Chapter 11: Eati
It was an ordinary evening. A row of fiery clouds swept over the mountains, and the golden-red su cast a hazy glow across the entire range.
Having fiheir training goals early, An Jing and his group were gathered to py marbles.
An Jing, Gu Yeqi, Zhang Ying, g Linzu, Ye Xiuyuan, and Zhan Fehe croup around him. In essehey were his little brothers and sisters—or personal admirers—and got along quite well with each other. Whehey had free time, they liked to py together.
They had obtaihe marbles from rewards An Jing received for his daily performance from the instructors. He himself did not really py with them; instead, he used them to teach his friends how to trol and apply force accurately and skillfully.
A line was drawn on the ground as a boundary. The other five each held a short staff, taking turns using their staffs to push a marble toward the others’.
Hitting one oppo’s marble earned one point;
Hitting two marbles in one go earhree points;
Hitting three in a row earned six points;
Hitting four ted as a grand sm and gave twelve points;
If the marble went out of bounds, that cost two points.
Although this game looked simple, actually hitting two oppo marbles in sequeo gain a det score required carefully exerted ford pnning for collisions. What’s more, everyone used a staff instead of their hands, making it that much harder—accuracy, stability, and path calcution were all tested to the limit.
Each person took one shot per round, and after five rounds, whoever had the highest score would get personalized guidance from An Jing on martial skills. Anyone who ended with ive points had to do extra training.
At the moment, Gu Yeqi was in the lead. Her trol was incredibly deft: she could reliably knock two marbles with each strike, and every so often, she mao hit three.
g Linzu and Ye Xiuyuan followed close behind. Their teiques were not inferior to Gu Yeqi’s but they teo get greedy and hit too hard, causing their marbles to fly out of bounds.
Zhang Ying and Zhan Fehe ones who got extra training most often—Zhang Ying could not quite master the angle of force, while Zhan Feng’s sheer strength made it difficult for him to gauge the proper amount of power.
“Yes!”
This time, Zhang Ying took his turn. He finally mahe right angle and force, hitting three marbles at ond pulling himself out of ive points. He gave aed cheer.
Right after, he paused, turned his head, and sniffed around with curiosity. “Hey, wait a sed, Big Brother An.”
“You all smell that?”
“A bit,” An Jing replied. At that moment, he was flig a marble with his thumb so it bouraight up and down, perfectly vertical. It was how he practiced finger flexibility and trol.
He looked up thoughtfully and added, “But I’m not sure what it is.”
“Huh?” Gu Yeqi, who was currently winning and therefore about to receive An Jing’s guidance, was bringing him a bottle of water. She turned around and said, “Smells like medial herbs, right?”
“It’s Tie Nanxin… hmm, and there’s more!”
Gu Yeqi had grown up in a manor steeped in tless herbal aromas. She could distinguish types of herbs by st alone. Closing her eyes, inhaling carefully, she opehem again with fidehere’s also the smell of Bing Mang Flower seeds—calming and fog!”
“You’re wrong!”
Zhang Ying disagreed emphatically. “That’s the smell of meat. And a lot of it!”
“Moreover…” He inhaled deeply, then decred with certainty, “It’s more thaype of beast!”
Zhang Ying’s family had been hunters feions. Before the Frost Camity, being a Northern Frontier hunter meant both danger ah. If a hunting party went deep into the mountains and came back alive, they returned loaded with gains: not just the pelts and flesh of fierce beasts, but also valuable spiritual pnts and medial herbs.
He was very familiar with that aroma—when multiple wild animals were sughtered, their fresh blood and vigorous muscuture gave off a particur smell. He would never mistake it.
“It’s meat!” “It’s medial herbs!”
As the two started tue, g Linzu and Zhan Feng egged them on: “Fight, fight!”
Ye Xiuyuan and An Jing just shook their heads in exasperation.
“All right.”
