First day as a guard

Before parting, everyone talked about where they were going.

"I have to go to the mortal world," Jiang Yan took another sip of wine, "There is a mortal who needs my escort. If it weren't for Master Ling's matter, I would have planned to leave early this morning."

Song Ping asked curiously, "Isn't your talisman competition about to start? Is it still in time?"

"When I was still a mortal, there was an old friend in my family who took good care of me," Jiang Yan explained. "This time, I have to protect his descendants. In terms of seniority, he should be considered my nephew or niece. This guy is quite straightforward and has offended many people in the court. He may be in danger on his way to being demoted this time. His grandfather's letter was sent to me. He will leave the capital soon. I plan to secretly protect him for a while. If he misses the talisman competition, then he will miss it."

Xu Shulou suggested: "I don't have anything to do anyway, why don't I go on this trip for you."

"Senior sister," Jiang Yan hesitated, "this guy speaks quite directly."

Xu Shulou was confused: "You just said that."

"What I mean is," Jiang Yan stroked his chin, "I'm afraid that he will be killed by you before he dies at the hands of his enemies."

“…”

Seeing Xu Shulou holding the folding fan in his right hand again, Jiang Yan ran away laughing: "Senior Sister, I was just joking!"

“…”

After everyone laughed for a while, Xu Shulou assured him: "Go to participate in your talisman competition with peace of mind. I will go there for you. Don't worry, your nephew is my nephew, I will protect him well."

Jiang Yan thanked him seriously: "Thank you, Senior Sister."

Several people said goodbye at the city gate and went on their own journeys. Only Xu Shulou stayed where he was and looked at the smiling Bai Roushuang: "You're not leaving?"

"I want to go to the mortal world with you."

“…”

"Don't try to get rid of me." Bai Roushuang looked at the silent senior sister vigilantly.

"I didn't mean to get rid of you," Xu Shulou smiled helplessly, "It's just that guarding in secret is very boring, and I thought you wouldn't be interested. If you want to follow me, then come along."

After she finished speaking, she flew out in the direction of the capital, and Bai Roushuang jumped after her.

After the two men arrived near the capital, they found a tea stall beside the official road in the suburbs of Beijing and sat down waiting for the target person to leave the capital.

The waiting process was indeed very boring. Bai Roushuang was so bored that she started asking the tea stall owner for advice on how to make tea.

Making tea is not a difficult recipe. When a sweet-talking girl asked about it, the proprietress did not hide her secrets and casually told her which tea tastes better with mint, and which tea tastes better with orange peel.

Xu Shulou had been waiting here for about a few hours. Seeing her sitting there for a long time, the proprietress couldn't help but ask with a smile: "Are you waiting for your lover?"

Bai Roushuang choked, but Xu Shulou remained calm: "Wait for my nephew."

“…”

The two waited until dusk fell and the proprietress was about to close the stall, only then they saw a chestnut-roofed carriage slowly approaching from the direction of the capital. There were silver-patterned private seals painted on the body of the carriage, which matched Jiang Yan's description.

Several men dressed as scholars at a nearby table also recognized the carriage and started discussing: "Isn't that the Cheng family's carriage?"

"That's right. Young Master Cheng is leaving the capital today. He was implicated by Censor Su."

They didn't raise their voices, but a female voice from the next table interrupted them: "Which Censor Su?"

Several people were startled, then turned to look at the two girls who were asking questions. Seeing their appearance and demeanor, they were unlikely to be spies from the imperial court, so they answered, "Who else could it be? Isn't he the current Chief Censor, the number one scholar in the seventeenth year of Zhangshuo?"

"It's him," Xu Shulou smiled, "It turns out that he has already been promoted to the position of Chief Censor."

"Miss, do you know Censor Su?"

"We have only met twice, so we cannot be considered familiar with each other."

She chatted casually with the people at the next table at the tea stall, and when she saw that the carriage had gone out of sight, she left with her sister.

