Rules

On the training grounds of the Third Battalion, Li Jinshui led Squad Jia through their fifth round of hacking practice for the day.

Five military sabers descended in unison, the sound of them slicing through the air perfectly synchronized.

Er Gou's saber stance was three parts steadier than it had been half a month ago, and even the scrawniest of them, Zhang Shuan'er, could finally land his blade within the charcoal-marked circle on the straw man's neck—a circle only the size of a fist, as Li Jinshui had demanded.

"Sheathe blades."

Five sabers returned to their scabbards simultaneously with a crisp, sharp click.

Li Jinshui swept his gaze over these young faces. Squad Jia was at its full complement of five, but only these four had returned alive with him from Eagle Beak Ravine.

He had refused every new recruit sent to fill the ranks later, preferring to put these four veterans through extra training every single day.

Er Gou wiped away his sweat and sidled over: "Squad Leader, about today's dried meat—"

"Eat after you finish training."

Er Gou wilted, not daring to make another sound.

Zhang Shuan'er swallowed hard and gripped his saber tighter.

Ignoring them, Li Jinshui drew his own military saber and began to demonstrate the force-generating mechanics of the Army-Breaking Saber Technique in slow motion against a straw man.

Having reached perfection, this saber technique had returned to simplicity in his hands. Every strike was plain and unremarkable, yet every strike was precisely as it should be. If the arc of an Upward Slash was an inch too low, it would drag; an inch too high, and it would miss. If the timing of a horizontal slash was a fraction too early, it would be shallow; a fraction too late, and it would be sluggish.

He polished these minute differences over and over, just as he had obsessed over that one unit test that would never pass back when he was debugging code in his past life.

Back then, he thought that was patience.

Now he knew that true patience was training the blade into your bones, burying your hatred in your blood, and then waiting.

Waiting for an opportunity.

"Yo, Squad Leader Li, still training?"

A smiling voice drifted over from behind and to the side; it sounded warm, but the foundation was cold.

Li Jinshui sheathed his saber and turned around.

Three men stood at the edge of the training ground.

The leader was in his early thirties with a fair complexion; he wore a standard-issue military saber at his waist, though the guard had been replaced with a piece of high-quality green jade—Squad Leader Wang De.

Behind him followed two familiar faces, one surnamed Zhao and one surnamed Sun, both veteran scoundrels who had been transferred to the Third Battalion just last month.

Wang De walked over with a beaming smile, as if meeting an old friend of many years: "Squad Leader Li, you made a name for yourself in the battle at Eagle Beak Ravine. I should have come to pay my respects long ago, but I never found the time. Today, it's just a coincidence."

Li Jinshui didn't take the bait, only staring into his eyes.

Wang De's smile stiffened under that gaze, and he gave a light cough: "It's like this, we have an unwritten rule here in the Third Battalion. A new Squad Leader is expected to take a few shifts of sentry duty for the senior members during his first month. It's a welcoming gift of sorts, and a way to get acquainted. Look, Squad Leader Zhao covered three shifts for you last month, and Squad Leader Sun covered two—"

He paused, his smile deepening: "You've been here nearly twenty days now, haven't you, brother?"

The five men of Squad Jia stopped what they were doing; Er Gou's face flushed red, and he opened his mouth to speak.

"Back to your training." Li Jinshui's voice was flat.

Er Gou swallowed his words, the veins on his hand gripping the saber hilt bulging, but he didn't move again.

Li Jinshui turned back to look at Wang De.

"My sentry shifts, I have always covered myself."

Wang De's smile remained unchanged: "We know that. But that's not what the rule means. The rule is that the newcomers should help the veterans out so the seniors don't have to do all the heavy lifting. Wouldn't you agree?"

He enunciated the words "senior members" very clearly.

Li Jinshui looked at his face, tucking both the face and the name into a corner of his mind—a place that already held several other names, each filed away neatly.

"I don't cover for anyone."

Wang De's smile froze.

The man surnamed Zhao behind him took a half-step forward: "Squad Leader Li, that's not the right way to put it. We're all risking our lives for the battalion; helping each other out is just common courtesy."

"I owe you no courtesy."

The man surnamed Zhao's face turned the color of a pig's liver, and the man surnamed Sun let out a cold laugh: "Squad Leader Li, those who come out of the Death Squad Camp are indeed tough. But you need to be tough on the city walls, not in your own battalion—be careful you don't break your back."

Wang De raised a hand to stop them, his smile fading by more than half, a chill showing in the depths of his eyes.

"Squad Leader Li," he stopped smiling, "I'll ask one more time: are you going to follow this rule, or not?"

Li Jinshui didn't answer.

He just looked at Wang De, his gaze as flat as a winter lake, with something slow and heavy churning beneath the surface.

