Chapter 54: Dead Silence

Tears of humiliation, mixed with the smell of meaty stench and dust, flooded into his mouth.

With the first came the second, and the third!

The entire mess hall fell into a dead silence.

There were only the suppressed, beast-like whimpers of the losers, and the hair-raising, swishing sound of tongues scraping against bones.

The smiles on the faces of the victors gradually froze.

They looked at this hellish scene before their eyes.

They watched those former comrades crawling on the ground like dogs, licking up the leftovers they had discarded.

A chill shot straight from their tailbones to their crowns!

They felt not a shred of pleasure.

Only fear—deep into the marrow of their bones!

They were afraid that if they were to lose the next confrontation...

Then the ones crawling on the ground would be them!

Wu Neng and his nine brothers sat at the very top.

The roast chicken in front of them was virtually untouched.

He only watched coldly.

Watching those losers fight tooth and nail over a single bone, bloodying their heads.

There was no expression whatsoever on his face.

On the drill platform, Qin Cang's complexion had turned as pale as paper.

"Monsters... Is... is this what you call training soldiers?"

"No."

Xiao Zhan picked up his teacup and gently blew away the steam.

"It is gu venom."

"Only the most toxic, the hungariest, and the least fear-of-death gu worms can survive inside the jar."

The night grew deep.

The "feast" in the mess hall finally came to an end.

The losers, like walking corpses with vacant eyes, were driven out of the mess hall by the personal guards.

The victors were permitted to return to their barracks to rest.

Yet, not a single person could sleep.

Lying on beds that were comparatively clean, their minds were filled entirely with that hellish scene from moments before.

In their ears, the swishing sound of bones being licked and the suppressed, despairing whimpers seemed to echo still.

The pleasure brought by wine and meat had long since vanished without a trace.

Replaced by a lingering terror.

An extreme dread of losing the next time!

And the nightmare for the losers had only just begun.

Under guard, they were marched across the pitch-black martial arts training ground toward the farthest corner of the camp.

A place that everyone avoided.

The latrine.

Even from afar, an indescribable, intensely nauseating stench assaulted their senses!

That was an odor formed from the mixing of countless people's excrement fermented over long years, a foulness capable of piercing the soul!

Several losers instantly bent over and vomited the meager sour liquid in their stomachs completely clean.

"Go in."

Wang Ba's voice sounded as though it came from the netherworld.

The wooden door of the latrine was kicked open.

The sight inside filled every loser with despair.

Narrow, filthy, damp.

On the floor and in the pits, yellowish-white waste overflowed everywhere.

Countless flies, drawn by the stench even in the dead of night, buzzed loudly in the air.

"Tonight, you will sleep right here."

Wang Ba pointed cruelly at the ground, which offered virtually no space to set a foot.

"Whoever dares to step outside by even a single step, I will break his legs and throw him into the cesspool."

"No... Please, no..."

A young soldier finally broke down.

He fell to his knees, tears and mucus streaming down his face, and kowtowed frantically toward Wang Ba.

"Instructor, I was wrong! I was truly wrong! I beg you, let me sleep outside, sleeping on the bare ground is fine! I don't want to sleep in here! This is no place for a human being!"

"Bang!"

Wang Ba did not speak.

He merely raised his foot and kicked the soldier fiercely in the face!

The soldier let out a miserable scream, flying backward to crash headfirst into the filthy ground, splashing disgusting foul water in all directions.

He struggled to climb up, but the sticky filth clogged his nose and mouth, allowing only muffled, whimpering sounds to escape.

The remaining fourteen hundred-odd men felt a bone-chilling terror grip their entire bodies!

Not a single person dared to utter another word.

They accepted their fate.

Silently, one after another, they walked into this earthly hell.

Finding relatively "clean" patches of ground, they curled up and huddled together.

The icy ground, contaminated with urine, eroded their bodies.

The stench permeated everywhere, drilling into their lungs and their minds, as if attempting to dye their very souls the same shade.

These were battle-hardened veterans who had killed men on the battlefield.

They were not afraid of death.

Yet, at this moment, they felt that death might perhaps be a form of release.

This torment of living, far more agonizing than death itself, was grinding away bit by bit at their dignity, their character, and everything that made them human!

On the drill platform, only two figures remained.

Zhang Wei's body was trembling uncontrollably.

"Brother Qin... Tell me, what on earth is... what on earth is the commander trying to do?"

"Is he not afraid of driving these soldiers to mutiny?!"

Qin Cang did not answer.

He merely stared at the faint light from the latrine in the distance, listening to the indistinct whistling of the wind, his body equally ice-cold.

Drive them to mutiny?

Qin Cang gave a bitter laugh inwardly.

How could that be possible.

The commander had long since severed all their paths of retreat with a single massacre.

Right now, he was not driving them.

He was "forging" them.

Using the ultimate humiliation and the ultimate agony to forge away everything superfluous in their hearts!

For instance, shame.

For instance, dignity.

For instance, so-called "brotherly affection."

When a person's heart harbored only a yearning for victory and a terror of defeat...

That person was no longer human.

They became the most flawless weapon!

"He... he is turning a group of men into a pack of wolves," Qin Cang said in a voice hoarse beyond measure. "No, something far more terrifying than wolves."

"Wolves only kill when they are hungry."

"And they..."

Qin Cang did not dare to continue.

He was afraid he would lose his mind.

At that moment, a figure slowly emerged from the darkness.

It was Xiao Zhan.

He walked up to the door of the latrine.

Sensing that familiar aura, the soldiers inside held their breath in terror, their curled bodies freezing rigid.

Xiao Zhan did not go inside.

He merely stood at the doorway, looking at those faces in the darkness brimming with despair and numbness.

He smiled.

In a soft, gentle tone, he said:

"Enjoy yourselves."

"Tomorrow, there are even more fun games waiting for you."

With that, he turned around, his hands clasped behind his back, and leisurely walked back into the darkness.

As though he had merely come to inspect his own pigsty.

Inside the latrine, a dead silence hung heavy.

Then, a soldier could no longer hold back; burying his head in the crook of his arm, he let out a beast-like, despairing, and suppressed sob.

The next day, at the hour of Mao.

The horizon was just beginning to glow with a pale, fish-belly white.

The martial arts training ground was already packed with people.

On one side stood the high-spirited victors clad in clean military uniforms.

On the other side stood the fifteen hundred losers, looking as though they had crawled straight out of the netherworld.