It seemed that the god of luck smiled upon the young master fool, allowing him to witness the swan song of the Sare Circus in Meyer City.
Inside this magnificent theater, the heavy curtains were tightly closed, shutting out the light from the outside. The interior was bathed in the glow of magic, creating a mysterious and dreamy atmosphere. On the stage, sturdy iron railings separated the performers from the audience. The theater was filled to capacity, and the audience craned their necks, eagerly waiting for the performance to begin.
As the hallucinatory melody rang out, the performance commenced.
...
On the stage, the dancing girls were barely clothed, only adorned with colorful ornaments. They had voluptuous figures and heavy makeup, exuding a seductive charm. They danced gracefully, blowing kisses and casting sultry glances at the audience, making hearts flutter.
Under the pink light, they wriggled their bodies. It was more of a full display of their bodies than a dance. Under the influence of the music and the hypnotic lights, each of their movements was filled with innuendo, teasing the audience's heartstrings.
The audience flocked to the stage, throwing coins, showing their greed and lust. The dancing girls were not stingy either. They reached across the iron railings to satisfy the desires of the audience.
As the music slowed down, a naked woman walked onto the stage with a smile and announced the start of the auction. The items up for auction were none other than those enchanting dancing girls.
Those with desire began to bid frantically. In the end, several of the highest bidders won the spoils of this performance.
...
The second act that followed was a brutal battle between humans and beasts.
The female slaves held shields and long swords, their faces filled with fear. Then, four or five hungry tigers were led onto the stage.
What ensued was a bloody massacre. The weak female slaves were no match for these fierce beasts. They were easily torn apart, their heads bitten off, their bodies ripped open, and blood splattered everywhere, accompanied by screams.
The young master fool was only ignorant about the first act, but this bloody spectacle excited him. He sat in the front row, shouting crazily:
"Bite! Bite her to death! Well done, come on!"
When a female slave was pounced on and stretched out her hand in despair, the young master fool stabbed her hand with a dagger he carried, forcing her back into the fight, muttering incessantly:
"Go back, go back, bite you to death!"
The blood splattered and even stained his clothes, which made him even more excited. When the next batch of female slaves was pushed onto the stage, he excitedly took off the family heirloom necklace around his neck and threw it into the cage:
"Come, come, more people! Bite! Bite hard! More people! More tigers!"
...
The old butler Delsson witnessed all this and was shocked. He quickly reproached the young master:
"Master! That is the relic your mother left you. How could you give it to such a cruel performance!"
The young master fool looked blank, blinked his eyes, and replied:
"Oh, is it?"
"It's okay. Let my mother give me a few more. It's just a gold necklace."
The old butler Delsson shook his head and sighed helplessly. He thought the circus performance would be a comical clown show, but he didn't expect such a cruel scene. He wanted to take the young master away, but the young master was full of enthusiasm and couldn't be pulled away. He had no choice but to endure the discomfort and let him continue watching.
Not only did the young master watch, but he also threw his mother's relic into it. It was the only memento his mother left. She was of low birth and didn't even have a tombstone after her death, only this last keepsake.
Helplessly, the old butler had to try to redeem the necklace after the performance.
...
After the performance, the young master fool was escorted out of the theater and taken to a restaurant for a meal. The old butler Delsson went to the backstage of the Sare Circus with two guards.
As soon as he entered the backstage, he saw the actors were unrestrained. The men and women all looked like members of a bandit gang. The old butler groaned inwardly.
After tipping a few actors, the person in charge, Dreyfus, finally appeared. He was the manager of the third team of the Sare Circus's thug group. He was tall and thin, with a gloomy face, like a dead birch tree.
Hearing that the old butler wanted to redeem the gold necklace, Dreyfus sneered and said:
"Oh, redeeming something, huh?"
"Hehe..."
"Tell you what, old man. A fixed price, one hundred gold coins!"
The old butler's eyes widened in astonishment, and he angrily scolded:
"One hundred gold coins?! You're blackmailing!"
"I'm telling you, we are from an earl family in the imperial capital, and the guards around me are not to be trifled with!"
