This Damned Thirst for Survival

The waiter, unsurprised by his performance, said soothingly, “Please understand, my guest, that the result of the draw was not part of our predictions.”

Jiang Luo sneered and stood aside with his arms clasped, “Then I’ll be here to see just what more cards they can draw.”

Lu Youyi came together, but in pairs, pretending not to be familiar with each other. The six of them soon finished drawing their cards, and as Jiang Luo had expected, all of them, except Lu Youyi, drew slave cards.

Jiang Luo snorted, gloating, “That’s all.”

He looked disinterested and turned to go back to the ballroom, but before he did so, he stopped and asked the waiter, “What if I and the other master both have our eye on a slave?”

“That, of course, depends on the dealings between the two masters,” said the waiter, “and anything we are not strictly forbidden to do here, then we can do it all, and we do not interfere in it.”

The waiter added, “Won’t you redraw?”

Jiang Luo asked, “If I am not satisfied with the redraw, can I keep drawing until I am satisfied?”

The waiter shook his head, “Even for you, it’s just one more chance to draw.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Jiang Luo said nonchalantly, “it would be better to look for my lost crown card.”

The waiter smiled, “Good luck, then.”

Several people split into two waves and entered the hall. Soon, eight people were gathered in the middle of an unnoticed corner.

Wen Renlian whispers, “Have you lost your deck?”

Jiang Luo shook his head, “I drew the slave card. The loss of the card was just an excuse for me to redraw, a plan that failed, but I didn’t have much hope that it would work either. There was a second and third plan, and Ge Zhu drew the master card, so I could have teamed up with him, but the master-servant would have changed and that plan wouldn’t have worked.”

The rest of the group looked a little worried at this dire situation. But Jiang Luo suddenly burst out laughing, “Originally, with only one master card, I couldn’t do much, but now we have two master cards, we have a lot of room to manoeuvre.”

With a gleam in his eye, he fixed on Lu Youyi, “First, let everyone know that a civilian has drawn the master card.”

*

The drinks are mellow, the ballroom is bouncing with people, and while the sea breeze is cold outside, it’s warm as spring inside.

The aroma of young girls and the scent of men’s tobacco mingle as a crowd of rich people mingle and exchange glasses, commenting on the crowd with the eyes of a hunter surveying his prey.

But there was a sudden commotion among the crowd.

The rich people looked up to see, “What’s happened there?”

The waiter with the tray said, “A rich man had his eye on a commoner, but the commoner said he was not a slave.”

Civilians who are not slaves? Interesting.

The rich people gathered around curiously, and the commotion had gathered a large crowd. In the middle of the crowd, a rich man wearing a silver mask and a large gold chain said gruffly, “You say you’re not a slave, so show me your deck.”

Lu Youyi did his best to do what Jiang Luo said was required to attract the attention of the crowd, and he abruptly slammed the glass in his hand to the floor, glaring at Ge Zhu with an exaggerated and fierce expression, “You think I’m lying?”

Ge Zhu was startled by the sound of his glass shattering, luckily he had his mask on and held on to his lines, “Come on, I want to see your cards, are you afraid to show them?”

Lu Youyi said irritably, “Who am I to show you my cards?”

A rich beer-bellied man watching the proceedings decided that the slave was lying, and with a sneer he spoke out, “Look at the wall, the first rule here is that you can’t refuse someone’s request to see the cards.”

Lu Youyi’s face changed, and just when people thought he would admit to lying, they saw the civilian reluctantly pull out his own card and dislike Ge Zhu’s face, “Look, look, I told you I was the master card!”

He obediently let the people watching around him also see the cards in his hand, fearing that others would not be able to see them, Lu Youyi raised his hand until he was tired of putting it down.

The rich people also saw the cards in his hand.

They were suddenly disinterested and left in twos and threes. There were also many whispers and remarks.

“I can’t believe a commoner actually drew the host card, how was this ball planned?”

“Just looking at that civilian’s face makes me sick, such a rat turd mixed in with our group of ‘masters’.”

Ge Zhu and Lu Youyi have successfully retired to Jiang Luo’s side without a word.

Lu Youyi and Jiang Luo exchanged the cards in their hands, Jiang Luo whispered, “You protect yourselves, give the master card in Ge Zhu’s hand to whoever needs it, in the eyes of outsiders, the two of you are already master cards, they will not come back to mess with you. You can also protect the two of you as slaves, your safety is partially lifted for now, you will have to be careful when you spy next, as for the rest, wait and cooperate with me as planned.”

Jiang Luo slipped silently into the middle of the ball.

After not seeing his companion, he straightened his clothes and tacked on a sardonic smile to some noblewomen who were gathered in conversation.

“Good evening, beautiful ladies,” Jiang Luo’s chin lifted slightly, his dark hair curving gracefully around his shoulders, “may I join you?”

A couple of noblewomen looked him up and down a few times, looked at each other and smiled flamboyantly, “Of course.”

Jiang Luo beckoned to a waiter and personally handed the three noblewomen glasses of wine, saying with a smile, “What are the ladies talking about?”

The dark-haired young man looked like a gentleman of great worth. Even though his face was half hidden by a mask, his beautiful eyes and smiling lips were still completely stunning.

“We were talking about beauty,” one of the red-haired noblewomen replied uncomfortably, “about how it’s still the younger ones that have smoother, more elastic skin.”

Jiang Luo said in surprise, “Aren’t you in a young state now?”