The two of them followed slowly along the official road. Even if someone wanted to attack Young Master Cheng, they would not do it near the capital. So the two of them did not intend to follow too closely, in order to avoid attracting the attention of someone with ulterior motives and causing trouble.

The carriage traveled for about an hour and the group stopped at a roadside restaurant to have a meal. The restaurant was open all night and there were already three or four carriages parked at the door.

Xu Shulou and Bai Roushuang found a man in black in a nearby haystack and lay down like him: "Is this man here to wait for Master Cheng as well?"

The man in black didn't notice them approaching at all. He was surprised and subconsciously denied it: "What small town or big city? I don't know."

"So do you usually have this hobby of squatting in the bushes late at night?"

The man in black looked at them suspiciously: "Who are you?"

"One of our own." Xu Shulou said.

Where did our own people come from? Did the employer send other people? While the man in black was thinking about it, Xu Shulou had already patted him on the shoulder: "Brother, move over. I think your side has the best observation angle."

This attitude of not treating themselves as outsiders made the man in black struggle again, and he actually subconsciously squirmed to make a seat for them.

Three pairs of eyes stared at the restaurant door through the grass.

"Actually, this kind of thing is quite interesting," Bai Roushuang commented, "It also enriches my life experience."

Xu Shulou deeply agrees: "In life, we always have to try something new."

The man in black gestured to them to shut up: "Can you please be quiet? Is this the attitude of a squatter?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Xu Shulou apologized honestly, "May I ask if you have any other advice for me?"

The man in black looked at them with disdain: "What are you wearing? Can't you change into black clothes?"

"Next time, for sure."

"And you, could you please stop hitting mosquitoes? There's so much rustling in the bushes, are you afraid that people outside won't be able to tell that there's someone hiding here?"

Bai Roushuang felt wronged: "Okay."

"What qualifications do you have to dare to take this job?"

“…”

The three of them fell silent. The man in black stared intently at the restaurant door, while Xu Shulou and the other man looked up at the moon and stars from time to time. While they were distracted, the man in black suddenly jumped out quietly.

The two of them looked over and saw that the chestnut-roofed carriage had indeed slowly driven out. Bai Roushuang sighed, "This guy is so disloyal that he didn't even invite us along."

She was about to catch up, but Xu Shulou stopped her: "Lie down for a while, there's no rush."

Bai Roushuang trusted her senior sister and didn't ask why. She changed her position and lay on her back in the grass.

After an incense stick of time, Xu Shulou motioned her to look at the entrance of the restaurant: "Let's follow this blue-top carriage."

"Changed the car? No wonder they traveled at night," Bai Roushuang leaned over to look, "That's right, how could these guys who were involved in the court fight not have any ulterior motives?"

The blue-roofed carriage in front of him was simple in style, with only a washed-out curtain covering the canopy. It was exactly the kind of carriage that ordinary people without official titles would hire. At this moment, the carriage quietly left the restaurant under the cover of night.

The two followed again.

At daybreak, the carriage stopped in the wild. In addition to a guard acting as a coachman, a master and a servant got off. The man dressed as a servant started to light a fire and boil water. Another young man lamented to himself: "It's all my father's fault. He insisted on rescuing that Su! Others dared not do anything to him, but they took his son as the target. I don't know how many years I will be stuck in that remote place before I can return to Beijing."

The servant boy comforted him: "Master, don't worry so much. We don't know whether you can get there alive."

“I know you mean well,” the young man said bitterly, “but please don’t talk to me anymore.”

The servant boy then began to make gestures to him.

The young man was puzzled: "What?"

"Hmm, Hmm! Hmm?"

"say!"

The servant boy smiled and said, "I want to ask you, Master, do you want steamed buns or flatbreads for breakfast today?"

The young man said angrily: "I want to eat the crystal pork elbow from Mudanlou!"

Xu Shulou, who was hiding in the dark, sighed: "I want to eat crystal pork elbow, too."

“…”

On the other side, the servant boy responded to every request: "Then I will tear the dough into the shape of an elbow for you."

