A Nighttime Excursion

Zhang Ying was gone.

An Jing blinked as he stared at the little room, at his roommate on the left—his friend and tagalong.

The hunter boy wasn't in bed.

His bed was incredibly tidy, so tidy it was downright abnormal. His pillow and blanket were both folded perfectly, like blocks of tofu.

An Jing knew Zhang Ying hadn't folded them himself. That silly boy didn't even know how to fold a blanket. An Jing had taught him several times, and he still folded it as if a dog had clawed at it.

"Why is Zhang Ying gone?!"

An hour later, Cang Linzu woke up, noticed the same thing, and couldn't help crying out in alarm.

He and Zhang Ying were the closest of friends. One was a hunter, the other from a martial family; both had trained in martial arts since childhood and were interested in hunting and fighting, as well as swords, spears, staffs, and blades. Zhang Ying wasn't as skilled as he was, but he wasn't far behind. And especially when it came to archery, Zhang Ying was the best of them all. They could learn from each other.

The two of them usually followed An Jing around and were practically inseparable.

"Maybe he went running around and got put in confinement?"

Zhan Feng muttered. Most of the children at Xuanming Manor had been refugees, which made them more mature than their peers. But once they were somewhere safe, some of the mischievous ones reverted to their old ways, running around until they were punished with confinement. They hadn't even gotten dinner.

Zhan Feng cared most about meals. Though tall, he never took risks. Zhang Ying was the opposite. If An Jing hadn't stopped him several times, that boy would have run all over the place.

"Let's ask the instructors," Ye Xiuyuan said softly. He was one of the smartest children there. Turning his head slightly toward An Jing, the leader of Dormitory A, he saw that the boy wore an expressionless face, as if lost in thought. Ye Xiuyuan already had a few ideas of his own. "Maybe... he just left."

Left? Could it be... that he'd been eliminated?

Had the second round of eliminations begun?

The same possibility occurred to everyone, but nobody dared say it aloud. Only after they'd searched the entire dormitory and training grounds without finding any trace of Zhang Ying did they have no choice but to accept the truth.

Like the apprentices who'd left before him, Zhang Ying had been eliminated.

And he wasn't the only one.

Twenty-seven children had been eliminated this time. It wasn't a large number, and some had performed well while others had done just so-so. They couldn't guess what the exact criteria were.

Before dinner, just like last time, one of the instructors announced the news to everyone.

"I expected as much."

Ye Xiuyuan sighed. He'd known this would happen; he'd just thought he might leave before Zhang Ying. He hadn't expected the hunter boy to be the first to go down the mountain.

"I think I could still become a bookkeeper."

After dinner, during evening training on the practice grounds, he spoke candidly to An Jing and the others. "I'm not suited to martial arts. The recent training has already left me feeling worn out. Maybe one day I'll go down the mountain too."

"I might, too." Gu Yeqi sighed. A few girls had left from her dormitory as well, including a friend who'd come with her from the refugee camp in Mingshan City. With one less person to talk to, she felt lonely.

What was more, although Gu Yeqi could still handle the current training load, she felt it getting harder and harder. It worried her; she felt like she might not be able to keep up with An Jing.

"Zhang Ying just didn't train hard enough. I told him, martial arts takes practice, not real combat!"

Cang Linzu kicked at the dirt path, looking glum. "One after another, everyone's thinking about leaving. I'd be happy to stay as long as possible—they're always teaching us real stuff, and the more we learn, the more we'll have to rely on once we go down the mountain."

"Besides, it'll be even harder to eat meat once we're down the mountain. Zhang Ying's going to regret it!"

He'd lost a playmate and could only put on a brave front.

"Can't argue with that." Zhan Feng smacked his lips, savoring the taste of dinner, and drawled, "True enough."

Ye Xiuyuan and An Jing both shook their heads. Ye Xiuyuan then turned to An Jing and said with a wistful sigh, "Maybe only Big Brother An can reach the summit... I hope you won't forget us when you do."

"How could I?" An Jing said gravely. "We escaped Frost Calamity together, trained together for so long, and even lived in the same dormitory. We're all brothers. How could I forget?"

He actually had a lot of questions. For instance, Manor Master Yao hadn't been around all day, and many of the instructors were missing too. Had they all gone to see the children off down the mountain?

Even he'd gotten up an hour late. Had Zhang Ying been woken halfway through the night and taken away? Would he really have left so quietly, without a word? He had no way of knowing.

And he hadn't heard the carts going up and down the mountain all day, either. There was no sign of them coming or going.

Could the eliminated children still be somewhere on the manor grounds?

For now, though, he could only set those questions aside.

"I'd already planned to do this. Manor Master Yao and most of the instructors were away today... Let's stay up tonight and look around the manor. We might find the ones who were eliminated."

An Jing had already made up his mind, but he still needed to reassure everyone. "Go to bed early tonight. The better you sleep, the more alert you'll be, and the better you'll train. That way, you won't get eliminated."

"Big Brother An is always so calm... Maybe a little too calm."

Ye Xiuyuan smiled, though his eyes always seemed tinged with melancholy.

After all, he'd been a well-off scholar whose goal in life was to pass the imperial exam and enter the capital. Then disaster had left him in his current predicament, with no hope of ever taking the exams. At best, he'd become a bookkeeper or steward. Even if he'd accepted his fate, he couldn't truly come to terms with it.

"How can I be your Senior Brother if I'm not calm?"

Unable to stand this attitude of acting as though he'd already been eliminated, An Jing smacked the back of his head in exasperation. "You're only a few years old, and you're already sighing over the sorrows of spring and autumn? It's not like we'll never see each other again. And what do you mean, you're not suited to martial arts? You just haven't trained enough. Tomorrow, you're doing two extra leg exercises!"

"Huh?!" Even someone with Ye Xiuyuan's temperament panicked at that. "Leg exercises? Two of them? That'll kill me, Big Brother! I don't want my legs still shaking when I get up the next morning!"

"You talk too much. Three!"

Under An Jing's heavy-handed rule, night soon fell.

Once everyone had fallen asleep, An Jing, who'd had his eyes tightly shut, suddenly opened them.

No instructors were patrolling outside tonight. It was the perfect time for a nighttime excursion.

An Jing slipped silently out of the dormitory. With a few leaps, he reached the roof, then climbed onto the wall and surveyed the terrain of the entire manor.

When he'd lived at Xuanming Manor, he'd never noticed it. But now, with a view from above, he could see that the manor sat between two mountains, its terrain strangely formed. Judging by the memories of his previous life, it seemed to be a peculiar geomantic configuration called Twin Dragons Playing with a Pearl. The manor was the pearl the two mountain dragons played with, gathering the essence of the surrounding peaks.

Centered around the area where the children lived, layers of watchtowers stood guard, sealing Xuanming Manor off so thoroughly that not even a drop of water could leak through. The entire estate was less like an ordinary manor and more like a small fortress.