Chapter 117: Governor's House
After dropping her skirt onto his box, Yolande jumped into the barrel and now, Zen could only see her lean shoulders and back.
As his eyes fell on her slender back, he was very astonished.
It was totally different from what he had imagined. The skin on her back wasn't smooth at all. Instead, it was covered with numerous scars.
These scars, like earthworms clambering on her back, seemed to have been left by various objects including whips and swords.
Based on Yolande's power and position, it would have been a piece of cake for her to remove them all. For example, it would be very easy for her to use the Skin Nursing Pill warmly welcomed by the women of Imperial Capital to heal her skin.
For the common people, the Pill wasn't so affordable. But for Yolande, it would have been easy to buy one.
'Does she want to keep these scars?' Zen mused in his heart, 'What has happened to this maiden and made her so nonchalant about herself?'
As Zen was pondering over this, Yolande suddenly stood up with a splashing sound and looked around. It didn't take her long to realize that Zen was peeping at her. Frowning, she waved her lily-white hands and her long, colorful dress draped itself over the entire box.
Now the box was completely wrapped and Zen couldn't see a thing.
He heard the ruffle of her putting on her clothes, and when the box was uncovered, he saw that Yolande was already dressed.
Now, she was in a loose white garment with four slender fingers unfolded by each of the long sleeves, which showed her slim body and made her look particularly cute.
But seeing her cold face, Zen instantly realized that she wasn't cute at all.
“Bang Bang Bang!”
She dragged Zen out of the bathroom.
From what he had gathered, Yolande seemed to have no interest in anything, except for martial arts.
As they entered her room, Yolande threw Zen-in-a-box into a corner and seemingly forgot about him. She sat on a cushion, closed her eyes, and began to meditate.
Zen was totally at a loss. If Yolande had really made up her mind to free him only after the Military Office reopened, he was going to be in great trouble, which was why he had to try his best to run away.
Having thought it over and over again, Zen shouted at Yolande suddenly, “Hey!”
Zen's “Hey” was very loud in the quiet room.
But Yolande sat still without any response.
“Hey!” Zen shouted again.
But Yolande seemed just like an old monk who was completely devoted to his meditation. She seemed to have closed all her senses and wasn't hearing anything from the outside world. She merely sat still, meditating, or practicing her martial arts.
“I will run away if you ignore me!” Zen nerved himself and threatened.
Seeing that Yolande didn't respond, Zen said again and then dragged himself towards the door.
As Zen passed by Yolande, he saw that her eyes were still closed, but her nostrils did spread slightly, maybe or maybe not in reaction to Zen's behavior. Zen chuckled to himself, 'Does she really plan to let me go?' Yolande was an eccentric girl, ruled only by rules and herself. So if something strange did happen while he was with her, Zen wouldn't be surprised.
He became braver and sped up towards the door.
As Zen thought that he was about to succeed in his escape, an invisible force raised the box he was in, up into the air and then put him into the same corner of the room silently.
Yolande's eyes were closed all the time as if Zen's return had had nothing to do with her.
Looking at her cold face, a heavy rage came over Zen, 'The woman... must be pretending! Her heart must be beating with joy!'
After struggling for a long while, Zen finally gave up on the thought of running away. Although it was nighttime now, several huge pearls inset around the house had lit up the whole room.
Zen took out a book and read it with gusto.
After reading for a while, Zen felt a sense of numbness spreading over him. A streak of weariness struck him, and he fell asleep gradually.
“Dang Dang Dang Dang Dang!”
His sound sleep was suddenly interrupted by the loud alarm bells.
The enemy was coming!
Zed woke up in a shock. He knew clearly what these alarms meant.
It was now that Yolande finally opened her eyes. Wearing a pair of wooden shoes, she walked towards the window and looked outside.
Guessing that Yolande had to leave now, Zen felt happy secretly. He was thinking that Yolande wouldn't take him with her to the battlefield.
And Yolande did leave for the battlefield. Only she did not leave Zen behind but dragged the box with her.
'Dang! She must be crazy....' Zen cursed in his heart.
However, he had no choice but to be dragged along in the box, and finally, they reached a huge building.
It was the Governor's House of the imperial army, also known to be the most magnificent building in White Emperor City.
