Shen Yuan paused for a moment when she saw the girls, then stepped into Zui Chun Lou.
"Peony! No, you are not a peony!"
The girls all had different expressions when they saw Shen Yuan.
Shen Yuan glanced at the dilapidated Zuichunlou and asked, "Mama Hua has been arrested, and Prefect Jiang has stripped you of your brothel status. You are all free now, so why are you still here?"
"If we don't stay here, where should we go?"
The girl who spoke was named Haitang. Shen Yuan remembered her; she was also the top courtesan at Zuichunlou.
Hearing Haitang say this, Shen Yuan said, "Over the years, you must have accumulated quite a bit of wealth at Zuichunlou, such as gold and silver jewelry, or money and silk. You can sell these things and buy a private house and land in the town or village, grow grain and vegetables, raise cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks, and support yourselves with your own hands in the future!"
Upon hearing the words "planting grains to feed chickens and ducks," the girls at Zuichunlou couldn't help but frown.
They don't want to raise chickens, ducks, cows, and sheep because they're so dirty and smelly!
Farming and growing vegetables are also not an option. Those farm jobs are too tiring. They are women, and their bodies are so delicate. How could they possibly do those farm jobs?
Seeing that her sisters couldn't accept Shen Yuan's suggestion, Haitang stepped forward and said, "It's not that we don't want to leave Zuichunlou, it's that we don't have anything of value left. How can we buy private houses and land? We simply can't survive without this place!"
"How could that be?" Shen Yuan looked at Haitang, somewhat incredulous: "Miss Haitang, your song sells for a hundred taels of silver, doesn't Madam Hua give you any commission at all?"
Haitang said, "Mother Hua gives me a one-tenth cut."
After saying that, Haitang suddenly lowered her eyes, and two lines of clear tears slid down her cheeks. "I have been in Zuichunlou for eight years. I originally saved more than five hundred taels of silver, which I intended to use to redeem myself, but... I gave all that money to Young Master Chu not long ago. He said that his elderly mother was sick and he urgently needed money, so he borrowed a lot of silver from the girls in our brothel."
"You borrowed them all?" Shen Yuan asked in surprise.
The girls at Zuichunlou all nodded.
Shen Yuan couldn't understand, "That money was all earned through your hard work. You've saved it up for so many years, how could you lend it so easily to a man you've only known for a few days?"
Haitang wiped away her tears with her embroidered handkerchief and murmured, "Young Master Chu is different from those patrons who come to Zuichunlou to seek pleasure. He respects us and said that we are just flowers that have fallen from the branches and unfortunately fallen to the dust. Even if we are scattered and crushed into dust, our fragrance will remain."
"..." Shen Yuan's lips twitched, somewhat speechless.
She wanted to call these girls stupid, but she had also lent money to Chu Yuning before. She had made stupid mistakes herself, so she had no right to call these girls stupid!
Making a foolish mistake isn't terrible; what's terrible is being foolish without realizing it.
Whether in her previous life or this one, she has been trying very hard to save herself after realizing her mistakes.
Shen Yuan took a deep breath and said, "But Chu Yuning's mother has been buried in the ground for more than three months, and her body has already decomposed. What money do we need? At most, we'll need some paper money!"
"What? You're telling the truth?" Haitang shook her head, finding it hard to accept the truth.
Shen Yuan retorted, "What good would it do me to lie to you?"
Haitang collapsed to the ground with a thud, and the other girls in Zuichunlou were also in a daze, as if they finally realized that they had been deceived by Chu Yuning!
"Where is Chu Yuning now?" Shen Yuan asked hurriedly.
Haitang shook her head again, "I don't know. The Zuichun Pavilion caught fire the night before last, and it was in complete chaos. When we returned from the yamen, the Zuichun Pavilion was deserted, and all the valuables inside had been looted. We also don't know where Young Master Chu went."
After saying that, Haitang hurriedly took out a piece of paper from her bosom.
"However, Young Master Chu left me an IOU, saying that he would definitely repay me with interest when he had the money!"
"Yes, yes, yes! We also have the IOU. With the IOU, we're not afraid he'll deny it!"
The girls at Zuichunlou all took out their IOUs and handed them to Shen Yuan to see.
Shen Yuan almost laughed out of anger after reading through those IOUs.
Pointing to the signature on the IOU, she asked, "So you don't even know Chu Yuning's real name? The name on this has absolutely nothing to do with him; he's using a fake name!"
"You mean, none of these IOUs are valid?"
"Yes! It's all waste paper!"
Upon hearing this, the girls at Zuichunlou turned pale, as if they had swallowed a fly.
Chu Yuning is like that green-headed fly, disgusting!
"Now we have no money, no Zuichunlou, we have nothing! Those newly abducted children can go home! We've been abducted here for over ten years, we have no family anymore, where can we go!"
The girls at Zuichunlou all sat on the ground, sobbing and crying.
One of the older women wiped away her tears, pointed at Shen Yuan, and cursed, "It's all your fault! We were doing just fine in this Drunken Spring Pavilion, with food and drink, and we didn't have to suffer from hunger or cold. But you attracted the government officials, causing the Drunken Spring Pavilion to be shut down, leaving us sisters with nowhere to make a living. How are we supposed to live from now on? It's all your fault! It's all your fault!"
Shen Yuan's face turned cold. "The business you're talking about, is it about using your looks to please people?"
"What's wrong with using our looks to please men? We can play a musical instrument, sing a song, lie in bed, and gold and silver will keep flowing into our hands. It's so easy to make money like that! Why would we give up such an easy job to go and farm, raise chickens and ducks? We're not stupid!"
"How long can one rely on beauty to please others? Even the most beautiful face will grow old and fade one day. Oh no, you will never grow old and fade."
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