A mission for death row: chosen

Time slowly slipped by.

Before long, a week had passed.

That day, Li Dao sat huddled in his corner as usual, eating a soaked flatbread.

Thanks to the example he had made a week earlier, no one blind enough to court trouble had disturbed him all week.

Likewise, no one had bothered anyone else.

After all, no one knew whether the person they picked on might be as deceptively dangerous as Li Dao. What if their boat capsized in a gutter? They would probably end up like the burly man: killed, their ears cut off, and their corpse thrown into the wilderness to feed the beasts.

All in all, the week had been fairly peaceful.

Before the system appeared, this would have been exactly what Li Dao wanted.

But now that he had the system, he suddenly regretted frightening his fellow prisoners so thoroughly.

No one causing him trouble also meant he had no way to use the system to grow stronger for the time being.

Forget it. I'll wait a little longer.

Li Dao thought to himself.

It had only been a week. If there was one thing the Death Row Camp never lacked, it was people who went looking for trouble.

"Wake up, all of you. Wake up!"

Suddenly, a clatter of footsteps came from outside the cell door.

Everyone looked up and saw an armored soldier approaching with several jailers clustered around him. He clearly outranked the ordinary soldiers.

A jailer stepped forward and asked, "Squad Leader Liu, what brings you here today...?"

Before he could finish, Squad Leader Liu raised a hand to cut him off. "I have a mission. I need twenty condemned prisoners from your Death Row Camp."

His voice was not loud, but the condemned prisoners in the surrounding cells all heard him clearly.

Almost every prisoner's face filled with panic.

Being requisitioned usually meant accompanying regular soldiers on a military mission.

And on most military missions, the condemned prisoners' role was to die-to draw the enemy's attention as cannon fodder.

If even one in ten of those selected returned, it was already a staggering stroke of dumb luck.

More often, none of them ever came back.

That was why the prisoners panicked at those words. Being chosen was practically a death sentence.

Hearing this, the jailer immediately asked with enthusiasm, "What sort of prisoners would you like, Squad Leader Liu?"

"Not too old, and no cripples. Pick them out for me as you see fit."

At those words, the older prisoners in the cells breathed sighs of relief, while those who met the requirements immediately grew tense.

Every one of them prayed to gods and Buddhas that they would not be chosen.

The jailer nodded. "Understood. I'll pick them out right away."

Whether it was good luck or bad, the first cell the jailers chose was Li Dao's.

Two jailers entered and swept their eyes around. The prisoners avoided their gazes, but before long, someone was still selected.

"You, come out."

One of the jailers pointed and called out.

After a while, when no one responded, a cold sneer appeared on his face. "Still trying to hide? Think you can?"

The jailer walked straight into the crowd, grabbed one prisoner by the hair, and dragged him out.

"No! I don't want to leave!"

Realizing he had been chosen, the prisoner kicked and struggled on the floor.

"You won't go? Then you die right now."

The jailer showed no mercy. Seeing the prisoner refuse to obey, he drew his saber and laid it against his neck.

The cold edge instantly frightened the prisoner into stillness.

Suddenly, the prisoner seemed to think of something and decisively thrust his left thumb into his mouth.

Crack!

With a grunt of pain, the prisoner spat his own thumb out of his mouth. A savage grin spread across his face. "Under Great Qian Law, anyone missing a thumb is considered crippled. Now that I'm crippled, I don't have to go, do I?"

At those words, all the jailers laughed, thoroughly amused.

The jailer holding the saber lowered it as well, smiling mockingly. "Who would have thought a condemned prisoner like you knew Great Qian Law?"

The prisoner seemed to recall his former self. A trace of smugness appeared on his face, and he said confidently, "I was once an eighth-rank court official. I studied a hundred books from childhood. This is nothing."

"An eighth-rank official?"

The jailer sneered disdainfully. "Even if you were a first-rank dignitary, once you entered this Death Row Camp, you'd be no different."

With that, he drew his saber again and said mercilessly, "I'll give you two choices. Either cripple your right thumb too, or get outside."

