Chapter 4 : Chapter 4
Chapter 4: I’m an Escort, Not a Servant!
That question caught Chen Guan off guard.
He raised his head and looked at the sun just peeking up in the east, then lowered his eyes to look at her.
Had the day not only just broken?
Yesterday, they had agreed to meet at the banks of the Sanhua River, but she had never said exactly what time.
At the sight of his expression, an inexplicable grievance rose again in Luo Li’s heart.
She was not truly blaming him for arriving late.
She was afraid—afraid that this man, whom her grandfather had, with his dying breath, repeatedly told her “could be trusted,” was just like the previous nine escort masters: merely going through the motions, putting on a show.
When her grandfather had been dying, he had held her hand and said in a thread of breath, “Li’er... remember... on this journey... there is only one person you can trust... and that is Escort Master Chen...”
She did not understand why her grandfather would place his trust in a complete outsider he had never met before.
But she had not had the time to ask, because by then, her grandfather no longer had the strength to answer.
Chen Guan did not bother arguing with a little girl.
In truth, there was no need to ask. That old man who had coughed as though only half a breath remained in him yesterday had most likely failed to live long enough to see this morning’s sun rise.
Otherwise, she would not be standing here crying.
“Am I some kind of old man’s bane now? Lately, every old fellow I meet ends up dead.”
Chen Guan muttered inwardly, then turned toward the banks of the Sanhua River and, quite unhurriedly, drew a handful of grain from his robes and scattered it into the murky river water.
This was his offering to the old turtle demon, and also his way of keeping the rules of the escort trade.
The old turtle had traveled the waterway; he himself traveled by land.
They were fellow travelers in the same line of work, and there ought to be mutual respect between them.
Chen Guan dusted the grain chaff from his hands and said flatly,
“Let’s go. The road ahead is still long.”
Luo Li sniffed, but said nothing. She merely nodded silently, then lifted her hand and pointed toward the shade beneath a willow tree by the riverbank.
There, two tall horses with sleek, glossy coats were tied up.
“Well now? This little girl’s family fortune really isn’t ordinary.”
In this poor and desolate place like Sanhua Town, let alone a fine warhorse like this, even trying to find a donkey that did not have the runs would be difficult beyond words.
And yet she, a lone orphan girl, had managed to get two of them?
Chen Guan stepped forward. His gaze fell upon the tall black horse, and after a look, he reached out and slapped its firm, well-muscled flank.
The horse snorted in dissatisfaction after the sting.
“Not bad. A rare thousand-li steed indeed.”
With a light leap, he mounted in one smooth motion and tested the feel of the horse beneath him.
After waiting for a moment, however, he saw that the white horse beside him was still lazily swishing its tail and nibbling at the grass, while Luo Li had not yet swung herself into the saddle.
When he looked back, he found that Luo Li was still standing where she had been.
Those red-rimmed eyes were glaring at him in indignation, as though he had committed some unforgivable crime.
“What are you staring at? Hurry up and bring it over!”
“Eh...?” Chen Guan was momentarily stunned by the commanding tone.
Bring the horse over?
You want me to lead your horse over?
Do you really take yourself for some empress?
Chen Guan’s face darkened, and he immediately snapped back in annoyance,
“I’m an escort, not a groom, and still less your servant! If you cannot even lead a horse, then we can walk all the way to Great Zhou!”
“With the fodder money we save, we can even burn a little more paper for that dead grandpa of yours!”
“You...!”
Luo Li’s brows drew together, and her small face flushed red with anger.
Sure enough!
This man was exactly the money-grubbing bastard she had thought him to be!
The moment the silver was in his hands, his true face showed itself at once!
Even the previous nine escort masters who had refused her, though they lacked ability, had at least been courteous!
How was any of them like this scoundrel?
For a moment, she even wondered whether her grandfather, delirious at death’s door, had simply grown muddled and lost his mind before trusting him.
But on this journey, without an escort...
“Hmph!”
Luo Li bit her lip, shot Chen Guan a look, then yanked the reins and swung herself up into the saddle.
Her movement was so clean and practiced that it hardly seemed like her first time riding.
“Once we get out of this mountain region and meet up with my little aunt, I’m asking for a refund...!”
...
The autumn wind blew bleak and cold, tightening the skin on one’s face.
The horses’ hooves trampled over the yellowed grass, stirring fallen leaves into the air.
One before the other, the two of them rode eastward along the banks of the Sanhua River, galloping toward the far end of that muddy current.
