Chapter 26: Discovering Something Interesting

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Discovering Something Interesting

Listening to the system’s words, Qiao Suluo’s mouth twitched. She coughed for quite a while. Her neck hurt so much from being strangled that tears came to her eyes as she coughed.

"Dog of a man," she thought. "Wait until he’s won over; I’ll show him who’s boss. How dare he try to strangle me, and with so much force!"

Her neck felt like it was going to snap.

Finally able to speak, Qiao Suluo took a deep breath, suppressing her emotions as she explained, "I know I’ve done a lot of wrong things in the past. I’ve realized my mistakes, and I’ve changed now.

"If you don’t believe me, you can ask Que Hongjin and Bai Qianluo."

Tushan Feishang didn’t believe a single word Qiao Suluo said. His thin lips curled into a faint smile, as soul-captivating as a demon’s, yet the slight upward curve seemed to carry a sharp edge. "Que Hongjin and Bai Qianluo?

"You’ve changed? Heh." His tone made it sound as though he had just heard the greatest joke in the world. "Although they have cold temperaments, can’t you feel how much they despise you?

"Or do you think that, looking like this, they would truly treat you as their wife?

"Qiao Suluo, you don’t even have an ounce of self-awareness."

Looking down at her with his fox-like eyes, his gaze was filled with undisguised mockery and disdain. Every word he spoke cut like a knife.

Looking at Tushan Feishang, Qiao Suluo gritted her teeth in anger. She wanted nothing more than to slap him across the face to teach him a lesson for spouting such filthy nonsense.

Seeing her expression, Tushan Feishang crouched down and lazily said, "Yes, that’s the look. Now that is more like you."

Saying this, he felt an irresistible urge to strangle her neck again.

However, remembering how he had just strangled her, it felt as if he had touched something filthy. Tushan Feishang walked to the side and washed his hands in a water basin. He vigorously scrubbed them for quite a while, visibly disgusted by the dirt on her neck.

Qiao Suluo was so furious she nearly coughed up blood. She wanted to just leave and ignore this dog of a man, but the system kept nagging in her ear about the mission.

Left with no choice, she continued speaking. "I’m really not playing any tricks.

"I truly want to redeem your indenture contract and take you back.

"You see how easily you could strangle me to death; naturally, I wouldn’t dare lie to you.

"I earned these thirty taels of silver myself. I am absolutely sincere."

"It hurts so much to spend this on redeeming this dog of a man! Does he think he can humiliate people just because he’s good-looking?" she thought.

Those were things her predecessor had done, not her. But the system wouldn’t let her reveal any of this. She certainly couldn’t tell them that she wasn’t the original owner of this body.

After washing and drying his hands, Tushan Feishang finally turned to look at Qiao Suluo. His fox-like eyes were tinged with the disgust of someone whose patience had run out. "Sure enough, you’ve spent all the silver you got from selling everyone.

"Did you really earn these thirty taels yourself?"

"Yes," Qiao Suluo said. "I worked hard for it. I earned this silver by setting up a stall before dawn."

Tushan Feishang absolutely did not believe her words. In the past, this woman was vicious and selfish, cursing people whenever she opened her mouth. She had seemed too lazy to even lie, but now she was full of falsehoods.

The corners of his lips curled up, and his voice was lazy and loose. "Don’t you know that to redeem someone, thirty taels of silver is nowhere near enough? There’s also interest."

Hearing this, Qiao Suluo was completely dumbfounded.

"But the indenture contract was for exactly thirty taels of silver."

When her predecessor sold him to the Nanfeng Building, it was for thirty taels of silver. Logically speaking, thirty taels should be enough to redeem him.

Tushan Feishang’s fox-like eyes rippled with an enchanting hue, yet a bloodthirsty coldness was hidden within. The coquettish pale red depths of his eyes made him look like a blood-colored demon immortal stepping straight out of an ink painting. "That is because you don’t know the rules of the Nanfeng Building.

