Chapter 16 : Chaptr 16
Chapter 16: A Demon Ape Blocks the Road
Luo Li felt that her grandfather’s one hundred and twenty taels had been spent rather dearly!
Earlier today, she had specifically asked her little aunt about it. Of the twenty-four escort masters hired this time, old Master Luo Tong, who commanded the highest fee, had only been paid thirty taels.
As for the others, their average fee came to no more than ten taels or so.
But this fellow was another matter entirely. He had taken the highest pay of them all, raised the price on the spot, and in the end wound up doing the easiest job. And now he was actually dozing openly and shamelessly at the rear of the convoy.
And he could still take those one hundred and twenty taels with a straight face!
Still, seeing that the sun was about to set, and unwilling to delay things so that they could find a place to rest before nightfall, she forcibly suppressed the displeasure in her heart.
“I only hope that when danger appears, your strength truly proves worthy of your greed.”
...
The group rode hard until the sun finally sank below the horizon. At last, amid the clustered mountains, they found a small mountain town called Luoma Town, and at the town entrance they found a little inn that looked reasonably clean.
Along the road, aside from running into several dozen witless demonic fiends that blocked their way and were casually cut down with a single stroke by the two escort masters leading the path, they had not encountered any real danger.
Other than spending effort probing for hidden threats, Chen Guan’s own hands had remained pleasantly idle.
To be honest, there really were advantages to having numbers on one’s side.
Thinking that, Chen Guan dismounted with quiet satisfaction and skillfully tied his horse to the trough beside the inn.
When he turned around, he found Luo Li standing there, cheeks puffed up in annoyance, clearly waiting for him.
“You. Go book two upper rooms.”
Luo Li directly took out a small broken piece of silver and held it out toward Chen Guan.
Yet the moment her words fell, one of the more quick-witted escort masters behind her immediately hurried forward with a face full of eager smiles.
“Miss, how could such a trivial matter trouble you? I’ll go! I’ll go!”
“Uh...” Luo Li had originally intended to use this as an excuse to properly scold Chen Guan, but she had not expected some sycophantic flatterer to jump out halfway and choke off her words.
What she had not expected even more was that Chen Guan would actually step forward on his own and say calmly,
“We will only eat. We are not staying the night. Once we’ve eaten, we depart under cover of darkness.”
The moment those words were spoken, Luo Li froze on the spot.
Leave at night?
She had spent the entire afternoon tense and uneasy, and had not even eaten a grain of rice. Now that they had finally found a town, before she could so much as eat a hot meal, they were to continue the journey?
She seriously suspected that this fellow had some kind of grudge against her and was deliberately tormenting her here.
Even so, she was by nature a steady person and did not immediately show her displeasure. She wanted to hear his reasoning first.
If he really was tormenting her on purpose, then he should forget about her ever approving his stay at an inn tonight.
Yet before she could even open her mouth, the fawning escort master beside her became dissatisfied first.
“Are you even an escort at all? Everyone has been exhausted for half a day. If we do not rest properly and recover our strength, then if we run into danger on the road ahead, what exactly are we supposed to rely on?”
“Besides, Old Master Luo Tong has the greatest seniority here. Everyone recognizes him as the chief escort of the group. Since when did it become your turn, some wet-behind-the-ears brat, to start barking orders?”
Luo Tong and the others also came over with darkened faces, clearly feeling that this young man was somewhat too ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth, and did not even understand such simple reasoning.
They had just been about to open their mouths and scold him.
Chen Guan did not even spare them a glance. He directly drove the horse-cleaving saber from his shoulder into the ground.
Bang!
The heavy horse-cleaving saber plunged three feet into the earth. An invisible force burst outward from the blade, directly sending the crowd that had closed in stumbling back.
Even Luo Li was so startled that she jumped.
Th-this fellow had gone mad?
“Late Profound Passage Realm?!” The older escort masters were shocked inwardly.
This was the first time they had ever seen someone under twenty with Profound Passage cultivation.
No wonder Madam Su had hired him separately to join the escort. So he was a martial prodigy.
But talent alone did not mean he had the right to order people about.
Before they could say anything, Chen Guan directly addressed Luo Li.
“This place is called the Qingcang Mountains. It stretches across eight hundred li.”
“If we rest here tonight, then by tomorrow night we will reach the center of the mountain range. There are no inns there. We would have no choice but to camp in the open with demons and monsters as our companions.”
“But if we travel through the night, then by tomorrow afternoon we can reach Heishi Town, where there is an inn.”
Chen Guan paused. From beginning to end, he had not spared Luo Tong and the others a single glance before continuing,
“As for how dangerous the central region of the Qingcang Mountains is, I do not need to say it. You should understand that much already.”
“But if we eat now and depart at once, traveling through the night, then at the latest we can arrive at Heishi Town, three hundred li away, by tomorrow afternoon.”
“If we rest there for one night, then the day after tomorrow we can make one determined push and pass straight through the Qingcang Mountains. This is the safest route if your life is to be protected.”
“That... does make sense.”
Luo Li lowered her eyes and thought it over, then instinctively nodded.
She did not really understand routes and logistics, but she had heard the word safest.
Her grandfather had said that on this road she could trust only him. It seemed that this fellow really was putting her safety first and was not deliberately tormenting her.
