Chapter 22: Oh, Little Zhu! You're really not up to the task!

Page 1 of 3

Beside the kitchen of the Qingyang Camp, a gigantic iron cauldron large enough for seven or eight people to bathe in at once was bubbling and steaming.

The rich aroma of meat, mingled with spices, forced its way into everyone’s nostrils, stirring the greedy worms in their bellies.

Fan Tong wielded an iron ladle larger than a man’s face, stirring the pot with one hand while occasionally stuffing a freshly cooked piece of meat into his mouth with the other. It was so hot that he kept sucking in his breath, yet his face was filled with bliss.

Zhu Di straightened the shabby-but-serviceable soldier’s uniform he wore, drew a deep breath, and walked toward the great cauldron.

The closer he came, the more aggressively the scent assaulted him. Even he, a prince who prided himself on having sampled every delicacy under heaven, could not help swallowing hard.

“Sir… Battalion Commander.” Zhu Di cupped his hands in imitation of an ordinary soldier.

Fan Tong did not even raise his eyelids. He remained wholly absorbed in the meat and answered indistinctly, “What is it?”

“I heard… you’re still recruiting?”

Only then did Fan Tong stop stirring. He lifted his head and looked Zhu Di up and down with greasy, gleaming eyes.

This youngster had a solid build and bright eyes. He certainly did not look like those new recruits who had been starved down to yellow-faced skeletons. He was just a little too handsome. Didn’t look like the sort who could endure hardship.

“Name?”

“Zhu Hu.” Zhu Di gave the assumed name he had prepared long ago.

“What can you do?”

“I know a little martial arts, and I’m fairly strong.” Zhu Di did his best to make his voice sound humble.

“Fine. You’re hired.” Fan Tong waved his enormous ladle and pointed toward the mountain of firewood and baskets of vegetables piled nearby. “There’s plenty of work. As long as you’re willing to work, there’ll be meat enough.”

Zhu Di’s heart leaped. He was just about to offer his thanks when eighteen extraordinarily burly figures came over from the drill ground.

At their head was Bao Nianfeng, the man who carried the enormous axe.

Every one of the eighteen stood half a head taller than an ordinary Ming soldier. Their muscles knotted across their bodies like slabs of granite. Even standing casually, they radiated a faint scent of blood. Their eyes were fierce, as though they had just crawled out of hell itself.

Were these the distinctive personal guards Fan Tong had mentioned in Marshal Xu’s secret memorial?

Zhu Di’s heart clenched.

He had seen the elite troops of the capital garrison and the ceremonial guards of his imperial father, but never soldiers so… savage and oppressive.

They scarcely looked human. They resembled ferocious beasts wrapped in human skin.

“Boss, is it time to eat yet? My axe is so hungry I can barely hold it!” Bao Nianfeng bellowed.

“Eat, eat, eat! That’s all you ever think about!” Fan Tong scolded him with a laugh, rapping the iron ladle against the rim of the cauldron. “Go. Show the new fellow the ropes, then butcher those sheep for me. We’re having an extra feast tonight!”

Bao Nianfeng’s eyes lit up at once. He split his great mouth in a grin, walked over to Zhu Di, and brought his fan-sized hand crashing down onto the younger man’s shoulder.

“Not bad, kid. You look lively enough! I’m Bao Nianfeng. Stick with me from now on, and you’ll have meat to eat!”

The blow nearly knocked Zhu Di off his feet. A tremendous force surged through him, leaving half his body numb.

He endured the discomfort and followed Bao Nianfeng into the camp of the Vanguard Battalion.

That was when his days of suffering began.

Fan Tong had said there would be meat enough, but to eat it, one had to trade one’s life for it.

Zhu Di had thought that, being a prince who had practiced martial arts since childhood, his physical strength far exceeded that of ordinary men. Surely military drills would pose no challenge.

He was wrong.

Page 2 of 3

Fan Tong’s “training method” followed no reason whatsoever.

Before dawn, Zhu Di was dragged from his hard wooden bunk and made to begin extreme physical conditioning with everyone else.

When the others ran with weights, he ran with weights too—but because Fan Tong believed his “strength was fairly decent,” his load was twice theirs.

When the others chopped wood, he had to carry the enormous cauldron, which weighed more than a stone mill.

When the others practiced sparring, he had to clean the armor of those “cannibals,” armor caked in blood and scraps of flesh.

Every day, Zhu Di felt every ounce of strength being wrung from his body. He was exhausted to the point of resembling a dead dog.

And then came the happiest—and most painful—moment of the day: mealtime.

Stewed meat from the great cauldron, whole roasted sheep dripping with fat, meat cakes mixed with grain… There was always enough.

Every time, Zhu Di was so hungry that he forgot all dignity. He fought like a madman alongside a horde of rough soldiers, eating until grease ran down his face and his belly swelled round. Then he would collapse onto his bed and fall instantly into a dead sleep.

