jdhmnovel Chapter 467: Deceiving the Brothel Girl
Chapter 467: Deceiving the Brothel Girl
So he lost the second time?
Gu Jianchu said with certainty.
Through the system, it can be judged that Cao Li should have lost money in his second business.
【Yes. 】
Cao Lin refused to believe this and borrowed another 50,000 taels of silver from a loan shark as start-up capital. He then asked a friend from Jiangnan to help him transport the cloth. This time, he encountered no storms, and the boat didn't capsize. However, he encountered pirates on the way. Not only was the cargo robbed, but the crew members were also injured to varying degrees. These crew members had been hired by Cao Lin to transport the goods, and after being injured by the pirates, their families came to Cao Lin's house, demanding compensation. Although they were only temporary workers, in a sense, Cao Li was still their employer.
So this time, Cao Li not only lost the entire shipload of cargo, but also had to compensate the temporary workers for their medical expenses. After all, it wouldn't be a good idea to let their families continue to make trouble. Because of his involvement in reselling military supplies in Jiangnan, even if there was a problem with the cargo, he didn't dare report it. He was afraid that if he showed his face, he would be recognized by the government officials and arrested, which would be a loss.
Without the goods recovered, he couldn't do business. The debt collectors came to his house every day to collect the debt. They gave him two weeks to raise the money. If he couldn't, he had only two options: report him to the authorities and have them deal with him. The other was to kill him and throw him into the river to feed the fish.
Cao Li didn't want to choose either option, but he also didn't have the nerve to write to his family asking for money. After all, when he severed ties with them, he had said that he would make a name for himself and show them that he would never rely on his family for a single cent.
[Not to mention being too embarrassed to ask his family for money, he simply couldn't face them, so he had to think of another way.]
Only now did Cao Li realize that the reason he had been so successful in everything he did in Jiangnan was because of the connections within the Cao family. Now that he had come to the capital, without those connections, he was nothing, and no one praised him for his supernatural powers.
Just when Cao Li was feeling frustrated, he ran into a friend he had known in Jiangnan. He had once looked down on him, thinking he was just a poor, powerless scholar. But now, seeing him again, he found himself doing quite well, wearing clothes made of Shu brocade. Upon questioning, he learned that after arriving in the capital, he had fallen in love with a prostitute. He now relied entirely on her for his living, relying on her for his food, clothing, and other expenses. He had told her that when he passed the imperial examination and became the top scholar, he would redeem her and make her his wife.
Upon hearing this, the courtesan was overjoyed and gave the scholar nearly all of her savings, hoping he would pass the imperial examination and live a good life. However, the scholar disappeared after receiving the money. The courtesan later realized she had been deceived by the scholar. He didn't like her at all, nor did he want to marry her. He was only after her savings. He used this method to deceive several other courtesans.
Seeing Cao Li so poor and unhappy, the scholar told him about his fraud, hoping that Cao Li could live a good life like him.
Cao Li originally looked down on it, but thinking of his own debts and the potential to make money, he decided to do the same thing. Besides, he was better looking than the scholar, and when he dressed up, he looked even more handsome, making him even more popular with those who pitied him.
With the help of a scholar, Cao Li met a girl. He imitated the scholar's appearance and swindled all the girl's money. However, Cao Li was smarter than the scholar. After all, he had a business mind. He simply swindled money, but he couldn't get much money. Especially now, he could only swindle one or two girls. But over time, their affairs would spread among the girls. Once his reputation was ruined, he would probably not be able to continue. The best way was to use this method to make money.
Cao Li then thought of using these women to make money. The first woman Cao Li swindled was the one he'd scammed. He lured her out of the brothel under the pretense of keeping her for a month. He then spent ten days and a half months with her before locking her up. He knew that simply locking her up wouldn't control her, so during this time, he found a drug from a human trafficker.
[Human traffickers will control the abducted children to go out on the streets to commit fraud, and they will also obey their commands.]
[So Cao Li bought it and gave it to the girl daily. After a while, she became unconscious and became dependent on it. If she didn't take it, she would feel uncomfortable all over. So he began to use this drug to control the girl.]
When the one-month contract he'd agreed to pay was up, the brothel owner went to look for her, only to discover the address she'd given was a fake. She knew the woman might have eloped with the man, but she still held out hope and tried to look for her. However, she searched in vain. She later reported the case to the police, but received no further information. These disappearances often faded into inaction over time, with neither the Dali Temple nor the brothel looking for her. After all, the woman had been missing for over a month, and she'd followed her lover. It was likely they'd eloped elsewhere, so there was no point wasting resources.
After confirming that the brothels and the Dali Temple had given up their search, Cao Li began placing the girls in various wealthy families, hoping to defraud them of money. If they failed to obtain the money, or if they harbored any ulterior motives, they would be severely beaten by Cao Li, sometimes even locked in a dark room without the antidote. Over time, these girls grew terrified and no longer considered escaping or any other such thoughts.
Cao Li used this method to completely tame the kidnapped girls.
After gaining the advantage, Cao Li used this method to deceive the prostitutes and use them for his own benefit.
[At first, he only targeted prostitutes, but later he began to deceive those abandoned skinny women from Yangzhou. Any poor women who had been trained by others would be kidnapped and tamed by him to make money.]
Cao Li does have some clever tricks, but he never uses them for the right purposes.
After Cao Li finished answering, seeing that Gu Jianchu had not spoken for a long time, everyone looked at her with either curiosity or expectation.
Gu Jianchu was eating melon seriously.
After she regained her composure, she noticed everyone was looking at her. She stroked the hot water bottle with her fingers and spoke slowly, "The young lady from the Sun family said that you've been lingering outside her house recently. Is this true?"