Then, Yi Manman suddenly asked, "I am a famous courtesan, yet you painted me as a female warrior."
Lanling replied, "What I painted is the self within your heart."
Yi Manman's heart trembled, for she too was once a descendant of a high-ranking samurai. She possessed an extraordinary dragon blood talent and had completed her Martial Enlightenment by the age of eight, and by ten, she was famous throughout the county. If nothing had gone awry, her family would have had another Dragon Warrior in thirty years, and it would have been a female one at that.
However, in the year she turned ten, King Zibian began to settle scores with those who had sided with the wrong faction during the previous power struggles.
Yi Manman's father's lord was purged, and her family was caught in the crossfire. Her father was executed, and although she had outstanding martial arts talent, no one dared to give her refuge. At just ten years old, she was sold into a brothel to be groomed into a cash cow.
