
At those hesitant words, Chiang Chan remembered where he had seen her. He
had seen her face, he was nearly certain, on one of his carnal excursions to
the House of Madame Wong.
"It may have been only a rumor, but I ..." she looked nervously in the
direction of the Black Pagoda which towered, dark and sinister in the moonlight,
a hundred yards away. "I became dreadfully worried when my sister did not visit
me last night. It was her night off, you see." The young woman trembled with
agitation. "When I asked at the great house at which she worked," and here
Peony gestured in the direction of Richard Chan's evil palace, which she had
passed en route to the Scorpions' barracks, "they would tell me nothing."
Only someone who had experienced the horrors of Richard Chan's dungeons
firsthand, as Peony herself had, {Chapter 10} could know the full scope of the
terrors that had assailed her while she had waited at the front gate of the
dreaded citadel. The gatekeeper had kept her waiting for several minutes, and
she came close to bolting more than once. But the courage of a sister's love
had overcome her fears, and she had waited nervously for her interview with the
head of the servants, not that it had done her much good.
For not only had the bird-like chamberlain, Bao-tseng, told her nothing of
her sister's whereabouts, he had dismissed her with the patronizing and surly
officiousness of which only a high-ranking servant was capable. From that
unproductive interview she had come directly to the Pit.
Peony looked around the long, dingy barracks, the rows of disorderly cots,
slovenly heaps of discarded clothing and boots everywhere. Weapons - clubs,
knives, ropes - were strewn around the room haphazardly. The barracks smelt of
maleness, and -- like the dungeons of Richard Chan --emitted an aura of
dominance, of utter ruthlessness. Peony was accosted by the surreal impression
that no spark of human decency had ever illuminated its foul precincts.
"My sister's name is Ci-ci, sir," Peony continued with a tremor in her
voice, addressing Chiang Chan. "She is sixteen, very pretty, with long
pigtails."
Chiang Chan eyed the lovely visitor. Her lustrous black hair fell in a
black cloud across the collar of her cloak, while Ci-ci's hair was done in
girlish pigtails, but the resemblance between the two young women was
unmistakable. The same soft brown eyes and elegantly-arched eyebrows, the same
beautifully-chiseled cheekbones, the same sensual mouth. The visitor seemed to
be only a few years older than her soft-skinned sister.
"Sister ... go away...please ... before it is too late..." The voice from
behind the curtain was weak, but unmistakable.
"Quiet, you!" Lin whispered louder than he realized. Screened by the dark
curtain, the acne-scarred adolescent whipped his thick leather strap across the
backs of Ci-ci's shapely thighs with a loud, THWACCKKK!!
The lash was followed momentarily by a soft, half-stifled groan of pain.
Trembling, Peony summoned up her courage. "Sir, I ... I heard my sister's
voice." She glanced at the huge mountain of a man who stood in front of the
curtain, his bovine face impassive. The goliath's dark, loose-fitting trousers
bulged with a man-lust stimulated by the enjoyable task of binding the nude body
of his prisoner only moments earlier. Finding not a scintilla of human
compassion in the Ox's expressionless face, she turned back toward the handsome
and intelligent countenance of the young man who seemed to be in command of the
grim barracks.
Chiang Chan regarded the soulful-eyed elder sister with a sinister smile;
the younger sister was clearly near the limit of her endurance. She had babbled
more or less incoherently earlier in the evening while the last half-dozen
Scorpions had satisfied themselves at her expense. Perhaps it was time to ride
a new pony. And what a pretty pony it was that faced him in the doorway...
"Miss ...?
"Peony, sir. My name is Peony." The slender young woman's graceful fingers
worked nervously at the clasp of her handbag.
"Peony, the girl we are holding here is nothing more than a thief and a
whore. Is your sister a whore?"
The flat, brutal monosyllable tore at Peony's heart. For that indeed was
what she herself was, thought Peony. A whore who permitted men to use her body
for their pleasure. To support her orphaned siblings, it was true. But still a
whore.
"There must be a terrible ... mistake, sir," Peony continued haltingly as
she tried to regain her poise. "My sister is not a thief. And could never be a
..." she found it difficult to verbalize the word, "whore."
"You think not? Perhaps you'd care to come inside and join us, and we can
discuss the matter?"