Wang De felt inexplicably unnerved by the look, followed immediately by a surge of shame and anger.

He, Wang De, had been in the Third Battalion for four years and was at the peak of the fifth level of Body Forging. While not the best, he had never been humiliated like this by a newcomer.

He stepped forward, lowering his voice:

"Li Jinshui, don't refuse a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit. Blades have no eyes on the battlefield. For a greenhorn like you, it's common enough to charge too hard one day, get trapped in the enemy ranks, and never come back out."

His voice was as soft as cotton, yet as venomous as snake spit: "Even if you don't die in the enemy ranks, it's easy for your own men to mistake you for someone else and put a blade in your back. You'd have nowhere to seek justice if you died like that. I've seen plenty of such things."

Er Gou stood up abruptly, his military saber half-drawn from its scabbard.

Li Jinshui did not turn back.

"Sheathe your blades."

Er Gou's teeth chattered as he ground them, but he still slid his saber back into its scabbard.

Li Jinshui looked at Wang De.

He looked for a long time, long enough for the smugness on Wang De's face to slowly turn into unease, long enough for the ones surnamed Zhao and Sun to begin shifting backward subconsciously.

Then he spoke, his voice very faint:

"Understood."

Wang De froze for a moment, then immediately revealed a smile that said I knew it: "That's more like it. If Squad Leader Li had just been like this earlier..."

"I will run my own patrol," Li Jinshui interrupted him, "I am not covering anyone's shift."

He turned around, no longer looking at those three frozen faces.

"Squad Jia, form up. We depart the camp for patrol."

"Yes!"

Five military sabers slid into their scabbards in unison, and with rhythmic footsteps, they followed that retreating figure toward the camp gate.

Wang De stood where he was, his face flushing red then turning pale. The one surnamed Zhao leaned in and whispered, "Brother Wang, this brat..."

"Let's go." Wang De stared at Li Jinshui's back, his eyes as gloomy as the sky before a storm. "There will be plenty of time for this later."

The setting sun sank into the ridgeline west of North-Rejecting City, stretching the shadow of the city wall until it was long and flat.

Eagle Beak Ravine.

Li Jinshui led his squad across the familiar rocky beach. Er Gou opened his mouth to speak several times, holding it in until his face turned red.

"What do you want to ask?"

Er Gou choked for a second, then said cautiously, "Squad Leader, that bastard Wang De talked to you like that... how could you just swallow it?"

Li Jinshui did not answer.

He bent down to pick up a stone from the creek side and weighed it in his hand. The stones of Eagle Beak Ravine were all like this—washed by the creek for thousands of years, rounded, smooth, with no sharp edges to be seen.

He handed the stone to Er Gou.

"Smash me."

Er Gou was stunned: "What?"

"Smash."

Er Gou gritted his teeth, picked up the stone, and tapped it lightly against Li Jinshui's back.

Li Jinshui did not move.

"Use your full strength."

Er Gou's face flushed red. He stepped back two paces, swung his arm in a full arc, and hurled the stone.

"Bang!"

The stone struck the back protected by the sixth layer of Iron Shirt, bounced off, and rolled into the creek.

Li Jinshui looked back at him.

Er Gou suddenly understood something, yet didn't quite understand at all; he only felt a chill run down his spine.

Li Jinshui withdrew his gaze and continued walking forward.

He recalled the memory fragments of this body's original owner, of that cousin named Li Jinbao who had once smiled and patted his shoulder, saying, "Brother, from now on, I've got your back."

Then he had stolen his ten taels of silver and sold him into the Death Squad Camp.

Some people are just like that. When they are smiling, you never know when the blade is coming; when they aren't smiling, the blade is already buried inside you.

He had learned his lesson.

From now on, he wouldn't let anyone see when his own blade was coming either.

The patrol ended, and Squad Jia reported no anomalies.

When they returned to camp, the sky was pitch black. Li Jinshui sat alone in the open space behind the barracks, disassembling and wiping down his military saber over and over.

Under the moonlight, the edge of the blade shimmered with a cold light.

He wiped it very slowly and very carefully, not missing a single inch.

The panel glowed with a faint light in the corner of his vision:

Technique: Iron Shirt (6th Layer 5/30), Army-Breaking Saber Technique (Perfected)

Points: 0

He was still far from having enough points.

But he had plenty of patience.

He believed that the one surnamed Wang would definitely come again. On the battlefield, there were too many opportunities for "blades to have no eyes." Wang De was a smart man, and smart men always chose the safest moment to strike.

He was waiting for that moment, too.

On the panel, the words "Army-Breaking Saber Technique (Perfected)" glowed silently.

He really wanted to know if the skin and flesh of Wang De, at the peak of the fifth layer of Body Forging, could withstand a full-force strike from a Perfected Saber Technique.