Dreyfus sneered and signaled to his men. The actors in the backstage picked up their weapons, and the door was blocked by burly men.
Facing over a hundred bandits, the two guards were clearly no match. Dreyfus folded his arms and said coldly:
"Now it's one hundred and fifty. Do you want to redeem it?"
The old butler felt bitter in his heart. He had no choice but to grit his teeth and lower his head and replied in a deep voice:
"Redeem..."
...
After the old butler left, Dreyfus looked at the bag of gold coins and listened to the noise around him, calculating in his mind. The circus was about to move to the North Marquis' territory, and he was also one of the many people being laid off.
It was said that Canoka, the leader of the bandits in the North Marquis' territory, had lost a fight and fled to Anson with his men. After the Sare Circus left, the new master of Meyer City was likely to be Canoka.
At that time, he would have to make a living under Canoka. With a new master taking over, he was worried about having no gift to offer, and this old man came to him on his own.
The old man took out one hundred and fifty gold coins without hesitation, showing how wealthy he was. Just right, he could use this old man and his group as a tribute to the new boss.
He snapped his fingers at the back and called a man with a shifty look and whispered:
"Follow them and see where they stay."
The man answered and quickly left.
The sun was setting. The young master fool, the old butler Delsson, Castina and her father, and a team of guards left the city.
Castina lay on the carriage, enjoying the gentle breeze blowing through her wine-red hair. She rested her head on her arm, with one leg dangling lazily over the side of the carriage and the other hand gently rubbing her full stomach.
The air was filled with the smell of wheat and burning firewood. She took a deep breath and felt extremely comfortable.
...
She played with the ends of her hair with her fingers. Her coquettish eyes sometimes stared at the ends of her hair and sometimes looked at the setting sun in the sky, feeling relieved and happy.
Today, she had been shopping and feasting. She ate a lot of meat that she hadn't tasted in the past two and a half years, and also had a luxurious cake.
Her stomach was slightly bulging, as if she were two or three months pregnant. After eating, she was in a good mood, and her previous worry about the "Seris merchant" transmigrator disappeared.
She thought self-deprecatingly that she was just an ordinary woman. Why would others bother to find trouble with her?
Her father Hall was smoking and reading a light book leisurely in the carriage, while she was lying on the carriage floor admiring the sunset.
Since becoming Castina, she had never been so relaxed.
She frowned and suddenly remembered something. She took out the sanitary napkins she had just bought today from the bag. Her period seemed to be coming soon, and she could just use them.
...
After returning home, Castina went back to her boudoir and studied how to use the sanitary napkins. In this late medieval world, she used to use cotton cloth to deal with her period, and the experience was extremely bad.
The cotton cloth used to be placed at the entrance. According to this inertial thinking, Castina held the sanitary napkins and frowned slightly.
"Tsk..."
"This thing should also be stuck directly at the entrance like a band-aid, right?"
"Hiss... Why do I feel both reasonable and unreasonable?"
"It's okay when sticking it, but if peeling it off, wouldn't it pull out the hair? It would be so painful..."
"Well, considering that I'm fair-skinned, it's quite convenient."
She shook her head slightly, stuck the sanitary napkins randomly at the entrance, put on a skirt, and walked out of the room.
For some reason, she felt that the sticky thing at the entrance made her a bit uncomfortable when walking...
At the mountain pass on the border of the Anson Marquis' territory.
A group of six hundred horse thieves was galloping under the setting sun, kicking up clouds of dust. The horse thieves around were either wearing chain mail or lamellar armor, all of them were tall, strong, and ferocious, all being desperadoes.
And the leader of the horse thieves was a thin middle-aged man, dressed in exquisite silk clothes, like a noble.
The reason why he, a thin man, could become the leader was that Canoka was a powerful mage. He could cast spells like fireball with ease. A single fireball spell was enough to blow up the wooden door of an ordinary stockade.
The large trading firms and powerful forces in the Anson Marquis' territory had all been transferred. They encountered the Sare Circus that was on its way to the North Marquis' territory.
Now, the Anson Marquis' territory had become a power vacuum, full of opportunities.
He looked at Meyer City under the setting sun, smiled, whipped his horse, and galloped away.