Chapter 50: Turning Waste into Treasure

"Sunshine" was Margaret's nickname, originating from her childhood habit of running everywhere and bringing warmth and hope to others.

Margaret’s expression softened, and just as she was about to speak, she noticed the slave trader kneeling on one knee, hand pressed to his heart: "Noble Lady Duti, forgive my ignorance. I am a subject under your family's rule. If you fancy these slaves, I am more than willing to offer them to you for free!"

Upon hearing this, the group of slaves had hopeful glimmers in their eyes, all looking at Margaret’s back with eager anticipation.

"Kind Lady, please save us! We don't want to die! The Great Lord will bless you!" the slaves knelt and pleaded.

Margaret glanced at them but ignored their pleas. Instead, she helped the slave trader up, brushed the dust from his knees, and asked, "Do you agree to switch to livestock for the sacrifice?"

"No, my Lady, that would soil your hands!" The slave trader, flattered and hesitant, replied, "It is just that the ritual requires living humans as offerings. We will provide a different batch of slaves for the priests!"

Margaret nibbled on her finger for about ten seconds before looking up at the trader: "How many more slaves do you have? I want them all, including any you may have with you right now. I will pay you one pound of silver for every ten people. I want as many as you have, and I will explain the situation to the priests myself!"

As she spoke, she pressed a gold pea into his hand: "Take this!"

She did not notice that the hooked-nosed, black-haired slaves behind her were staring fixedly at the gold pea in her hand, their greed almost overflowing.

The slave trader’s eyes shone with avarice as he looked at Margaret as if she were a mountain of gold: "You are so generous! I will bring you many more slaves!"

"Mhm!" Margaret nodded. She turned to her guards and handed each of them a gold pea: "Loyal knights of the Gotland family, please accept this reward for your service!"

"Thank you, Lady Duti! We praise your generosity; we are forever the most faithful servants to you and your house!" The guards bowed, quickly pledging their loyalty.

Margaret smiled, nodding to herself. The "gold beans" were right—if you give people a seventeen-gram gold bean upon meeting them, their joy is genuine. In terms of modern gold prices, this was akin to throwing stacks of cash at everyone you met; who wouldn't like such a person? Or rather, who wouldn't like money?

As the ruling family of Gotland, she was not short on money. Especially since her subjects were all pirates, what she lacked were hearts and population.

Margaret dismissed the profusely grateful slave trader and approached the slaves to inspect their wounds; some had already become infested with maggots. Her obsessive-compulsive nature flared, and she immediately plucked a squirming maggot and crushed it. She looked at the guards standing by: "Go to the canteen for some bread and ask the priests for some wound medicine—tell them I ordered it!"

"At once!" Only two guards remained while the others sprinted off in two different directions.

With the recovery of public livelihood, the grand canteen had long since been dissolved and converted into a facility serving the army and the lord’s hall, with significantly improved food quality.

Margaret looked at the rotting tissue with concern, thinking it would be great if she had sterile-reared blowfly larvae, as their secretions could dissolve necrotic tissue.

She looked kindly at the young slave who appeared to be the leader and was currently thanking God: "Who are you, and where do you come from?"

"Beautiful and kind lady, we are the chosen people of the Lord, we are the Judeans..."

Listening to his account, Margaret’s kind expression vanished instantly, as if she had just swallowed a fly. She had actually rescued a group that had wandered the globe for thousands of years, leaving their mark everywhere except the Americas, and had backstabbed Rome, Babylon, the Ptolemaic Dynasty, the Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty, Persia, the Seleucid Empire, Germany, and countless others.

The nations that had taken pity on them and kindly offered sanctuary received no gratitude, only, without exception, vile and malicious backstabbing.

Saving these animals was simply anti-human, anti-social, and against all kindness! Giving them a chance to survive was merely rewarding evil and punishing virtue.

The prototype of the greedy goblins from her past life’s games—she had actually run into them here? Margaret was furious.

*Control yourself! Don't get angry!*

Wait, no, hold on! A thought struck her, and she narrowed her eyes at the Judean slaves. She had a population, yet she found she couldn't develop her territory—that made no sense.

After a moment of reflection, she suddenly realized that as a member of a pirate nation, her fear of a merchant nation was a colossal joke. She held perfume and medicinal formulas—valuable goods she had no way of selling. Since that was the case, why couldn't she use these resources to have these merchants fight a trade war for her?

Her plan became clear: first, weaken the enemy through a trade war, inciting public grievance and shaking the foundations of their rule; then, send a massive army to press the border and seize victory in one stroke with the help of the duplicitous Judeans. This way, she could save herself much trouble and achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Margaret slapped her palm with her fist, her eyes flashing with resolve.

However, she faced a tricky problem: how to manage the Judeans and ensure they remained under her control. She wasn't worried about how to govern them, but rather how to hold their lifeblood so they could not survive without her.

She knew well that once these Judeans accumulated wealth, they would likely set out to trade, potentially leading to the transfer of assets and never returning. Therefore, she had to find a way to curb their opportunity to develop into capital and keep them working for her forever.

At that moment, she recalled a saying from her past life: "Don't feed the cat at night." It meant that keeping the cat hungry at night would keep it alert, encouraging it to hunt for food and help control the local mouse population.

Margaret was struck with inspiration; she decided to use a similar method to manage the Judeans. She would keep them in a state of instability, unable to accumulate enough wealth or power, thereby keeping them forever dependent on her.

Seeing Margaret rubbing her hands together and emitting an evil "Tom the Cat" style laugh, the group of Judeans shivered.

"My Lady?"

She regained her composure, pulled out a handful of gold peas, and dangled the bait before the greedy slaves: "Want some? More bread, more gold!"

She would bet that, seeing the deep-seated greed in their eyes, if not for the sword-wielding guards standing nearby, they would have pounced to rob her, forced her to sign an indenture, and sold her to a slave trader. Finally, after cheating the buyer out of money, they would sell her a second time. It wasn't that she was being malicious—it was simply their cultural upbringing.

If their lies hadn't been exposed to the whole world in her past life, she would never have believed that such a vicious group of people could exist in this world.