Just as Tang Doudou was wondering about how to escape later, the hall sudden became noisy again. She listened to what people were saying and was stunned. Someone else had called out a price.
“The price that Sir stated is ten thousand taels? Is that right?” Qing Cheng’s jaw dropped again. It was unbelievable that a courtesan’s first night had gone for ten thousand taels.
Someone was competing with her? Tang Doudou looked around but didn’t see anyone.
Just as everyone was looking around for the person that had declared this price, Lin Shuxuan’s voice came from upstairs. It trembled a bit. “Y-yes! Ten thousand taels!”
“It’s the eldest young master of the Lin Clan Stronghold, no wonder he’s so liberal with his money,” someone said.
However, someone else immediately refuted, “Even if he’s the young master of the Lin Clan Stronghold, there’s still no way he could be this liberal. Ten thousand taels is probably more than his annual spending money!”
“Right!? Could it be that Young Master Lin has a grudge against this person and is picking a fight on purpose?”
“That’s possible.”
As the crowd became noisy with speculations, Tang Doudou furrowed her brows. Based on Lin Shuxuan’s temperament, there was no way that he would have done something so rash.
In addition, his voice was trembling as he called out this price. Although he tried to sound calm, his voice had betrayed his nervousness.
Thus, Tang Doudou was certain that there was someone else in Lin Shuxuan’s private room!
She glanced towards the stage at Baili Yu and discovered that he was also looking towards her with a frown. Had he guessed it as well?
Did this count as having linked hearts?
Tang Doudou smiled happily, then kicked Lian er.
Lian er looked up at her in confusion.
“Call out a price.” She wasn’t planning on paying the bill anyways, so she might as well call the price higher!
Lian er was astonished. It was already at ten thousand taels. This guest wanted to make it even higher?
“How much should I add?” asked Lian er.
Tang Doudou rubbed her chin. It couldn’t be too much, otherwise it’d seem fake. No matter how rich a person was, he still wouldn’t spend money like water on a courtesan.
Her eyes lit up with a thought. They wouldn’t spend it on a courtesan, but they would spend it due to a different reason.
She lifted her foot but didn’t kick again. Instead, she leaned forward and shot Lian er a crafty look as she said, “No matter how much that person increases the price, call out a price that’s one tael higher.”
“One tael?”
“What? You can’t do it?”
“I-I can…” Lian er looked at Tang Doudou weirdly. This guest was probably annoyed with the person that suddenly showed up, otherwise, why would he add onto the price tael by tael? He was definitely doing this on purpose because he was annoyed that someone was trying to snatch the goods out of his hands.
As Lian er came to this conclusion, he glanced nervously at Qing gongzi.
“Our master bids ten thousand and one taels!”
“Twenty thousand taels!” shouted Lin Shuxuan.
Lian er followed Tang Doudou’s instructions. “Twenty thousand and one taels!”
“Thirty thousand taels!”
“Thirty thousand and one taels!”
…
“A hundred thousand taels!”
“A hundred thousand and one taels!”
The price was getting higher and higher. Once it hit a hundred thousand taels, every increase caused people to gasp.
Some smart people had already come to the conclusion that the two were bidding due to annoyance rather than for obtaining Escort Xue.
Most people were wondering if the two actually had the money to pay this bid.
After all, who would bring several hundred thousand taels with them to visit a brothel? It would take days just to count those banknotes.
Qing Cheng was the most worried out of them all. At first, he had been dazed by this sudden blessing, but gradually, the happiness turned to worry. It couldn’t be that these two were here to purposefully cause trouble, right?
He knew that Lin Shuxuan was pretty good friends with Tang Longbiao since he had never seen Lin Shuxuan treat anyone this well before.
They couldn’t have planned this ahead of time to ruin Escort Xue’s first night, right!?
But the more he thought about it, the more likely this seemed. Still, he didn’t dare to voice any objections. Even if this was ninety-nine percent true, he didn’t want to lose that one percent chance of it not being true.
Thus, he took advantage of this time while the audience was distracted to go backstage.
“Go see what’s happening in Young Master Lin’s private room!” Qing Cheng hastily gave this instruction.
As of now, a lot of people were curious and had wanted to go take a look at what was happening, so as soon as Qing Chen said this, someone responded and rushed to the private room.
“Alright, you guys shouldn’t stay here either. Go outside and attend to the masters. Make sure to make them happy, don’t let this incident ruin our reputation.”
“Understood!”
After the courtesans left, Jin Yi walked in through a small door at the side. “Qing gongzi.”
Qing Cheng saw that Jin Yi seemed abnormally calm, so he asked, “Jin Yi, do you know something?”
Jin Yi nodded. “Qing gongzi, just proceed normally. The owner is with Young Master Lin.”
Qing Cheng was struck with realization, but he was also made more confused. “What is the owner trying to do?”