This Sanhua River wound for several hundred li. The lands it flowed through stretched from this borderland of the Wuyan Mountains all the way to the northern reaches of the Great Yuan Imperial Dynasty.
Several dozen li farther on, once they crossed that mountain lying crouched like some giant beast—the so-called Wuyan Mountain—they would reach the legendary Ten Directions Marsh.
Only after passing the outer edge of that marsh could one truly be said to have left this mountain hollow behind. Only then would Chen Guan truly have departed the homeland where he had lived these past ten years.
So it went. The two of them pressed on in silence for roughly half a day, and by the time the sun stood high overhead, they had at last reached the foot of Wuyan Mountain.
Beyond this point lay the uninhabited lands of the Ten Directions Marsh.
In this world, the remote wilderness was far more terrifying than any place where people actually lived.
After all, wherever people lived, there was government rule.
In the major cities, towns, and villages of Great Yun, the authorities would, every so often, dispatch Sky-Patrol Envoys from the Demon Suppression Bureau to cleanse the land of sinister fiends.
Most evil beings with even a bit of sense cherished their lives. They would take the initiative to hide deep in the mountains and old forests to cultivate in seclusion.
Only the newly awakened fiends, the ones too witless to understand danger, would rush into villages and towns to feast once hunger drove them mad.
Over time, those mountain ranges and deep forests where human traces were scarce became gathering places of filth and corruption, forbidden lands to humankind.
No one knew what sort of things lurked beneath those layers upon layers of dark tree-shadows.
Luo Li rode her white horse, hanging some distance behind Chen Guan.
The good upbringing she had received since childhood had always taught her to keep her heart still as water. She had always felt that growing angry over vulgar people only disrupted one’s own state of mind, and was hardly worth it.
But today, that cultivation had collapsed completely.
Along this road, Chen Guan had angered her so thoroughly that she had almost forgotten both the sorrow of her grandfather’s death and his final instructions.
At that moment, her beautiful eyes were fixed upon Chen Guan’s back, as though she wished to carve this hateful man into her memory stroke by stroke.
Mainly because this fellow was simply too infuriating!
All along the road, he had cared only to spur his own horse onward at a reckless gallop, paying no attention whatsoever to her, his employer.
At one point, while crossing a river, the horse beneath her had stumbled on a stone in the current, nearly throwing her from the saddle.
Yet that fellow had merely reined in his own horse, looked back coldly, and spoken nothing but mockery.
“You cannot even sit a horse steady, and I have no idea why you bought one. Truly, you have too much money and nowhere to spend it.”
He behaved as though he were the employer.
Just then, the Chen Guan riding ahead suddenly pulled in the black horse beneath him.
He narrowed his eyes at the black mass of mountain range ahead, then turned back and said blandly,
“The timing is just right. We’ll rest here for a while, fill our stomachs, and recover our strength. We should cross this mountain before nightfall.”
Luo Li also reined in the white horse and lifted her head to examine the Wuyan Mountain before them.
The mountain forest lay in deathly silence. There was not even a single birdcall to be heard. The wind that blew from it carried not the slightest trace of grass or wood fragrance, but rather a faint, rotting stench that made the chest feel stifled.
Still, seeing that Chen Guan had no intention of turning tail in the face of such a vicious place, she forcibly suppressed the anger in her heart.
Luo Li swung down from her horse. Even that movement carried a grace and noble elegance that seemed born into her. Then, in a tone of perfect matter-of-fact command, she ordered,
“Go get something for us to eat.”
Chen Guan shot her a glance and could not even be bothered to answer.
He had already spent the journey helping her walk out of the grief of losing a loved one. If she felt no gratitude, so be it—but instead she still had the nerve to wear that sour expression for him to see.
Chen Guan swept his eyes over the surroundings, and finally fixed them on a patch of grass as tall as the waist.
He took the horse-cleaving saber wrapped in rags from his shoulder and casually propped it against a large roadside rock, then strode over and plunged straight into the grass.
A moment later, a sharp, miserable squealing came from inside.
Luo Li turned her head to look, only to see Chen Guan emerge holding a rabbit by its two long ears.
The rabbit was enormous, at least five or six jin in weight, and it was still kicking desperately. But in Chen Guan’s hand, that struggle looked rather feeble.
Whatever serious skills this fellow might or might not possess, at least he was plainly very practiced in the craft of keeping himself fed.
She only hoped that when they really encountered demons and monsters on the road, he would still be this efficient.