Chapter 41: The Grace of Encountering One Who Knows Your Worth

With brains and skill, the same can be achieved!

Zhang San, no—"Nimblesingers," felt his eye sockets instantly turn red.

An orphan since childhood, with neither father nor mother, he had survived by petty theft and fixing small gadgets. He had been looked down upon, despised, and reviled all his life.

In his wildest dreams, he never imagined that these hands, which had only ever dabbled in scrap metal, would one day bring him such immense glory!

"Thud!"

His knees went weak, and he dropped heavily to the ground, bowing deeply and kowtowing loudly to Xiao Zhan!

"Thank you, My Lord, for your discerning eye and for bestowing this opportunity! Subordinate... no! Your subordinate 'Nimblesingers' is willing to die for you, My Lord!"

His voice was laced with tears, yet filled with an unprecedented determination!

At that very moment, the stick of incense finally burned down to its end.

The spark went out.

"Time's up!" Zhao Tieniu's icy voice, like the sentence of the Grim Reaper, shattered the illusions of everyone who was still harboring false hopes.

Wails of despair echoed across the training grounds.

Except for "Nimblesingers" and a tiny handful of others who had barely managed to finish, over twenty-nine hundred men had completely failed.

Before each of them lay either a pile of scattered components or a half-finished assembly stuck midway.

Every single face turned deathly pale.

The latrines...
With their bare hands...

That hellish scene flashed through everyone's minds.

"You have all disappointed me."

Xiao Zhan slowly turned around, his gaze sweeping over those faces twisted in fear and despair.

His eyes finally landed on Wang Ba and the snapped locking pin lying before him.

"Especially you, Wang Ba."

Xiao Zhan's voice was as cold as ice.

Wang Ba's body shuddered violently.

"My first lesson to you was obedience. The second was killing. And now, the third lesson."

Xiao Zhan said slowly, "Use your brains!"

"The 'Ghost's Tooth' is a weapon of the gods. It is precise, it is powerful, but it is also fragile! It demands skill and wisdom, not your brute, useless strength!"

"Having muscle without a brain makes you a dumb pig! And dumb pigs belong in a pigsty!"

Pointing straight at Wang Ba, Xiao Zhan raised his voice sharply: "You! Right now, go and clean every single latrine in the entire camp! With your bare hands!"

Wang Ba's mind went blank, ringing with a loud hum.

He, the mighty vanguard general of the capital garrison, a former head of military ruffians, was actually going to... shovel nightsoil?

In front of more than three thousand men?

"What? You refuse to submit?" A murderous glint flashed in Xiao Zhan's eyes.

"N-No... I wouldn't dare..." Wang Ba's lips trembled as his last shred of dignity was utterly pulverized.

"Drag him away!" Xiao Zhan waved his hand.

Two household guards immediately stepped forward, hoisted up the soul-drained Wang Ba, and dragged him away toward the latrines just like dragging a dead dog.

That receding figure was indescribably desolate.

Watching this scene, all the soldiers held their breath in absolute terror.

Even Wang Ba had ended up in such a state, what about them...

"As for the rest of you..." Xiao Zhan's gaze swept once more across the remaining two thousand-odd failures.

Everyone shuddered uncontrollably, closing their eyes as they awaited their ultimate judgment.

However, the anticipated command did not come.

"Your punishment is to familiarize yourselves with every single one of these components!"

Xiao Zhan pointed at the firearm parts scattered on the ground, speaking coldly.

"From this moment on, no food and no sleep!"

"Take them apart, put them together, take them apart again!"

"The moment you can complete ten full assemblies and disassemblies within the span of a single stick of incense is the moment your punishment ends!"

"For those who cannot finish..." A cruel curve formed at the corner of Xiao Zhan's mouth, "You will keep taking them apart until your hands become like those of 'Nimblesingers,' or until you die right here!"

Death!
Or die right here!

Xiao Zhan's words fell like a final boulder, completely crushing the psychological defenses of every soldier.

This was an order, yet also a curse.

There was no way out!

On the training ground, those twenty-nine hundred failures, like prisoners thrown into a meat grinder, embarked on a new round of endless torment.

"Click! Click! Click!"
Disassembly.

"Clatter... Smash!"
Parts falling.

"Damn it! Wrong again!"

"Clack-clack! Clack-clack..."
Assembly.

"No! This part is wrong! Why won't it fit?"

Soldier after soldier plunged into madness.

Their eyes were bloodshot, and their hands were sliced with countless fine cuts along the sharp metal edges due to repetitive, erroneous movements.

Fresh blood mixed with sweat, dripping onto the cold metal parts.

Time lost all meaning in that moment.

The sun slowly slid from its zenith toward the western hills.

Hunger, exhaustion, and despair gnawed viciously at their willpower like three venomous serpents.

***

Meanwhile.

The capital garrison's latrine was the filthiest, most nauseating place in the entire encampment.

The excrement of thousands of soldiers had accumulated here day after day, fermenting into a terrifying stench capable of making even flies detour.

Wang Ba stood at the entrance of this earthly purgatory.

Behind him stood two expressionless household guards, acting like door gods and blocking off any possibility of retreat.

Before him were dozens of bottomless pits filled with churning, indescribable yellowish-brown sludge.

Wang Ba's stomach churned violently.

He wanted to vomit.

Yet whatever he had eaten yesterday had already been thrown up completely during the morning's extreme training.

Now, he could only dry heave.

An ultimate, humiliating disgrace!

He, Wang Ba, had run rampant through the capital garrison for all these years; when had he ever suffered such a grievance?!

Make him kill? Fine!
Make him risk his life? Fine!

But now, this madman surnamed Xiao was actually making him do *this*?!

With his bare hands!
To clean up this filth!

A raging fire of fury surged from the bottom of his heart straight to the top of his head!

He wanted to rebel! He wanted to roar! He wanted to charge back and fight that madman to the death!

Yet—

In his mind, Xiao Zhan's icy eyes, devoid of any human emotion, involuntarily flashed before him.

He pictured that silver "Thunderbolt Cannon" capable of easily blasting a man's head to pieces.

He pictured Liu Monkey's pool of chilling blood.

That towering fury was instantly doused from head to toe as if a basin of ice water had been poured over it.

He did not dare.
He truly did not dare.

That man was not joking.

If he dared utter a single word of refusal, the next second, his head would explode like a rotten watermelon at the entrance of the latrine.

Humiliation or death.

He had only one choice to make.

Wang Ba's body shook violently.

His fingernails dug deeply into the flesh of his tightly clenched fists, though he felt no pain at all.

Finally, he loosened his fists.

He submitted to his fate.

He stripped off his upper garments, revealing his scarred yet iron-hard muscles.

He bent down and stepped into that hell on earth.

"Retch—"

The stench, thick enough to be tangible, made him violently dry heave all over again.