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Chapter 667 The Sufferer
Hearing the bearded man's question, Zhu Yu breathed a sigh of relief.

Although the other party hasn't actually revealed the truth yet, their previous statement undoubtedly confirmed their earlier suspicions, bringing them one step closer to achieving their goal.

"I am a victim who has also been harmed by the person who is currently poisoning your Landi, causing my family to be destroyed and my life to be lost." Lu Qing answered the bearded man's question, but his words were somewhat ambiguous. "I have the advantages that you don't have."

I need someone to support me and take control of the situation after everything settles down, and you happen to be hiding the eldest grandson of the Prince of Lan.

We can both help each other achieve our most pressing wishes, and thus we can become allies.

"What victim whose family was destroyed by the other party? You won't even tell me your name, so how am I supposed to know if you're telling the truth?" the bearded man asked.

Lu Qing smiled and said, "I know you won't trust me easily, and I didn't trust you from the very beginning either."

I know that you were all guards from the Lan Prince's Mansion who protected the eldest grandson of the Lan Prince when he fled, and I also know that you were hiding in the mountains around here.

"I don't mean to look down on you, but if we were truly looking out for you, we would have wiped out your entire stronghold by now."

Although Lu Qing spoke calmly, his words carried a very arrogant meaning. The men's faces turned ugly upon hearing this. They wanted to retaliate, but seeing their current predicament, they swallowed back the harsh words that were on the tip of their tongues.

They fell for the same trick twice, with different names but the same tactics. If the other side really intended to follow the trail, the brother who successfully "escaped" the night before to report the news probably wouldn't have brought them to their doorstep, but would have led them directly to the main camp.

So, it seems there's nothing wrong with what the other person said.

"The reason for using this method is not to deliberately make fun of you or to make you laugh."

More than a decade has passed since the disappearance of the eldest grandson of the Prince of Lan. This period is neither long nor short. If people's hearts have changed, they would probably have abandoned their original intentions long ago, and things would have changed beyond recognition.

We'll give it a try, since we can see that all of you heroes are loyal and righteous. That's why we'd like to ask you to summon the grandson of the Prince of Lan to meet us.

What we need to do next is also a desperate gamble for us, so we will naturally tell you our true identities after we meet the real grandson of the Lan King.

Before that, I'm afraid I'm unwilling to take any risks.

"This matter is of great importance, so I won't rush you to speak immediately. Think carefully and consider whether I really have the need to go to such lengths to scheme against you just to lure out the grandson of the Prince of Lan and murder him."

"Since you say you know where our village is, why don't you just come to our door and explain your purpose?" A slightly younger man next to the bearded man thought of something suspicious and immediately questioned him.

Lu Qing was neither surprised nor troubled by this question. He nodded to the man and said, "We can indeed go directly to your door, but how can you guarantee that you will calmly give us an opportunity to openly explain our intentions?"

For the past ten years or so, you have been entrenched here, hiding yourselves, yet you are always very alert to any disturbances around you.

This time, we didn't choose to head straight for your village. Instead, we moved around the surrounding area, and your people followed us the whole way, as if we were people with ill intentions. If, as you say, we had a clear purpose and went straight for your hideout, there would probably be casualties on both sides before we even opened our mouths.

Once casualties have occurred, it will be impossible to sit down calmly and discuss how to join forces.

I did this for two reasons: first, to test your loyalty to the eldest grandson of the Prince of Lan; and second, to avoid any damage to either side, prematurely breaking the harmony, and destroying the possibility of an alliance.

These are all simply choosing the lesser of two evils.

After he said that, those few people who had initially disagreed all shut their mouths.

Lu Qing was absolutely right. If they really went straight to the village, they would probably have intercepted them all the way. If they weren't forced into this situation, they probably wouldn't have listened to Lu Qing's words. A fight would have been inevitable.

Lu Qing looked at them and could easily guess their thoughts from their expressions. After a while, he said, "You can think it over and discuss it. Whether you choose to believe me or not, it doesn't matter."

Trust me, accept my suggestion, and choose one person to go back and report to the Prince of Lan, requesting that he come and meet me.

"If you don't believe me, that's fine too. Then you'll just have to make a few of you stay here. No matter how many groups your people come in, we have ways to keep them here and force that grandson of the Prince of Lan to come out."

"You!" The man next to the bearded man, who was clearly short-tempered, was immediately enraged upon hearing this. "Who do you think you are?! How dare you keep telling our master to come see you!"

"Shut up!" Before Lu Qing could speak, the bearded man shouted. He had already figured things out by now, following Lu Qing's train of thought.

Lu Qing's invitation to meet the eldest grandson of the Prince of Lan might seem arrogant and disrespectful at first glance, but in reality, sending Lu Qing to their village would be a dangerous way to expose their own stronghold to others.

"There are only four of us." Zhu Yu had been listening for a while and was getting impatient with the group's hesitation and dawdling. He said, "You must have more than just this many brothers in the village, right?"
If so many people are protecting one person, yet they don't dare to come and meet us, then in my opinion, whether we meet or not doesn't really matter.

What use would it be to hand over the entire Lan region to someone so lacking in decisiveness? They would still end up as fish on someone else's chopping block.

These words were unpleasant, impolite, and even carried a hint of impatience, yet they silenced the dozen or so people present.

For more than a decade, they have worked hard to protect and teach their young master, and they believe that their young master has grown up well under their guidance and protection.

But everything else is fine, it is precisely because this protection is so good that the young master has never faced any choices or storms.

From their hearts, they naturally hoped that their young master would make great strides in the future and tidy up this chaotic Lan Land.

But whether the young master truly possesses such courage is something that even the two people in front of them, let alone those who doubt him, are themselves unsure.