The three noblewomen covered their lips and laughed again. The red-haired noblewoman could not hold back her laughter at the compliment, she touched her face, hardened her vanity and said modestly, “It is not as exaggerated as you say, we came on board, didn’t we just want to look younger? If we were really eighteen and twenty years old, we wouldn’t have come.”

Jiang Luo narrowed his eyes and continued the conversation along the way.

“I don’t know if the blood eels are as exaggerated as they are said to be,” another noblewoman said worriedly, “but look at the Xue family’s lady, she looks a full twenty years younger. When I went for a massage with her, all the fat that was flabby on her body disappeared too, it was like she had changed.”

“The personality has changed quite a bit too, it’s enviable …… When I told my husband I wished I was twenty years younger too, he came and made fun of me, and look, he’s not boarding a ship now either?”

“They don’t board ships for beauty, in their eyes, if they have money, they have an endless supply of beauty.”

“Heh, I think the rumour that blood eels increase longevity is more outrageous than the rumour that they can be beautified.”

Blood eels increase longevity and beauty.

Jiang Luo was thoughtful, but after getting this information, he did not go away, but led them by the word and met many of the rich people in the masks.

Soon, the lights in the ballroom suddenly went out. Three seconds later, the dark lights came on and a catchlight hit the centre of the stage. The waiter standing under the catchlight stood in front of the microphone and said with an enthusiastic smile, “Ladies and gentlemen, the master slave show stage will now begin!”

“With a bang, the canons above the waiter’s head burst open, sending confetti flying in the air.

The crowd under the stage applauded enthusiastically, and Jiang Luo heard a wealthy man around him exclaim, “Finally, this one has started.”

The waiter’s voice was high and full of emotion as he said, “There is only one rule on the master-slave show stage, the ‘master’ has to keep the ‘slave’ alive and well, other than that, the stage is all under the control of the master with the crown card! Now, is there any master and slave pair who would like to be the first to take our stage?”

Hidden in the crowd, Kuang Zheng shielded Wen Renlian and Zhuo Zhongqiu, fearing that someone with a master’s card would choose them as his slaves.

Wen Renlian said helplessly, “Big guy.”

Kuang Zheng bowed his head and Wen Renlian looked at him and said sincerely, “You are going to be more dangerous than us.”

Kuang Zheng : “?”

Wen Renlian patted his muscles and said meaningfully, “You don’t know how many people would like to pull a muscular man like you on stage and use him as a slave to be conditioned.”

Kuang Zheng’s face was blank for a long time before Zhuo Zhongqiu let out a “tsk”, ” Wen Ren, this is a dangerous idea you have.”

But thankfully, the first master was already on stage with his slaves before anyone took a fancy to them.

The face of this master-slave pair is extremely different, the master is a greasy old man who looks like a pig, while the slave is a voluptuous young woman with an apprehensive expression.

The attendant walked up to the owner, nodded after whispering a few words to him, and a little later, someone handed a leash to the rich owner from the side.

The waiter retired from the stage.

The wealthy host coughed his throat in front of the microphone, and he made a show of putting his hands behind his back, his stomach about to hit the microphone stand.

“In the old days, I had a bitch, but that bitch was sent to the kitchen for a bite and became a lunch for me,” he said with his large yellow teeth prominent as he spoke, “Today, I’m here to put on a show about a bitch and her owner who won’t bite.”

He looked over at the young woman and smiled a cross-eyed quiver, “Come over here and kneel down and put on the leash.”

The young woman trembled and knelt down, putting the leash around her neck. Rich pulled on the chain, laughed twice in disgust and held out his hand, “Lick your master’s hand.”

The young woman did it with tears in her eyes.

Rich pulled her around the stage twice, with an occasional slap to the young woman’s buttocks in between, cursing, “Come on!”

Zhuo Zhongqiu, a few of the men looked on with fire in their hearts, they were about to make a scene as planned when they saw that the young woman’s husband downstage was already trembling with anger and was about to rush towards the stage the next moment, “Don’t you touch her!”

The waiter stopped her husband, “I’m sorry, you can’t rush up and interrupt the master slave performing on stage.”

The civilians watching the scene winced and snapped out of their drunken dance, but they shuddered as they looked at the humiliated young woman on the stage. This one was the young woman, were they themselves next? The commoners watched the scene in silence, none of them daring to speak out. The only sound that came out was the angry shout of the young woman’s husband: “You’ve gone too far! Let her go, let her go!”

The rich man on stage laughed at his husband on stage and kicked the young woman again even more.

Among the commoners, I don’t know who had the audacity to shout again, “Why should the rich be mostly masters and we mostly slaves?”

Lu Youyi, hiding in the crowd, lowered his voice: “Yes, why should it be like that?”

As more people took the lead, the whispers from the pile of civilians grew louder and noisier.

The rich man on the stage looked as if he had been slapped in public and his expression became even more sinister. Jiang Luo heard a man beside him whisper, “We’ll need these poor people afterwards, what will happen after we push them now?”

The other man was also a little unsure, but said dismissively, “How dare they.”

Jiang Luo’s lips curled coldly as he made his way to the front of the crowd.

The rich man on stage was breathing more and more heavily, he was completely enraged by the protests of the poor people. It was so humiliating to be the first master slave to perform on stage and then to suffer the displeasure of the commoners. The rich man looked grimly at the young woman, who, sensing danger, stepped back in fear, only to see the rich man grin and raise his palm, about to strike down at her, when a scattered voice suddenly rang out.

“Mr Wilton, you can stop now.”

Regal looked down to see a dark-haired young man wearing a black mask looking at him with interest, obviously on stage but looking at him as if he was condescending and contemptuous, “This show of yours is so boring.”