What should he do when a Red Scarf Bandit stood right in front of him? Zhang Tie was asking himself that very question. Some people asked the heavens, some asked the earth, some asked the times, some asked the tide of events, and some asked other people. Zhang Tie, meanwhile, was asking his own heart!
With a clear conscience, one could live without regret! Zhang Tie silently told himself this, and a clear answer slowly surfaced in his mind.
The classroom was in an uproar. Captain Colin's smile grew more and more pronounced. He raised a hand, and the room instantly fell silent again. Everyone looked at One-Eyed Dragon, waiting to hear what he had to say.
"All right. Now that everyone has made up their minds, stand up!"
Chairs scraped and clattered as everyone rose to their feet.
"Anyone who wants to charge in and fight the Red Scarf Bandits, come stand on my left..."
The young men in the classroom stampeded to the left. Zhang Tie stood up too. Having already made his decision, he simply watched the people running over. Only a handful remained where they were. To his surprise, Fatty Barry had already started stepping left, but for some reason his face went pale. He lowered his raised foot and stood still. Doug and Baghdad were the first to reach the left side. Light and Sista had moved too quickly; the moment Fatty Barry lifted his leg, they ran over. They both looked dumbfounded when they saw that Fatty hadn't followed. Shavin, who had always stuck close to Fatty Barry, stayed behind with him. In the Airplane Brotherhood, only three people remained where they were. Add the one other student still standing in place, and out of the whole class, only four had stayed put. In the heated atmosphere, even those who had originally thought otherwise had been swept up and run over.
Barry was also a little surprised to see Zhang Tie hadn't gone over. He stared hard at Zhang Tie's face, as though he expected to find a flower blooming there.
"Good. Have you all made your decisions?"
Everyone nodded. Those standing on the left openly sneered at the ones who had stayed where they were.
Captain Colin didn't look at the people on the left. Instead, he looked at the four still standing in place. He casually pointed at Shavin, who was seated near the front. "Tell me, why didn't you charge in with the others?"
Shavin was so nervous that he was sweating. When he saw One-Eyed Dragon's club-like finger pointing at him, he swallowed hard twice under that imposing gaze, then timidly pointed at Fatty Barry. "He... didn't go over, so I'm following him!"
"And you?" Captain Colin gave a slight shake of his head and pointed his club-like finger at Fatty Barry. Fatty Barry's plump face stretched into a chrysanthemum-like grin, and he nearly bowed and scraped. "If I saw a Red Scarf Bandit, the first thing I'd think of would be to report it to the sheriff or Captain Colin, not charge in!"
For some reason, the sight of Fatty's ingratiating expression made Captain Colin feel queasy. His finger, as if afraid of getting something on it, quickly swung around to point at someone else. "And you?"
That guy hesitated. "If they can kill the Red Scarf Bandits, then I won't try to steal the credit. If they can't, adding one more of me won't make any difference!"
"So you mean that if you saw a Red Scarf Bandit, you'd be ready to run away!" Captain Colin put emphasis on the words "run away." His expression turned stern, and an air of pressure emanated from him.
Under Captain Colin's pressure, the guy he was pointing at felt as though he were facing the harshest accusation. Gradually, he began to buckle. "I... I..." It took real courage to say you'd run away in front of Captain Colin. The guy wasn't sure whether, if those words left his mouth, the furious captain would leap up and slap him so hard he flew into the wall. Everyone knew that a tough guy like Captain Colin hated cowards most of all.
When the guy couldn't get the words out, a flicker of disappointment passed through Captain Colin's eyes, so faint that no one noticed. He turned his finger toward the last person, Zhang Tie. "And you? Are you going to run away too?"
"Yes, I'll run away!" Zhang Tie answered without the slightest hesitation.
The moment Zhang Tie said it, a wave of contemptuous whispers swept through the group on the left.
"Why? They've all charged in. Why would you turn and run?" Captain Colin pressed him. The gaze in his single eye sharpened. "Don't you want to charge in like them and rid the people of this menace? Even if you think more practically, the head of any Red Scarf Bandit is worth a fortune!"
"They'd just be throwing their lives away for nothing. With their current strength, even if they all charged in—and there were twice as many of them—any Red Scarf Bandit could easily wipe them all out in a short time. I've heard that even the most ordinary members of the Red Scarf Bandits are Battle Soldiers of at least Level Five. Their hands are soaked in blood, and they're all seasoned fighters who've carved their way through countless killings. A bunch of people who aren't even Level One Battle Soldiers, charging barehanded at Red Scarf Bandits whose lowest rank is Level Five—they wouldn't even qualify as cannon fodder!"