Zen rolled over in the box on the wide road leading to the Governor's House and was finally rolled into a big hall.
A large table was sitting lazily inside, and several people were sitting there.
They were the top generals of the imperial army, and all of them looked overwhelming. In Zen's eyes, they were unfathomable.
'They are all at the level of Illuminating Soul Realm?' Zen guessed.
As the top generals of the most powerful army in the empire, they were indeed much more powerful than anyone could imagine.
People, at the level of Illuminating Soul Realm, were powerful but rare standouts anywhere, but right now, in that very hall, there were 10 such standouts sitting at a table.
Among them, Zen saw the general Hugh Xu whom he had defeated the very same day.
Noticing Zen in the small box, Hugh glared at him.
Even though he was a master of Illuminating Soul Realm, he had been almost killed by Zen, a young guy of half-step into the nature level, which had made him lose his face.
Fortunately, no one knew about his defeat except for a small number of soldiers from the imperial army and Cloud Sect disciples as well as Lennie and Yolande.
Hugh had ordered all the soldiers who witnessed his defeat not to spread the news, or he would kill them mercilessly.
In Hugh's eyes, he was almost killed by Zen just because he had made a stupid mistake, and if they ever competed again, he wasn't about to let Zen find another chance to defeat him.
However, the competition was always like this. Even though personal strength was one of the most important determinants in a battle, many victories mainly came from the mistakes made by the counterparts.
Seeing the fury from Hugh's eyes, Zen looked away on purpose and peered at the other standouts of White Emperor City.
There were four standouts who awed Zen and made him feel threatened, and they were Yolande, Lennie, an old man with a cunning face and a middle-aged man sitting in the center at the table.
The middle-aged man with a full forehead was stout and looked affable, but his overwhelming might could be seen from his every move. What was more, there was something about him that screamed of his power automatically.
'He is sitting at the center, so he must be the chief commander of White Emperor City.'
Zen's guess was right. He was the chief commander of the millions of soldiers in the imperial army, and his name was Spencer Xing.
People from Burning Sky Empire had widely appraised Spencer Xing. Even though Zen had heard a lot about Spencer, he had never met him face to face. So when he saw him for the first time, Zen couldn't recognize him.
As Yolande dragged Zen into the hall, all the standouts looked at Zen with amazement.
Knowing what had happened, Lennie smiled. He knew that Zen was bound to suffer a lot after being caught by Yolande, the Killer Girl, because he himself would have endured great hardship if he had been put into a small box and had to squat for so long like Zen.
“Yolande, What's wrong with that man?” Spencer asked in surprise. He noticed that the man was in a white robe and looked like an outer disciple of Cloud Sect.
Though Yolande did something strange occasionally, it was unacceptable for her to take a guy at half-step into the nature level to such an important military conference.
“He is a criminal and he has committed a serious crime. I will send him to the Military Office after the Military Office reopens,” Yolande replied with a cold face, walking towards her seat.
“A criminal? What has he done?” Hearing what Yolande said, Spencer was now more interested in Zen and asked.
However, at that moment, Hugh got extremely worried.
Because it would be a crying shame for him if everyone heard the news that he, a standout of Illuminating Soul Realm, was almost killed by Zen, a young man only half-step into the nature level. He tried hard to wink at Yolande, asking her to keep the secret.
But Yolande was an honest person and she couldn't understand what Hugh meant at all. Instead, she asked Hugh, “Hugh, why are you winking at me?”
All the other standouts were amazed, and began to link Zen with Hugh.
Lennie knew what Hugh intended to do, but he couldn't help anyone right now. He also knew that even if he had helped, the situation couldn't be changed because there was no one, not even Spencer, could stop Yolande from saying or doing anything. Seeing Hugh's worried face, Lennie couldn't help chuckling to himself, but he had to stifle his laugh even though he was laughing so much that it hurt his stomach.
“No, nothing...” Hugh waved his hand and replied. He scolded himself for being so stupid, because he had known Yolande was very ignorant, so how could she get his meaning?
Yolande stared at Hugh with confusion and said “Okay”, and then she told Spencer, “This guy killed Josef today and almost killed Hugh as well.”
“What?”
Hearing Yolande's words, all of them were astonished.