Capturing the Demoness

Those two trails of clear tears seemed to burn through the last remaining string.

Li Rong'er could no longer control herself. She covered her face, stifled sobs spilling through her fingers as her shoulders shook violently.

All the grievances, humiliation, and despair that had built up over the past few days came crashing down at that moment because of one simple phrase: "I believe you."

Chen Fan stood where he was, neither stepping forward nor retreating.

He watched the woman who had stubbornly refused to yield before her husband and struggled to hold on in desperate circumstances now weep like a helpless child.

Experience told him something was wrong.

This was dangerous!

When a woman, especially one in desperate circumstances, began to lower all her defenses around a man and reveal her most vulnerable side, it was often the beginning of danger.

The way she looked at him had changed.

She no longer saw him as a servant, a tool. There was a trace of reliance in her gaze now, and a hint of tenderness she herself had yet to notice.

This was going to end badly.

Chen Fan's heart skipped a beat.

He had no desire to wade into the muddy waters of the prince's inner court. What was he doing getting involved with a princess consort who had fallen out of favor?

He cleared his throat, breaking the oppressive atmosphere in the room.

"Your Highness, if there is nothing else, this subordinate will take his leave."

His tone had returned to its earlier flatness and detachment, as though he were deliberately putting distance between them.

Li Rong'er's sobs caught.

She slowly lowered her hands and looked at him with eyes reddened from crying, a little dazed and at a loss.

"You... what's your name?"

"Lin Shou," Chen Fan answered with a bow, his manner impeccably respectful.

"Lin Shou..." Li Rong'er turned the name over on her tongue, then said hesitantly:

"Could you, from now on..."

"Your Highness." Chen Fan cut her off. "Your meal has been delivered. It is this subordinate's duty to stand guard outside. I dare not linger."

With that, he gave Li Rong'er no further chance to speak. He bowed again, then turned and quickly left the room.

The door closed gently behind him, shutting him out of the princess consort's sight.

Chen Fan leaned against a corridor pillar outside the door and let out a long breath.

What was all this?

One inadvertent action and one heartfelt truth had actually brought him so much trouble.

From now on, he would have to be careful in his dealings with the princess consort.

Back in his own humble quarters, Chen Fan lay on the hard plank bed and sighed.

From Black Wind Baleful Intent, the bandit chief, to Lin Shou, a guard at the prince's residence, his identity had changed, but his troubles had not lessened one bit.

All he wanted now was to live quietly as a lowly guard. As for his next target for rebirth?

He had not thought about it for the time being. Death-Substitution Rebirth came at a price: the pain of death could not be blocked out. It was an agony that reached the soul, unbearably excruciating.

Unless he had no other choice, he would not go to his death of his own accord.

Getting entangled with the princess consort would bring a hundred harms and not a single benefit.

In the end, he would likely satisfy himself only to harm them both.

It wouldn't matter if he died, but the princess consort would truly die.

Over the next few days, Chen Fan did indeed find a pretext to have Zhang Cheng deliver the meals in his place, while he kept well away from the pavilion.

Life seemed to return to peace.

But beneath that peace, undercurrents surged throughout the Prince of Xiushan's Residence.

The prince, Zheng Xian, was not only unappeased; his fury grew fiercer by the day.

Finally, on the seventh day after the Black Wind Mountain incident, the residence's investigation made a startling breakthrough.

Through the brutal interrogation of captured White Lotus Sect members and intelligence sent back by the residence's covert agents, all the clues pointed to one person.

Su Xin!

The White Lotus Sect fiend who had once been the princess consort's personal maid but had now defected!

She was the one who had single-handedly orchestrated the princess consort's abduction and framed Black Wind Mountain. Her goal had been to create chaos, slip into the residence amid the confusion, and steal the imperial secret tome!

The "Record of the Grand Progenitor's Ascension to Immortality"!

When the news spread, the residence was shaken.

Zheng Xian smashed his most beloved antique inkstone in his study and ordered the matter reported to the imperial court on the spot.

At the same time, he personally selected an elite squad from the residence's personal guards, with Commandant Li Zhong himself in command. They were to make absolutely sure they captured the demoness Su Xin and recovered the stolen secret tome before the court's people arrived!

He truly wanted to recover the secret tome, and he truly wanted to save face.

A single order sent the entire residence into a flurry of activity.

Chen Fan was also reassigned from his leisurely post guarding the rear courtyard. When he saw that he had been assigned to Li Zhong's command, the annoyance the princess consort had caused him instantly vanished like smoke in the wind.

He had something to do.

The residence's covert agents soon found traces of Su Xin. She did not seem to have fled far and was still lying low within Xiushan Province.

Her precise location was Qinghe County.

Upon receiving the news, Li Zhong lost no time and immediately assembled his men.

Thirty elite warriors from the prince's residence, each with two horses, clad in armor and armed with keen weapons, quietly rode out of the Prince of Xiushan's Residence under cover of darkness, like an arrow loosed from a bow.

Hoofbeats sounded rapid and muffled, while torches trailed long tails of flame in the night wind.

Chen Fan rode on horseback, feeling the cold wind against his face, his mind more focused than ever before.

He looked at the figure ahead of him, clad in heavy armor with a long saber at his waist.

Li Zhong, a Seventh Rank martial artist.

He really was imposing...

At least in a backwater like Xiushan Province, a Seventh Rank martial artist was indeed imposing.

The squad galloped on, and by daybreak, Qinghe County's low city walls had appeared on the horizon.

Li Zhong did not lead the squad into the city. Instead, he stopped to rest in a dense forest outside the walls and sent men to contact the local county office.

Before long, a slightly plump middle-aged man in official robes came running out of the city, drenched in sweat and surrounded by a squad of county soldiers.

It was Zhao De, the magistrate of Qinghe County.

He jogged up to Li Zhong, bowing from a distance with an ingratiating smile plastered across his face.

"I am Zhao De, magistrate of Qinghe County. I did not know Your Excellency the commandant would grace us with your presence, and failed to come farther out to welcome you. Forgive me, forgive me!"

Li Zhong sat on his horse and looked down at him, responding only with a grunt.

"Mm."

Chen Fan stood a short distance behind Li Zhong, watching the bowing and scraping magistrate without expression.

Zhao De.

It really was a small world.

Once, he had been Zhao Long, and Zhao De had been his father.

Later, when he had been Black Wind Baleful Intent, he had killed this fellow's county soldiers until they fled, casting aside their helmets and armor.

Now, with another transformation, he had become a hound of the prince's residence, while Zhao De was still the same local magistrate who bowed and scraped before the powerful.

Zhao De seemed to notice the gaze from that direction. He instinctively raised his head and glanced over the personal guards behind Li Zhong.

When his eyes met Chen Fan's, he gave him only a hasty glance before immediately lowering his head humbly, failing to recognize the utterly unremarkable face.

That made sense. How would a mere county magistrate be qualified to remember what one of the prince's personal guards looked like?

"Where is she?" Li Zhong asked coldly.

Zhao De hurriedly stepped forward and lowered his voice, his face showing a hint of excitement at the prospect of claiming credit.

"Reporting to Your Excellency! That demoness is in the city!"