How Did I Become the One Being Pursued?

However, the white-haired man standing beside her looked perfunctory, yawning from time to time. His outfit was also strange and unconventional—no, it could hardly be called clothing at all. It was more like the black metallic shell of an intelligent bionic android, with a red scarf draped behind his shoulders.

Most striking of all was his low-brimmed cowboy hat, brimming with exotic flair.

Compared to the suited woman beside him, he looked exactly like a country calico cat—though, color-wise, he did kind of resemble one...

Bai Jun had no interest in eavesdropping on their conversation. He could only see the white-haired man in cowboy attire constantly whispering into the middle-aged woman's ear, his movements and expressions sometimes exaggerated and impatient, sometimes dejected and resentful. Yet in response to all his harassment, the middle-aged woman had only one reaction.

—Ignore him. Completely and utterly ignore him.

Like the two imposing stone lions outside Shence Mansion, the middle-aged woman kept her eyes fixed on the meeting room doors. Her attitude toward the white-haired man was exceptionally cold, as if this team and the man belonged to two entirely separate groups with nothing to do with one another.

The white-haired man seemed used to it. He gestured wildly at the middle-aged woman, muttered at the air for ages, then let out a heavy sigh. With a bullet clamped between his teeth, he patted his backside and swaggered away.

Bai Jun shook his head disdainfully and let out a snort. He had only one assessment of such a frivolous fellow.

"Hmph. I'll never have anything to do with a person like that in my life."

At that moment, the sounds of chairs shifting came from the meeting room, followed by dozens of footsteps. Once the Cloud Cavalry in the corridor began moving, the middle-aged woman immediately nodded toward the rear.

At her signal, the security personnel who had stood silently in a line against the wall moved in an orderly fashion, forming two rows before the doors and creating a passage for the departing meeting attendees.

Bai Jun spotted many familiar figures among them. First was Yukong, Helmsman of the Tianbo Division, followed closely by Huifu, the Director of the Earth-Balance Commission. Neither noticed Bai Jun on the distant bench, as they focused wholly on discussing something with the suited delegation members beside them.

Jing Yuan and Guinaifen were nowhere to be seen. The security personnel soon departed alongside the delegation, leaving only the middle-aged woman guarding the doors alone.

Suddenly, the middle-aged woman shifted her gaze toward Bai Jun, who was idly sitting on the bench, and expressionlessly pointed inside.

...Was she telling him that he should go in?

Trying to decipher her meaning, Bai Jun walked over to her and pointed at the doors again, confirming that he had not misunderstood her.

She gave no response—presumably that meant acquiescence.

Bai Jun pushed the door open and cautiously poked his head inside. In an instant, he felt two pairs of eyes staring straight at him.

"Bai Jun, are you feeling shy?"

"You jest, General."

This time, Jing Yuan unusually did not call him Qing Yan. Instead, he addressed him properly by his real name, making Bai Jun feel somewhat awkward. He sighed, then walked inside.

The meeting hall's layout was simple and clear: only an enormous long table and two rows of chairs. Now, only the three of them remained in the spacious room. Bai Jun stood by the door, Jing Yuan sat at the head of the Luofu side, and the blue-haired girl sat at the head of the other side.

"Allow me to introduce you. This is Miss Guinaifen. Though I'm sure you already know of her. After all, a renowned interstellar superstar has long since become a household name on the Luofu," Jing Yuan said with a smile as he introduced her to Bai Jun.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bai Jun. I would also like to apologize in advance for any trouble my work may cause you in the coming days."

Guinaifen immediately returned a gentle, polite smile. On that exquisitely beautiful, delicate face of hers, the effect was devastating. Even Bai Jun could not help marveling inwardly. No wonder she was a universe-class idol. The charm she inadvertently revealed in every smile and frown put ordinary women several planets behind her.

"No need to be so polite. I'm just doing the job I'm paid for."

Bai Jun shook his head. His response left Guinaifen blinking blankly, unsure how to reply to such an offbeat remark.

"Ahem. In any case, Bai Jun, over the next few days, you must do everything in your power to protect her. There can't be even the slightest mistake... and one more thing."

Jing Yuan promptly rose to defuse the situation, firmly patting Bai Jun's shoulder and signaling him with his eyes to be serious. Yet his tone soon shifted, and a faint smile reappeared on his face. That smile made Bai Jun's scalp prickle, and he shuddered instinctively.

"Miss Guinaifen's circumstances are somewhat special at the moment. To ensure her safety, you'll accompany Miss Guinaifen to her temporary residence tonight," Jing Yuan said calmly.

"Ah... huh... what?"