And besides, she did indeed know something of the Qingcang Mountains. This was the mountain range nearest to the Ten Directions Marsh, and its dangers shifted in endless and uncanny ways.
Even Purple Palace experts would not dare stay the night there.
“All right.” Luo Li lifted her head, looked at the older escort masters around her, and said directly, “We do as he says.”
Luo Tong and the other older escort masters were all taken aback by what Chen Guan had said and done.
They truly had not expected that this young escort master, who looked to be under twenty, could understand maps and routes in such precise detail.
His proposed plan for crossing the Qingcang Mountains really was the most ideal one.
Their original plan had been to rely on their numbers and force their way through overnight, but now it seemed that it was far less safe than Chen Guan’s proposal.
After all, the Qingcang Mountains stood on the edge of the forbidden land known as the Ten Directions Marsh. If something particularly troublesome emerged from within, the losses would certainly be catastrophic.
Yet among the crowd, someone noticed the admiration on Luo Li’s face and realized that their own limelight had been stolen. He immediately spoke in a strange, sarcastic tone.
“So you’re the only capable one here?”
“Then why don’t we just rest here tonight, reach that Heishi Town tomorrow, rest there for another full day, and only then set out again?”
“Wouldn’t that be even safer?”
Chen Guan’s brow tightened, and he turned to look at those men.
The moment they met his gaze, their voices faltered, and they instinctively shut their mouths.
“Damn it. None of you paid me, so you’d best behave yourselves.”
Chen Guan muttered that to himself inwardly, then withdrew his gaze.
He was not about to indulge these people.
Because from the very first moment he had laid eyes on them, he had already realized that none of them acted with any true regard for escort-road experience at all. They merely intended to rely on overwhelming numbers to finish the job.
Placing one’s hopes in others was a grave taboo on the escort road.
If anyone on this journey dared drag down the rear, then he should not blame Chen Guan for setting aside all notions of righteousness and letting him die in the line of duty.
This was not because he was cold-blooded and heartless.
It was because, in this strange and unfathomable age, the only true way to be responsible for oneself and for the life of one’s employer was to keep everything firmly in one’s own hands.
Chen Guan ignored those old fellows entirely and turned his head toward Luo Li.
Though the girl was filled with pride, she did not allow her temper to affect her judgment. Especially the tone she had used just now...
It had actually carried a trace of command.
He did not know whether it was only his imagination, but it seemed as though this little girl had once held some great official post herself.
Besides that, another doubt lingered in his heart.
Ever since that girl had left the Su residence today, he had begun to see an inexplicable trust in her eyes.
It was a kind of trust he had never once felt from any employer, because it was not the blind reliance one placed in an escort, but a certainty that arose from the heart itself.
It was like a child trusting her parents and treating him as her one and only support.
Who knew whether the girl had some strange quirk—perhaps the more he kept her in line, the more she trusted him!
Luo Tong gave Chen Guan a long look, but said nothing further, tacitly accepting the decision.
Even so, the disdain in the eyes of the older escort masters beside him had now turned into anger.
After all, they were veteran escorts who had traveled the escort routes for decades. For some green youngster to lay out such a professional matter so plainly right in front of them was no different from slapping them in the face.
...
So it was that the group ate a simple meal, fed the horses their fill of fodder, and then made ready once more and set out under cover of darkness.
The convoy entered the official road running through the mountains again, moving in orderly fashion beneath a night sky strewn with stars.
The mountains at night were far more “lively” than they were by day.
As the convoy advanced, the only sounds besides the creaking of the swaying wagons and the clatter of hooves were the howls that drifted from deep ravines and old mountain hollows along the way, sounding like the cries of ghosts and wolves.
Inside her carriage, Luo Li knew full well that more than twenty escort masters rode guard at her side, and yet hearing such scalp-prickling cries still made her lovely face pale.
Luo Tong and the other older escorts had all become top hundred escorts out of several thousand in Pingyang Commandery for good reason.
At such a moment, none of them dared be careless. Every one of them raised his vigilance to the utmost, eyes watching in six directions and ears listening in all eight.
Under their experienced guidance, the convoy narrowly but safely avoided three major deadly crises in advance, and in passing cut down a dozen or so low-ranked demon fiends foolish enough to slam into them.
In the east, the sky had already begun to pale like a fish’s belly. The long night was drawing to its end.
And just as everyone was secretly letting out a sigh of relief—
a black shadow suddenly shot out from the fork in the road ahead!
“Hiiih—!”
The two escort masters at the front of the convoy were “Quick Spear” Li Fei, ranked thirty-second on the Pingyang Commandery Escort Master Rankings, and “Mountain-Splitting Saber” Zhao Wu, ranked thirty-sixth.
Both reacted with extreme speed. They immediately yanked hard on the reins, and the fine steeds beneath them gave long neighs as they forcibly checked their forward charge.
Once he saw the monster blocking the road clearly, Li Fei shook his spear and let out a breath.
Because what blocked their path was a demon ape no more than seven feet tall, with withered, skinny arms.
At once, with the calm of long experience, he reported in a deep voice,
“Don’t panic! Hold the formation! It’s only a lone Malformed Demon Ape!”