The faint voice came from behind the curtain again."Peony ... Go! Save
yourself! Do not worry about me. For the sake of the children, go! And don't
come back! Don't ever come back."
CRACKK!! Lin's strap left a diagonal mark across the soft golden skin of
Ci-ci's back. "I said, 'Be quiet', slut!"
"Uhhhhhhhh!" Ci-ci moaned softly, behind the curtain, trying to stifle
her cry of pain so that her sister would not hear it. She was convinced that
only by pretending to be all right could she possibly convince her sister to
flee and save herself. She stared defiantly at the greasy-haired adolescent
brandishing the lash. And then she spoke again. "Sister, please... Go. Our
brothers and sisters need you. I will be all right."
Peony had winced in empathy at the all-too familiar crack of leather on
fragile girl-flesh as if it had been her own body which had felt the blow.
"You are my sister, too, Ci-ci," Peony called out so that she could be
heard through the dark drapery that separated them. "I cannot leave you."
Chiang Chan smiled at Peony's nobility of spirit. And pondered how to
exploit it.
"Won't you come inside, Miss? I'm sure that something can be arranged."
Peony, her heart fluttering with apprehension, stepped inside.
"Let me take your cloak, Miss," Chiang Chan offered as he reached behind
her and closed the barracks door behind her with an ominous 'click' that bespoke
an unpleasant finality. "It is much warmer in here than outside." The great
coal stove at the far end of the room blazed merrily away, oblivious to the role
it had played in the torture of Ci-ci on the night of her banishment from the
Black Pagoda.
"N-no. Please. Thank you for your hospitality," Peony added uneasily,
forcing herself to smile. "But I only want to take my sister home."
Chiang Chan's voice hardened. "If you wish to see your sister, you will do
as I say. Let me take your coat."
Blushing, Peony slipped out of the somber cloak she wore. Beneath it she
wore a wine-colored cheongsam, buttoned up to her collar, but slit high on both
sides to allow the clients in Madame Wong's 'greeting area' to enjoy Peony's
finest attribute, her long, supple legs. Rare was the client who did not slide
a lecherous hand inside the cheongsam to sample Peony's warm honey-gold
thigh-flesh before adjourning to a private room for more prolonged and intimate
embraces.
Chiang dropped comfortably back into his chair at the sturdy square table
on which Ci-ci had been hog-tied when he and his men had returned from their
harbor mission two nights earlier. His eyes scrutinized the attractive figure
of his visitor with inordinate interest. The cheongsam was very tight, in
keeping with Madam Wong's strict rules, and the fine burgundy fabric hugged
Peony's thrusting breasts like a silken glove.
An acne-faced boy carrying a braided leather strap stepped from behind the
curtain to join the slab-faced giant who stood in front of it. "Mmmm, looks like
fresh meat, boss," Lin leered as he undressed Peony with his eyes.
"Zheng, why don't you open the curtain and let our guest see the thief who
has been entrusted to our care."
The Ox took a step to his right, and then drew back the folds of the
curtain so that Peony could see the nude body of her beautiful young sister,
standing awkwardly on her tiptoes, the muscles of her shoulders, back, and legs
stretched taut by her strict bondage.
"Sister!" Peony gasped in horror. "What have they done to you?" Ci-ci's
body was criss-crossed with faint streaks that bore unmistakable witness to her
savage beating two nights earlier, as well as thinner, darker ones that the Ox
had inflicted when she had tried to escape. Not to mention the two lurid
inch-wide strap marks that Lin had left only moments earlier.
"Please, Peony," Ci-ci sobbed, "go ... go away ... before it's too late."
Screwing up her courage, Peony addressed Chiang Chan. "Sir, I have brought
money. If I pay you ...?"
"Ah, I see, " Chiang Chan said as he stroked his chin. "You wish to
purchase your sister's freedom. How much money do you have, girl?"
"I do not know how much it comes to, sir." Peony's words came out in a
rush. "I have not slept these last two nights, sir, trying to earn tips for
such a purpose." Peony's slender fingers opened the clasp on the handbag and
upended its contents on the table. A few bills and a cascade of coins, a few
gold, but mostly silver and bronze, came tumbling down. Marks, francs,
shillings, quarters and more attested to the cosmopolitan nature of Madame
Wong's clientele. "I think, sir, that there are coins from many lands."