Bai Jun wore a bizarre expression that clearly said, Are you fucking kidding me? But when he turned and saw Guinaifen nodding at him with a smile, he immediately realized something was off. "Wait! You're not joking!?"

"Why would I joke about a matter of life and death? Your reaction is the strange one. As a bodyguard, isn't it normal to stay by your employer's side at all times?"

Jing Yuan shrugged in confusion. Then, seizing the moment when Bai Jun was about to argue, he directly pulled out a dumpling from his pocket and stuffed it into Bai Jun's mouth. Before long, Bai Jun's initially resistant expression gradually softened.

"Fine, whatever. I don't really care."

The marshmallow coating on the dumpling was soft and light, while the grape inside was tender and juicy. Bai Jun chewed the flavor of the dumpling, something he had never tasted before, with an intoxicated look on his face.

Satisfied, Jing Yuan stuffed a whole bag of dumplings into Bai Jun's hands, thinking that buying those dumplings that morning had indeed been his wisest decision.

Meanwhile, the blue little bird who witnessed the whole affair was so stunned that even her ear-feathers stood upright.

...Was this some uniquely Xianzhou method of coaxing people?

Brother, Stop Right There

After settling the various arrangements, Jing Yuan personally saw Guinaifen out of Shence Mansion.

The Cloud Cavalry cleared the way for the delegation. They escorted Guinaifen all the way to the wharf at Exalting Sanctum, where all civilians had already been evacuated. Several modified, reinforced business starcruisers equipped with shock absorbers waited there. Business starcruisers were actually quite common on the Luofu, though they were usually just cheap, covered vehicles used to transport passengers.

Ordinary starcruisers had poor defensive capabilities and could not withstand collisions from other starcruisers. But after being specially modified with materials used for military vessel starcruisers, they could effectively resist the impact of any malicious incident.

As for Bai Jun... naturally, he had to ride in the same starcruiser as her. Jing Yuan had strictly ordered it.

The business starcruiser was far more comfortable than an ordinary one. Bai Jun removed the saber from his waist and set it beside him, then sat across from Guinaifen and lazily leaned back against the cushion, which was so soft that he felt as if his whole body might sink into it.

Unlike a major idol like Guinaifen, who had to mind her posture and manners at every moment, he had long grown accustomed to being utterly carefree. Naturally, he did not care about such complications.

Guinaifen kept smiling. She was indeed in a good mood, and her smile came from the heart. Yet the middle-aged woman beside her stared at Bai Jun with eyes that were less icy than they were openly, hostilely vigilant...

Bai Jun had only met her for the first time, yet her attitude was so unpleasant. The way she looked at him was as though she were looking at a pile of industrial waste.

Under her glare, which seemed ready to burst into flames, Bai Jun acted as though he had not noticed. He rubbed his ear, shifted into an even more relaxed and comfortable position, and continued stuffing the unfinished dumplings from the bag into his mouth.

Respect went both ways. Since she would not give him a pleasant look, Bai Jun had no reason to give her one either.

But then again... why had Miss Guinaifen been staring at him this whole time? It was starting to creep him out.

Fortunately, Guinaifen seemed to notice his discomfort and smiled as she spoke first.

"I had thought the Vanguard arranged by the General would be like the Cloud Cavalry soldiers standing at the entrance—stern, unsmiling, coldly professional people who knew only how to complete their missions. But Mr. Bai Jun, you are far more interesting than I expected. I hope we can get along happily during this time, like friends."

After saying that, Guinaifen removed her glove and extended her right hand toward him expectantly.

The boundless universe was astonishingly vast, but in many cultural matters, there truly were commonalities. For example, shaking hands to express goodwill.

Bai Jun, still chewing a dumpling, said nothing. He quietly wiped the hand that had held the dumpling against his shirt, then gently took her hand.

"Pleasure working with you."

After leaving the wharf and reaching the Starcruiser Sea Hub, they only needed to continue north to arrive at Guinaifen's temporary residence for the next few days.

The Luofu authorities had assigned Guinaifen a temporary residence in a villa district near the Starcruiser Sea Hub. There were no other residents in the surrounding area, only a magnificent villa situated at the center. It was a standard residence combining an inner courtyard design with colonnades.

Elegant, luxurious white marble formed an arched colonnade around the courtyard, with a small bronze fountain sculpture in the center. The backyard also had a medium-sized swimming pool, balancing beauty and practicality so well that it made one curse the evils of capital.

"By the way, Helen, have you seen Mr. Boothill?"

Unable to find someone in the group, Guinaifen asked the cold-faced middle-aged woman in confusion.

