The Invincible Bodyguard Starting by Escorting the Doomsday Imperial Princess Chapter 98 : Chapter 98

Chapter 98: This Escort Master Is Greedy for Money?

A hundred years of planning... a full hundred years!

No matter how Su Wenyuan thought about it, he could not understand how this heaven-shaking grand design, prepared over an entire century, had sohow gotten stuck at the very first step and then suffered one crushing blow after another.

This ti, they had even dispatched the top combat power of the Heaven-Defying Alliance. They had assud it would be an easy matter, only to find that not only had they failed to bring back “Her Highness,”

they had instead suffered grievous losses and, worse yet, been foolish enough to let those corpses be discovered by the court, leaving behind a massive hidden danger for the Heaven-Defying Alliance.

The seven people stood there with lowered heads, silent.

The truth was, they themselves were equally baffled. How had such an utterly unreasonable Escort Master suddenly appeared out of nowhere?

If one said he was unreasonable, then he could carry out the iron rule of “so long as the escort remains, the Escort Master remains” to the point of acknowledging no kin and no sentint.

But if one said he was reasonable, then even when the destination was already close at hand, he still clung stubbornly to that remaining stretch of distance and refused to release the client, no matter what was said.

After a long while, Su Wenyuan’s chest rose and fell several tis in violent succession before he finally forced that towering fury back down. The calm, unruffled look returned once more to his face.

As a man who had stood high above others and plotted for a hundred years, he still possessed that much self-command.

At a ti like this, the last thing he could afford was to panic.

“Pass the order down,” he said slowly, his voice as steady as ever. “The Shadow Division is to recover those thirteen corpses at all costs and erase every last trace!”

“Yes!” Yin Ren imdiately clasped his fists and accepted the order.

He was the leader of the Shadow Division, the branch responsible for all assassination and covert intelligence tasks within the Heaven-Defying Alliance.

The mont he received the command, his figure flickered, and he vanished from the study soundlessly like ink dropped into water.

Su Wenyuan’s gaze then fell upon the remaining six people.

Aside from Ye Feng, Hall Master of Tai’an Pavilion, the other five were all chief figures of five of the twenty-five organizations under the Heaven-Defying Alliance.

These five respectively controlled:

Wanjin Hall, which was responsible for gathering wealth and whose influence spread across Great Zhou’s trade routes, even secretly controlling several black-market channels for comrce with demons;

Divine Works Workshop, responsible for forging weapons, within which there were no lack of strange talents capable of refining demon flesh, blood, and bone into sinister secret treasures;

Wusheng Gate, responsible for raising deathsworn assassins and planting spies;

and Juyi Hall, responsible for contacting the bandit strongholds and rogue cultivator forces in various regions;

and so on.

They were the true core backbone of the Heaven-Defying Alliance.

“Tell in detail about this Chen Guan,” Su Wenyuan said again.

At this point, the direct cause of everything that had gone wrong was precisely that Escort Master called Chen Guan.

Without him, Luo Li would already have fallen under their control, the banner of restoring the dynasty might already have been raised, and all of Great Zhou would probably already be engulfed in war.

Yet because of this one man who had appeared out of nowhere, their century-long arrangent had been stabbed clean through, throwing the whole board into disorder.

It had even begun to threaten the survival of the entire Heaven-Defying Alliance!

And all of this had happened in less than three short days.

Who could believe that?

A full hundred years of planning, and because of a single person, it had nearly been cut dead in one stroke within three days!

Even now, everyone present still found it hard to believe.

They simply could not understand how such a terrifying Escort Master—one who slew Purple Palace Realm experts as easily as chopping lons and vegetables—could suddenly appear in the world.

Ye Feng gathered his thoughts and reported in a deep voice, “Alliance Leader, according to the results gathered through the Dark Net from Great Yun...”

“This man cos from Sanhe Town of Great Yun. In the past, his na was not well known.”

“But according to rumor, he is extrely greedy for money, has countless rules, and most importantly...”

“Since his debut, whether the escort was a person or an object, so long as the client paid, he would even accept work involving Yin Wraiths. And there is nowhere he does not dare to go.”