More than half of the coins, some two dozen of them, were of the same
color and size. Chiang Chan inspected one carefully and then, separating those
shiny bronze coins from the others, pointed to the little pile he had created.
Then he asked in a friendly tone, "Did the same," he paused, searching for the
appropriate word, "er, client, give you all of these?"
Buoyed by his response, Peony responded, "Yes, sir. An Englishman -- very
well dressed. He was most generous, was he not? Is it not the Queen herself on
the coins he gave me?"
"Yes. Yes, it is, Peony. It is none other than the great Victoria
herself." Chiang Chan spoke with a trace of disdain in his voice. Most Chinese
were resentful of English imperialism. Chiang Chan pursed his lips. "Tell me,
Peony, what great service did you perform for this English gentleman that
induced him to part with such a king's ransom?"
Peony blushed, half with pride at her good fortune, and half with
embarrassment over the manner in which her little nest egg had come into her
possession.
"The truth, girl! What did you do for your prodigal benefactor?"
When the uneducated pleasure-girl stared at him blankly, Chiang Chan
smiled and continued, "That is to say, your generous ... client."
"I ... I had to ... sleep with him, sir," Peony stammered.
"I do not care for euphemisms, Peony."
When the slender courtesan stared vacantly at him again, he explained,
"Expressions which mask the truth. What do you mean, "Sleep with him?"
Peony stared at the sturdy table, unable to look her interrogator in the
eye, her face crimson. "I work at the House of Madam Wong, sir. It is my job to
... to please the gentlemen in whichever way they wish." The frank lustful
stares of the two men who stood near the curtain made her feel as if a pair of
dark hairy spiders were crawling across her naked body.
"And how did the munificent gentleman who gave you these coins wish to be
pleased? The truth!"
Peony's voice dropped to no more than a whisper. "I - I had to ... make
love to him with my mouth, sir. After ..."
"After what?" Chiang Chan's voice cut through the stillness of the room
like a knife.
"After ... after ... he beat me."
"Did he beat you severely?"
"Y-yes. Yes, he did sir. But it was worth it." Peony pointed to the mound
of coins on the table.
"Show me."
"W-what?"
"Show me how and where he beat you. I would like to see if this gentleman
got his money's worth."
Lin the Drooler giggled and elbowed his massive comrade.
"B-but..."
"Now, slut. If you hope to buy your sister's freedom."
From the corner of the room Ci-ci cried out weakly, "No, Peony. Go while
you can. I ... I will be all right."
"I thought I told you to be quiet! Lin turned toward his naked prisoner
and slashed the braided leather strap viciously across the pliant flesh of
Ci-ci's rounded buttocks.
CRACCKKK!! "Mmmmnnnnnnnhhh!" Ci-ci struggled once again to contain her
cries of pain.
Chiang Chan leaned forward in his chair, his eyes intent on Peony. "Show
me! Quickly! Or be on your way -- without your sister."
Peony's brown eyes darted swiftly toward each of the three male faces who
gaped at her expectantly. "I-I will.' And Peony turned her back to the three
Scorpions and worked nervously at the buttons which opened down the front of the
tight-fitting burgundy dress.
Lin was about to interject a command for her to turn around, when Chiang
Chan silenced him by lifting a finger to his lips and mouthing the word,
'Patience'.
When Peony's bodice was completely unbuttoned, she took a deep, breath and
slipped the cheongsam back over her gently rounded shoulders, baring her
shoulders and shoulderblades to the leering threesome.
Chiang Chan eyed the golden flesh fondly. Peony's skin, like her sister's,
seemed to have been poured from a vat of liquid gold. It was blemishless, save
for a single dark-red diagonal streak.
"Is that all? He bestowed such a fortune on you in order to deliver one
stroke of the whip?"
"N-no, sir."
"What else? Show me."
Trembling, Peony wriggled and let the back of the dress fall to her waist,
while she clutched the burgundy bodice to her nude breasts. Four more long
livid streaks stretched across the smooth skin of her back.
Lin felt his young manhood stiffen as his thin-slitted eyes focused on the
enchanting half inch of buttock cleft that was now visible above the swath of
burgundy bunched at Peony's rounded hips.
"Only five strokes? I can not believe an Englishman would part with such a
princely sum for only five strokes. Were there not more?"
Peony's body was visibly shaking with nervousness and mortification.
Her voice was dry, almost inaudible. "Y- yes, sir."