When faced with Guinaifen's question, the middle-aged woman named Helen revealed a trace of tenderness. "I'm sorry, Miss. I do not know where that gentleman is. Perhaps he has already left."

"I suppose so. We were never really on the same path... Mr. Bai Jun, what's wrong?"

Guinaifen's disappointment was visible to the naked eye. She sighed softly, wearing a bitter smile. As they reached the villa's entrance, she suddenly noticed that Bai Jun had stopped walking.

"I'm only performing my proper duties as a bodyguard. Please don't mind me. Focus on your own affairs."

Bai Jun shrugged. After his simple response, he headed toward the outskirts of the villa.

Guard work was not his strong suit, but neither was it a weakness. He had learned some of the Shadow Guards' techniques while on the Yaoqing. Though he had only learned a few tricks, they should be more than enough for him to imitate them in the present situation.

Although Shadow Guards specialized in intelligence and covert affairs, all skills had something in common. For instance, before carrying out a mission, assassins would scout and infiltrate the target's residence in advance to facilitate both the assassination and their escape. Conversely, bodyguards could naturally investigate and simulate the residence in advance as well.

After all, a bodyguard who was not a good assassin could not be considered a good bodyguard!

After circling the villa several times, Bai Jun roughly surveyed the surroundings and used a notebook to sketch out the building's basic structure in detail.

"Tch, it's full of holes. The sewers could easily be used to infiltrate the villa courtyard. Then someone could climb through the third-floor window using the external pipes on the house, and after that... Hmph, I could casually come up with more than a dozen methods of sneaking in."

Looking at the villa riddled with vulnerabilities, Bai Jun's occupational habit kicked in. He covered his face and let out a troubled sigh, worried by the difficulty of his job. Just as he was about to return to the villa to inspect its interior layout, a wave of malice suddenly came at him from behind.

At that moment, the sound of a bullet being chambered was startlingly clear, the crisp mechanical click sharp and cold.

"Hey, don't move, kid. Raise your hands nice and slow right now, or I'll fucking put a bullet through you."

A pitch-black gun barrel pressed against the back of his head as a man's heavily mechanical voice came from behind him.

The air carried a faint malty fragrance, seemingly from a "Bater 17 Year" sherry cask produced in the Kavalan Star Sector. Bai Jun could also smell traces of gunpowder and metal.

His taste in beer was terrible enough that he clearly was not a local, and gunpowder was uncommon on the Luofu. Combined with that strange verbal tic... was he an outworlder follower of the Medicine King's Legacy?

But there was no time to think. The man's voice grew increasingly impatient. "I said raise your hands, damn it. Can't you understand the Synesthesia Beacon? If this weren't the home turf of The Hunt, I'd have fucking put you down already."

"Got it. But let's be clear first—the Xianzhou laws strictly prohibit firearms within the city, you know?"

The man did not answer. He merely watched Bai Jun's slowly raised hands closely. Once he confirmed Bai Jun no longer posed a threat, he reached to seize the longsword at his waist. Bai Jun abruptly spun around, using his right palm to cover the barrel and force it upward.

"Fuck—!"

The man clearly had not expected anyone to be crazy enough to block a gun barrel with his palm. But he had no time to think. He immediately prepared to pull the trigger and shoot straight through Bai Jun's hand.

Yet battles changed in an instant, and openings often vanished in the blink of an eye. In the moment of hesitation, Bai Jun swiftly released his notebook, and his freed left hand turned into a heavy punch that slammed straight into the man's face.

The strike was as fast as lightning. Even though the man had been wary, his body could not react in time. With a dull thud, his face took the blow solidly. His vision went black from the heavy impact, blood streamed from his nose, and he only felt the revolver in his hand suddenly vanish as Bai Jun snatched it away.

Kicked in the shin and thrown off balance, the man toppled face-first toward the ground. Fortunately, he used his hands to absorb the impact in time, or that fall might have knocked him unconscious.

In the blink of an eye, the situation had completely reversed.

Bai Jun seized the opportunity to pin the man's back, trapping his arm between his thighs. The revolver fell to one side. At the same time, an even larger, longer, hotter black gun barrel pressed against the back of the man's head. Bai Jun's finger rested on the trigger, ready to blow a hole through the man's skull if he dared make even the slightest movement.

"Don't move. Lie there obediently, or my Sacred Judgment of Heavenly Fire will definitely blow a hole in your head."

Bai Jun easily suppressed the man's resistance and forcefully pressed the muzzle of Sacred Judgment of Heavenly Fire against his face as he threatened him irritably.