“And in ten years of escort work, he has never failed a single mission.”

When Su Wenyuan heard this, his brows drew even tighter.

He believed the part about Chen Guan being bold. After all, he even dared escort the head of a rebellion on a journey where his own head might fall.

But greedy for money?

That did not sound like the sort of thing a truly money-grubbing man would do.

Su Wenyuan looked at Ye Feng and let out a cold snort. “If he really were greedy for money, then the mont the Hanging Mirror Bureau issued that bounty of one million taels, he should already have taken it. Why would he make enemies of us instead?”

When Ye Feng first received this information, he too had suspected it was false.

But he had used the Dark Net’s carrier-pigeon ssages to verify it again and again, and every result had been identical. Only then had he dared present the intelligence.

For a while, everyone present felt that they could not grasp Chen Guan’s pulse at all.

Su Wenyuan also sank into thought.

He prided himself on being suprely skilled at controlling the hearts of n. In his own mind, his sches and stratagems even surpassed those of Great Zhou’s current emperor, Zhou Tianyuan.

And yet, after repeatedly going over every piece of information collected on Chen Guan over these past two days, he discovered that he could not see through the man at all, nor guess what he truly wanted.

What exactly was he after?

Beauty?

They had already sent people to test that.

Money?

That, too, had been tested.

Could it be...

As if he had suddenly thought of sothing, the rage he had only just pressed down surged up once again. His face twisted into sothing savage and terrifying, and finally he could not help but throw his head back in wild laughter.

“Hahahahaha!”

“Well done, Su Jingyan! Well done indeed!”

“Excellent! Absolutely excellent!”

“At last, in this instant, he had finally ‘understood’!”

That Chen Guan was not so simple Escort Master at all.

He had been sent by Su Jingyan to work together with Great Zhou from within and without, deliberately to stop their Heaven-Defying Alliance from restoring the dynasty!

This was no longer rely a nail left in their path.

This was a killing move laid down by that old ghost Su Jingyan!

The only thing he still did not understand was what price Great Zhou’s emperor had paid to invite such a monster, one willing to place his own life in danger, to stop the restoration of the dynasty.

When the others saw Su Wenyuan in this near-maddened state, their hearts all filled with alarm, and they could not help quietly stepping back.

Only after Su Wenyuan’s emotions gradually stabilized did one of the n finally dare step forward and report in a low voice, “Alliance Leader, according to the information I gathered... Su Jingyan had already fallen gravely ill and died before Her Highness ever set out.”

“Died?!”

Hearing that, Su Wenyuan let out another sneering laugh, full of contempt and ridicule.

“Hmph! How could that old ghost possibly die so easily? Even if all of you rotted of old age, he still would not die!”

Not a single person present showed any doubt toward those words.

After all, Su Jingyan was the National Preceptor who had once assisted two successive emperors of Great Zhou.

To sit in such a position required not only heaven-reaching powers of calculation and strategy, but also a terrifying depth of strength to match.

He had once, by his own power alone, forced back the Demon Kings of Ten Directions Marsh by three thousand li, saving the Violet Firmant Imperial Dynasty from a war that would have destroyed the state.

However, for those gathered here, that was absolutely not good news.

Su Jingyan had arranged a ruthless figure like Chen Guan beside Luo Li and then slipped free through a “false death.” That clearly ant he had already calculated the outco of this ga from the start, and had also broken the “agreent” of a hundred years ago.

If they tried to find him now, it would be next to impossible.

After a brief mont of thought, a ruthless resolve flashed through Su Wenyuan’s eyes.

Given the current situation, Chen Guan had already taken control of Luo Li. The mont he ca into contact with Zhou Tianyuan, Su Wenyuan’s century of planning would collapse into nothing.

He no longer had any ti left.

There was only one option now—act in advance!

Imdiately, he drew a blood-red jade bottle from within his robes.

“This is 【Dragon Vein Baleful Shadow】!”

His voice was icy as he said, “Go. Release those ‘old friends’ and let them lend you a hand!”

“You must take Luo Li back within three days!”