The Invincible Bodyguard Starting by Escorting the Doomsday Imperial Princess Chapter 88 : Chapter 88

Chapter 88: The Prince of Zhenbei

To tell the truth, Chen Guan was sowhat puzzled by that point as well.

Judging from the wrinkled paper of that Wanted Notice he had seen earlier, it had been issued at least a month ago.

In other words, even before he and this damned girl had left Sanhe County, the Emperor of Great Zhou had already begun hunting her.

That clearly ant soone had leaked the news long ago.

Still, the timing of that leak had been rather good. It had just so happened to let him make a killing on this escort.

“Brother Chen, do you think... this could have been my aunt’s doing?” Luo Li suddenly asked.

“Probably not.” Chen Guan shook his head.

“If it had been your Aunt Su Yue, that would an she already knew from the start that the assassination attempts along the way were dood to fail, and that she had also revealed your exact movents and schedule to the Emperor of Great Zhou.”

“If that were the case, then Great Zhou’s official forces should already have laid an inescapable net at the border. There is no way they would have let you cross into the country.”

“But all along this road, aside from your aunt’s people, we have barely encountered any official assassins from Great Zhou.”

“That proves the Emperor of Great Zhou had no idea where you would enter, so he had no way to prepare in advance. The only thing he could do was issue the Wanted Notice first and let greedy people provide him with clues!”

Luo Li’s heart shook violently when she heard that.

If it was not her aunt... then only one possibility remained—sothing had gone wrong on the side of her uncle, Su Wenyuan, whom she had never t and who was far away in Shangjing City!

It seed that the power painstakingly built up over a hundred years was nowhere near as solid as iron.

Otherwise, those people who had co to receive her earlier would never have been carrying a copy of the Wanted Notice.

“All right, stop thinking about these useless things for now.”

Chen Guan cut off her train of thought. “Let’s go into town and rest for the night. Starting tomorrow, there won’t be much ti left for rest.”

“Mhm.”

Luo Li nodded, then looked at the corpses on the ground and asked hesitantly, “Then what about this...?”

“That’s not our concern.”

Chen Guan jerked his chin toward the entrance of the town. “Look around again.”

Only then did Luo Li notice that the town entrance had sohow returned to its forr bustle, as though the bloody slaughter just now had never happened at all.

She instantly understood. This town had already been completely brought under the control of Tai’an Pavilion, so naturally soone would co to clean up the aftermath without drawing any official attention.

...

The two of them led their horses into the Anci Town ahead and found an inn to stay in.

The very first thing Luo Li did was ask for a huge tub of hot water and wash away all the exhaustion and road-dust of the past days, especially the sour sweat sll that even her natural feminine fragrance could not hide.

When she changed into a fresh dress and stepped back out of her room, she seed like a completely different person, clear and refined, with not the slightest trace of her forr bedraggled state.

She had originally thought Chen Guan might be a little dazzled.

In the end, Chen Guan rely glanced at her blandly and comnted that she looked like a decent human at last.

Then he dragged her along and started wandering through the town.

Chen Guan found the Ci’an Temple at the edge of town, the one that was in the middle of a great funeral.

Sure enough, it was exactly as he had guessed!

There really were people capable of controlling Uncanny Fiends.

Although he still did not know what thod they had used, it was enough to prove that Su Wenyuan was far more complicated than he had first imagined.

These rule-born things were originally formless, insubstantial, and without shape, yet they could actually be controlled by human hands. That could only an... soone had mastered rules even deeper than the Uncanny Fiends themselves!

After that, he made his way, with practiced familiarity, to the Escort Guild outpost in the town.

The Escort Guild was a guild organization spread throughout the world, with an exalted status. In so respects, its authority was even comparable to that of a county yan.

After all, in this world overrun by demons and fiends, the transport of goods and the movent of people depended above all on Escort Masters.

There, he smoothly obtained the ssage Luo Tong and the others had left behind.

The letter said that they had waited in this town for three days, but still had not seen either him or Luo Li. Left with no other choice, they had proceeded according to the original plan and set out first in the direction of Shangjing City.