He had not expected to encounter an attack less than a day after taking the job. Should he call that good luck or bad luck?

Before Bai Jun could question him further, the subdued man clicked his tongue. His mechanical finger aimed with difficulty toward the villa district entrance, and a signal flare shot from his fingertip, exploding into a huge burst of fireworks above the gates.

The villa's security guards, alarmed by the flare, quickly followed its trail and spotted Bai Jun and the man pinned to the ground.

"Hey! Fuck, stop standing around like idiots! This guy isn't someone you can handle! I'll hold him off—hurry and get the big-name singer out of that house!"

The man slammed a fist against the ground in frustration. After roaring at the dumbfounded guards, he struggled with all his strength to get up.

Hearing that exchange, Bai Jun was briefly thrown into confusion. He had not had time to observe carefully amid the chaos, but now he noticed the man's distinctive appearance.

Cowboy hat, mechanical shell, calico-cat hair colors, and his conversation with the guards. Coupled with Boothill's name that Guinaifen had mentioned earlier... wait, could this be the man he had seen in the corridor of Shence Mansion?

"Mr. Boothill! Mr. Bai Jun! What are you two doing!?"

His thoughts were interrupted by a startled cry. Bai Jun raised his head and saw Guinaifen hurrying anxiously toward them.

"I see. Mr. Boothill saw Mr. Bai Jun lurking around the villa, recording things on paper, while constantly muttering dangerous-sounding words to himself. So he mistook him for an assassin?"

After an explanation had cleared up the matter, Guinaifen suddenly laughed. She looked at Bai Jun with a hint of cheerfulness. "Mr. Bai Jun, do you have any explanation?"

Bai Jun felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment and quietly covered half his face. After all, everything Boothill had said was true, especially since he had been muttering to himself when his occupational habit kicked in. There was no way to argue against it, but he still stubbornly said,

"Guh... how was I lurking? N-no matter what, I was doing it openly, wasn't I?"

"Mr. Bai Jun is blushing~ You really do feel guilty, don't you?"

"Tch..." Bai Jun guiltily looked away.

"Fuck, I've lived this long and never had anyone disarm me before." Boothill had sat on the ground for quite a while before barely recovering. Rubbing his aching nose bridge, he muttered as he got to his feet.

"Sorry. I did a lot of strange things that could easily cause misunderstandings."

Ignoring the bizarre verbal tic that made him want to comment, Bai Jun apologized, then bent down to pick up Boothill's pistol from the ground. He spun it around his fingertips before letting it settle safely into Boothill's hand.

"Oh! No problem. I already kind of like Xianzhou people. You're a good guy, brother. And just like me, you don't like talking—you're a warrior who expresses his views only through the gun in his hand! Hahaha! We'll definitely become good brothers!"

Boothill smoothly returned the revolver to the holster at his waist. With a hearty grin, he stepped forward, slung an arm over Bai Jun's shoulders, and accepted the apology without the slightest concern for the fact that Bai Jun had just pinned him to the ground and rubbed his face in the dirt.

Seeing that the two had made up, Guinaifen relaxed. Then she introduced Boothill to Bai Jun. "By the way, Mr. Bai Jun, Mr. Boothill is also one of my bodyguards for this journey. He saved my life on the previous planet we visited."

"Eh, I was there to deal with the Annihilation Gang in the first place. Saving you was just incidental. And it turned out I saved the right person."

Boothill waved dismissively, recalling fragments of the past.

The previous stop on the concert tour had been a war-torn region. Both sides had temporarily halted their fighting out of consideration for Guinaifen's identity, and the Family's spaceship took the opportunity to deliver relief supplies to people displaced by the war.

However, those actions drew the hatred of the Annihilation Gang. These lunatics who worshiped Destruction called themselves loyal servants of "Destruction," yet could never escape being slaves to their own selfish desires. Some delighted in slaughter, feeding on the ecstasy of flesh and blood; some used plunder as an excuse to conceal their original thirst for revenge; others simply wanted to soothe the madness in their hearts through endless destruction...

These chaotic desires permeated every war-torn region, and the melody of Harmony undoubtedly destroyed the finest breeding ground for their unchecked growth. Thus, unrest aimed at the concert singers arose.

Amid a large-scale chaotic battle, a bullet of The Hunt saved Guinaifen just as she was about to suffer harm.

After the turmoil had subsided, Guinaifen somehow found Boothill himself. Though he repeatedly insisted that he needed no reward, he could not withstand her determination. When he learned that her next stop would be the Xianzhou Luofu, Boothill took the initiative to suggest that Guinaifen bring him to the Luofu as payment.