Shen Tang's rhetorical question made Tudege's face flush.
Not from shyness or embarrassment, but from humiliation and indignation.
As the defeated party, bringing up tribute payments himself and eagerly offering people and money inevitably made it seem as though he were ceding territory to sue for peace, wagging his tail and begging for mercy. Even though Tudege had prepared himself mentally to some extent, and had been a hostage for many years, he still felt as humiliated as if he'd been slapped. But with the situation stacked against him, he had no right to talk about dignity.
He took several deep breaths in secret to suppress his indignation.
He tried to remain neither servile nor overbearing. "The victor is king, and the defeated are outlaws. My people admire the strong and wish only to serve the mightiest in the world. We have been defeated by Kang in this war, and are willing to pay tribute every year and acknowledge our status as vassals."
Shen Tang only smiled and said nothing.
She watched Tudege with an amused look.
Her gaze took in every subtle expression on his face. Tudege felt as though a beast had its eyes on him, like a hare running across an open wilderness with nowhere to hide. He knew Shen Tang's gaze all too well. It was brimming with ambition and a certainty of victory.
A ridiculous suspicion suddenly arose in Tudege's mind.
Shock gave way to indignation.
If—if Shen really had that in mind, and wanted to humiliate him and Northern Desert with brute force and plunder, he truly couldn't refuse. In the past, Xin and even Geng had demanded the women and daughters of Northern Desert's tribal chiefs just to humiliate and torment them...
If they liked their looks, they kept them for their own