Chapter 61 The Sinful Auction: Lilith Becomes a Slave

Lilith glimpsed the last rays of the setting sun through the rusty iron bars of the window. The distant, grand chorus of a mass was carried here on the autumn wind. She knew it was September 8th, the annual Feast of the Nativity of Mary. That meant she had been imprisoned in this dark and dreary place for a full month.

Although Venice, situated in the middle of the sea, has no fertile land or pastures, September is still the harvest season. In late summer and early autumn, fleets of spices and silk from the East arrive at the port, while metals, timber, and wool from Northern Europe are settled here. Even though the war between the Republic and the Duchy of Milan continues, it doesn't prevent the clever Venetian merchants from developing new trade routes that bypass the war zones; correspondingly, exchange routes can continue to operate.

However, all of this had long since become irrelevant to Lilith.

After the devastating fire burned down her home, she was kidnapped by several strange men in the chaos. They bound her with heavy shackles and brought her before the culprit who ordered the arson.

In a dark and damp room, she saw a person wearing a black cloak and a white mask walking towards her. She immediately recognized that this was not the man she had met in Zurich and who had repeatedly appeared in her nightmares. Not only did the color and style of the mask not match, but the person in front of her was also short and slender, only slightly taller than Lilith.

As she drew closer, Lilith saw his long chestnut hair pulled back. It was undoubtedly Lorenzo.

Lorenzo realized he had no need to pretend in front of her; he hadn't prepared this outfit specifically for seeing her. So he simply removed his mask and sat down opposite Lilith through the iron bars.

“I’ve figured it out. Instead of arguing with you in court and giving you room to fight back, it’s better to just do what you did back then: simply and brutally set a fire, and the problem will be solved.”

“Now you’ve achieved your goal,” Lilith sneered. “You ruined my career, burned down my house, killed my confidants, and made it so I can never see them again. Aren’t you far more pathetic than your Antonio—”

“Antonio is my childhood sweetheart who grew up with me, and he’s my college classmate! How can your lowly bastard slaves compare to my Antonio?!” Lorenzo suddenly stood up angrily and pointed at Lilith’s nose. “You’ve made Antonio and me lose face in front of our elders, and you deserve this retribution.”

He squinted, scrutinizing the woman pinned to the ground from head to toe. Her alluring red hair was covered in soot, her skirt was tattered from the flames, and even her usually smug face was thick with dust. In her wretched and pathetic state, she looked more like a lowly prostitute, subjected to humiliation, than a high-society lady.

"Are you planning to kill me?" Lilith's face was full of disdain.

“No. I won’t kill you.” A twisted idea sprouted in Lorenzo’s mind. “Since you cherish your slave friends so much, why don’t I let you go and keep them company, and become one of them?”

"What!?"

“Killing you would be a waste.” Lorenzo grinned maliciously, clearly satisfied. “You’re a young and beautiful woman, which means you still have value to be exploited. Like you, Lilith, I’m a businessman who won’t miss any opportunity to make money. I hope you can fetch a good price.”

After saying this, Lorenzo casually turned and left. Lilith, her hands and feet bound in heavy shackles, was gagged with wads of cloth by two men and roughly stuffed into an old wooden crate. They quickly sealed the crate with a few planks and, like transporting cargo, carried her onto a small boat, heading towards an unknown port.

She knew where she would be sent. Slave Island, south of Venice, had become the largest slave exchange in the Adriatic region since the slave trade was legally banned in the lagoon. She had visited countless times—as a guest, she had bought back Cecilia, Tata, Ivanka, and Heinrich.

She never imagined that one day she would be sent here as a commodity. She could almost picture the surprised and gloating expressions on the faces of the shopkeepers she had frequented when they saw her.

The thought of being picked over and sold at a fixed price made her wish she could die immediately. But then she suddenly remembered that for these human traffickers, even corpses were commodities they wouldn't let go of, let alone a recently deceased woman's body with all her organs intact. So she immediately perked up.

No, she can't die. She can't just let herself be slaughtered like this.

Suddenly, a burnt smell wafted into her nostrils through the cracks in the wooden crate. It was fire, the smell of a raging inferno. Peeking through the cracks, she saw a massive fire burning on a distant island, far more intense than the fire that had destroyed her villa. Countless slaves were fleeing in all directions, their frail bodies desperately trying to board the small boats moored at the dock, clinging to the last glimmer of hope for survival.

Was this hellfire or salvation for them, a return to freedom? Lilith didn't know. But the boatman who had taken her there clearly took the sight as a terrible disaster, cursing and immediately turning the boat around, fearing that the desperate men chasing each other in the sea would climb onto his gunwale.

Lilith, always eager for excitement, searched the box for any openings to peek inside. Suddenly, she spotted a masked man in black standing on another boat heading back to the main island of Venice in the distance.

She remembered his tall figure and broad shoulders, exactly like the image in her dream. It had been so long since she last danced with him in Zurich that she almost thought it was an image conjured up in her mind, rather than a real person.

Why is he here? Who is he? What is his connection to this fire?

Lilith, of course, had no way of knowing the answer. Soon after, she was transported to another place, seemingly a dark alley in the Castro district. Her box was opened, and several men carrying candlesticks approached, only to be startled when their eyes met.

"Good heavens. Where did you get such top-notch stuff?"

"Damn it, we'll have to hold onto this for a while and send it to the auction in September to make a good profit from those high and mighty nobles."