Finally, An Jing raised his hand to stop their bickering. “It’s not just those sts.”
He turo look at the pavilion on one side of the training ground.
That was the Medie Pavilion, the pce where the Deputy Medie Envoy and others lived and worked.
Hanging Fate Manor was id out like a sprawling b school, easily able to aodate a thousand people. Even though many refugee children had been gathered here, the actual areas open for daily activities were not te; certain pces—like the Medie Pavilion, the inner hall, the rear mountains, the middle courtyard, and the secluded pool—were off-limits without permission.
Hanging Fate Manor held tless secrets, but most of the children did not pay attention.
The only exception was the Medie Pavilion.
Every five days, the Deputy Medie Envoy summohe children there for checkups and treatment, so everyone was quite familiar with it.
Today, though, An Jing smelled something different drifting over from the dire of the Medie Pavilion… a sort of cloying sweetness mixed with a slightly fishy tang. It reminded him of boiling red-braised meat with mustard, brown sugar, and strawberry craft beer—just a whiff was enough to make his heart quiver.
“It’s probably time for dinner.”
Hearing the bell, An Jing shook off the strange analogy that had popped into his head.
He gathered everyone up ahem to the dining hall.
Things really were different that day.
Uhe astonished gazes of the children, and amid an incredibly strong aroma of meat, every single one of them received a generous serving.
Two or three jin*? Maybe four or five jin? There was so much meat—some cuts were ribs, some were leg bones, all thhly roasted, radiating a rich fragrance.
It quivered slightly, giving the illusion it might overflow from the pte.
An Jing frowned, uaiher to feel shocked or delighted, as he stared ily at the share set before him.
It appeared to be the meat of some fierce beast, as the boructure was oddly shaped and did not maty creature he khe thick, oily fragrance blended with seasonings and sauce, making his stomach tract hungrily, his entire body trembling in raw desire. He craved this meat, an instinct urging him to devour it right then and there.
Still, perhaps because he had eaten his fair share of meat these days, he mao cmp down on the instinct.
Swallowing the saliva pooling in his mouth, he sed the entire dining hall.
Not everyone was eating the same kind of meat.
A portion of them, like An Jing, were eating some type of fierce beast. Others had giant avian wings or drumsticks, some got internal ans, and a few even had strange is. There were even people eating fish and crab—seafood, of all things. It varied widely.
But there was no doubt everyone fervently devoured their portion with intense relish. No one seemed ined to talk. All were ser-focused on the meat in front of them.
They ate.
The children’s eyes revealed no other thoughts—only pure hunger and greed. This surge of raw desire made An Jing’s skin crawl, a vague terror creeping up his spine.
“An Jing.”
A raspy voice spoke up at that moment. An Jing turned his head swiftly and saw that the master of the manor’s medial facilities—the “Medie Manor Lord,” as they sometimes called him—had appeared beside him, soundlessly.
“Don’t you like it?”
Emaciated, like a drifting specter, the old man leaned down and fixed An Jing with a dark, bottomless gaze. He asked softly, “Why aren’t you eating?”
Meeting those shadowy eyes, the boy curved his lips into a bright grin, showing his teeth. “Medie Manor Lord, I’m worried I won’t get enough.”
In truth, An Jing’s share of the meat was clearly rger and of better quality than what the other boys and girls had. That might be the privilege of the “Senior Brother” spot. As the stro among them at present, his treatment was simply on another level.
Which was, in itself, uling.
“Heh heh…”
At that, the old man straightened his back. His ugh carried a hint of inscrutability. “Because you’re worried about not getting enough, you had to look at how much meat was in everyone else’s bowl first?”
“Such a greedy boy… But o fret.”
He spoke in a bnd tone. “One day, you will truly be filled.”
“Eat.”
(End of Chapter)
*A jin (斤) is a traditional ese unit of weight, its modern equivalent in mainnd a being 500 grams (0.5 kg or ~1 pound).
