The Brutal Elimination

Before dawn broke, Zhou You got up to train.

He glanced at the empty room and let out a breath.

Since Song Fugui and Liu Bing had left one after another, only he and Fang Guiqi remained in the room.

New apprentice recruits later entered the Outer Court as well, but not a single one dared become his roommate.

Zhou You's ruthless and merciless reputation had already spread among the new recruits.

The day after Zhang Shu's leg was broken, his family dragged him away.

That day, he cried himself hoarse, begging for another chance, asking to be allowed to recover from his injuries and make one last push through the Martial Force threshold.

But no one paid any heed to his struggles or pleas.

With his leg bone broken, his Essence Blood and vital energy were barely enough to heal his injury. Where would he find the reserves to make a push for Martial Force?

Besides, he could not even stand steadily now. How could he practice boxing?

"Serves you right for refusing to learn properly, for causing trouble everywhere, for wasting so much of the family's silver and delaying your elder brother's marriage."

When Zhang Shu's father came to collect him, his face was livid, wearing the look of someone furious that iron had failed to become steel.

His family was not poor, but neither were they particularly wealthy. Watching sixty taels vanish like water splashed away was no easy thing to bear.

The moment he learned that his son had caused trouble at the martial arts school and gotten his leg broken, he rushed over to drag him home.

Zhang Shu's elder brother came with him as well, an honest-looking middle-aged man.

If not for Zhang Shu entering the martial arts school to learn its arts, the sixty taels paid as tuition should have been the betrothal gifts for his elder brother's marriage.

The whole family had hoped Zhang Shu would become a full apprentice and, under his protection, help the family live better and better.

Now, all of it had come to nothing.

"Dad, stop being angry. Let's take him home."

Though Zhang Shu's elder brother was furious, he feared the mighty reputation of Jianxiong Martial Arts School and was terrified of offending one of its important figures.

His younger brother's expulsion from the martial arts school brought one consequence after another in its wake.

Relying on the protection of the martial arts school's Wooden Talisman, he had already found a good job with generous wages. Now that, too, had gone up in smoke.

After such a delay, in a few more years he would become an old bachelor in his forties.

The sixty taels of tuition included his marriage savings and their father's coffin money. Now it was all gone.

"Where's the cart? If there's no horse carriage, a donkey cart will do. My leg is injured. I can't be jolted around."

When Zhang Shu was carried to the entrance and saw the empty scene before him, he cried and shouted at the same time.

When he had joined the martial arts school, his family had specially rented a horse carriage to bring him here.

Yet when he left, it was incomparably bleak. His father and brother had come empty-handed.

The difference in treatment was like heaven and earth.

"What do you need a cart for? Does renting one not cost money?"

"After all the trouble you've caused the family, where would we get any money? We can barely afford food!"

Zhang Shu's father snapped irritably, taking ropes and wooden poles from behind his back and assembling them into a simple... drag sled.

Normally, such a thing was used to haul goods. Using it on a living person would be agonizing.

Before the watching crowd, Zhang Shu struggled and wailed without stop, but his elder brother forcibly tied him to the drag sled and hauled him away like a dead pig, disappearing at the end of the street.

Later, the martial arts school's apprentices heard that Zhang Shu had suffered miserably after returning home.

The sixty taels of tuition had emptied the family coffers, leaving them without money even to treat his broken leg.

They said it took a hundred days to recover from damaged tendons and bones. With Zhang Shu's leg bone broken, he should have rested in bed for three months.

But his father and elder brother could no longer afford to support him. A few days later, they forcibly sent him to the cattle and horse market to learn horseshoe fitting, so he could acquire a trade and make a living.

His injury healed poorly, and coupled with the heavy labor he did every day, that broken leg became permanently crippled.

Many years later, there was a master called "Lame Zhang" at the city's cattle and horse market, highly skilled at fitting horseshoes.

In the Outer Court, after this disturbance, no one dared offend Zhou You again.

Everyone had seen Zhang Shu's fate. He had gone to great lengths to spread rumors, only to try to steal a chicken and lose the rice used to lure it.

Though his aptitude was mediocre, and even after a hundred days he might not have cultivated Martial Force or earned the qualifications to become a full apprentice,

Zhou You had ignored his pleas for mercy and kicked him into a cripple. His methods had been far too ruthless.

A person with such a style was destined to stand apart from the crowd, alone and isolated.

Yet Zhou You did not care. Zhang Shu's fate only strengthened his resolve.

Beneath the martial arts school's seemingly peaceful exterior lay an elimination mechanism more perilous than the wilderness.

If the hundred days ended and he still failed to cultivate Martial Force, would his fate be any better than Zhang Shu's?

"The martial arts school is killing a chicken to scare the monkeys!"

Zhang Shu's miserable end finally stirred the other new apprentice recruits.

They began recalling the enormous price they had paid to join the martial arts school. Once they failed, they would have to face the disappointment of their entire families.

Some had even relied on the martial arts school's Wooden Talisman to gain honors and the awe of their neighbors that they could never have obtained in the first half of their lives.

Three months of protection had given them a certain illusion, making them think their days at the martial arts school would continue forever.

Only when they watched Zhang Shu being dragged away without the slightest dignity did they finally awaken completely.

Once they were eliminated, they might not die, but they would truly be worse off than dead!

Having witnessed the status of martial artists as apprentices, they could no longer accept the ordinary fates and futures they once had.

Many apprentices nearing their deadlines trained even more desperately, practicing day and night without distinction until their fists were covered in bloody blisters.

But without sufficient aptitude, no amount of effort could help. They could only watch helplessly as their companions raced ahead, leaving them far behind in a cloud of dust.

Finally, one day, a new apprentice recruit took a desperate risk and plotted against his sparring partner.

"Luo Peng must have gone mad with desperation. He had less than ten days left before he had to leave."

"Yet his sparring partner was progressing even faster and had hope of cultivating Martial Force ahead of schedule. Jealousy, combined with having nowhere left to turn, drove him to commit such a terrible mistake."

This apprentice named Luo Peng, harboring the thought of smashing the jar since it was already broken, launched a sneak attack during a sparring session and broke his sparring partner's lower back. No one knew what he had been thinking at the time.

Afterward, Senior Disciple Brother Lu Qiang flew into a rage and broke both of Luo Peng's legs on the spot before expelling him from the martial arts school.

As for his sparring partner, with his lower back broken, he could only lie paralyzed in bed for the rest of his life.

One wrong thought had harmed both others and himself!

Some people discussed in private that if Zhou You had not struck so viciously at Zhang Shu, Luo Peng's tragedy would not have happened.

Perhaps Luo Peng had only plotted against his sparring partner after seeing Zhang Shu's fate.

When Zhou You heard this rumor, he scoffed. Absurd?

Luo Peng was clearly useless himself, then grew jealous because his sparring partner was more outstanding, and so gave rise to vicious thoughts.

Even without the matter of Zhang Shu, that fellow had been rotten to the bone. What did it have to do with Zhou You?

Senior Disciple Brother Lu Qiang's punishment intimidated the new apprentice recruits who had been ready to stir, after all, having both legs broken was no pleasant experience.

Zhang Shu had only broken one leg, yet he could only spend his life among cattle and horse dung, limping as he tended livestock.

Breaking one leg meant being half-crippled. Breaking both meant being completely ruined, and he could only kneel by the roadside and beg in the future.

Even after leaving the martial arts school, as long as one still had the ability to work, one could somehow earn a meal with both hands. But if one became crippled, starvation was the only road left, since no family could afford to keep a useless burden.

The new apprentice recruits of the Outer Court trembled with fear, and no one dared let anything similar happen again.