Zhu Qing finally lifted his head, glanced quickly at Yan Sanhe, then lowered it again.

“Not betroth.”

“Then what?”

“He promised that if I told him Third Master’s every move, he would grant me my freedom.”

Yan Sanhe stiffened slightly.

Then she suddenly realized something and blurted out, “Do you have some leverage held by Xie Daozhi, or is it a contract of indenture?”

Zhu Qing’s lips moved, softly saying, “Contract of indenture.”

He was born in a small village in Liaocheng, Shandong Province—Zhu Family Village.

Zhu Family Village nestled against mountains and beside water, with just over a hundred households in total.

Originally, life there was peaceful. But one summer, after three days and nights of torrential rain, half the mountain collapsed. Floodwaters rushed down, and in an instant the village and farmland were all submerged.

The moment the floodwaters swept them away, his father and mother together placed him, their only son, into a wooden basin.

The basin rushed downstream with the floodwaters until it collided with a large tree and shattered into pieces. In his daze, he desperately clung to that tree and struggled to climb to its top.

Pouring rain;

Tree branches swaying precariously in the water;

In the rushing current, corpses bobbing up and down;

Filled with utter despair, he thought: Among these corpses, there must be one that’s Father’s, one that’s Mother’s, one that’s Elder Sister’s, and one that’s Second Sister’s.

Where would they be swept to?

Where would be their final resting place?

From now on, who would he call Father, who would he call Mother? Would there still be two sisters taking turns carrying him on their backs, calling him “little brother” with every breath?

Night fell, and the rain continued just as heavy.

He didn’t dare sleep, fearing that if he did, his hands would loosen and he too would fall into the floodwaters and become a cold corpse.

He kept his eyes wide open, waiting and waiting, until finally dawn came.

Looking around, the vast floodwaters submerged everything as far as the eye could see. There wasn’t a single living thing. Wait—in the water, two rats clung to a dead branch, squeaking for help.

In that moment, Zhu Qing felt utterly hopeless. He suddenly realized that human fate was really no different from that of rats.

He stayed in the tree for two days and two nights. When hungry, he gnawed on bark; when thirsty, he chewed on leaves. Finally, he waited for the floodwaters to recede.

Zhu Family Village was gone. Liu Family Village and Wang Family Village were also razed to the ground. Corpses were everywhere. Once the sun came out, the air reeked of rotting flesh.

He followed the river downstream, wanting to find his parents’ and sisters’ bodies so he could bury them properly and have a place to burn offerings in the future.

He walked for three months without finding a single body, yet he himself survived steadily.

—

Later he learned that after the flood, those villages were hit by plague. The plague spread, and many more people died.

That year, he was six years old and became an orphan.

An orphan had only two choices: become a little beggar and beg on the streets, or sell himself to secure three meals a day.

He chose to sell himself—to an acrobatics troupe.

Besides farming, Zhu Family Village had another skill to make a living—performing acrobatics.

This was a skill passed down through generations.

Men from Zhu Family Village generally began training at three years old, went out to earn money at ten, and returned to the village to farm when their bones hardened at eighteen, using their earnings to marry and have children.

Generation after generation, the cycle continued.

He too began training at three. After three years, Father said his physique was seen once in a century for acrobatics—not only flexible but also powerful.

The troupe master, seeing his good foundation, bought him for two taels of silver.

Acrobatics required both performing skills and martial arts prowess.

His master was the troupe master himself. His signature act was spinning large vats—two-hundred-pound vats spun on his feet like spinning wheels. Incredibly impressive.

He learned precisely this skill.

Every day after the fifth watch, he would practice horse stance.

After horse stance came leg stretches. If his legs bent even slightly in a split, his master’s whip would come down…

Before bed each night, he’d strap twenty-pound sandbags to each leg and run for over ten miles. If he ran slowly, his master wouldn’t let him sleep—he’d be made to stand in the corner all night.

The hardship was real, and the exhaustion was real.

Master wasn’t Father. When Father raised his whip, he couldn’t bear to truly strike. Master never raised his whip—but when he struck, it was always with intent to kill.

He wasn’t afraid of exhaustion or hardship. He remembered Father’s words: To rise above others, you must eat bitterness. Once you’ve eaten enough bitterness, everything afterward will be sweet.

Three years later, he began taking the lead in the troupe, replacing his master in performing the spinning vat act.

A small body spinning a several-hundred-pound vat never failed to win thunderous applause.

In his heart, he’d calculated everything: He’d work in the troupe until eighteen, buy his freedom, then find a place that wouldn’t flood to settle down, marry and have children, and peacefully live out his days.

The accident happened when he was ten years old.

The troupe arrived in Cangzhou, Hebei. While performing on the street, he caught the eye of the youngest son of Cangzhou Prefect Liu.

Young Master Liu had no other hobbies—he just liked handsome young boys.

At that time, he was not only handsome but had strong legs and an exceptionally flexible body. That man stuffed a five-hundred-tael banknote into the troupe master’s hand and immediately had him bound and taken away.

He cried and shouted, refusing to go, his tear-filled eyes constantly looking toward the troupe master. The troupe master looked at the banknote in his hand, then at him, and slowly turned away.

Zhu Qing would forever remember that retreating back—like the floodwaters that had swallowed his parents, murky and ice-cold.

In Young Master Liu’s residence, there were already seven or eight young boys. The oldest was no more than twelve, the youngest only five or six. Each had timid, fearful eyes.

Instinct told him this wasn’t a good place—he had to find a way to escape.

That very night he fled, but was captured and beaten half to death. There wasn’t a single patch of good flesh on his body.

Young Master Liu crouched before him, patting his face with a cold laugh.

“Once you enter this residence, the only way out is to be carried out. Do you know what kind of person needs to be carried out? Dead people.”

He had no strength to talk back, but cursed in his heart: Bah! This Master Zhu has never feared death!

Young Master Liu had probably never seen someone so defiant. His interest was suddenly piqued, and he ordered the maids to care for him well.

After half a month of good food and medicine, he could barely get out of bed when he fled again. Naturally, he was captured again.

This time, no one beat him. Young Master Liu ordered him locked in the woodshed.

For seven full days, not a drop of water passed his lips.

Just as he was about to starve to death, the door creaked open. Young Master Liu looked down at him from above. “Will you submit?”

He shook his head.

Never!

Young Master Liu suddenly laughed and ordered someone to bind his hands with rope and lower him into a deep well.

The well water submerged his body. He felt as if he’d returned to that night when the basin was shattered by the tree—that same coldness, that same terror, that same despair.

His lips trembled violently, and finally he forced out two words with difficulty: I submit!

Three days later, when he was washed clean and sent to Young Master Liu’s bedroom, he finally understood that between submission and death, he really should have chosen death.

But it was also from that day onward that his desire to survive grew stronger and stronger, and he sought opportunities at every moment.

The opportunity finally came.