The Invincible Bodyguard Starting by Escorting the Doomsday Imperial Princess Chapter 79 : Chapter 79

Chapter 79: The Arts of Kingship!

When Luo Li heard of such a bizarre rule—sothing she had never even imagined—her brows imdiately knit together.

“Isn’t this just dragging a ghost story into reality?”

she murmured to herself.

“No wonder they say Uncanny Fiends are among the most terrifying and unsolvable types of fiends in this world. They kill without form, and there is no guarding against them!”

“Brother Chen, does that an that as long as I act during the Yang phase, then hide outside the town once the Yin phase descends, I can avoid the danger?”

Luo Li asked, trying to find the safest possible strategy.

Chen Guan looked at the troubleso girl and finally snapped irritably, “Is this test for or for you?”

“Look at those four blood-dripping characters above us. Once the blood runs dry, the entire world will turn into Yin. That should happen in about three days!”

Luo Li understood in an instant.

That was right. This was a test ant for her. Since it was a test, then naturally there would be a ti limit.

What she needed to do was not rely clear it. More importantly, the ability she displayed had to satisfy those people hiding in the shadows.

As long as she grasped that core point, she would inevitably be able to find the true thod of breaking this strange-tale rule.

She began to think seriously.

Ten Thousand Deaths, No Retreat... Die ten thousand tis, yet never shrink back, never abandon the task.

If those words were placed within the frawork of kingship, then they ant... absolute loyalty.

At that thought, sothing suddenly beca clear to her.

Those words were usually spoken by a subordinate to a superior—“Your servant would face ten thousand deaths without retreat!”

“I understand now!” she said at once.

“Brother Chen, this test should be a test of my ability to command!”

“During the Yang phase, if I enter the town, I can make use of the rule to issue orders to the townsfolk and force them into absolute obedience, directing them to complete so task.”

“What those people want to test, what they want to see, must be my ability to command!”

When Chen Guan heard that answer, his face twitched at once.

“And then what task do you think they would have you complete?”

“This... this...”

Luo Li was imdiately stumped.

It was true. They had been wandering this town for nearly two hours now, yet apart from its eerie nature, they had not encountered a single real danger.

Then what exactly was she supposed to gather the townsfolk for?

Surely she was not expected to lead a group of unard commoners into a battle of wits against thin air?

If bandits, vagrants, demons, or fiends had appeared to attack, then perhaps she could have used the chance to direct a battle and display her command.

But now... there was nothing.

“All right, stop overthinking it.”

Chen Guan did not want to keep wasting ti here and spoke directly.

“Didn’t you notice that most of those stall owners were lying?”

“Ah?!” Luo Li froze again. “They... were deceiving us?”

“Let ask you sothing. Have you ever bought pear blossom cakes before?”

That question genuinely left Luo Li speechless. She shook her head.

“No.”

“I may not know Great Zhou’s prices, but I do know that in Great Yun, one copper coin buys two pear blossom cakes!”

“And pear blossom cakes are soft and lt easily while hot. So how did that woman praise hers earlier?”

“And then there’s that rooster. In Great Yun, where demons and fiends run rampant, it would not even sell for ten copper coins. Yet here in Great Zhou, where such creatures are far rarer, he priced it at thirty. Don’t you think he’s even blacker-hearted than I am? Wasn’t that just blatant fleecing of a custor?”

In this world, copper coins were not rely money. They were also stained with the breath of mortal life and were known as year-coins, possessing evil-suppressing effects.

Chen Guan continued, “And then there was that chicken. It weighed less than four jin, yet he insisted it was a full five.”

“Don’t you think those vendors were all constantly exaggerating and deceiving people?”

“And then there was the innkeeper. We had already paid for our room, yet he still wanted to take money from us again. Didn’t you notice that was a case of the establishnt bullying its guests?”

Luo Li froze once more.

During all her years, the number of tis she had wandered markets could be counted on one hand. Even when she did go out, she was always surrounded by attendants, with servants paying for everything. When had she ever cared what anything actually cost?