"What did you say, you coward?" someone in the crowd on the left angrily shouted.
"Exactly! Stop making excuses for your cowardice, you coward! So what if we die in battle? We're still better than a coward like you who turns and runs!"
"Pah..."
"Shut up!" Captain Colin turned and barked. The world fell silent at once. He fixed Zhang Tie with a hard stare and asked another question that went straight to the heart. "So you're afraid of dying. Don't you think turning and running from the enemy is shameful? Aren't you afraid of being branded a coward?"
"When I know there's no chance of winning and that I'd only be throwing my life away, I don't think it's shameful to turn and run from an enemy stronger than me. That doesn't make me a coward! If I can, I'll take more people with me when I run..." Zhang Tie met Captain Colin's increasingly stern gaze without flinching. "The ones who are truly shameful are them." Zhang Tie pointed at the people on the left, setting them off in another furious uproar. They clenched their fists one by one, ready to teach him a lesson after class.
Zhang Tie suddenly exploded in anger and roared at the people on the left. "Shut up, you bastards! You're charging straight in and handing your lives over to the enemy to snuff out, without giving a thought to how your parents and families will feel. Your enemies can turn you into corpses with one wave of their hands, but your parents spent decades raising you, toiling and worrying over you. You get your moment of glory by making a meaningless sacrifice in what you think is a brave and noble way, but you leave your families and parents with years of pain. Do you know how much it hurts parents to lose a son? Do you know how devastated they'll be when they hear you're dead? Have you ever seen your parents cry for you? You know nothing..." The people on the left fell silent, each lost in thought, but Zhang Tie kept letting loose, shouting at them. "A bunch of bastards with nothing but muscle and shit for brains! You're the ones who are truly shameful. Not only are you disgraceful, you're a pack of idiots. If I were a Red Scarf Bandit, I'd love to have opponents like you. You're easier to kill than pigs. When they're faced with a blade, even a herd of pigs will scatter all over the hills, but you bunch up and stick out your necks, begging to be killed. Could there be a more lovable enemy? I'd run, but as long as I'm alive, I can keep causing trouble for the enemy, forcing them to spend time and energy dealing with me. If they're careless enough, I'll find another way to kill them. I can use fire, poison, or lure them into dangerous places. I'll grow stronger and become more and more of a thorn in their side, harder and harder to deal with. One day, when I'm stronger than them, I can turn around and kill them myself. By the time I can kill the enemy, the grass on your graves will be tall enough to graze cattle. You're a bunch of idiots, not even as good as pigs!"
Damn it, those bastards had called me an idiot after I'd done them a good turn that morning by wiping down their chairs. If I didn't take this chance to give them a piece of my mind, I'd burst with pent-up anger. I'll curse them on behalf of their parents! Zhang Tie felt a lot better now that he'd gotten it all off his chest.
After shouting for a long while, Zhang Tie finally stopped. The classroom was completely silent, except for the sound of him panting heavily.
"Did someone in your family die while serving?" Captain Colin suddenly asked Zhang Tie after a long silence.
The question caught Zhang Tie off guard. He hadn't expected Captain Colin to be so perceptive. It brought back so many memories. At last, Zhang Tie lowered his head. "I was supposed to have two older brothers. Now I only have one. That bastard ran into the war between the Andaman Alliance and the Scots in his second year of service. He was brave, always charging to the front no matter what enemy he faced. In the end, all he left his family was a box of ashes and a Medal of Courage!"
Because his family had already lost one son, Zhang Tie understood the pain of losing someone you loved. That was why his name included the character for "iron"—his parents hoped his life would be as tough as iron. In the Zhang Family, this subject was an eternal taboo. Zhang Tie had never met the brother who was gone, but twice he had seen his mother and father silently weeping over a photograph. Their sorrow had left an indelible mark on him. Only later had Zhang Tie learned that he'd once had an older brother named Zhang Yong, a bastard who was so capable and outstanding that he'd been promoted to second lieutenant in his second year of service. Then he'd encountered the war between the Andaman Alliance and the Scots. Zhang Tie had heard that his brother had charged at the front in every battle, until he became nothing more than a box of ashes...
Zhang Tie and his older brother Zhang Yang had sworn that they would never again let anyone bring their parents another Medal of Courage. So what if he ran from a powerful enemy? If necessary, even surrender wasn't entirely out of the question. He'd never dreamed of becoming some great hero who saved the world. His goals in life were to make his parents happy, make the people around him happy, and make the person he loved happy. Everything else—the Red Scarf Bandits, the Green Scarf Bandits—had nothing to do with him...