Chapter 14 : Chapter 14
Chapter 14: The Price Hike Succeeds
“More money?!”
Luo Li froze, then immediately reacted.
What “twenty taels for a huge bargain”? It seemed she had been far too wishful in her thinking.
She now had the distinct feeling that those twenty taels might have hired her one enormous pit.
Because she had realized by now that this fellow was not a proper escort at all. They had not even truly set out yet, and he was already raising the price on the spot and starting to fleece the client!
If they ran into real danger on the road, she might well end up losing her entire fortune!
Luo Li had just been about to speak.
Yet Su Yue spoke first. “No problem. How about we add two taels of silver as a delay fee for Escort Master Chen?”
As she spoke, she directly took out two broken pieces of silver from her sleeve.
【On-the-Spot Price Hike Successful】
【Mission Escort Point Reward Increased: 10%】
【Escort Mission: Escort Luo Li to the Grand Preceptor’s Manor in Shangjing City of Great Zhou.】
【Mission Reward: Escort Points +220】
The corner of Chen Guan’s mouth split into a grin. Without the slightest courtesy, he reached out, took the silver, weighed it in his hand, and said in satisfaction,
“All right, then. You can chat at your leisure.”
With that, he turned and walked straight out, leaning his body sideways as he lay back down in the pavilion outside.
“Little Aunt!” Luo Li looked at Su Yue in astonishment. “Did you not see that he is exactly the sort of black-hearted escort who raises the price on the spot?”
“All right, all right!” Su Yue directly cut off her complaint. “We are the ones in the wrong first.”
In truth, in her eyes, an escort who recognized money and not faces was actually more reliable.
If he wanted more money, he laid the terms out plainly in the open rather than scheming behind one’s back.
There were plenty of escort masters who, when escorting wealthy employers, would see their riches and be stirred to crooked thoughts.
A few years ago, there had been exactly such a tragedy. A newly established escort master saw that his employer was wealthy, and halfway through the road, he slaughtered the entire family.
Not only did he rob them of the wealth on their persons, he even attempted afterward to write to their relatives and extort ransom money.
Those were the truly frightening sort.
Luo Li looked at the vanished figure, then at her little aunt beside her.
Was this really still her little aunt?
Was she not usually tighter than an iron rooster?
How had she become so generous today?
Yet instead of growing angry over it, her heart actually settled.
Because this happened to confirm the very words her grandfather had spoken: if the one you meet is greedy, then that person will surely protect you well.
Looking at her niece, Su Yue found it somewhat amusing.
This niece of hers usually wore a cold face that seemed to keep strangers at a distance. Every look she cast at others carried a trace of superior detachment, as though she were a grown woman holding herself above them despite her young age.
Today was the first time Su Yue had seen her display the lively little temper that should have belonged to her age.
At this point, she was almost impressed by Chen Guan.
Right then, Xi’er came running in from outside and reported in her crisp young voice, “Madam, the escort masters you invited have arrived.”
“Good.” Su Yue nodded and instructed, “Bring them into the courtyard.”
With that, she rose and pulled along Luo Li, who was still somewhat unwilling, and together they walked outside.
...
Not long afterward, a chaotic jumble of footsteps came from beyond the courtyard.
Luo Li turned her head to look.
She saw Xi’er leading twenty-four burly men of all different appearances in through the courtyard gate in a loose stream.
The moment they entered, a smell mixed of sweat, blood, and strong liquor rushed directly toward them.
Escorting was one of the most dangerous professions. People in it lived by the blade and survived one day at a time, so most of them carried the attitude of drinking while the wine was before them and never worrying about tomorrow.
Over time, this smell had come to be jokingly called the “escort smell” among jianghu folk.
And it was precisely this smell that best embodied the desperate, wandering courage worn by escorts as a kind of glory.
Luo Li carefully examined the group.
Every one of them was broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with temples bulging high. A variety of weapons were slung across their backs. One glance was enough to tell that these were skilled men carefully selected by her little aunt.
Most striking of all was the fierce aura they naturally carried, and the sharpness in their eyes that had been honed between life and death.
That was killing intent forged by blood and sweat through years spent walking the edge of death.
Most of all, the one at the front.
The man’s hair was already graying, yet his body was still robust and his bearing deep and steady. Merely by standing there, he caused a faint killing aura to spread through the whole courtyard.
This was not an aura deliberately released, but a presence naturally formed through years spent walking the line between life and death.
This man was “Iron Arm” Luo Tong, ranked fifth on the Pingyang Commandery Escort Master Rankings. His strength had already reached the late Profound Passage Realm, and after decades spent dominating the escort roads, he had seldom failed.
These twenty-four escorts were likewise examining the pretty young employer before them.
With only one glance, the eyes of these men, long accustomed to hardship, all brightened.
In this poor and savage border region, there could actually be such a fresh and delicate little beauty!
Still, they were all seasoned veterans of the jianghu. Though inwardly astonished, they did not show anything too improper. Their gazes merely paused for the briefest moment before, as one, they cupped their fists toward Su Yue.