The next day, it began all over again.

He felt that he had not joined the army at all. He had come to be fattened like a pig.

And he was the pig.

Half a month later, the Vanguard Battalion held a live-combat exercise.

Fan Tong stood at the edge of the field with his arms folded, a blade of grass between his teeth. In a lazy voice, he shouted, “Listen up, you bastards! On the battlefield, no one’s going to follow the rules for you! Whatever it takes to kill the other side, do it! Beat them to death! If you can’t kill them, that’s because you’re useless!”

Zhu Di’s opponent was another veteran who had only recently joined the unit, a man with a face full of coarse flesh.

The man clasped his fists and assumed a standard military fighting stance.

But the veteran on the other side had no intention of playing along. The instant Zhu Di raised his hands in salute, the man pounced like a starving tiger and struck at his lower body—a variation of the Black Tiger Steals the Heart technique known as “stealing peaches.”

Zhu Di was horrified. He twisted aside and barely dodged the attack, a surge of fury rising in his chest.

Shameless!

He stopped holding back. With a refined grappling technique, he subdued the veteran in only a few moves.

But before he could savor his victory, Bao Nianfeng, sparring nearby, simply dropped his enormous backside onto his opponent and knocked the man unconscious. Then he turned toward Zhu Di with a grin, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.

Elsewhere, two veteran cooks had fought themselves into a frenzy. They grappled and bit at each other—one clamped his teeth onto the other’s ear while the other jabbed a finger into his opponent’s nostril. The scene was both bloody and absurd.

Zhu Hu—Zhu Di—stood there in complete shock.

What was this supposed to be?

A sparring exercise? It was plainly a street brawl between thugs! No technique, no discipline, no martial virtue whatsoever!

As a warrior of royal birth trained by famous generals, he felt as though his entire worldview had been struck a heavy blow.

Several days later, Fan Tong led a squad outside the camp on patrol. Zhu Di was among them.

Just as expected, they encountered a small band of Yuan mounted scouts, perhaps a dozen men.

Zhu Di’s spirits rose. His chance had come!

He would show that fat man what true martial skill looked like!

He drew the long saber at his waist and charged forward like lightning. Blade light flashed, his movements were exquisite, and in an instant he had cut down two Yuan soldiers.

Yet before he had time to strike a heroic pose, the earth began to tremble behind him beneath a thunderous succession of footsteps.

Page 3 of 3

Fan Tong and his eighteen guards paid no attention to formation. They charged headlong like a herd of maddened wild oxen.

Boom!

One of the camp cooks used a special tower shield fitted with a battering ram and smashed a Yuan soldier, horse and all, through the air. By the time he landed, he had become a heap of mangled flesh.

Bao Nianfeng swung his enormous axe in great circles. It was a meat grinder: brush against it and you died; touch it and you perished.

Fan Tong was even more outrageous. He carried a massive bone-cleaving blade and hacked down one enemy after another as easily as slicing through melons and vegetables.

The battle began abruptly and ended even faster.

In no more than a few dozen breaths, the dozen or so elite Yuan scouts had been reduced to a field of shredded meat.

Zhu Di remained frozen in a handsome pose, one hand still extended from his strike, a smear of warm blood spattered across his face.

He felt like an idiot.

Fan Tong came over carrying two dripping human heads. He tossed them casually onto the ground, then gave Zhu Di a heavy slap on the shoulder and praised him, spittle flying:

“Zhu Hu! You’re not bad, kid! Good moves, plenty of strength—you’ve got the makings of a fine eater!”

Zhu Di’s face darkened instantly.

Alongside a secret flicker of pleasure at having been acknowledged, he felt a far greater helplessness that left him torn between laughter and tears.

The makings of a fine eater?

Was that how you judged Prince Yan Zhu Di?

That night, Zhu Di lay on the unyielding wooden boards, every muscle aching.

He stared at the top of the tent, his thoughts in utter disarray.

That fat man named Fan Tong was crude, shameless, devoid of martial discipline, and utterly without method.

And yet every soldier under his command was fearless of death, possessing a terrifying level of combat power.

His seemingly nonsensical training methods could actually transform a group of ordinary soldiers into killing machines in a very short time.

It made no sense.

It conformed to none of the military principles he had studied.

Could he have been wrong?

No. Impossible!

Zhu Di suddenly sat upright.

That fat man was certainly not as simple as he appeared. He had to be hiding some secret.

Brute courage might win one battle, perhaps even two, but it could never capture a fortified city like Qingyang. Nor could it possibly earn such high praise from Marshal Xu and the Emperor.

I must find out exactly how he does it!

A flame burned in Zhu Di’s eyes, fiercer than at any time before.

Half of it was the fire of competition. The other half was a curiosity that had sunk deep into his bones.