The young man was furious: "I see you are here just to irritate me, didn't we bring the fasting pills when we went out?"

Bai Roushuang couldn't help laughing: "This master and servant pair is quite interesting."

Before the elbow-shaped bread could be eaten, a cold light wrapped in a strong wind shot towards the young man. The accompanying guards quickly threw him to the ground and avoided this sneak attack.

"Who is it?!" The servant boy quickly stood in front of the young master and asked in shock. The guard also raised his knife and looked around vigilantly.

Six or seven masked men surrounded him, and one of them sneered, "Do you think you can deceive us by changing the carriage and taking a different route? Master Cheng is too arrogant."

“…”

The masked man stepped closer and said, "Please, sir, don't blame us little people on your way to the underworld. If you want to blame someone, blame your meddling father!"

The young man had just been complaining about his father, but now he was being stubborn: "Bah! My father is upright and honest, I don't blame him, if I have to blame someone, blame you. I will never let you go on my way to the underworld!"

The masked man sneered, "Do it!"

At his command, several arrows shot towards the young man in the encirclement. Seeing that the guard was bound to be defeated, Xu Shulou raised his hand and the folding fan flew out. It spun in the air and hit the arrows directly, knocking them all to the ground. The folding fan returned to Xu Shulou's hand. She caught and threw it, and the fan wrapped in spiritual power hit several masked men who had not yet recovered, knocking them all out.

The guard and the servant boy stood there in a daze. Only the young man said excitedly, "See, my grandfather said he asked a Taoist to protect me, but you still don't believe it!"

Xu Shulou put away his folding fan and walked out of the dark place with his junior sister. "Gentlemen, are you all right?"

"It's okay, it's okay." The young man still looked a little frightened, but he smiled at Xu Shulou and the others, "The two girls must have been frightened after seeing what happened just now. I'm sorry for getting involved."

The servant pulled his sleeve, motioning him to look at the folding fan in Xu Shulou's hand.

The young man looked over and saw the fan covered in green silk and jade gauze, held in a pair of bare hands. It looked extremely harmless, so he thought it was a coincidence. "No, didn't my grandfather say that? The person he prayed to was a male Taoist priest, the elder brother of the Jiang family... well, was it the elder brother or the uncle?"

The book boy remembered this, scratched his head and stopped talking.

The guard asked, "How did the two girls pass by here?"

"We are going to Qushan County, just passing by." Since they didn't guess, Xu Shulou didn't reveal her identity. Ever since she appeared in the Xiao Kingdom's palace, the two kings of Xiao Kingdom have always been very wary of people in the court being too close to monks. Even after sending the imperial daughter Xiao Ya to practice Taoism, they were still worried. The grandfather of the young Master Cheng in front of him was really worried about his grandson's life, so he secretly sent the news to Jiang Yan.

"Well, it's not far from our destination," the young man thought for a moment, "If I wasn't being chased by someone, I would definitely invite the two girls to go with me."

"Don't you have immortals protecting you?"

The book boy frowned and said, "That's not so certain. The old master only said that he had some affection for the Jiang family. What if the immortal thought that saving the young master's life was a repayment of the affection, and he just left now? What should we do?"

Xu Shulou didn't force them. At most, he could just keep following them in the bushes. The young man looked at them and said, "Where is the lady's carriage parked? I'll take you there."

"We have no carriage."

The three were surprised: "Did you walk here?"

"Um."

The three of them looked at each other and looked them up and down. Xu Shulou and Bai Roushuang were still wearing the plain clothes they wore when they went to Lingxiao Gate. They didn't have any jewelry on their heads. They rolled in the grass not long ago. Xu Shulou didn't know how he managed to be clean and neat, but Bai Roushuang's clothes were a little wrinkled. They were busy tracking and saving people, so they didn't pay much attention. At this time, the eyes of the three people opposite gradually changed. Master Cheng sighed sympathetically: "In this case, just follow us on the road."