Chapter 18: Suspicion
Su Chen awoke early in the morning and made himself presentable.
One of the Sand Race servants came over and said, “Prince You, Sir Culler has invited you to breakfast.”
“Got it. I’ll be right over,” Su Chen replied.
Upon arriving at the main dining hall, Su Chen saw that almost everyone was present.
The Sand Race had adopted the Arcana Race’s habits when eating. They sat around extremely long tables when eating, while ornate candlesticks and fine eating utensils decorated those tables. Crystal lamps hung high above them.
Culler was technically half the owner of this place, so he sat at the head of the table. To his left was Zhu Xianyao, and his right was empty.
When he saw Su Chen arrive, Culler laughed and beckoned him over. “Prince You, please come and sit over here.”
He was pointing directly at the seat to his right.
That spot originally belonged to Zhu Baiyu, but after Zhu Baiyu had left last night, that seat had opened up.
Su Chen pretended to act timid and glanced at Zhu Xianyao.
Zhu Xianyao said faintly, “If he tells you to sit, then sit.”
Su Chen muttered an “oh” before sitting across from Zhu Xianyao. From here, he could see her exquisite appearance quite clearly. She no longer had that meticulously sculpted charming aura from before. Instead, she appeared quite sleepy and languid, giving her a unique attractiveness that was hard to resist.
This was the first woman Su Chen had ever seen that surpassed Gu Qingluo in terms of beauty. He couldn’t help but shoot a few extra glances at Zhu Xianyao.
“It seems like Prince You likes this seat a lot,” Culler said with a smile. “But now that you mention it, it seems like no one has told me why Sir Zhu isn’t here anymore?”
Su Chen felt his heart jump. He knew that Culler had still ended up growing suspicious.
These past few days, the Zhu Clan had been scouring West Laina Castle for the Spirit Race’s secret stashes. Even though they did their best in trying to avoid the eyes and ears of the Sand Race individuals, they weren’t inanimate objects. How could they possibly not notice anything?
Now that Zhu Baiyu had suddenly disappeared, Culler’s suspicion only grew stronger, which was why he had purposefully brought it up this morning.
Zhu Xianyao remained expressionless. “This is the Zhu Clan’s business. We don’t need to report our every move to Sir Culler, do we?”
Culler continued to smile. “But you are still on territory that belongs to the Sand Race and you are all staying in my Leader’s castle, so you should at least give me an explanation. I also have seen you guys wandering all over the castle, but you haven’t asked a single thing about the Blackrock Gold Mine. This isn’t the attitude of people interested in doing business, is it?”
Even though Culler looked like he was crude on the surface, it was obvious from the way he spoke that he wasn’t an idiot.
This made sense. How could the Sand Race Leader’s personal attendant be an idiot?
Zhu Xianyao maintained her composure. “The Blackrock Gold Mine isn’t our main goal. Pall should know this as well. As for why we’re always walking around in the castle…… well, we should give Sir Culler a straightforward explanation.”
“Please, I’d like to hear the details,” Culler said calmly as he carefully cut into the beef in front of him.
“Does Sir Culler remember that man who snuck into the castle nearly ten days ago?” Zhu Xianyao asked.
“Of course. He’s still locked up right now.”
“He was an assassin sent by my younger sister to kill me, and there might be more than one of them.”
“You mean……”
“Some strange things have been happening in Castle Garrison. If my guess isn’t wrong, my sister’s people have already arrived. We need to defend ourselves against this, so we have made a few arrangements throughout the castle,” Zhu Xianyao replied.
When Su Chen heard this, he nodded to himself. This truly was a very good excuse.
The best way to make a lie more believable was to link it up to events that had occurred and would occur in the future. Zhu Xianyao’s reply was obviously not off-the-cuff and had been prepared since a long time ago, allowing her to answer without growing flustered.
Indeed, Culler froze for a moment.
He had been suspicious about the Zhu Clan’s actions, but suspicion was only suspicion in the end. Now that Zhu Xianyao had given him a very reasonable answer, it was hard for him to hold onto it.
He thought for a moment, then asked, “If that’s the case, then why did Sir Zhu leave anyways?”
“The reason why snakes are so frightening is because they are always hidden in the darkness. We don’t want to always be on guard for assassination attempts even when we are sleeping, so the best way of doing this is to bait them onto a hook.”
“So that’s how it is. But isn’t that quite dangerous for you?”
“That’s why we needed to set up a few more defensive countermeasures within the castle as a precaution,” Zhu Xianyao countered without batting an eyelid.
Culler thought for a moment, then nodded. “As long as you aren’t going to tear the castle apart, I can agree to this. In actuality, if you sent over the ten million Origin Stones, my master would probably be willing to give this castle over to you.”
Zhu Xianyao smiled.
Of course I know that getting the castle isn’t an issue if I spend some money.
But the problem is that I don’t want to spend any!
Do you really think the Bloodline Nobility Clans can spend money as if it grows on a tree?
After breakfast, Culler left.
Zhu Xianyao also stood and said, “Tianyang, follow me for a bit.”
“Ok,” Su Chen “obediently” responded.
Zhu Xianyao walked in front, her hands behind her back. She didn’t say anything, and Su Chen followed behind her in silence.
It wasn’t until they arrived at the entrance to the castle that Zhu Xianyao finally stopped.
Zhu Xianyao watched the people working outside the castle from afar and said, “You should probably set up a few more Origin Formations in this castle later.”
“We’re really going to set up Origin Formations?” Su Chen was a bit surprised.
“Yes. Since we’ve told Culler as much, we need to follow through on this. And since Xianling’s subordinates are here already, they will attack sooner or later. Sixth Uncle has just left, making this a great opportunity for them to attack. There’s no way that they’ll let it go. Being prepared just in case is never a bad thing.”
Su Chen was amazed when he heard this.
The most common repercussion of a lie was that you would need to construct more lies to keep it upheld.
Zhu Xianling’s assassination attempts were a lie that had resulted from Su Chen and the others’ attempts to save He Xu. Now, however, Zhu Xianyao had taken it to heart, and it was even affecting her planned movements.
Perhaps Zhu Xianyao had been telling some parts of the truth, and that she was also hoping to use this opportunity to draw out an assassin.
The problem was, where were the assassins for her to draw out?
Su Chen cried piteously in his heart.
But no matter what, he could only nod and agree with Zhu Xianyao’s requests.
Well, now he had to go and probe You Tianyang to get a method to make defensive Origin Formations.
The You Clan’s secret Restrictive Origin Formations were basically going to be completely studied and learned by Su Chen at this rate.
“Alright, then I’ll go out and look for some more materials in a bit,” Su Chen said.
He glanced out at the front of the castle.
A carriage had been slowly advancing in their direction, but it had crashed into a person on the street and flipped upside down. The person pushing the carriage began to argue with the person he had hit.
A single glance was enough for Su Chen’s expression to change drastically. He yelled, “Careful!”
An arrow came flying in their direction.