Wizard: I Have a Cultivation System

Chapter 580: Chapter 29: Savior

Lina flinched at her mother’s sharp rebuke, her small shoulders tensing up abruptly.

She looked up at Martha, her clear eyes filled with confusion and terror.

She didn’t understand.

She didn’t understand why her mother had suddenly gotten angry with her.

She was being obedient.

She was trying to please the grown-up, just like her mother had taught her.

’But why did Mother yell at me?’

’Did... did I do something wrong?’

Lina’s lips moved, but no words came out.

She wanted to cry, but her mother had just yelled "Don’t you cry" at her.

She didn’t dare to cry.

She wanted to smile, but she was too scared to manage one.

She could only stand frozen, her small hand still wanting to reach for the sash of her dress, but it wouldn’t move an inch.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t dare let them fall.

But the tears filling her eyes finally spilled over, one drop after another, splashing onto her skirt and spreading into small, dark stains.

Martha didn’t look at her again. She quickly turned her head, staring at the tips of Murphy’s shoes, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

"Sir... Lina is still young, she doesn’t know any better... She-she didn’t mean to displease you... Please be magnanimous and don’t hold it against a child..."

As she spoke, she bent down, lowering her forehead until it almost touched the ground.

Murphy watched this scene, his dark eyes betraying no emotion.

He understood what Martha was doing.

And he understood why she was doing it.

On the surface, this scene bore a striking resemblance to the incident last night, when two of Anvil’s men had tried to take Lina.

In both cases, the powerless bowed before the powerful.

In both, a mother and child were reduced to playthings.

But Murphy knew there was a fundamental difference between the two situations.

Last night, when Martha faced Anvil’s men, her eyes held only despair.

It was a complete and utter despair, devoid of any hope.

Because she knew those men would offer her no way out.

Had she given in to Iron Felt’s gang, the fate awaiting her and Lina would have been utterly hopeless.

It was darkness, an abyss, a dead end with no glimmer of light.

But now, she was facing Murphy.

A being who, in her eyes, was incomparably powerful, mysterious, and incomprehensible.

A being whose intentions she couldn’t fathom, but whom she vaguely felt ’might not be so bad.’

It was the intuition of someone like her.

She had lived for decades, crawling and scraping her way through the muck at the bottom of society for decades.

She had seen too many people, too many things, too much darkness and despair.

She knew which people would truly harm her, and which would not.

Anvil’s gang wouldn’t just have subjected them to what they were now willingly offering Murphy.

It would have been far more degrading, far more exploitative, and in the end, they would have been discarded like broken, useless trash.

No!

Not just discarded. They would have burned them, making the trash provide one last bit of residual heat.

But this man, from last night until now, hadn’t laid a single finger on her.

He had her change clothes, tend to her wounds, eat, and rest.

He made that big shot named Rodrick speak to her in such a subservient tone.

He made those once-arrogant gang thugs kneel on the ground and tremble.

A person like that offered far more security than Iron Felt and his ilk.

So, Martha knew, the being before her was a safe one.

At least, ten thousand times safer than Anvil’s gang.

That was why she dared to kneel here.

That was why she dared to unfasten her collar.

That was why she dared to push Lina forward.

This wasn’t submission, nor was it forced.

This was a proactive survival instinct.

She had nothing else to offer.

She had no money, no resources, no backing, no connections.

The only things she possessed were herself and her daughter.

This was her only capital.

She didn’t know if this man would accept this capital.

But she had to try.

Because if she succeeded, she and her daughter would have a patron.

A chance for a tomorrow that wasn’t worse than yesterday.

Yes, she wasn’t hoping for a better tomorrow. As long as tomorrow wasn’t worse than yesterday, she would be content.

As for so-called shame and dignity, such things simply didn’t exist for her.

Surviving was all that mattered.

Living a life no worse than yesterday’s was the greatest hope they had.

Murphy understood all of this perfectly.

He felt no scorn.

No contempt.

He didn’t find her lowly or shameless.

He had seen too many people like her.

Back in the Old Realm, there were the commoners struggling to survive under heavy taxes or during the chaos of war, the refugees willing to do anything to live, the prostitutes who traded their bodies for a meal, the parents who sold their children to nobles for a few Silver Coins.

They weren’t born lowly.

They were simply born in the wrong place.

They simply had no choice.

It was the same for Martha.

Her kneeling here today, unfastening her collar, and pushing her daughter forward wasn’t because she was inherently debased.

It was because this was their only chance to survive.

Any woman who had grown up in a respectable neighborhood, received a good education, and had a stable income would never do such a thing.

But Martha didn’t have that kind of life.

She only had her life, and her daughter.

She was gambling these two things on a future.

If she won the gamble, she and her daughter could continue to live.

So Murphy wasn’t angry, disgusted, or offended.

"Sir... I know... I know people like us are nothing in your eyes... but-but I really don’t know what else I can do..."

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