Warning: This chapter contains descriptions of child abuse and human trafficking that may be uncomfortable for some readers.
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Lili ran from the room, her mother's ashen gray face haunting her wherever she went. She remembered running down the stairs, calling for help. Everyone was used to the screams that would come from her house, so none of her neighbors spared a look at her.
She must have looked insane back then, her hair disheveled and her own legs still bleeding.
"Help!" She didn't remember how long she ran for, but she finally collapsed in an unfamiliar place, her stomach knotting in pain. She was too young to understand what exactly and happened, and all just wanted to flee from her home. "Help!"
She ran straight into a pair of outstretched arms.
Behind the layers of makeup, the middle-aged woman's face was kind. "Little girl, where are you running off to this late at night?"
Lili didn't respond, her stomach growling in protest.
The woman held out a steaming bun, offering it to Lili. "You must be hungry, dear."
Lunging for the steaming bun, Lili shoved it into her mouth, trying to keep her tears from falling.
"Dear, you have a beautiful face."
That was all Lili heard before the world turned to black.
The next thing she knew, she was off the crowded streets and in a dark and musty room. A coil of ropes bound her hands, and she looked up with wide eyes to see the mask of kindness ripped off the woman's face.
"Dear, you truly do have a beautiful face." Curling her long fingers underneath Lili's chin, she leaned closer, revealing how she reeked of smoke. "With a bit of work, I'm sure you'll become our crown jewel."
Clapping, a few girls entered the room. One carried a wig. Another a plate of colorful makeup. And the last carrying a dress.
Unable to move, Lili could only close her eyes, wondering what she had done to deserve this life. Countless thoughts that should have never crossed a child's mind swirled within hers, and she began to sob.
A sharp slap on the wrist forced her to stifle her tears. "You're going to ruin the makeup!" The woman glared at her, and she shriveled. "Now that's a good girl."
In the end, Lili couldn't recognize the girl before the mirror. She had middle-lengthen blonde hair, and her face was painted into a rosy smile. A low-cut dress was put onto her, a dress that was much too long for her.
"How old are you, little girl?"
Wearing another slap, Lili responded, "Seven."
"Wonderful." The woman clapped her hands, and a man materialized from the darkness behind her. "Did you hear that, sir?
The man wore an ironed suit and a bright red tie, and his expression was playful. He looked like someone from the movies.
The woman leaned towards Lili. "Follow his every wishes, or I'd make you wish you were in hell. This man is an important man."
Plastering on her brightest smile, the woman cooed. "Mr. Tian, this is an unopened bud right here. Isn't she an absolute doll?" She brought her hands to Lili's face. Lili tremored, but a dagger-like glance forced her to sit straight. "Such a rare treasure is worth…"
"I'll pay 20k for her first night." The man smiled. Although it was a pretty smile, it had no expression.
"Ooh!" The woman jumped up and down with pleasure. "You're one of our VIP customers, so I'm sure you know our rules already."
The man tossed her a check, and she was out the door in an instant, leaving only Lili and the man in the room.
"Little doll, you are a beauty, did you know that?"
That night, Lili first saw a man's body. That night, Lili felt pain like she never had before. That night, Lili cried until her eyes went dry.
She hated the way his fingers touched places that she didn't want to be touched. She hated the way he would force her to smile through it all. She hated the way he forcibly pried her legs open. She hated feeling like she was dirty.
Those feelings only grew worse and worse.
Years later, Lili had become the top at the brothel. She learned how to plaster on fake smiles and ask her clients for secret stashes of money and favors. She mastered the art of saying words that she didn't believe in in order to pleasure men.
She was only fifteen, but she was already one of the most experienced workers at the brothel.
She had thought of running at first, but where could she go? She never finished elementary school, and she didn't even know how to read.
She grew to hate her father. If it wasn't for him, she would have never ended up in such a state.
Here, with her beauty and her charms, she could ask the most powerful men to do anything for her. But she always had only one request: find me a man named Mi Rongliang and kill him.
Her clients were perfectly capable of doing such an act, but no one dared to soil their fingers for a mere child, a prostitute at that.
Whenever she would ask them, they would brush her off, saying that she was too young to know what she really wanted. She would smile, but on the inside, she would mock them. Apparently she wasn't too young to be the object for their sexual desires.
She started trying to hire her own assassins. But despite how much she had saved up over the years, she didn't have enough to hire one.
"Little girl, who do you want to kill?"
Lili looked up to see a woman whose face like a blossoming rose.
"My name is Code X. Pleased to meet you, my client." The assassin extended out a gloved hand.
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Author's Note:
I'm super super sorry for the long wait! For anyone still willing to read, I'm going to aim for one/two chapters every week. My main focus will be on my WSA entry, "The Heartless King," but I will be trying to continue updating this story!
If you can, please please support me for the WSA! Please give my other story a chance, and add it to your collection! Depending on how that story goes, I'll try to update more for this story as well! ^-^
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Synopsis of The Heartless King:
Princess Daphne wanted to become a widow. Or she would die trying.
On the marriage proposal drafted on human flesh and written with fresh blood, the Northern King had made himself quite clear: the princess would marry, not as a queen but the lowest of concubines, not in a carriage but within a sealed coffin, not to be celebrated but to be paraded around as a war prize. If those terms were violated, he would personally prepare a grave for each and every one of her citizens.
Some said the Northern King had slaughtered his entire family and signed a contract with hell itself. All Daphne wanted to do was to send him back there to pay for his crimes.
The night of their wedding, she plunged her silver dagger squarely into his chest, waiting for the final heartbeat that never sounded. Only then did she realize, perhaps too late, that the heart of the Northern King never beat in the first place.