Chapter 64: Did I Somehow End Up Joining a Rebellion Without Meaning To?
Luo Li slowly rose to her feet.
The moment she stood up, that fragile appearance and frightened expression she had been wearing gradually vanished from her body.
In its place, an innate nobility suddenly burst forth from her petite frame.
Her chin lifted slightly, and in those tear-bright eyes burned hatred—a hatred burdened with the fall of a nation and the destruction of a family.
“That’s right!”
Her voice no longer carried a young girl’s crisp sweetness. Instead, it rang with cold resolve and pride.
“My journey to Great Zhou is for one purpose alone—to avenge the thirty-seven thousand six hundred and twenty-seven wronged souls of my Luo Imperial Clan!”
“I will wrest back everything that rightfully belonged to my Violet Firmament Imperial Dynasty from the hands of those traitorous rebels!”
Chen Guan suddenly felt the surrounding temperature plummet.
And that piercing cold was coming from the petite girl standing before him!
How great must the grievance be? How deep must the hatred run?
For a young girl’s heart to condense such terrifying frost?
Luo Li turned around. Those hatred-filled eyes fixed themselves on the endless mountain ranges ahead. Beyond those mountains lay the territory of Great Zhou.
Her voice was icy as she continued.
“A hundred years ago, the Violet Firmament Imperial Dynasty established the Demon Suppression Bureau in order to resist demons and fiends.”
“At that time, the Bureau’s Director was nothing more than a rustic villager from the mountains.”
“On one of my father’s hunting tours, he happened to see that man slaughtering a demon wolf with his bare hands. Father admired the ruthless ferocity and talent with which he hunted demons, and because he cherished ability, he broke all precedent and brought him into the Violet Firmament court, personally nurturing him with care.”
“My father trusted him completely. In only ten years, he raised him from a commoner to a towering position of authority, placing him in command of the three hundred thousand troops of the Demon Suppression Bureau.”
“But who could have expected that, when calamity descended upon the realm, he would secretly collude with the demons of the Ten Directions Marsh and join hands with traitorous ministers within the court?”
“With the very blade meant to protect my Violet Firmament Imperial Dynasty—the three hundred thousand Demon Suppression troops—he launched a coup!”
“In a single night, he slaughtered my Luo Imperial Clan to the last!”
At this point, Luo Li’s fingernails dug deep into her palms, and even her voice began to tremble.
“That night, Shangjing City ran with blood. Of the thirty-seven thousand six hundred and twenty-seven members of my Luo Imperial Clan, not a single one was spared—man or woman, old or young!”
“Even infants still in swaddling clothes were thrown to those demons as feed!”
“As for my mother, they turned her into a human swine and put her on display for those spirit creatures to admire!”
“Only... the little princess who was still an infant at the time—in the final moment before his death, the Violet Firmament Emperor burned away his last trace of dragon qi and used a supreme treasure to seal her away, before others carried her out of Shangjing City at the cost of their lives...”
Chen Guan listened through that melodramatic tale with grim patience, then gave Luo Li a long look from head to toe.
So this girl... was already over a hundred years old?
Put that way, quite a few things suddenly made sense.
No wonder she possessed Xiantian cultivation while remaining utterly ignorant of even the most basic use of true qi.
That seal must have kept her in a state of suspended growth all this time, while some treasure continuously nourished her physical body.
With a century of accumulation, her physique had changed. Even without any deliberate cultivation, she had been forcibly piled up to the Xiantian Realm.
Still...
having heard her impassioned account of national ruin and family annihilation, Chen Guan showed not the slightest sympathy. Instead, there was only bafflement in his tone.
“And just how, exactly, do you plan to take revenge on Great Zhou? Alone?”
“Of course not!”
Luo Li stepped forward, her voice frosty.
“The surviving old loyalists of my Luo Clan have prepared for this very day for a full hundred years. Now the armies are assembled, the various organizations and powers have all responded, and everything is ready. Only the final step remains!”
“And that final step... is me—the last drop of blood left in the Luo Imperial Clan!”
She slowly turned sideways. Those eyes burning like flames looked toward Chen Guan, carrying several layers of complicated emotion.
“Brother Chen, I originally never intended to tell you my true identity, because I did not want you entangled in this karma.”
“Once we reached Great Zhou’s territory, I had planned to let you leave on your own. But now...”
She did not finish the sentence, but her meaning was already clear enough.
Once he knew her identity, he had already stepped into this mire.
Chen Guan shot her a glance.
He knew what she was afraid of—that once they reached Great Zhou, the people waiting to receive her there might kill him to keep the secret buried.
But that still depended on whether he was willing to continue escorting her!
After all, even a fool knew that the truly dangerous part of this escort route had not yet begun!
This troublesome girl was going to Great Zhou to raise a rebellion. That had nothing at all to do with the Great Yun Imperial Dynasty. If Great Yun found out, they would probably applaud the whole thing.
But if he actually entered Great Zhou, then the nature of it changed completely!
If the emperor of Great Zhou learned that an old enemy had returned, how could he possibly refrain from trying to crush her?
He had originally assumed, at worst, that he had gotten dragged into some succession struggle among princes and nobles.
Who could have imagined that he had instead jumped straight into the ranks of open rebellion?
“Rebellion?”
Chen Guan froze again. Suddenly, a sentence spoken by the Peach Blossom Immortal flashed through his mind:
“This journey will leave you doomed beyond redemption!”
Then came Xi’er’s dying words—
“If you do not wish to be doomed beyond redemption... if you do not wish for the mortal world to be plunged into devastation...”
He suddenly understood what they had meant by “doomed beyond redemption”!
If he truly escorted this troublesome girl safely into Great Zhou and allowed her to reunite with those remnants of the former dynasty so they could revolt, then he would personally be enabling a war that could bring down a nation.
After all, an imperial dynasty represented not merely supreme political power, but also the guardian of a region’s safety, the force suppressing demons and fiends across the land!
If Great Zhou were thrown into internal war because of Luo Li’s arrival, then all the great demons and fiend-kings currently being suppressed in every region would inevitably seize the opportunity and ravage the mortal world.
At that point, the land would burn for a thousand li, the people would be driven from their homes, white bones would lie bleaching in the wilderness, and the human world would become a living hell!
And he, Chen Guan, would become the chief culprit behind all of it—a sinner whose infamy would stink for ten thousand years!
That kind of thing happened often enough in the imperial dynasties that bordered the Ten Directions Marsh.
His own parents had died exactly because of such chaos.
Twenty years ago, when the current ruler of Great Yun ascended the throne, several princes had opposed the succession, throwing the realm into turmoil. Taking advantage of the disorder, the sealed great demons and fiend-kings broke free and commanded waves of demons, fiends, uncanny things, and dark spirits to ravage the land.
At the time, half of Xiaohe Village had been slaughtered.
His parents had been among the dead.
At that thought, Chen Guan drew in a long breath.
He had worked his whole life as an Escort Master, keeping to his own rules in this chaotic age.
And in the end, was he really about to walk this path of utter treason and become the one who ignited war across the world?
Was that not exactly what “doomed beyond redemption” meant?
Still, that was not what angered him the most. What angered him most was why that damned dead old man, Su Jingyan, had set him up like this!
With a dark face, Chen Guan asked coldly, “Why did your grandfather and your aunt try to stop you from going to Great Zhou?”
Their own granddaughter and niece was setting out to restore a fallen dynasty. If they would not support her with everything they had, then fine. But why were they turning their elbows outward and obstructing her at every step?
He refused to believe those two had simply lost their minds.