Chapter 12 : Chapter 12
Chapter 12: The Uncanny Fiend Borrows a Life, and a Living Horse Dies in One’s Place
Seeing the look of stubborn refusal on Luo Li’s face, Su Yue revealed a faint smile that was not quite a smile.
She could understand her niece’s grievances.
This was the first time she had ever heard of such a willful escort...
If the employer ate his food, he charged extra. He paid the employer no heed whatsoever, and even found the employer troublesome.
Though Luo Li lived in this remote region, from childhood to now she had always been surrounded like the moon among stars, dressed in fine silks and fed rich delicacies. When had she ever suffered such cold treatment?
And yet, rather than blaming that escort named Chen Guan, Su Yue instead found herself growing somewhat interested in him.
Every one of Chen Guan’s actions along the road had seemed cold and unfeeling, but looked at from another angle, was this not also proof that the “rules of an escort” had been carved into his bones?
Those rules had existed since the profession of escort first came into being: take money and do the job; so long as the escort remains, the cargo remains; protect only the client’s life, and meddle in no idle matters.
But at some point, flattery and sycophancy had gradually seeped into those simple, pure rules.
Nowadays, in order to earn a little extra reward money, escorts treated their employers—especially the powerful and noble—as though they were serving their own masters, currying favor in every possible way and obeying every whim.
That, too, was understandable.
In a world crawling with demons and monsters, every escort run was a matter of carrying one’s head at one’s waist. If one earned more money on a single trip, then one could afford to take one less job afterward.
After all, one less risk meant one more measure of safety.
Yet that escort named Chen Guan still adhered to the oldest and purest of rules.
He took only what he ought to take and did only what he ought to do.
And it was precisely because he held so firmly to those principles that this crisis had been avoided.
Had it been any other escort, eager to please the employer, eager to display himself before the employer, eager to earn some extra reward, then when they encountered the demon wolf, he very likely would have stirred up real disaster.
By now, Su Yue could also understand somewhat why Chen Guan had become the most famous escort in Sanhua Town.
He truly did have something exceptional about him.
Su Yue lifted the morning tea from the table and took a light sip. Then she set the cup down and asked,
“Tell me—why did he sell your horse?”
Her instincts told her that an escort with such a strong character would never stoop to something so base as seizing another’s property by force.
“Wasn’t it because he was greedy? After I fainted from hunger...”
Luo Li immediately recounted everything from the moment she woke up and discovered the black horse was gone, telling the whole story from beginning to end.
Su Yue barely heard anything else, because the words fainted from hunger made her whole body jolt. She grabbed Luo Li’s hand and pressed urgently,
“You mean to say that you fainted from hunger, and when you woke up, you found yourself draped across a horse’s back, with the black horse gone?”
“Yes!” Luo Li nodded, still not understanding why this mattered.
Su Yue pressed on anxiously, “Besides saying that he used the horse to exchange for your life, did he say anything else?”
“He also said...” Luo Li had only just spoken those three words before her expression faltered.
She suddenly remembered Chen Guan’s strange remark from that morning: “You insisted on turning ba—insisted on courting death...”
Turning back?
Could it be...
Could it be that it was not because she had been lucky, but because she had already been caught by Do Not Look Back?
But almost immediately, she rejected that thought in her heart.
It was not that she did not believe Chen Guan.
It was because that thing had been an uncanny fiend!
Every uncanny fiend was one of the world’s unsolved mysteries, and one of the deepest terrors carved into the bones of all living people. Once encountered, it was almost always certain death.
And this was Do Not Look Back, the most mysterious of uncanny fiends.
The moment one turned back, one’s life entered a countdown.
Even the Director of the Demon Suppression Bureau in Wangyue City had been helpless against it, so how could some escort casually hired out of the countryside for a mere twenty taels possibly have dealt with it?
And besides, that greedy and indifferent fellow did not seem like the sort of man who would risk so much to save her for the sake of a paltry twenty taels of silver.
Luo Li cast off those thoughts and continued,
“That fellow even made excuses and claimed... claimed that he traded my horse for my life. Did he really think I was an idiot?”
At those words, Su Yue’s pupils suddenly contracted. An old rumor, long buried beneath the dust of time, exploded in her heart, and she murmured under her breath,
“The uncanny fiend borrows a life, and a living horse dies in one’s place.”
The moment Su Yue thought of that old saying, everything became clear.
For the past half month, no one entering or leaving Wangyue City had survived, and yet Luo Li alone had arrived safely.
That was not because she had been lucky, nor because she had somehow avoided running into Do Not Look Back, nor because she had fainted from hunger.
It was because that young escort named Chen Guan had used some unknown means of his own to forcibly drag her back out from the rule of Do Not Look Back!
Su Yue suppressed the shock in her heart, then once again lifted a hand and poked Luo Li on the forehead.
“If anyone here is an idiot, it is you!”
That poke made Luo Li shrink her neck back, and she stood there dumbstruck, completely stunned.
This... this little aunt of hers—whose side was she even on?
Su Yue rolled her eyes at her in annoyance.
“Has it never occurred to you that perhaps he really did use that black horse of yours to exchange for your life from Do Not Look Back?”
“This...” Luo Li was shaken.
Exchange for her life—did that mean that what he had said referred to trading with Do Not Look Back?
How could Su Yue fail to see that this little girl must have developed some misunderstanding with that escort? At once, she began explaining patiently.
“These past few days, the city lord has sent wave after wave of men to drive off that uncanny fiend.”
“But without exception, all of them were lost outside the city.”
“For a full half month, you alone were the only one who entered the city alive. That absolutely was no coincidence.”
“And besides,” Su Yue shifted the subject slightly and pointed out the greatest flaw in Luo Li’s reasoning, “you are a martial artist yourself. Even if you went hungry for two days, you still would not faint from hunger, would you?”
“Li’er, you cannot judge a person solely by appearances. He may be greedier, and he may have more rules, but perhaps that is precisely the foundation that allows him to be greedy in the first place.”
“This... this!” Hearing those words, Luo Li finally began to calm down.
She truly had been very hungry yesterday, but to say she had been hungry enough to faint dead away did indeed seem somewhat exaggerated.
Could it be...
Could it be that he was some peerless master concealing his true depth?
She suddenly remembered her grandfather’s warning:
“On this journey... there is only one person you can trust... and that is Escort Master Chen...”
Her heart shuddered violently.
Her grandfather had never once misjudged anyone, because he was...
Yet just as doubt and suspicion churned in her heart, a thoroughly impatient voice drifted in from the entrance of the courtyard.
“If you have something to say, then say it clearly and quickly! My time is money!”
Luo Li rose to her feet. She had meant to ask him properly and, while she was at it... apologize.
But when the words reached her lips, they bent sharply in an entirely different direction.
“Money, money, money—you only ever care about money!”