The young man's eyes suddenly turned sharp.
The pressure radiating from him was far beyond what anyone his age should possess.
Luo San was not intimidated in the slightest. He met the young man's gaze, his own presence holding steady against his. After a long moment, the youth who had called himself "this old man" lazily closed his eyes. A childish voice suddenly sounded from the corner. "I am. May I ask what this hero wants with me?"
In the shadowy part of the cell next door, a little girl looked up at him.
She did not even reach his waist, yet she wore clothes made for an adult. To keep from tripping over her long skirt and sleeves, she had folded them again and again, then tied them in place with her sash, managing to preserve a little dignity. Luo San silently met the girl's gaze.
Reason told him that Kang Country would hardly go so far as to appoint a six- or seven-year-old girl prefect. And from the way she spoke and carried herself, she was clearly unlike an ordinary child. Luo San had a rough idea what was going on. "An old acquaintance asked me to find you."
"An old acquaintance?"
"Xiahou Li."
The little girl—Miao Ne—thought carefully for a moment, then shook her head.
She had no impression of that name whatsoever.
Judging from the support Xiahou Li had received in the Central Continent, she was certainly no nobody at the Kang Country Royal Court. And the girl before him, who had secured a prefecture governorship in the fiercely competitive Kang Country Royal Court despite being a woman, could not be an ordinary person either.
Even if they had never met, it was impossible that she had never heard of Xiahou Li.
Luo San wondered if