The King's Lover
Chapter 75: Thirty Thousand Gold Pieces

Chapter 75: Thirty Thousand Gold Pieces

"I can’t believe someone paid thirty thousand gold pieces for her," a voice was saying.

It was the men Rose had left while she was going up in the cage, and they were still waiting for her when she returned.

"Didn’t I tell you she was special?" a voice asked. It was the man still holding the lamp.

The one who had locked the cage stepped forward and started to unlock it. "Better not cause any trouble," the man said.

Rose just stared at them, dumbfounded. She was still reeling from what had just happened. Why was the fact that she was sold less shocking than the amount she was sold for? fre(e)webnove.l.c.om

"Did you not hear me?" A voice broke through her thoughts. "Get out!"

Rose nodded and pushed herself to her feet. She was barefoot. It wasn’t like she had gone to bed with her shoes on, so when the man took her, it was only expected that there would be no shoes on her feet. However, she hadn’t noticed until now.

Rose grudgingly took a step forward, and the man in front of the cage looked at her with a menacing stare. "I said get—" He tried to pull her, but the man with the lamp stopped him.

"Careful, she is expensive merchandise. If Lady Fox makes any complaints, the Masked Host isn’t going to like it."

The man’s hands closed into fists, but he didn’t raise them at Rose. Instead, he put them beside himself and stood aside for her to pass through the entrance of the cage.

Rose walked out without a word, her head bent and her arms around herself. She didn’t know what to think, didn’t know how to feel, but one thing she was aware of was that she was currently on her way to whoever had paid thirty thousand gold pieces for her.

She would also be required to do whatever they wanted. Somehow, the crown prince’s option almost seemed better. She couldn’t run away now. For thirty thousand pieces of gold coins, she would surely be hunted down if she tried that—her and her family.

"I will take her," the man with the lamp said. "The rest of you clean the mess here."

"Okay," they said in unison. It was clear he was their boss, or at least he was in charge of them.

"Don’t stop walking, you’re going in the right direction," he spoke, walking next to her.

Rose nodded, but she didn’t exactly process his words. She just moved because that was all she could do. Soon, they came to a door, and he opened it. There was a desk, and someone sat by it. There was a stack of papers on the desk, and their eyes were glued to the table as they scribbled something.

The desk wasn’t the only notable thing in the room. There were shelves that held strange things in jars, some boxes whose contents she couldn’t see, and different scents filled the room. It was hard to tell if they were good or bad, there were too many of them.

The man walking with her pushed her toward the desk, and the man by the desk lifted his eyes. He was significantly older, with a bald head and a long beard that was ridiculously scanty. He had a monocle that seemed to be stuck in his right eye. Rose couldn’t figure out how the bridge of his nose and the shape of his eye held it in place.

"The redhead?" the old man asked.

"Yes," the man beside her sneered. "If I knew she would rake in that much money, I would have gotten rid of the rest of the twats."

"More money is good," the old man was saying as he carried a blank sheet of paper.

He dipped the quill into a small container of ink and started to write on the paper. As Rose watched him write, she couldn’t help but think he wrote with nice strokes.

"Your name?" he suddenly asked and lifted his head to look at her. His yellow teeth gave him an ominous look, but nothing compared to his breath.

Rose pulled back immediately. It felt like she had just been splashed with rotten fish water. It was enough to make her nauseous.

"Your name, redhead, even if it’s just your first name. We don’t expect someone like you to have a last name."

"Rose," she whispered.

"Good," the old man said, then scribbled some more. "Your hand," he said and stretched out his palm.

It was shriveled up like all the water had been sucked out of it. His fingers were crooked, and his nails were unnecessarily long and yellow. Rose was hesitant about giving him her hand, but she didn’t have a choice, as the man beside her was bearing down on her. He looked ready to give the old man her hand himself if she took too long. .com

She closed her eyes and gave the man her hand. Holding it, he took the container of ink, dipped her thumb into it, then placed the container back. "Put her thumb here," he said, pointing to a spot on the paper.

Rose looked at the paper and then at the old man. fre.ewebnov el.com

"Come on, we ain’t got all day," he said, his breath wafting to her nose again.

Rose almost lost her footing. She needed to be out of his presence. She placed her thumb exactly where he asked her to, and she watched him bring out a seal and stamp the edge of her thumbprint. Then he sealed the top right corner of the letter. He rolled it up, tied it with a ribbon, and handed it to the man next to her.

"Give it to Lady Fox. That’s her contract." Then he turned to look at Rose with dead eyes. "I know you might think of escaping. Don’t do it. We are really good at our job, and we like to keep our customers happy. If you ruin our reputation, you will have no one but yourself to blame. We will hunt you, and we will find you."