Pinching that thin slip of paper between his fingers, Chen Guan’s lips curled into a playful smile.

“I wonder whether those old fellows can hold out when they see that one-million-tael bounty...”

...

At dawn the next morning, the two of them mounted up once more and galloped toward Shangjing City.

Hooves thundered, the wind swept the grass flat, and green waves rolled across the land all the way to the horizon.

Chen Guan turned his head and glanced at Luo Li riding beside him, and found that after the turmoil of the past two days, the little girl truly had improved.

At the very least, she was no longer like before, asking one idiotic question after another like so endless little nuisance.

“W-why do you keep looking at ?” Luo Li asked, growing a little embarrassed under his stare, her cheeks flushing faintly.

Stroking his chin, Chen Guan said with amused interest, “I’m just a little bored. Right—why don’t you tell about the arrangents on your uncle’s side? It’ll help pass the ti.”

Luo Li shot him a glare. As if that were sothing one could use to relieve boredom.

Even so, she did not hesitate at all and imdiately began to speak.

“My uncle, Su... no, I should say Luo Wenyuan, is the second son of the forr Prince of Zhenbei.”

“My royal uncle spent his entire life fond of wandering the jianghu. When Great Xia fell, he happened to be traveling outside, and so by sheer luck escaped that disaster of dynastic destruction.”

“And because of that, a portion of the old forces of my Luo imperial clan still remained in his hands.”

“So that ans this Prince of Zhenbei is very likely not dead yet?”

Chen Guan sharply seized upon the key point.

The path of cultivation brought more than just an increase in combat strength. It also brought benefits to one’s lifespan.

The lives of martial artists were far longer than those of ordinary people, and the higher the realm, the longer the lifespan.

Once one stepped into the Profound Passage Realm, one’s lifespan could reach roughly double that of an ordinary person. Living to around one hundred and twenty posed no problem.

And if it was the Purple Palace Realm... even the most ordinary expert of the Purple Palace Realm would possess a long lifespan approaching three hundred years.

“To be able to roam the jianghu alone, this Prince of Zhenbei was probably no weakling.”

Luo Li shook her head, her expression dimming sowhat. “I don’t know whether the old prince is still alive.”

“All I know is that among the old forces of my Luo clan who survived, most of them only escaped by luck because they were not in Shangjing City back then.”

“And among them, my uncle Luo Wenyuan’s branch is still considered part of the imperial clan. Because of that, all these years, it has always been him who has led the great cause of restoring my Luo clan’s dynasty.”

Chen Guan caught the aning behind her words, yet a trace of puzzlent rose in his heart.

When it ca to succession in an imperial dynasty, nothing mattered more than the inheritance of bloodline and the continuation of orthodoxy.

If the emperor still had descendants, then naturally his sons and daughters would have first priority in inheriting the great succession.

But the problem lay precisely there.

The line of the Prince of Zhenbei also counted as Luo blood of the Violet Firmant Imperial Dynasty. They too had the right to inherit the great succession.

As long as they found a way to kill Luo Li, this legitimate imperial bloodline, then they themselves could smoothly continue the bloodline and rise into the first rank of succession.

Yet they had done no such thing. Instead, they had handed that heaven-sent “benefit” over to Luo Li.

Could it really be because they were righteous and loyal beyond reproach?

Chen Guan could not stop muttering to himself inwardly.

In this cannibalistic age of chaos, before this supre power that had driven fathers and sons to slaughter each other and brothers to turn against one another, he simply did not believe in absolute good people.

After all, of all things beneath heaven, none were more heartless than the imperial house.

No one could fail to yearn for that supre seat.

Still, Chen Guan did not dwell too long on the matter.

Who knew? Perhaps that Prince of Zhenbei really was so iron-headed fool with nothing but loyalty in his bones.

He changed the topic and asked, “You said before that you’ve prepared a million troops and several dozen jianghu organizations. Aside from that scholar we saw yesterday, what other jianghu organizations are involved?”