"This must be taken good care of; we need to sell it for a good price."

Immediately afterwards, she was chained and locked in a life-sized iron cage by the traffickers, treated like an inhuman animal. The stench around her made her want to vomit, but her solitary cell was much better than the treatment of the other slaves who were crammed together—she watched them fight each other, cursing and biting like wild beasts, just to fight over a little bit of spoiled food in their bowls.

At first, Lilith couldn't swallow the things that could barely be called food, but she couldn't resist her physiological hunger and had to eat those sour and smelly things to fill her stomach under the envious gazes of the other slaves.

So this was the kind of life they had experienced before? Lilith suddenly remembered her companions.

Tata... she was just a little girl when she went through all of this. But she didn't become timid or weak; instead, she became strong, lively, and kind, willing to be led down a wrong path of no return for the sake of her mistress's happiness.

Where is Ivanka now? Lilith didn't know if she had managed to escape the fire, or if she had escaped Lorenzo's clutches… She couldn't bear to think about it. Tears welled up in her eyes again. She had never believed in God, but at this moment, she instinctively made the sign of the cross on her chest, praying for Ivanka's safety.

Tata and Heinrich have died for her, even if only Ivanka, even if only one of them is still alive...

She recalled Heinrich's dying words in the flames. The situation was too chaotic; she only remembered "I love you" and "Live well," and couldn't recall anything else he said.

That wasn't what a servant should say to his master. He called her "Lilith," not his usual "Madam," not even her formal name "Liliana," but that name used to humiliate her, the name she herself adored—"Lilith." No one had ever called her that, just as no one had ever said "I love you" to her.

Why would he say that? What exactly is love to him? Is it risking his life time and time again to complete the tasks she assigns, is it constantly shielding her from danger, or is it comforting her like a dog with a whip in his mouth when she is in pain and helpless?

Lilith then realized that Heinrich's devotion to her had far exceeded the scope of his original duties. He didn't need to go to such lengths; was it really because of love?

Yet he never displayed the typical male courtship behavior towards women—that is, his desire and obsession with her body. Yes, he had held her, even shared a bed with her, but those were all Lilith's orders, which he had to obey; he never expressed any independent thought. Given this, what exactly was his love for her?

Lilith couldn't help but reflect on her feelings for Heinrich. She found it difficult to say that she "loved" him, because she was never quite sure how to define those feelings.

But she loved him very much. She loved being with him, loved hugging him, loved leaning against him, and even fantasized about doing more intimate things with him. She cherished the time spent with him, was moved by his selfless dedication, and felt exhilarated when fighting alongside him. He was her most trusted and reliable partner; only when she spoke to him and looked into his beautiful, icy blue eyes could she feel that he might truly understand her.

Thinking of this, she felt an uncontrollable, sharp pain in her chest, because he would never come back. Her life had been saved by Heinrich at the cost of his own; she had to cherish it and carefully plan what to do next…

Fortunately, Cecilia... is currently in Rome. If she returns to Venice and learns of Lilith's current predicament, she will do everything in her power to save her. Therefore, Lilith must survive; even in her current state, she will not give up easily.

Finally, the "auction" the traffickers had mentioned took place on September 8th, at midnight on the Feast Day of the Virgin Mary.

She was taken to a place that resembled a brothel. An old woman washed her entire body with cold water and then dressed her in a loose-fitting white gauze dress. Immediately afterward, a younger woman dressed her and applied gaudy makeup to her face, using thick white powder to cover her sallow and sunken cheeks caused by malnutrition, and adorning her dry, yellowish red hair with foul-smelling, cheap perfume.

Not long after, she was blindfolded with a black cloth and dragged by chains into a small room that didn't smell musty. The trafficker gave a grand-sounding introduction, and then she heard men and women holding up signs and shouting out prices.

"Fifty."

"one hundred."

One hundred and fifty.

"three hundred."

A deep, hoarse voice came from the corner. Lilith instinctively turned her head, but her eyes were covered, and she couldn't see anything.

"Three hundred and fifty."

"five hundred."

It was that deep male voice again. Lilith gasped. She didn't want the price to be so high; otherwise, the price would continue to rise when she was redeemed. More than a month had passed, and she knew nothing about the current state of Knarro Bank's operations.

"Five hundred once, five hundred twice, five hundred done."

Lilith was taken to another small room. She was still blindfolded and felt the heavy chains being loosened and replaced by thin ribbons, which were still tightly bound, securing her limbs. She was put back into a wooden box, but this time the lid was barely closed, tied with ribbons, and not sealed with nails.

She was loaded onto the gondola like cargo, and because it was pitch black, she had no idea where she was being taken.

When the box was opened and the blindfold was removed, she saw the man who had visited her dreams countless times. In the shadows beneath the hat brim was a black Balta mask. She couldn't see his eyes.

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Author's Note: A belated warning: this chapter depicts Lilith's worst and most tragic social situation in the entire story, meaning it ends here! Everything will be alright afterward. However, Heinrich actually experienced everything she went through (even worse), so it can be seen as a small punishment for his past misdeeds... But she will soon rise again!! Hope this didn't offend anyone!!

Also, this story is completely pure, with both the protagonist and the reader being virgins. There will be no forced love or any scenes where the female lead serves the male lead! Please rest assured on this point!

Also! The new character art I requested is out! I've updated the character design cards on Jinjiang, and the high-resolution images are still on XHS and Weibo. Feel free to check them out! The next update will be on Saturday!