Golden Eagle Island's trade with Liang was, in large part, the buying and selling of people.
Though it sounded harsh, that was exactly what it was: the buying and selling of people. The Anlan Hao traveled along the Yellow River, passing three military towns and eighteen counties. Each time it docked, they paid the local officials to gather children of suitable age, examined their physiques with a keepsake, and paid outright to purchase the children and take them back to Golden Eagle Island.
Liang welcomed this kind of business as well. They could use the opportunity to assess the children's aptitude and even beat the Anlan Hao to recruit the talented ones for themselves. In any case, they would never lose out.
Most of the children who ultimately boarded the ship actually came from fairly decent families. The children of truly poor families were usually intercepted by the local military towns' powerful clans. Only parents who could not reach the aristocratic families, had no connections in the military towns, yet longed for their family to produce a powerful messenger would send their children onto the Anlan Hao to study under a master on Golden Eagle Island.
The girl Mi Mian came from such a background. Her family was merely a seventh-grade merchant family. In the county seat of Jiangnan, they were neither prominent nor insignificant, but they could never enter the upper circles. When she boarded the ship, she was mocked and drawn into a conflict because of her name and black wristband—the seventh-grade color band. When two or three children ganged up on her, Tiger Vanguard helped her once.
"Among the 'Four Heavenly Kings,' it's best not to provoke Rong Hai or Chen Xunxian," Mi Mian warned. "I heard they both have elders on Golden Eagle Island, so their