Pawn

When Inès first saw Dexter, she had just left the barrel full of dirty water and the iron cage that allowed her to be viewed from above.

As a princess of a defeated country, Ines was abandoned by her father and her motherland. Although she is the eldest daughter, she is not as smart, considerate and kind as her younger sister Isis.

She was spoiled too much and became too rude, even taking advantage of her status and position to be arrogant and domineering, and she had no control over her emotions. Due to her lack of empathy for others, Inès showed some excessive cruelty and tyranny, always wanting people to obey her wishes, otherwise she would go crazy and kill people.

In other words, apart from her pretty face, she only had an empty head, stupid and frivolous, with a hollow and shallow mind, like a golden statue stuffed with straw. She was totally unlikable and was contrasted by her outstanding sister to become an obviously third-rate person.

Naturally, after weighing the pros and cons, her father abandoned her for the sake of the country, so that her only useful face could be put to good use. Now, no matter how much Ines cried and screamed, she could no longer beg her father for more. She didn't even have time to smash the expensive furnishings in the palace, overturn the table where her father handled state affairs, or whip the slaves to vent her anger, before she was sent to the Solomon Empire as a post-war compensation along with other treasures.

——As a former princess, she also became a slave.

Yes, rather than being a foreign princess sent as a hostage, she was more like a slave who could be killed at will.

In fact, Inès' treatment in the Solomon Empire was even worse than that of a slave.

She was a different race from ordinary humans, and was particularly strange in the medieval Solomon Empire. Her aggressive and lively beautiful face did not conform to the pale, morbid and sad beauty that people liked at that time. Her unrestrained red hair was also considered a symbol of rudeness and barbarism. What's more, she did not have human legs, but a fish tail and transparent ear fins.

This strange and bizarre appearance made Ines a rare sight just like those weird little clowns who were only for the court nobles to watch.

Like a rare bird or animal, she was placed in a small wooden barrel filled with sewage and locked in an iron cage for people to watch leisurely and elegantly at banquets or during afternoon tea.

At first Ines was very angry and aggrieved.

She was a princess, not a jester or a court clown or something like that, born to be entertained by others. You know, since she was born, she has been high and mighty, and others have always been afraid of losing their lives and doing everything they can to entertain her.

Unfortunately, after some suffering, Inès learned her lesson. After all, after the novelty of her wore off, even ordinary slaves could bully her.

Inès did go through a difficult time, but she learned to survive with difficulty, no longer losing her temper, no longer knocking over unpalatable food, no longer throwing away clothes that rubbed her skin red. She learned how to beg humbly and how to use the only thing she could use, her face.

Perhaps she inherited it from her mother, but when it came to seducing men, Ines seemed to be naturally adept at it. Even though her appearance did not quite conform to the aesthetic standards of that era, she managed to make the emperor of the Solomon Empire fall in love with her. She successfully escaped from her status as a foreign slave and became the mistress of the emperor, who was old enough to be her father.

But in return, she lost her tail and ear fins.

Her beautiful pink ear fins, which were as thin as cicada wings and shimmered with a faint light, were cut off with scissors, and her proud, bright coral-like fiery red tail was cut off and turned into a pair of legs that should belong to a human.

Inès managed to survive this ordeal and became just like an ordinary human being.

She had just been whipped, and her plain skirt was torn into several large holes by the whip, revealing her fair skin that was torn and stained with blood.

Ines' chest was slightly deformed, and she was obviously suffocating because of the corset that was still working stubbornly. But she didn't have time to care about these things now. She was kneeling in the corridor of the palace and scrubbing the floor.

——It was the Queen who punished her for not behaving properly enough.

The maids and guards, whom she once ignored, hurried back and forth in the corridor, looking coldly at her miserable appearance as she was punished. Sometimes a few of them rolled their eyes at her, spitted at her, or kicked over her bucket, trying to cause trouble for her, a foreigner who seduced the emperor.

Inès scrubbed the floor vigorously, cursing it all with hatred and venom in her heart, her mind full of wild, screaming hatred and dark revenge.

Human beings, damn human beings!

She just wanted to climb up and make all these humans pay the price.

The corridors of the palace were particularly long and filled with a foul smell. Scrubbing the corridor floor became a numb behavior that always consumed my emotions. Ines didn't know how long she had been scrubbing. When she was panting, she suddenly felt a little sad.

She felt pain where she had been whipped, where her ear fins had been cut off, and where her tail had been.

Even breathing hurt in this place. Every breath she took felt like her ribs were being constricted and strangled, as if the corset were the ropes of a gallows, turning her mutilated body into a corpse, all covered in the ugly purple of suffocation.

What made Ines even more uncomfortable was the contemptuous and indifferent looks from the maids. And the guards, their eyes kept scanning her body, making her want to rush up and dig out all their eyes!

Look what she is doing now! How did she end up like this?

Ines bit her lip, but her tear glands could not produce any tears. She could only concentrate on scrubbing the floor. She did not even notice the movement getting closer.

A pair of shiny boots stopped in front of her.

"What did this lady do wrong?" a gentle and calm voice, yet inexplicably a little angry, asked.

Ines looked up and saw that he was a young man who was dressed in complicated and elegant clothes but did not conform to the mainstream exaggerated aesthetics, and was even a little old-fashioned and conservative. He had a pair of blue eyes with a natural sadness, and his eyebrows were sad, but his expression was cold. He looked very mature and reliable, which made people feel at ease.

The old emperor, who was very fond of Ines yesterday, seemed to not recognize Ines. He followed the young man with his flattering jesters and courtiers. He could not help but say, "Duke Dextal, this is just a disobedient slave girl... We still have to discuss cooperation, so why not let her waste your precious time?"

