LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 56 - Bounty
Since Lucy Xi entered the Water Blue Star Forest, the live stream cameras have almost exclusively shown her searching for special plants.
No one is foolish. Even though information about Lucy Xi is tightly controlled, ordinary viewers in the live stream, who haven’t received any relevant information, can tell from her daily search for plants that these plants must have some special significance.
Thus, even though Lucy Xi doesn’t focus on mutant beasts like other adventurers, and her live stream content isn’t particularly thrilling, her audience continues to grow day by day.
Everyone hopes to remember the plants she discovers so that when they have a chance to visit Water Blue Star in the future, they can search for them as well, possibly striking it rich.
If ordinary people can think this way, it goes without saying that the top ten families of the Blue-Black Empire and some top elites who know more details are even more interested.
Not only have they copied the videos of the plants discovered by Mai Dongzi, but they have also thoroughly studied each of the plants she has unearthed.
Ginseng was the first to be identified because, in ancient Water Blue Star times, ginseng was considered an extremely valuable medicinal plant.
Lingzhi was the second to be confirmed, and it is also a precious medicinal plant.
As the acting governor of Water Blue Star, Vice Officer Chen has been inundated with requests to participate in the development of Water Blue Star since Lucy Xi discovered the energy plants, especially after the Apothecary Guild started producing energy potions.
Vice Admiral Chen is immensely relieved that he is not the actual ruler of Water Blue Star. For these tricky applications, he has been passing them off to Prince Arthur, claiming he has no authority to make decisions.
After Prince Arthur emerged from seclusion and reviewed the flood of applications, he consulted with King Gujia and issued an official statement announcing a delay in the development schedule of Water Blue Star due to certain reasons.
Vice Admiral Chen initially thought that Prince Arthur’s statement would temporarily calm down the activists.
However, it unexpectedly intensified their unrest.
It turned out that after Prince Arthur entered politics in recent years, his methodical approach to everything he did and his reputation for keeping his promises had deeply impressed everyone.
Regarding the development of Water Blue Star, under Prince Arthur’s authorization, the major families had already agreed on the general framework. At this point, Prince Arthur’s change of plans could only mean one thing:
Lucy Xi’s discovery of energy plants on Water Blue Star was a fact.
Thus, they needed to seize the opportunity.
Vice Admiral Chen was astonished.
Prince Arthur, however, remained indifferent. After issuing the statement and providing a new timeline, he no longer discussed the matter with the others.
Mai Dongzi, who was still digging in the Water Blue Star forest, was unaware that, fortunately, King Gujia and Prince Arthur largely shared the same political views, and their father-son relationship was strong. No one could use King Gujia to pressure Prince Arthur.
Otherwise, the discovery of energy plants on Water Blue Star would certainly have triggered a storm, and she would have been unable to escape its vortex.
Given the turmoil in the upper echelons of the Imperial Capital Star due to the energy plants on Water Blue Star, Vice Admiral Chen thought Prince Arthur would stay longer on Water Blue Star.
However, after some consideration, Prince Arthur decided to follow King Gujia’s wishes and return to the Imperial Capital Star.
Vice Admiral Chen, unfortunately, was assigned to stay on Water Blue Star in place of Prince Arthur to handle the energy plants.
Upon hearing Prince Arthur’s decision, Vice Admiral Chen felt a bit anxious and quickly said, “Your Highness, I’ve received information that Zhao Fanni has been in contact with people from the dark world and has attempted to have Lucy assassinated. Our people were unable to stop it in time, and the assassination task has already been accepted by someone.”
Prince Arthur frowned, “How could you be so slow to react to something so important?”
Vice Admiral Chen, somewhat annoyed, replied, “Zhao Fanni didn’t take direct action herself but instead chose a desperado to act on her behalf, which is why we were slow to react. The person who was hired to assassinate Lucy has already committed suicide after the task was accepted. Without his credentials and password to access the dark market, we cannot cancel the assassination mission.”
Prince Arthur, however, was not as upset as Vice Admiral Chen. He thought for a moment and said, “Contact Master Luya and have him complete the customized mech for Lucy as soon as possible. Until she receives the mech, Water Blue Star is not to accept any outsiders. Also, keep a close watch on those ninety-odd adventurers. If there’s any suspicious activity, detain and investigate them immediately.”
“Understood,” Vice Admiral Chen responded.
They were quite experienced with assassinations. After all, Prince Arthur had long been one of the “Top Ten Major Donors” on the black market assassination list, with bounties on his head reaching billions.
Not to mention past years, just halfway through this year alone, Prince Arthur had already survived two assassination attempts.
However, with Prince Arthur now being an eighth-level warrior, Vice Admiral Chen believed that the assassins would be less active.
With a ten million bounty on Lucy, managing to hire a level-six cultivator would already be impressive. One of the two dark guards around Lucy is a level-seven warrior.
Vice Admiral Chen was not angry because of concern for Lucy but rather because he had personally indicated to the Xi family that Lucy was under his and Prince Arthur’s protection. It infuriated him that Zhao Fanni dared to challenge their authority.
Since the incident of the true and false daughters, Vice Admiral Chen felt his worldview had been shattered.
Zhao Fanni, from a prestigious family and the Xi family’s matriarch, had a good reputation and skills among the top ten families before the True and False Daughters incident.
However, in the matter concerning Lucy, she appeared exceptionally foolish and malicious.
Did she think they had no evidence and could do nothing about her?
Did she not consider what foolish things she had done to Lucy and her father, as well as Lucy’s mother’s disappearance?
In the past, Vice Admiral Chen had not paid much attention to these matters, even though he had some clues, he did not push for further investigation.
He had planned to give the clues he had gathered to Lucy once she grew up, leaving it to her to decide what to do.
But this foolish woman, by challenging their authority and harming those they wanted to protect, made Vice Admiral Chen decide to send people to investigate thoroughly.
“Tell her about the assassination bounty on her,” Prince Arthur said.
“Won’t that scare her?” Vice Admiral Chen was surprised and did not understand why Prince Arthur made this decision.
“How could it possibly?” Prince Arthur slightly pursed his lips.
Vice Admiral Chen looked at Prince Arthur in bewilderment. He had previously felt that Prince Arthur seemed to understand Lucy very well, but he thought it was just his illusion. After all, he knew that before the true and false daughters incident was revealed, Prince Arthur did not know Lucy.