"Therefore, Miss Qiao, you won’t be able to redeem me. Don’t waste your effort, and just leave."

At this moment, Tushan Feishang’s tone was filled with utmost disgust. It was as if he didn’t want to spare her another glance and was just trying to shoo her away.

He had thought this woman had come up with some formidable new tricks, but it amounted to nothing more than this. She just wanted to try a different approach. However, this also confirmed to him that she hadn’t been sent by those people. Having confirmed this, he had no interest in wasting any more time talking nonsense with her.

Qiao Suluo’s expression shifted.

Thirty taels of silver wasn’t enough to complete the mission? She looked up at Tushan Feishang. Could it be that this man actually wanted to stay here?

Qiao Suluo didn’t know that her eyes were very expressive. When looking at people, she sometimes accidentally revealed her thoughts.

"Miss Qiao, do you no longer want your eyeballs?"

Qiao Suluo quickly lowered her head. "Then how much silver is needed to redeem you?"

Tushan Feishang paused his turning motion and looked back at her, his gaze somewhat intimidating. "Miss Qiao, could it be that you truly want to redeem me?"

He thought this was rather interesting. "Now you know my worth, and you can’t stop thinking about me?"

Qiao Suluo nearly broke out in goosebumps. What "can’t stop thinking about me"? Such sickly sweet words made her want to vomit. With his wretched personality, she didn’t have any mood to appreciate his handsome face. She only wanted to slap him, left and right.

But for now, she could only imagine doing so; she simply wasn’t as strong as him.

Watching Qiao Suluo’s shifting expressions, Tushan Feishang seemed to have suddenly discovered something amusing. His eerie fox-like eyes curved into a charming, rippling arc.

He found this truly interesting.

"Since you are so sincere, then it will be fifty taels of silver. That is the price set by the owner."

Fifty taels of silver?

Qiao Suluo instinctively blurted out, "Why doesn’t your owner just go rob someone?"

Only after setting up her stall to do business every day did Qiao Suluo realize what one tael of silver truly meant. In their Cat Clan Village, most families wouldn’t even earn one tael of silver after a full year of hard work.

They wished they could stretch a single cent twice as far. Many Beastmen toiled for an entire year and still couldn’t get enough to eat. They couldn’t even bear to eat the eggs laid by their own hens; they had to save them to sell at the market for a few copper coins to subsidize their household expenses.

It was only by relying on her culinary skills from her past life that she was able to make so much money all at once by selling her recipes.

Tushan Feishang raised an eyebrow, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

To think she could actually say such words.

"Now you know that fifty taels of silver is a lot. Why didn’t you feel that way when you sold everyone and squandered the silver?"

Of course he knew that she had taken the silver and squandered it at a tavern. He didn’t even need to ask; people would naturally come and tell him. She had also bought the county’s most expensive rouge and powder. With her appearance, no amount of expensive cosmetics could cover up anything.

Qiao Suluo held her breath, unable to speak. Those things were done by her predecessor, but in the eyes of others, they were done by her. It really left her with no way to retort.

"That was because I was ignorant before and didn’t know the value of silver. Now I do."

Saying this, Qiao Suluo felt a bit lacking in confidence. She herself felt awkward saying these words and knew they were hard to believe.

Seeing her suddenly deflate, completely devoid of energy, Tushan Feishang curled his lips and said softly, "So, Miss Qiao still feels that I am not worth spending so much silver to redeem?"

His tone was like a lover’s whisper, yet it carried a bone-chilling coldness.

Qiao Suluo cursed at him several times in her heart, but on the surface, she smiled and said, "Of course not. Fifty taels of silver it is."

She would just have to figure out another way to earn the money. She wondered if Manager Zhao of the Drunken Immortal Tower would still buy her recipes.

However, Manager Zhao was a cautious man; he insisted on testing the effectiveness of the Konjac first. If the Konjac couldn’t revive the tavern’s business, he probably wouldn’t buy any new recipes.