Ch. 19
Chapter 19: Nothing but Pure Fabrication
“Chen Guan.” Luo Li hurriedly jumped down from the carriage and grabbed his arm.
She had not expected this fellow to be so bold that he would move to violence the moment words failed.
Could he not see that these people were all on the same side?
Though she herself had not spoken much, she could tell that these older escort masters felt their authority had been trampled by Chen Guan and that they had lost face. That was why they kept opposing him at every turn and deliberately provoking him.
Just then, Chen Guan’s brows drew together, and his gaze swept toward the surroundings.
“Damn it!”
“Those things have caught up!”
“How are they this fast?”
Doubt rose in his heart.
Though Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes were terrifying, speed had never been one of their strengths.
Suddenly, Chen Guan realized something. His gaze landed on Liu Shuo standing beside Li Fei.
“Could it be that these two bastards were deliberately stalling for time?”
If not for those two, those things would never have caught up this quickly. Those two were obviously a problem.
Chen Guan fell silent for a few seconds. Then the corner of his mouth lifted. He drew in the killing intent around him and released Li Fei.
Before he had figured out exactly what was going on, he did not want to step straight into this trap.
At once, everyone let out a breath of relief.
That brat had already reached the pinnacle of the Profound Passage Realm. If he truly started fighting, only a few people like Luo Tong could stand against him. Their convoy would definitely suffer casualties.
Everyone’s gaze turned toward Luo Li.
In their eyes, the whole matter was already obvious.
This brat had taken a fancy to the young and beautiful employer. He was deliberately trying to play the hero, then inventing all sorts of terrifying nonsense to frighten her into throwing herself into his arms.
If he wanted to take advantage of her, he should just say so.
This was hardly the first time they had seen such a thing.
Some younger escort masters, once they set their eyes on the employer’s beauty, always resorted to one trick or another.
And this employer was both very young and very pretty.
If he could make such a naïve little girl rely on him and voluntarily hide in his embrace, would that not save him decades of struggle?
Expressions of contempt immediately appeared on everyone’s faces.
“All right, put your weapons away!”
Luo Tong suddenly stepped forward and waved a hand at the others.
Though Chen Guan’s behavior completely ignored the rules of the escort trade, and though that overbearing attitude displeased him greatly, he had still walked the escort road for more than fifty years. Judging by his own experience, he honestly felt that what Chen Guan had said was not entirely without reason.
He had already found the aura of that demon ape suspicious before. The scent on Luo Li’s body was also real.
Though he had never heard of Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes, no one could guarantee such a demonic fiend did not exist.
Better to believe it might be true than dismiss it outright.
Chen Guan glanced at Li Fei, then did not bother with these old foxes any further.
Instead, he fixed his gaze on Luo Li and thought inwardly,
Could this little girl be carrying some valuable treasure on her?
Had those two set their eyes on it?
But was she not just some girl from a wealthy household in Sanhua Town? What kind of treasure could she possibly possess that would make people covet it so fiercely?
He could not make sense of it, but he trusted his own instincts. Either those two were mentally unsound, or there was something wrong with them.
There was no time to waste. Chen Guan cast off the clutter in his thoughts and coldly asked Luo Li,
“You. Are you leaving or not?”
Luo Li looked at Luo Tong and the others. She knew they did not believe Chen Guan at all, but the rotten peach smell on her body that could not be washed away was undeniably real.
And she was, in the end, someone with a mind of her own.
This was no time to joke with her life. She chose to believe Chen Guan.
“Yes, yes, yes! Let’s get to Heishi Town first!”
As she said that, she shot Chen Guan another glare and pointed outside.
“It’ll be dawn soon anyway. You can get out of my carriage now, can’t you?”
Chen Guan did not have the time to keep wasting words with her.
Ignoring the burning looks of the others, he stepped down from the carriage, untied the reins of his own horse, and lightly pressed off the ground with the tip of his foot, mounting in one smooth motion.
Liu Shuo and the others frowned so hard their brows nearly knotted together.
Fighting among escorts in front of the employer was a grave taboo, yet this brat treated the escort rules as though they were nothing.
Just wait until they returned to the Pingyang Commandery Escort Guild Council. Then they would see how the Guild Master punished him.
“Hmph!”
The others gave cold snorts, put away their weapons, and mounted their horses one after another.
Hooves flew, and the creaking of the carriage wheels once again echoed through the mountain ravine.
Chen Guan no longer trailed at the rear. He rode abreast of Luo Li’s carriage, his six senses flung wide open, drawing every movement within a li into his awareness.
At the same time, his mind raced, trying to figure out how the mark on Luo Li’s body could be removed.
Yet no matter how he turned the matter over, he could not find any immediate solution.
According to the blood-red note in the 【Demonic Fiend Bestiary】, once one was stained by the blood of a Grudge-Bearing Demon Ape, the resentment mark did not remain merely on the surface of the skin, but fused directly into the bloodline.
Unless all the blood in her body could be replaced, there was simply no way to rid her of that bone-clinging mark.
Among their entire group, only Luo Li, that little girl who was merely at the middle stage of the Xiantian Realm, had been unfortunate enough to be struck.
As for everyone else, even the weakest among them stood at least at the Subtle Insight Realm or above. “They had long since cultivated protective qi, and the moment the blood mist erupted, they had already kept that filthy blood from ever touching their bodies.”
He still had two methods of avoiding pursuit by the Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes.
The first was this: if the number of these demon apes was not too great, they could set an ambush and wipe out the entire tribe in one net, killing every last one of them.
So long as that troop of demon apes was completely exterminated, the mark would naturally dissolve of its own accord.
The second method was to run.
Run faster and faster without stopping. As long as they could break free of the Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes’ maximum tracking range and make them lose their sense of direction entirely, they would temporarily be unable to continue pursuing them.
After that, they could slowly search for a secret art or heavenly treasure capable of purifying the bloodline.
Once he had formed an initial plan in his mind, Chen Guan forcibly suppressed the chaotic thoughts and extended his six senses to their utmost, focusing all his attention on vigilance.
The convoy drew ever closer to Heishi Town.
Unexpectedly, the road remained so calm that it became eerie. Not only did they find no trace whatsoever of the pursuing Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes, even the ordinary low-tier demonic fiends that usually blocked the road had disappeared without a trace.
Inside the carriage, Luo Li quietly lifted one corner of the curtain. Seeing that the sun was already high in the sky and that all was calm, she could not help letting out a small sigh of relief.
For a moment, she even started to wonder whether this fellow had been deliberately frightening her. What so-called endless hunt decree?
It was nothing but pure fabrication!
Still, the rotten peach scent on her body truly was growing stronger, just as he had said.
Earlier, one had to lean in close and carefully sniff to notice it. But now, the moment she raised her arm and smelled it, that sweet, cloying odor tinged with decay drifted straight into her nose in thin strands.
She had no choice but to believe Chen Guan.
Yet outside the carriage, Liu Shuo and the others had also begun mocking softly among themselves.
“Where is this pursuit, then? Where are those demon apes that were supposedly going to hunt us to the ends of the earth? Why don’t I see a single one of them?”
“In my opinion, this brat has simply gone mad trying to play the hero and win the beauty. No idea where he learned such cheap tricks. He’s a disgrace to the escort trade!”
“Exactly! He’s just relying on the fact that he’s young and somewhat good-looking, trying to deceive a little girl. What a wretch!”