"Show us.'
In order to let the wine-colored silk slide down over her shapely hips,
Peony was obliged to lower her breast-concealing hands to her flanks, so that
she could shimmy the tight-fitting skirt down her rounded buttocks. Lin and
Zheng each silently edged sideways so as to steal a glance at Peony's lovely
dark-tipped breasts in profile.
Meanwhile Chiang Chan's eyes were drinking in the sight of Peony's lovely
bottom, which had taken the brunt of the Englishman's punishment. No fewer than
nine thin lash-marks, the tell-tale vestiges of blows delivered with a
single-tailed whip, curled around Peony's luscious quivering asscheeks. She
remembered the fury and the glee with which the ruddy-faced well-dressed
Englishman had whipped her, the way he had forced her to count off the blows, in
both English and Chinese. Knowing virtually no English, she had made numerous
mistakes in counting. Each error had unfailingly resulted in a stinging slap of
reproof to a proud young breast.
When he had finished flogging her the heavy-set Englishman had forced her
to suck his short thick cock with her warm mouth until his body convulsed with
pleasurable lust when he shot his swinish man-juice down her velvety throat.
But all of the abasement had been worth it -- had not the wealthy
Englishman given her more than twenty shiny coins bearing the image of Queen
Victoria herself? Coins which she could now use to buy her poor sister's
freedom from this den of thugs?"
"Peony, would you like to know the value of the Englishman's gratuity?"
"Y-yes, please, sir." Peony could feel the eyes of the Scorpions on her
nude buttocks. She prayed to the spirit of her dead parents that the amount
would be enough to free her sister with perhaps enough left over to buy the
children something.
"It is my pleasure," Chiang Chan continued as he winked at his two
comrades, "to inform you that the Englishman gave you the royal sum of
twenty-four farthings."
"Farthings, sir? Are they valuable then?"
"Oh, yes, Peony they have value. Enough, perhaps, to buy a few cups of
tea."
"B-but ... the Queen ... herself ... It is not fair..." Peony, her eyes
welling with tears, turned toward the three men, forgetful in her despair, of
her semi-nudity, holding the edge of the burgundy cheongsam across her loins.
The glow given off by the kerosene lamps of the barracks seemed to shimmer on
her mouthwatering breasts, and her belly of spun gold.
"Stupid slut!" sneered Lin the Drooler, unmindful of the fact that he would
not have known a farthing from a sovereign himself.
"Ah," Chiang Chan grinned mockingly. "You have learned a useful lesson,
wench. Never trust an Englishman." Then he smiled again. "Not even the
Queen."
Chiang Chan rubbed his hands together with satisfaction and pointed to the
rest of the coins and bills on the table. "The rest is of little value, either,
my dear, especially when compared to the prize we have in our possession." He
gestured toward Ci-ci.
Chiang Chan stood and let his eyes wander menacingly over Peony's semi-nude
body."What else have you to offer us?
"Peony... no. Don't do it..." came the faint voice from the alcove.
CRACKKK!! "Aahhhhh!"
Lin's lash had seared Ci-ci's bottom again. "Silence, cunt!!"
"I am waiting, Peony," Chiang Chan repeated in a low, sinister voice, as he
rose and walked around the table toward the bare-breasted pleasure girl. "You
are free to go if you wish. But if you go, you go alone."
"Wait!" Peony took a deep breath which caused her dark nipple-crests to
bobble deliciously. "I have one thing more." Peony, still holding her dress
up at hip-level, stooped and undid the false heel of her right shoe, and removed
something from the hiding place. She stood and held out a shiny gold coin
toward Chiang Chan.
"Please, sir. It is all I have in the world. I have been saving it to pay
for a teacher for my young brother after the New Year. But you may ..."
Chiang reached out and took the gold piece from her and flipped it in the
air deftly. Then he gestured toward Ci-ci, who was still moaning softly in
response to Lin' last whip-stroke. "So you thought that you could swindle me,
by offering me a low price for your sister? Very well, this will spare her the
beating the thief deserves tonight."
Then he turned back toward Peony, his dark eyes devoid of compassion. "But
what will you offer me for her freedom?"
Peony glanced at her brutalized sister and took a deep breath, and with
downcast eyes let the cheongsam drift silently to the floor,
"The only thing I have left, sir. I myself."
