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[AI CENSORSHIP BLOCKED THIS CHUNK - RAW ENGLISH RETAINED]

“Whazzis?” the hulking man said, annoyed.

Maomao swallowed hard and barely managed not to flinch back. Yes, she’d made the right call. This would have been a much, much more volatile situation with Gyokujun in tow.

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” she said. “This child is a girl. I’ll help her undress, so please, stay your hand.”

Maomao urged Xiaohong forward again. It should have been fairly obvious whether she was a boy or a girl.

“This will just take a second,” Maomao whispered to Xiaohong, who looked on the verge of tears. Then Maomao began to roll up her skirt. Once the boss saw she was a girl, he could be done with them.

It was at that moment that one of the women who had been attending the boss stepped forward. “M-Master One-Eyed Dragon... Please, let me check the child.”

“Mm,” he grunted. “All right. Whadda I want with some naked kid, anyway?”

One-Eyed Dragon—so that was what the boss here went by.

“One-Eyed Dragon”?

Awfully big name he had there, Maomao thought. The kind of sobriquet a great warrior would have had generations ago.

The woman came over to them and felt at Xiaohong’s skirt—weeping the whole while. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. Xiaohong didn’t say anything.

The woman was trying to spare this poor child as much embarrassment as she could. When she had confirmed that there was nothing “extra” between Xiaohong’s legs, she turned to One-Eyed Dragon with a look of relief. “She’s a girl,” the woman reported.

“Huh! Is she, now? Which jackass told me we should take a look at the next wagon coming through?”

“Our man on the inside in the next town.”

“All right. A hundred lashes, no food for three days.”

“Yes, sir.” The middle-aged man quietly went about his work.

“Ugh, dammit. Here I thought I could finally get Shikyou by the short hairs.” One-Eyed Dragon stamped on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum. He was so big, he made the floor shake.

Did he just say Shikyou?

Maomao stayed in front of Xiaohong, covering her. The girl was shaken to hear her uncle’s name—and the last thing Maomao wanted was for One-Eyed Dragon to realize he was in possession of one of Shikyou’s relatives.

No telling what he would do to her...

What Maomao had seen on that wanted poster made it clear that the foreign noblegirl—no, make that the foreign punk—with the bad tooth had caused some kind of quarrel. The kid had looked awfully sheltered—it turned out he was pretty important.

My fleeing must have been to spare Jinshi some kind of trouble.Whatever, that kid and his tooth were some kind of political key.

“What should we do with this pair?” the middle-aged man asked One-Eyed Dragon.

“Whatever ya want. I don’t care.”

One-Eyed Dragon had lost all interest in them—or maybe he was pouting. Whichever, he curled up on his pelt “bed” like a bear or a tiger settling in for a nap.

“You,” the middle-aged man snapped at the woman who had apologized to Xiaohong. “You take them. They’re fellow believers.”

“Yes, sir.” The woman bowed. Of One-Eyed Dragon she was afraid, but for this man she seemed to have something approaching respect.

“This way,” she said to Maomao and Xiaohong, and they had little choice but to follow her.