The spacious dining room is brightly lit, and the finely carved silver tableware is filled with delicacies, and the slender Longyan table is served by rows of servants. www.biquge.info A young girl in a long red dress with gold trim came to the table in the company of a maid, accompanied by a maid, her onyx-red curls spread from her shoulders to her waist.

"This is my youngest daughter, Idney, who can sing and dance, and I am sure you have heard that her painting skills far exceed those of famous painters within a radius of ten miles. The middle-aged man sitting at the head of the table said. The maiden immediately curtsied to the strange young man who was seated to the left of her master, and then took her seat to her father's right. "Tell me, then, my friend, on whose lord you have come to speak to me of this wonderful marriage?" asked the young man.

The man looked at the girl silently for a long time, then replied with a smile: "Actually, I don't represent any lord, Your Excellency. ”

The master suddenly burst out laughing, "Not a bad joke, I'm sure you didn't come all the way here to make a joke, right?"

"I know you've noticed my carriage, but unfortunately it doesn't contain a priceless dowry, just my own belongings. The man raised his glass and savored the wine, his eyes still fixed on the girl sitting across from him. "Nice wine. He said.

The middle-aged man looked embarrassed, he did see the man's carriage—a spacious, sturdy and carefully decorated carriage of great value—and thought that the man was a messenger sent by some great lord, but the man's words made him lose face. "You see, young man, Winterhaven is a small city, and it has been ravaged by permafrost pirates, but that doesn't mean that as Lord of Winterhaven I would marry my proudest little daughter to a poor boy who lives in a carriage without a permanent home. ”

"And how much do you think I have to pay to marry your daughter?" the man asked contemptuously.

"Take a closer look at this room, young man. The long table in front of you is the work of the most famous magician in the imperial capital, the soft cushions under your feet are taken from the whole white tiger fur of the ice field, and even the most inconspicuous little cabinet over there is made from a thousand-year-old tree, which has been sent by lords or great merchants who covet Idney's beauty, just to meet Idney. Proposing a marriage requires a more expensive dowry, and there are more than one or two. So, do you think you can afford the dowry?"

The man ignored the middle-aged man and continued to massively look at Idney. She was calm, as if she had become accustomed to her father's greed, and only cut the food gracefully, but never brought the delicacy to her mouth.

"Answer me. The middle-aged man snapped. At that moment, the man felt that the air around Idney had distorted, blurring her face, as if it had all returned to normal so quickly that the man thought it was just his delusion.

But he knew it wasn't a delusion.

"What my organization can give Idney is far more valuable than Winterhaven. The man replied coldly.

"You mentioned an organization. ”

"But I can't name the organization. ”

"That's enough!" the middle-aged man was already impatient with the man's vague answer, and he shouted loudly, "I can't accept the promise of an unnamed, even non-existent organization, get out of my house, you pathetic bum!"

"Give to Idney, not you. The man said as he stood up to leave, "One day you will regret your short-sightedness today, fool. ”

"Bang!" The door to the restaurant was smashed open with great force, and the thick door panel broke free from the constraints of the hinge and fell to the ground with a thud, and a guard covered in blood lay on the door.

"Stupid pig, this door—" The middle-aged man's roar came to an abrupt halt as he saw several men in black pouring into his dining room.

"Get out of the way, I won't kill you. The man in black at the head pointed his delicate saber at the man standing in front of him, and the man quickly took a few steps back and politely assumed a "please" pose.

"My pleasure. The man said.

The man in black walked up to the frightened middle-aged man and stared at him with a cold gaze.

"Please, don't kill me! you can take everything you want, as much as you want, as long as you don't kill me!" the middle-aged man had already fallen to the ground and struggled to retreat to the corner, he wailed and begged for mercy, only to see the man in black coldly raise his scimitar.

"Last words. The man in black said.

"You dog bastards!" The middle-aged man was finally angry with despair, and he roared desperately: "Frey of Icebreath Castle has proposed to me, if you dare to kill me, he will not ......"

The man in black didn't let the middle-aged man finish his words, and cut his throat with a knife. When he turned back, he couldn't find any trace of Edney.

Idney stood by a small cabinet carved from a thousand-year-old tree, but the men in black couldn't see her, and neither could the strange men. This is the secret she learned from a quirky book when she was fourteen years old.

Last winter, when the greedy father threw a huge birthday party for Edney. According to the custom of the Northern Empire, most aristocratic women were engaged to their sweethearts on their fourteenth birthday, and Idney's beauty was praised by the bards of the western part of the empire from the age of twelve. Some songs praise her for her immaculate skin, like the moon in the sky and hoarfrost on the earth, while others praise her as an angel who descended into the mortal world, adding endless splendor to the undercurrent of the world. However, only those who have seen her with their own eyes know that it is an insult to describe her beauty in any words. As a result, the birthday party gathered almost all the lords, tycoons, and other high-ranking people from the entire West, and even a group of big men from the Southern Empire risked their lives to come to Winterhaven to get married.

But for Edney herself, the fourteenth birthday party was terrible. When her tall body appeared on stage in a gorgeous mermaidtail dress, she felt like a slave for sale at a black market auction, the only difference being that the price for the rest of her life would be a wealth that even the slave traders could not imagine. But she couldn't stand up to her father, it was pointless, because her sister almost hanged herself on the beam, but she still couldn't stop her father from giving her to the highest bidder with a smiley face. Unable to resist, Edney stood on the stage, not singing her best song or dancing gracefully, but just letting the lewd gaze of the men in the stands wander over her. The father was pleased with the outcome of the birthday party, and the Marquis of Grimnath of Ice's Castle won his second son's beautiful fiancée at the cost of one and a half million pas plus a manor in the domain.

But it was the boy brought by the Earl of Antuson in Lion Harbor that took advantage of the bargain - an angry Edney dedicated her first night to this short, ugly noble servant with neither title nor fief. They completed the painful process on the haystack of the stables while their father was greeting the guests, and the pungent smell of horse manure made Idney, who had enjoyed the galloping of the horses, never come near the livestock again. As a token of gratitude, Ma Tong gave Edney all his possessions—twenty-seven Pas, and an ancient book written in a script he could not read—and the fact that the use of magic had become a secret buried in Edney's heart, and no third person knew about it to this day.