The village path lay strewn with fragments of midday sunlight. Weeds overran the abandoned fields, frogs croaked among them, and occasionally, the cries of cicadas drifted from the distant woods in the late-spring, early-summer air.
Yang Ming and Ma Hongjun walked along the path, one behind the other.
Seeing Yang Ming again, Ma Hongjun felt rather awkward. This was his first time serving as a general. Before he had even earned any distinction on the battlefield, Duoduo, Boss Yang's cherished maid, had fallen in the Star Dou Great Forest. However he looked at it, it seemed his own dereliction of duty had set everything in motion.
Ma Hongjun raised his head from time to time, stealing glances at the silent Yang Ming. At that moment, he desperately wished Boss Yang would berate him instead of remaining silent. The silence was unbearable. Guilt and remorse coiled around his heart like venomous snakes, gnawing relentlessly at him.
In truth, however, Yang Ming had no intention of blaming Ma Hongjun.
After making a circuit around the camp, he watched the allied soldiers attend to their respective duties. The main army had also arrived in successive contingents and was resting under the Vanguard Army's arrangements. After dinner that evening, they would begin a three-day sweep of the Star Dou Great Forest's outskirts. Yang Ming nodded inwardly.
Ma Hongjun had certainly lived up to his reputation as one of Shrek Academy's outstanding students. Although he had no previous military experience, he was attentive and worked hard to absorb knowledge from the others at headquarters, then put it into practice. The meticulously planned, neatly divided camp before them was proof enough.
Only after a long while, under Ma Hongjun's gaze as he waited as eagerly as someone yearning for the stars and moon, did Yang Ming