The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 127: A Higher Bid for Eleanor
When Eleanor compared herself to merchandise, and even used a word like “sell” to describe what her mother had done, the air in the room pressed down to its limit.
Her father glanced at the woman who had been beside him for more than twenty years. He wanted to say something, but in the end he said nothing, taking on even the responsibility that should not have been his to bear.
There was a saying in the Baler Federation: “When life forces you to bend, don’t be shy about putting your knees and forehead to the ground.”
The saying might have been a little too bleak, but that was life. Once you chose compromise, you might as well compromise all the way.
As a man who had already lost his standing as the pillar of the household, he had naturally sensed how quickly he had lost his authority over the family. Faced with the conflict between the new generation’s “ruler” and an “unexpected contender” hiding behind the curtain who might change the situation, he chose silence.
After a stretch of silence, Eleanor’s mother shook her head. “I never thought of it that way. I told you, Rom is a good young man.”
“He is a little older than you, but he knows how to treat a girl kindly. He has steady work and a house of his own. You won’t have to suffer the way other women do. Isn’t that good?”
Her voice quickly shifted from a faint, uncertain guilt to firmness, and it grew louder as she spoke.
From a certain angle, Rom really was a very suitable marriage prospect for some families, but only some families, and only for some people.
Eleanor shook her head. “I have never had any hope in your choices. You already proved once that you were wrong. Who knows whether this will be the second time?”
The first time, naturally, had been William. Of course Eleanor herself had made mistakes too, but the words immediately stirred the regret already packed inside the woman into anger.
“I’m not God. I can’t see that far ahead. I only knew that you were living badly then. Was I wrong to think of my own daughter?”
Eleanor shook her head. “Then why wouldn’t you be wrong a second time?” She did not give the woman another chance to continue. In a calmer but harder manner, she seized control of the conversation. “Since I was little, you told me not to sell my body for money. But today, you did something shameful. I thought we were a different kind of family.”
As she spoke, she stood up. For the first time, disappointment showed on her face. Perhaps most children, before they understood the cruelty of reality, believed that they and their families were fundamentally different from the other families in society.
That fantasy would not be shattered until the day they recognized reality for what it was, and broke it with their own hands.
Eleanor’s words left the couple with an uncomfortable sense of condemnation from their own consciences.
Living in a neighborhood like this, what parents feared most was that their children would take the wrong road. Yet they themselves had set the worst possible example.
Eleanor turned and walked toward the entryway. Outside, the sky was nearly dark. No girl from a decent family would choose this hour to leave home and go into the streets, and the couple immediately grew tense.
Eleanor’s mother hurried to her feet, ran a couple of steps, and grabbed Eleanor by the wrist. “Where are you going?” Then she added with emphasis, “You can’t go out!”
Eleanor swung her hand and shook off her mother’s arm. She turned slightly, looked at the woman, and smiled. “Since you’ve decided to sell me for a good price, why not sell me for a higher one?”
There was something chilling in the way she said it. The woman even forgot to stop her, and could only watch as Eleanor walked out the door at that hour.
Elsewhere, William had just returned home after finishing a social engagement. That afternoon, Jorgreman had called to tell him that someone had begun to show interest in the land he held, and that they could sit down and have a word with each other.
He had attended the dinner Jorgreman arranged, but he had no interest at all in the man seated across from him or in what the man had to say.
It was obvious that, perhaps out of respect for Jorgreman or for some other reason, the man wanted to buy the land. But the price he offered was so low that William could not accept it: one million six hundred thousand dollars.
The bastard had tried to buy the land at an outrageously low price in a high-handed tone full of condescension, as though what he was doing were a favor to William.
William did not bother being overly polite with such people.
Experience had taught him one truth: people who looked down on you now would continue looking down on you even if you changed, right up until the moment you put your foot on their face and spat on them. Only then would they put away the thought of despising you.
Before that, the more you did, the more it looked to them like guilty, worthless struggling and resistance.
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