One middle-aged man called out loudly, “Madam Su, is this young lady our employer?”
Su Yue nodded and answered clearly, “That is correct. I trouble you all, Chief Escorts, to send my niece safely to Shangjing City of Great Zhou.”
“Luo Li greets all of you, Escort Masters.” Luo Li bowed slightly.
“No problem! Leave it to us!”
The escorts answered in one voice, their tones loud and confident.
Before this, they had already heard the details of the mission.
Though the journey was long and perilous, this employer had spent extravagantly and hired twenty-four well-known escorts in one stroke.
They had never seen such a display before.
And all of them were escorts ranked within the top hundred of Pingyang Commandery.
With such a lineup, one could say that in this entire region there was almost nowhere they could not reach!
“By the way, Madam Su...”
At that moment, Luo Tong, the gray-haired elder in the crowd, spoke up.
“Madam Su, did you not say that twenty-five men had been hired in total? There are only twenty-four here at present. Where is the other one?”
He was also the one present with the highest cultivation and the greatest reputation.
Seeing this, Su Yue immediately raised a hand toward the pavilion and smilingly introduced, “Everyone, this is the escort master from Sanhua Town... Chen Guan.”
“A pleasure, a pleasure!”
“Seeing that all eyes were on him, Chen Guan stepped out of the pavilion and cupped his fists to the twenty-four seasoned escort masters before him.”
“The road to Great Zhou is long. I hope that along the way, I may receive the guidance and mutual support of all you seniors.”
Quite a few among the twenty-four frowned.
Among this group, the youngest was already forty, and even the least experienced had walked the escort roads for twenty years.
Yet the young man before them was barely past twenty, fair-skinned and smooth-featured. No matter how one looked at him, he did not seem like someone who lived by this trade.
More importantly, they had never heard of anyone named Chen Guan on the Escort Master Rankings.
Naturally, Chen Guan saw the disdain in their eyes clearly.
But he had long since grown used to such looks.
It was not as though he had never cooperated with other escorts before.
“Yet in the end, those others of his trade had not died beneath the claws and fangs of demons and monsters.”
They had died beneath his saber.
He only hoped that the people before him would behave themselves and not come looking for trouble.
Otherwise, the saber in his hand recognized only money, not people.
In truth, it was not that he was innately vicious and ruthless.
Outsiders did not know better.
But he was an escort, and there was an old principle among escorts: they were meant to watch over one another and lend each other a hand, because no one knew what demons, monsters, or uncanny horrors they might meet farther down the escort road.
Yet at some point, that principle had lost its original taste.
Nowadays, the escort trade—including the very men before him—no longer competed over whose escort routes were steadier. Instead, they compared seniority, undercut one another’s prices, and sharpened their heads trying to see whose reputation could be made louder.
More absurdly still, these people had even learned from the beasts of the mountains and started playing at so-called “territorial awareness.”
Whenever an outsider wanted to enter their circle, they would openly and secretly trip him up, ensuring that every escort run he took was an uneasy one.
He had once heard an old senior tell of a past incident.
Originally, there had also been an escort master in Sanhua Town who adhered faithfully to the old rules. But because he did not understand their “new rules,” he took several escort jobs that crossed into others’ territory and blocked certain people’s sources of wealth.
The result?
A group of older escorts joined forces to plot against him, deliberately pushing all the near-certain-death jobs into his hands.
In the end, that old escort died an unclear death upon the escort road, and even his bones were gnawed clean by demon fiends.
From that day on, Chen Guan kept to the area within several hundred li around Sanhua Town and could not even be bothered to come to Pingyang Commandery to compete over some worthless Escort Master Ranking.
In this world, from something as small as a courtyard to something as vast as an imperial dynasty, everything was really just a jianghu that ate people alive.
A person had to first find his proper place if he wanted to live long.
And on the escort road, placing one’s hopes in others would only make one die faster.
But he, Chen Guan, needed no reputation, nor did he care who he cooperated with.
There was only one condition—
Do not get in the way of me making money.
Whoever dared block my road to profit would find that the saber in my hand did not care whether you were human or demon!
Naturally, Luo Li also saw that Chen Guan was being cold-shouldered by the others, and originally wanted to watch how he would deal with it.
Yet Chen Guan had no intention whatsoever of dealing with them at all.
“Where did all that swagger he used against me go?” Luo Li felt a little uncomfortable. Earlier he had been so overbearing with her, yet when facing these people, he was acting so “easygoing.”
Naturally, Chen Guan noticed her gaze, and he also knew the little thought in her heart.
You paid me. They did not. Could the treatment possibly be the same?
When I irritated you earlier, that was a complimentary service package: “helping you walk out of the grief of losing a loved one.”
If these people failed to show good sense, the only complimentary gift they would receive was a coffin.
Seeing the displeasure on Luo Li’s face, the twenty-four escorts assumed she was angry with them, and so rather awkwardly cupped their fists, taking it as acceptance of Chen Guan.
After all, in front of the employer, they could not very well let the escort trade become a laughingstock or lose all their bearing.
“When do we depart?”