Volume 1 Chapter 11 Buying a slave
A hectare of land was not too big, Xu Yi spent less than an hour to finish inspecting it.
Returning back to Butler Brunei, Xu Yi took out a doc.u.ment from his bag.
“Butler Brunei, this is our plan for the land’s use for the first year, you can bring it back for the Lord Viscount to look over. If there is anything the Lord Viscount isn’t satisfied with, he can tell us and we will make the appropriate changes to according to Lord Viscount’s needs.”
Xu Yi was still very respectful on the surface.
He was very clear that the Sines Continent was currently in a half feudal society, being different from the society on earth. If he wanted to succeed in some things on the continent, he had to follow some customs.
As expected, with Xu Yi’s respectful appearance, Butler Brunei’s expression became more relaxed. He took Xu Yi’s plan and gave a nod, “Alright, I’ll have the Lord Viscount look it over when I head back. Actually you don’t need to be too worried, the Lord Viscount is a very generous person. As long as you don’t do anything that will upset him, the Lord Viscount normally will not interfere.”
“Then I’ll have to thank Butler Brunei for your kind words.”
The better the tone became, naturally this matter became much more smooth. Butler Brunei only casually looked over the development plan before taking out a rent contract for Xu Yi to sign.
When Xu Yi signed his name, Butler Brunei finally revealed a smile. He reached his hand out towards Xu Yi, “Very good. Mister Xu Yi, this land will belong to you for a year. I hope that you will treasure this chance the Lord Viscount has given you.”
“Definitely.”
The three people said a few more words and when Xu Yi and Heinz wanted to leave, a shrill cry suddenly came from the distance.
The three of them were stunned, looking in the northwest direction the cry came from.
There was another pitiful wail before the sound of crying and the sound of a leather whip cracking rang out.
“Let’s go take a look!” Xu Yi didn’t have time to think as he rushed off in the direction the sound came from.
Heinz hesitated a bit before looking at Butler Brunei beside him, “Butler Brunei, it seems like the sound is coming from Lord Viscount’s territory?”
Butler Brunei narrowed his little eyes to look in the direction the sound came from before waving his hand, “We’re going to take a look.”
When they came closer, the sound became louder. The sound of the whip cracking couldn’t help making people’s hearts feel fear and hearing the pitiful crying that came after, people couldn’t help feeling pity.
Xu Yi was younger than Butler Brunei and Heinz, and adding in the fact that he left first, he appeared where the sound came from not long after. Looking up, his eyes instantly filled with anger.
In a desolate area, three large men were currently surrounding a child who was only around fourteen-fifteen years old. These people had whips in their hands and kept cracking them at the child.
That child already had countless b.l.o.o.d.y marks from the whips and even some parts of his body were lacerated, making them look incomparably pitiful.
They could cry out pitifully at first, but now they didn’t scream anymore, not even have the strength to turn over. They could only keep twitching from the whips falling on them.
“Stop!” Xu Yi roared out in rage, charging out without even thinking about it, “You want to beat him to death?”
The three large men clearly never expected someone to charge out and stared at Xu Yi in a daze. They mostly had scruples because of the magic robes that he was wearing, so they couldn’t help stopping.
But when Xu Yi wanted to lean over to look at the child, he was stopped by one of the large men.
“Hey, what are you doing? We’re teaching this slave a lesson, no matter who you are, you have no qualification to meddle in this matter!” The large man shouted.
“Slave?” Xu Yi was stunned when he looked at the child on the ground. He remembered that this was Viscount Leslie’s territory, then this child would be……
“This is Viscount Leslie’s slave?”
The large man looked at Xu Yi in surprise, “Since you know the Lord Viscount, then do not stick your nose in the business of others. Let me tell you, this little b.a.s.t.a.r.d has lost the Lord Viscount’s cattle, it wouldn’t be going easy if he was beaten to death!”
“Cattle?” Xu Yi knit his brows and angrily said, “It’s just losing a single cow, you want his life just for that?”
“You don’t know s.h.i.t!” The large man scoffed, “It’ll be the fall harvest in less than two month, but this little b.a.s.t.a.r.d has lost a cow at this time, that would greatly affect the fall harvest! Then again, do you know how much a single cow costs? Forty gold coins! This little b.a.s.t.a.r.d wouldn’t be worth half that much even if he was sold! Don’t you think it’s going easy on him?”
“That still doesn’t mean you can’t beat him to death? Even if you kill him, that cow won’t come back.”
“Nonsense! Of course we know that. This is punishment! Do you understand punishment? If we don’t punish this fellow, the other fellows will all be the same and then who would plant the Lord Viscount’s fields?”
Xu Yi knit his brows. He knew that he couldn’t talk any sense to them and there was nothing on the Sines Continent that protected slaves, so he really didn’t have any qualifications to stop the other side from doing this.
Thinking of this, Xu Yi looked around at Butler Brunei and Heinz who were not far behind him and calmed down.
The three large men followed Xu Yi’s gaze and naturally saw Butler Brunei.
As guards of Viscount Leslie’s manor, they naturally recognized the trusted Butler Brunei of Viscount Leslie. After being stunned for a bit, they quickly went over to receive him.
