Chapter 13: Night Stroll

  Zhang Ying was gone.

  An Jing blinked. He fixed his gaze on the small room—at his bunkmate on the left, his friend and follower.

  That hunter boy was not in his bed.

  His bed was extremely tidy, almost unnaturally so. The pillow and b were folded with such precision they looked like perfectly cut squares of tofu.

  An Jing knew Zhang Ying could never have done sueat folding himself—he had taught him several times, yet each time Zhang Ying folded his b ended up a wrinkled mess that looked like a dog had pawed at it.

  “Where did Zhang Ying go?!”

  Another hour ter, g Linzu woke up and noticed Zhang Ying’s absence. He couldn’t help but excim.

  He was the closest to Zhang Ying. One was a huhe other from a martial family. Both had trained since childhood; they were ied in hunting and fighting, in the use of bdes, spears, staves, and swords. Although Zhang Ying wasn’t as skilled as g Linzu, he wasn’t too far behind. In particur, Zhang Ying could shoot arrows better than anyone, earning him top marks in archery. They learned a lot from each other.

  On most days, the two of them followed An Jing around, practically inseparable.

  “Maybe he ran off somewhere and got locked up?” Zhan Feng muttered. Although most of the children in Hanging Fate Manor were more mature than others their age—due to having been refugees—ohey were in a safe enviro, some of their mischievous nature emerged again. A number of them liked to run off everywhere and would then be punished with fi, sometimes even missing dinner.

  Zhan Feng cared most about meals. He was tall but ook risks. Zhang Ying, oher hand, was the opposite. If An Jing hadn’t stopped him a few times, that boy would definitely have roamed all over the pce.

  “Let’s go ask the instructors,” Ye Xiuyuan suggested softly. He was one of the cleverest among the childreilted his head slightly to look at An Jing, notig the leader of Dorm A wore a bnk expression, as if he were deep in thought. Ye Xiuyuan had a hunch. “Maybe…he just left.”

  Left? Did that mean…he had been eliminated?

  Had the sed round of eliminations begun?

  Everyohe same suspi but didn’t dare speak it out loud. Not until they searched the entire dormitory and the training grounds and still found no trace of Zhang Ying did they finally have to accept the truth:

  Zhang Ying, just like those who had departed earlier, had been eliminated.

  And he wasn’t the only one.

  This time, twenty-seven people were eliminated—not a rge number. Some had excellent performances, others were just average. No one could guess the exact criteria.

  Before dinner, just as before, an instructor annouhe eliminations.

  “I expected as much,” Ye Xiuyuan sighed. He said he had long known this would be the oute; in fact, he had thought he would be the oo leave before Zhang Ying. He hadn’t expected the hunter boy to be the first to go down the mountain.

  “I re I could still make a det atant someday,” Ye Xiuyuan said after dinner, during the evening training session at the training grounds. He spoke frankly to An Jing and the others. “I’m not cut out for martial arts. The training has been wearing me down. I might leave the mountain one day, too.”

  “I might end up leaving as well,” Gu Yeqi sighed. Over in the girls’ dorm, a few had vaoo, including a friend who had e with her from the refugee camp in Mingshan City. With one fewer panion to talk to, she felt lonely.

  Moreover, though Gu Yeqi could still mahe current iy of training, she felt it gradually getting harder. She worried she wouldn’t be able to keep pace with An Jing.

  “Zhang Ying just didn’t train properly,” g Linzu grumbled unhappily, kig at the dirt beh his feet. “I told him—martial arts require sistent practiot just going out to fight!”

  Seeing one panion after aalk about leaving, he could only protest in frustration, “Me, I’d love to stay as long as possible. They really do teach genuine skills. The more we learn, the better our ces when we go down the mountain.”

  “And who’s going to find ao eat after we leave? Zhang Ying’s definitely going tret it!”

  “’t deny that.” Zhan Feng smacked his lips, recalling the taste of dinner. He spoke zily, “True enough.”

  Ye Xiuyuan shook his head alongside An Jing, then turo him with a faint, mencholy look. He said, “Perhaps only you, Brother An, reach the pinnacle. Don’t fet about us when you get there.”

  “Of course not.” An Jing spoke gravely. “We escaped the Frost Camity together, traiogether for so long, and lived in the same dorm—how could I ever fet?”

  Still, he had many questions on his mind. For ohe Medie Manor Lord had not been around all day, and a number of the instructors were also missing. Did they all go to escort the children down the mountain?

  Even he had gotten up an hour te that m—had Zhang Ying been woken in the middle of the night and taken away so silently that he had no ce to say goodbye? An Jing couldn’t be sure.

  What’s more, he hadn’t heard the sound of any carts ing oing that day, nor had he seen any tracks. Were the eliminated children still within the manor?

  He could only stifle these doubts.

  “I’ve been pnning this,” An Jing thought. “Today, most of the instructors and the Medie Manor Lord are away… It’s the perfect time to sneak around at night and iigate. Maybe I find out where those who were eliminated ended up.”

  With that deade, he reassured the others out loud: “Everyone should go to bed early tonight. The better you sleep, the better your energy will be, and the better your trainis. That way, you won’t get eliminated.”

  “Brother An is always so calm…maybe too calm,” Ye Xiuyuan said with a faint smile. Though he was intelligent, his eyes always carried a trace of sorrow.

  After all, he came from a well-off family and had o his sights on passing the imperial exams in the capital. Natural disasters had reduced him tee, and now the civil service examinations were out of reach. At best, he could hope to bee an atant or steward. Even though he had accepted his fate, it was impossible for him to let go entirely.

  “If I don’t keep calm, how I be your senior brother?” Unimpressed by Ye Xiuyuan’s defeatist attitude, An Jing smacked him on the back of the head. “You’re still so young—why act like some tragic senting spring and autumn? Don’t say you’re ‘not suited for martial arts.’ It’s just that you haven’t practiced enough. Tomorrow, you add two more leg exercises!”

  “Eh?!” Even someoh Ye Xiuyuan’s id-back temperament pa that. “Two more leg exercises? That’ll kill me, Brother An! I don’t want to wake up trembling all over!”

  “You pin too much. Make it three!”

  Under An Jing’s forceful discipline, night soon fell.

  Once everyone else was asleep, An Jing, who had been lying there with his eyes closed, suddenly opehem.

  No instructors were patrolling tonight. It was the perfect opportunity to roam the manor under cover of darkness.

  Quietly, An Jing slipped out of the dormitory. With a few agile leaps, he scaled to the rooftop, then moved onto the wall to observe the yout of the manor.

  Before, living inside Hanging Fate Manor, he hardly noticed its design. But from on high, it was clear the manor y between two mountains. The terrain was unusual—if he drew on memories from his past life, it almost looked like some special feng shui formation known as “Twons Pying with a Pearl,” with the manor situated at the ter as the “pearl.” The surrounding mountain ridges gathered their energies around it.

  From the area where the children lived, yers of watchtowers radiated outward, proteg Hanging Fate Manor so thhly that it was more of a small fortress than a mere manor.

  (End of this Chapter)