The young man called "Duke Dextal" said coldly: "I don't like my problems being ignored."

He squatted down, took off his cloak and put it on Inès's tattered skirt.

"I think it is wrong to treat a young lady like this. Your Majesty, let's terminate our cooperation for now."

"Wait! Duke Dextal! This is all a misunderstanding! Please reconsider the debt owed by the Empire--"

The young man scared him away with a cold look, "Don't mention it again. For a monarch with your character, the debt owed by the country must not be a normal consumption. My money is not blown by the wind, and I will not give it to you for nothing."

The old emperor reluctantly closed his mouth. Faced with the unhappy look on the young man's face, he had no choice but to lower his head and change the subject, "…Since you like this slave girl, why not give her to you?"

Dextal's tone was somewhat sharp, "She is an equal to you, Your Majesty."

The clever courtier immediately answered on behalf of the emperor, "Oh! Your Excellency the Duke! You must have misunderstood our kind Majesty! His Majesty meant that you happened to have a connection with this lady, and all this was the great intention of Sir Silver."

"Really?"

"It's absolutely true!" the emperor assured hastily.

Dextal ignored the emperor and squatted down. He gently extended a hand to Ines who was staring at him blankly from a suitable distance, "What should I call you?"

Ines thought:

The man in front of me was called "Duke"... and even the emperor valued him so much and begged me so humbly, which showed that his identity and status were really high.

If I get close to him and make him fall in love with me, will I no longer be bullied?

What's more, this young man has a noble appearance, which is many times better than the hateful old emperor.

Oh, please forgive Ines for using the word "sublime" to describe a human being. She swore that it was not her empty brain that was playing tricks on her. The word "sublime" was very appropriate to use on this young man, because even though this young man was a human being, Ines felt from the bottom of her heart that he had a temperament that was beyond other humans.

This temperament may include calm and gentle eyes, considerate actions, and humble self-proclaimed and spoken manner.

At this time, Ines did not understand that this kind of temperament that made her feel comfortable was called respect. She just showed her charming smile that she had practiced secretly many times with purpose and ambition. She put her hand on the man's hand to stand up, lifted her skirt and saluted, "Ines, my name is Ines. Your Excellency the Duke, Ines is my name."

At the moment when their hands were intertwined, her fingertips drew a circle in the palm of the man's black leather glove without leaving any trace. However, the man seemed unaware of it, politely withdrew his hand, and gave her sincere praise, "What a beautiful name."

Ines looked at him in confusion, not knowing why her moves didn't work.

If someone else were to come, they would definitely think that Dextal was really a conservative and polite gentleman, or a sanctimonious person, or even a frigid and impotent man.

Oh, don't be ridiculous, Inès was a stupid girl, she couldn't think of any other reason like this, and refused to admit that she was not attractive enough. Her voluptuous mother had nothing more to teach her, and her father didn't care about her, so she was able to live a better life as a slave only by relying on what her mother taught her.

As long as she tasted a little bit of sweetness, this stupid girl thought it was really right, and that it would be the truth she had to abide by on the road of life. Once she formed such a wrong fixed thinking, she would go all the way to the dark, and there would be no cure.

So her brain, which only knew how to seduce men, thought about it and imitated her father's favorite concubine. When she performed the ceremony, she deliberately bent her waist further down, revealing half of her snow-white chest and cleavage.

Unexpectedly, Dextal didn't even look at her.

"Well, let's meet each other formally again. My name is Dextal." Dextal took off his hat and put it on his chest to salute. His smile was just the right invitation and hard to ignore. "Good day, dear Ines, are you willing to be my goddaughter?"

A chess piece falls.

In the inner world, the sound of chess pieces hitting the chessboard was so faint that it was almost inaudible, even quieter than Wu Ci's sigh when he made his move.

The Ranger had one of his Pawns eaten by Wuci, and he sneered, "Isn't she your favorite goddaughter, Dextal? I thought you would take her away earlier like in the previous chess game, but I didn't expect you would let her suffer so much for the rest of the chess pieces and layout."

"Sir, how do you know that this is not the best choice? How do you know whether the feelings I have for them are real? How do you know whether my so-called real feelings regard them as objects or lambs?" Wu Ci smiled slightly, "It seems that the appearance and thinking of simulating [Yao Xia] have some influence on you... You should understand that everything is a bargaining chip, everything is a chess piece. You are in charge of all classes and gambles. Don't you understand this?"

While he was talking, Dextal in the other world had already adopted Ines as his goddaughter, and quickly returned to the Duke's Palace, where he had someone take Ines downstairs to clean and change her clothes.

When he was alone, Dextal's gentle expression turned cold. He expressionlessly took off the leather gloves that had touched Inès and threw them away. He washed his hands several times with soap and disinfected them with high-purity alcohol. He then changed his clothes with his disinfected hands and went to take a shower.

To be honest, if it weren't for the subsequent arrangements and chess pieces, Dextal, who was controlled by Wu Ci, would never go to the palace and would never come into contact with Inès.

The silly girl's clever seduction was so ridiculous that it was almost cute.

You know, Ines has dirty water on her hands! The dirty water from scrubbing the floor of the palace corridor!

Even though the emperor knew Dextal was going to the palace and had asked people to clean the palace in advance to please him, he still found a lot of scattered feces in the corridor! After staying there for a while, I felt like I was soaked in bacteria! All I could think about was running!

"It's just a little dirt. You're very cruel, Dexter." The [Ranger] tapped the chessboard. "But why did you have to bear the disgust to make such a move? She's just a pawn."

"You'll know when you lose," Wu Ci said.