After a while, Butler Brunei and Heinz also came over. When they looked over the scene, they understood what was going on.
“Mister Xu Yi, this is our family’s matter, I ask you not to interfere.” Butler Brunei’s tone was very indifferent, but his voice gave no room for argument.
Xu Yi deeply knit his brows. He knew that if they followed the customs of the Sines Continent, he indeed didn’t have any reason or qualification to interfere.
But to have him watch a child being beaten to death like this, this was not something he could accept.
Xu Yi looked over at Heinz for help, but he saw Heinz shaking his head to him. It was clear he didn’t agree with his actions.
The three large men pulled out their leather whips and Xu Yi felt anxious. He suddenly had an idea and shouted, “Wait a minute! Butler Brunei, can I buy him from you?”
“Buy?” Butler Brunei was stunned, but then he knit his brows, “Xu Yi, I have already told you, this is our family’s matter, are you really going to meddle with this?”
“No, no, no, I don’t have this meaning.” Xu Yi quickly waved his hand, “I just suddenly remembered that it isn’t convenient for me to live alone. I had always wanted to buy a servant to serve me, but I’ve never found a suitable one. Since this servant belongs to the Lord Viscount, I want to ask for a favour and hope the Lord Viscount will sell him to me. How about it? I believe as the trusted butler of the Lord Viscount, you can make the decision for a trivial slave, right?”
Butler Brunei’s face sunk and was about to reject him when Xu Yi suddenly charged forward, placing a hand on his shoulder.
This sudden action made Butler Brunei frown and when he was about to get angry, he heard Xu Yi whisper in his ear, “10% stocks! Sir butler, as long as you agree to sell this slave to me, I will give 10% of the stocks of my newly built Magic Fan factory to the Lord Viscount. What do you think?”
Butler Brunei looked at Xu Yi in a daze and found that Xu Yi had a very serious expression, not looking like he was joking at all. He couldn’t help saying in a curious voice, “Mister Xu Yi, you really want to give away 10% stocks for a trivial slave? Although I don’t know the value of this 10% stock, with how the Magic Fans are selling in Banta City, it shouldn’t be a small value, right?”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile, “Just treat it as me being willful.”
Butler Brunei looked at Xu Yi with a deep gaze, “You’re certain about this?”
Xu Yi firmly nodded, “Certain.”
Butler Brunei nodded. He didn’t throw away Xu Yi’s arm and waved his hand at the three large men, “Let him go.”
The three large men looked at each other and obediently walked away.
Butler Brunei looked at the slave on the ground before looking back at Xu Yi, “Mister Xu Yi, he belongs to you now.”
Xu Yi laughed and reached his hand into his pocket, “Many thanks, many thanks. How much is this slave worth?”
Butler Brunei’s lips curled into a strange smile. He shook his head and said, “Mister Xu Yi is this generous, I naturally can’t be petty representing the Lord Viscount. This slave will be given to you, just treat it as a meeting gift.”
“Since it’s like this, then I ask you to thank the Lord Viscount for me.”
After Butler Brunei and the three large men left, Xu Yi and Heinz carried the slave into the horse carriage together.
When he heard the price Xu Yi paid to save the slave on the way back, Heinz almost jumped out of the carriage.
“Are you crazy!” Heinz pointed at Xu Yi, actually being a bit out of breath from his anger, “Xu Yi, according to our estimate, if everything goes smoothly, the profit of this Magic Fan factory will be at least five thousand gold coins in a year! The 10% share you’ve given Leslie is equal to giving him at least five hundred gold coins! You have to know, we also spent one hundred gold coins to rent this one hectare of land from him for a year!”
Xu Yi waved his hand, signaling for Heinz to sit down. He said with a smile, “Actually this isn’t anything, I wanted to find a chance to give Viscount Leslie a 10% share anyway. I might as well use this chance to give it to him, it’s better to say that everything is going according to my plan.”
Seeing how relaxed Xu Yi was, Heinz relaxed a bit. However, he was still a bit confused.
“Why?”
“Why?” Xu Yi laughed and pointed at the desolate land outside the window, “Heinz, you’ve already seen it, this land is all Viscount Leslie’s personal land. You should know what personal land means, right? It means that as long as Viscount Leslie changes his mind, he can drive us out at any moment. Even if we have a contract, it’s no use because it’s that d.a.m.n n.o.ble’s right.”
“I’ve already considered this, so if we want to do this for a long time, we need Viscount Leslie’s full support. But how can we make that n.o.ble Lord Viscount fully support us? There is only one answer which is to put him in the same carriage as us. As long as we share benefits with him, he will fully support us. At the very least, he wouldn’t be dragging us down. Actually, 10% is too little. If possible, I want to give him 20%. But this would be too conspicuous and our relationship is just starting, so there’s no rush for this matter.”
Heinz looked at Xu Yi in a daze for a while before suddenly shaking his head and letting out a long sigh, “Xu Yi, I was mistaken about you.”
“Oh?”
“I thought at first that you were a magical genius, but now it seems like you’re more of a profiteer than me.”
“Ha, many thanks for your praise.”