Chapter 41 : Chapter 41
Chapter 41: What Identities Do the People Trying to Kill You Belong To?
She secretly swore that for the rest of her life, she would never again enter a cursed place like this!
After escorting them to the edge of the forest, Chen Guan carefully compared their surroundings against the map, found a concealed little path, and finally came to a stop. He then said to Luo Tong and the others, “Follow this path down the mountain. Five hundred li farther ahead, you’ll reach Nanyang Commandery. Once you pass through Nanyang Commandery, you can head straight into Yunshui City’s territory.”
“Many thanks, Escort Master Chen!”
Luo Tong and the other two wanted to say more words of gratitude.
But after rolling those words around in their throats for a long while, they realized that no amount of speech could truly express the gratitude in their hearts at this moment.
In the end, the three of them simply cupped their fists and bowed solemnly, pouring all their gratitude into that single bow.
The more Luo Li listened, the more something felt off.
But before she could even ask what was going on, Chen Guan seized her wrist, turned, and made to plunge once more into the boundless Ten Directions Marsh!
“Ah! Wait!”
Luo Li jumped in fright and hurriedly shook off his hand. “Brother Chen, aren’t we going down the mountain with them?”
Chen Guan turned and glared at her, then said irritably, “If you want to die, then settle the remaining escort fee first, and then you can go down the mountain with them.”
“Uh!”
Luo Li froze for a moment, then realized something. At once, she shut her mouth and fell silent.
After parting ways with Luo Tong and the others, the two of them once again entered the thickets of thorny grass.
This time, Chen Guan took the lead and cleared the way ahead.
However, he did not choose to plunge straight into the depths of the Ten Directions Marsh along the original route. Instead, he led Luo Li across an open stretch of plain for roughly twenty li before arriving beside a broad reed lake.
Chen Guan looked around. He had a feeling that the Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes had already entered the Ten Directions Marsh.
With their speed, if the apes took this angle, they would catch up in less than half a day.
After circling the area once, he casually killed a few small demons drinking at the lakeside, swiftly skinned them, and then found several sturdy tree trunks nearby.
Luo Li stood off to the side, watching him clatter around for quite a while. Only then did she realize that he was building a crude little boat.
She looked again at the vast reed lake before her and instantly understood. This fellow was planning to take the water route.
So the guy does have at least a little conscience. He knows how to show some pity for a girl.
Luo Li secretly shot him a glance in her heart.
“What are you standing there for? Hurry up and get on!”
Chen Guan tested the crude little boat, which he had built from demon beast hides and tree trunks, with one foot.
It had no problem bearing the weight of two people, so he called out to the still-dazed Luo Li.
Luo Li stepped aboard carefully. At first the boat swayed a little, but after feeling it out, she found it fairly stable, and her courage rose.
Only then did she slowly sit down in the middle of the little boat.
Chen Guan, meanwhile, stood steady at the stern with the Horse-Cleaving Saber on his shoulder. With the slightest release of true qi from beneath his feet, the little boat shot toward the center of the lake like an arrow loosed from a bow.
At first, Luo Li found it all quite novel. After observing for a while, she discovered the secret behind it—Chen Guan was using the true qi he released outward as the “oars” and driving force for the boat.
Once purple qi was born in the dantian and the gates of the Purple Palace opened, true qi could be released outward. Could this fellow actually be a Purple Palace expert?”
Then she thought it over and shook her head again. The Purple Palace experts of legend were all at least a full sixty years old. How could one possibly appear in someone not even twenty yet?
Chen Guan let his gaze fall on Luo Li, who looked like some curious little treasure, and observed her for a while before finally asking in a flat tone,
“Shouldn’t you... be having a proper talk with me by now?”
At those words, Luo Li’s expression changed sharply.
She also knew that at this point, there was probably no way to keep her identity hidden any longer.
After hesitating for a moment, she finally turned her head and said with a complicated expression,
“Brother Chen, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you my identity.”
“The karma involved is too great. There isn’t anyone who could bear it.”
“You only need to... deliver me safely to Great Zhou.”
“As long as we reach Great Zhou, then your mission will be complete, and I’ll pay the entire escort fee in full, not one coin short.”
At this moment, Luo Li no longer resembled her earlier self, delicate and playful. Her whole face was grave and solemn, and a deep, imposing aura faintly seemed to emanate from her.
Chen Guan said nothing. He merely looked at her in silence before finally speaking.
“I have no interest in knowing your identity. What I want to know is this—what identities do the people trying to kill you belong to?”
Luo Li’s elegant brows drew together as she fell into thought.
A moment later, she shook her head. “Actually, I don’t know either.”
The corner of Chen Guan’s mouth twitched.
He knew perfectly well that Luo Li absolutely understood the meaning behind his question, yet here she was deliberately dodging it and answering beside the point.
Since that was how she wanted it, he could not be bothered to ask further.
When he took on an escort, he never asked about someone’s origin, nor their background. He only cared about getting the person safely to the end.
The only reason he had bothered asking at all was because he wanted to solve this mess as quickly as possible, so that this little girl would suffer a little less and he himself could get his money that much sooner.
He was just an Escort Master, not some great hero with the fate of the world on his shoulders.
He only cared about the little patch of land that belonged to him. He only cared about his escort.
Whether the age was collapsing, whether the mortal world was drowning in suffering—none of that had anything to do with him!
Chen Guan stood with his hands behind his back at the bow of the little boat, letting the lake wind stir the hem of his robe.
Even if this little girl would not speak, he could already guess a thing or two.
This girl was very likely the illegitimate daughter of some princely or aristocratic house in Great Zhou, persecuted by the principal wife and forced to hide away in the mountain backwaters of Sanhe Town.
After growing learned and mastering her various skills, she had now come down from the mountain, intending to reclaim justice and take back everything that should have belonged to her.
And as for those killers, they were very likely sent by that vicious stepmother of hers, whose purpose was to keep her from returning and contesting the inheritance.
He had read no shortage of storylines like that in the novels of his previous life.
Of course, that was only a guess.
But judging from all the twists and troubles along this journey, even if the precise truth was not that, the general direction was probably not far off.
Even so, one question in his heart still remained unresolved—Chen Guan suddenly spoke again. “That Su Yue in Wangyue City—is she really your biological aunt?”
Luo Li’s brows knitted faintly, and then she answered as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“What kind of question is that?”
“She’s my mother’s younger half-sister from the same father. She’s the one who watched me grow up from childhood. Without her, there would be no me as I am now.”
“If she weren’t truly my aunt, why would she treat me so well?”
After that, she gave a detailed account of Su Yue’s past.
Once Chen Guan heard it, he understood.
According to her, after her mother died of a grave illness when she was little, she had been entrusted to Su Yue.
The family had always made its living from the pelt trade, and for over twenty years, that business had sustained them and made them the local powerhouses they now were.
In every sense, they were native-born merchants through and through.
“As for Luo Li, when she was six, she went to live with her maternal grandfather in Sanhua Town, where she studied music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, along with the other refinements expected of a proper young lady.”
Counting the years, that happened to be the very same year Chen Guan had become an Escort Master.
But that only made the doubts in his heart grow even stronger.