Chen Guan drew a deep breath and went on, “Ten Thousand Deaths, No Retreat ans that for an ordinary person, even if carrying out the task ans dying ten thousand tis, he still will not refuse.”

“But—”

“That is only for ordinary people, for subordinates, for those serving their lord.”

“But for you...”

Chen Guan suddenly turned his head, and his gaze was like lightning, stabbing straight into the deepest part of her heart.

“For soone like you, who would beco an emperor, the aning of those words changes completely!”

“Ten Thousand Deaths, No Retreat—for an emperor, it ans that in order to accomplish sothing, even if he must pay the price of ten thousand lives and exhaust all the wealth of the realm, he will still carry it through without the slightest hesitation!”

“And that, too, is called—Ten Thousand Deaths, No Retreat!”

“The words are still those sa four words.”

“But the mont the identity changes, the aning shifts from sacrificing the self to sacrificing the whole world!”

At those words, Luo Li’s face turned deathly pale.

She understood.

She understood Chen Guan’s aning completely. She also understood the true purpose of this test.

During the Yang phase, she needed to enter the town and kill people to establish order!

Ten Thousand Deaths—use ten thousand lives to establish No Retreat—to make it so that no one ever again dared deceive, and no one ever again dared violate the rules of this town.

In other words, she now needed to kill every deceitful rchant in this town, kill all the falsehood and fraud here, and establish an iron rule of honesty as the foundation in this prosperous-looking yet thoroughly rotten little settlent!

Put simply, this task was to force her to use ten thousand lives to lay down a rule for this town. That would be her version of Ten Thousand Deaths, No Retreat.

This... this was forcing her to kill!

“What? Is that difficult for you?”

Chen Guan stared at the small face twisted with conflict, his voice icy.

Luo Li lowered her head, her little fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her face was filled with pain and struggle.

Within this strange-tale rule, the townspeople were indeed only part of the rule’s manifestation, not truly living human beings.

But they could feel pain. They had emotions. They could laugh and cry. They could beam with joy over earning a single extra copper coin.

And she herself was also a being of flesh and blood.

In her whole life, she had never even personally killed a single chicken. And now she was supposed to butcher tens of thousands. How could she possibly bring herself to do it?

Seeing how hesitant and indecisive she was, Chen Guan imdiately barked at her in exasperation,

“And you want to go raise a rebellion like this? I think you should turn around this instant, crawl back to your Sanhua Town, and go back to being your pampered young lady!”

“Have you never heard the saying, ‘When one general achieves greatness, ten thousand bones wither’?”

“And that’s not even ntioning an emperor! The road of an emperor is never a lone charge with blade in hand. It is a stairway to heaven paved with the flesh, bones, and wealth of countless others!”

“And the price is far more than ten thousand bones. It is hundreds of thousands, millions, even hundreds of millions of lives!”

In truth, this had always been the one thing Chen Guan could not understand.

This little girl before him had the temperant, yes.

She had the mind, yes.

She had even been systematically taught the arts of kingship from childhood.

And yet not a single drop of blood, not the slightest trace of the smoke and dust of ordinary life, had ever stained her.

What she had learned was dragon-slaying art from books, castles in the air, warfare on paper. She pursued a peaceful golden age that simply could not exist in this chaotic era.

Put plainly, she had been completely severed from the kind of jianghu that should naturally belong to this age, and had always lived inside a world carefully woven for her by others.

She lacked the decisiveness that only cos from clawing and crawling through the jianghu.

She lacked even more the ruthless ferocity that is forced out of a person only when struggling on the brink of life and death.

A person like that might still be fit to serve as a strategist working behind the scenes.

But for soone like her to dream of becoming an emperor who could expand territory and make ruthless decisions in war and governance alike—that was the greatest joke under heaven.

Yet Chen Guan also knew that he could not say such things aloud. Even if he did, she likely would not listen.

After all, this girl had only managed to walk this far by relying on the hatred of national ruin and blood vengeance.

Even so, Chen Guan still said bluntly, “What is an emperor?”

“An emperor is one who stands utterly alone. The most heartless person in all the world!”