Chapter 49: Who Do You Think You Are?

Zhang Tianci felt that the outsider Chen Xuan was openly challenging the authority of the entire Prefect's Mansion!

"I told you to stop, are you deaf?"

Seeing that Chen Xuan ignored his command to halt and kept his sword pressed firmly against the chiliarch's neck, Zhang Tianci was consumed by fury.

However, Chen Xuan merely glanced at him with utter indifference, asking casually, "Who do you think you are?"

Boom!

As soon as these words fell, an uproar instantly erupted among the crowd!

"This, this, this..."

"What did this brat just say?"

"Is he out of his mind? That is none other than the Eldest Young Master of the Prefect, Young Master Zhang Tianci! In all of Mancheng, who dares not show him respect?"

"He actually dares to berate Young Master Zhang and ask who he thinks he is? He's completely out of his mind!"

Everyone was utterly shocked!

Across the entire city of Mancheng, aside from the Prefect himself, who would ever dare to speak to Zhang Tianci in such a manner?

Even Zhang Tianci was momentarily stunned.

Where on earth does this fellow get the audacity to ask who I am?

Could it be that he doesn't know my identity?

It must be that!

Realizing this, Zhang Tianci immediately darkened his face and sneered coldly, "Who do I think I am? I am Zhang Tianci, the son of the Prefect of Mancheng!"

"I am warning you, put down your sword immediately, or no one will be able to save you!"

By revealing his identity, he believed anyone with a shred of situational awareness would instantly become compliant, preferably even proactively admitting their mistake and apologizing!

After all, if one wished to survive in Mancheng, they had to dance to his tune.

However, Chen Xuan had known this fellow's identity all along.

Having attained the strength of the eighth-tier martial artist, his senses were exceptionally sharp and keen, allowing him to hear even the softest murmurs of conversation from dozens of meters away.

Naturally, the moment Zhang Tianci appeared, the chatter and gossip among the surrounding soldiers had been heard by him with absolute clarity.

Now, this fellow was declaring his own identity, but far from intimidating Chen Xuan, it only struck Chen Xuan as utterly comical.

"So what if the Prefect of Mancheng himself came? As the son of a mere prefect, what makes you think you are anything special? Are you even qualified to order me around?"

Mockery was plastered across Chen Xuan's face.

Zhang Tianci's face instantly turned a livid, purplish shade.

This was from pure rage, a stifled fury boiling in his chest.

He had originally expected that upon revealing his identity, Chen Xuan would at least show a modicum of respect, or better yet, cower in terror, kowtow, and beg for mercy.

To his absolute astonishment, not only did Chen Xuan show no respect at all, but he also hurled insults right back at him.

This made him lose face completely.

In all his years in Mancheng, he had never suffered such humiliation!

"Audacious scoundrel, you're courting death!"

Consumed by wrath, Zhang Tianci's ears turned crimson with anger, his fierce gaze sharpening as if he wanted to devour his target alive.

Nearby, Chen Qing quietly shook his head.

Although he had no idea how Chen Xuan had managed to defeat the chiliarch, it no longer mattered.

What mattered was that Chen Xuan had completely and utterly offended Zhang Tianci.

Even if Zhang Tianci were to slaughter Chen Xuan today, it would be nothing less than what Chen Xuan deserved.

Even if the head of the clan in the capital learned of this incident, they could never pin the blame on their branch family.

After all, Chen Xuan was the one who had provoked the local host; dying here meant dying in vain.

The clan leader would never dispatch people to wage war against the Mancheng Prefect over someone like Chen Xuan.

Thinking of this, Chen Qing could not help but smile inwardly.

Initially, he had merely wanted to give Chen Xuan a harsh warning to prevent him from entering the city, never anticipating that matters would spiral to such an uncontrollable extent.

Using Zhang Tianci to eliminate Chen Xuan could also be considered a brilliant tactic of borrowing a knife to kill someone.

"Zhang Tianci, is it? Kneel down right now, kowtow three loud times to your master here, and say three times 'Grandfather, I was wrong.' If you do that, I can spare this chiliarch's worthless life. Otherwise, with just the slightest twitch from me, this fellow's head will roll on the ground."

Chen Xuan looked at Zhang Tianci with a half-smile.

"Insolent!"

Zhang Tianci flew into a towering rage.

What status did he hold? In this city of Mancheng, he was practically the crown prince!

And yet Chen Xuan actually dared to demand that he kneel?

Utterly lawless!

"This guy is truly a lunatic! He actually dares to order Young Master Zhang to kneel."

"I'm telling you, he is a dead man for sure. Not even the King of Heaven could save him now. Have you ever seen Young Master Zhang this furious? The last time the bandits raided the city walls and looted countless grains and women, Young Master Zhang didn't even get this angry."

All around, the spectators began to buzz with heated discussions.

At this very moment, they all shared a single consensus: Chen Xuan was courting his own demise.

"Chief Leader, isn't Lord Chen being a bit too fierce?"

"Yeah, Lord Chen usually looks so scholarly and refined, who would have thought he'd be this savage? This Zhang Tianci is the local tyrant of Mancheng. They always say a mighty dragon shouldn't try to crush a local serpent—you've got to give people some face. For Lord Chen to slap him across the face like this and leave him with no way out, he's just escalating things beyond repair."

"What on earth are we going to do next?"

The group of bandits all began to grow deeply anxious.

After all, this was the other party's territory; if a real fight broke out, they would be at a massive disadvantage.

"What do we do? How the hell should I know what to do?!"

Liu Jinyu was pulling his hair out in frustration, feeling like his head was about to split in two.

Rack his brains as he might, he could not fathom why Chen Xuan insisted on locking horns with Zhang Tianci.

Wasn't teaching the chiliarch a lesson enough?

The more he thought about it, the more depressed he became, utterly incapable of guessing what was going on in Chen Xuan's mind.

He suddenly realized that following Chen Xuan was like walking a tightrope, dancing on the edge of a blade at every moment.

Because he had no inkling of what was churning inside Chen Xuan's head—sometimes Chen Xuan seemed as cool and collected as a sage, yet right now, he struck Liu Jinyu as an absolute, unadulterated madman!

On the other hand, the expressions of Li Xiuning and the other women as they gazed at Chen Xuan gradually grew clear and affectionate.

Through their time together, they increasingly felt that Chen Xuan was a man they could truly rely upon.

First of all, Chen Xuan was not a man of loose morals.

Originally, when he had taken all the women under his wing in one sweep, Li Xiuning and the others had mistakenly assumed he was a depraved libertine.

Yet throughout the entire journey, Xu Ruolan had repeatedly tried to seduce him with her charms, even suggesting intimate trances out in the wilderness, but Chen Xuan had rejected her every single time.

At first, everyone assumed Chen Xuan simply looked down on Xu Ruolan because she was no longer a maiden and thus refused to touch her.

Only later did they discover that wasn't the case at all; Chen Xuan had no obsession with virginity. He refrained from touching Xu Ruolan purely because he felt the two of them lacked that emotional connection.

How could physical pleasure ever compare to the blending of souls?

Furthermore, it wasn't just Xu Ruolan that Chen Xuan refused to touch—he touched none of the others either. At the same time, he had promised more than once that upon reaching Mancheng, anyone who wished not to stay by his side was free to leave.

Upon leaving, Chen Xuan would even provide them with traveling expenses for the road.

A man like this was practically impossible to find even with a lantern in hand.

And now, right here in Mancheng, simply because a centurion had made a few teasing remarks toward their group of women, Chen Xuan had brazenly charged forward to vent his wrath for the sake of beauties, mercilessly choking the centurion to death without regard for the consequences!