His right thumb?

The prisoner glanced at his right hand and froze.

Losing his seldom-used left thumb was one thing, but losing his right thumb would truly cripple him. He would not be able to hold anything.

Once reduced to that state, he could do little but wait to die in this brutal Death Row Camp. He was certain plenty of prisoners would gladly throw stones at a man already down a well.

At that thought, conflicting emotions flickered across the eighth-rank prisoner's face. In the end, he could only sigh and walk out helplessly.

If he went out, there was still a chance of returning. Without his right thumb, he would have no chance at all.

The jailer sneered and paid him no further attention, continuing to select prisoners.

Under the jailers' scrutiny, every prisoner who met the requirements tried his best to retreat into a corner.

But the cell was only so big. Where could they hide? In the end, those who qualified were picked out of the crowd one by one.

Every person selected wore a look of despair.

"Your limbs look intact too. Come out."

Just then, Li Dao saw a jailer point at him.

Since he was the only one in that corner, he was naturally the one being chosen.

Compared with the other prisoners, Li Dao remained very composed.

He simply stood and calmly joined the selected group.

This made the jailer selecting prisoners give Li Dao a couple of extra looks.

But once he saw that Li Dao was merely a pretty boy, he lost interest. Such people looked calm now, but once they reached a real battlefield, they would probably piss themselves in terror.

Although Li Dao appeared calm, inwardly he was excited and a little nervous.

He was excited because, after more than a month, he could finally leave the Death Row Camp and see the world outside.

What made him nervous was this mission for the condemned.

His cheat did require him to kill enemies before he could grow stronger.

But he had only managed to kill the burly man after meticulous preparation and a surprise attack.

Now that he was going out, he might face real enemies in a fight to the death. Naturally, he was nervous.

Still, he knew very well that as long as he survived the first mission, the road ahead would only grow easier.

One cell did not provide enough prisoners, so the jailers selected more from several others.

At last, they had gathered twenty condemned prisoners.

Squad Leader Liu looked them over and nodded to the jailers. "I'll take these men, then."

With that, he had his subordinates lead them away.

Behind them, the jailers called out in unison, "Take care, Squad Leader Liu."

Led by Squad Leader Liu, Li Dao and the others soon reached the foot of a staircase.

Looking up the steps, they could faintly make out a glimmer of light.

At the sight of the stairs, many of them began breathing faster.

Beyond those steps lay the outside world they had longed for.

"Let's go."

Squad Leader Liu merely glanced back, saw that everyone had followed, and led them up the stairs.

Creak!

The wooden doors set into the ground were pushed open to either side, and Squad Leader Liu and his men emerged.

The condemned prisoners behind him also stepped through the doors one by one.

In an instant, blazing sunlight spilled over them.

The moment they saw the sun in the sky, every prisoner instinctively drew a deep breath. They seemed to smell freedom in the air.

But when they caught sight of their shackled hands and feet, they hung their heads again, brought back to reality.

Among the crowd, Li Dao took a deep breath beneath the blazing sun, smelling the windblown sand in the air as he surveyed his surroundings.

Numerous tents stood around them, and soldiers walked back and forth along the paths.

"Stay close, all of you. If you wander off and someone kills you as an escaping prisoner, don't say I didn't warn you."

Under Squad Leader Liu's lead, Li Dao and the others soon entered a tent.

Inside lay many sets of clothing identical to the soldiers' uniforms, though somewhat shabby.

"All of you, put these on. Then I'll explain tonight's mission."

Squad Leader Liu pointed at the clothes as he spoke.

The prisoners could only nod numbly and find clothes to put on.

After hearing him, Li Dao selected a slightly cleaner-looking set, then stripped off his prison clothes and changed into it.

A few minutes later, everyone had finished changing.

Looking at the prisoners in their new clothes, Squad Leader Liu nodded. "Now I'll explain the mission. Listen carefully."

"Tonight, your mission is to accompany us on a surprise attack against a small camp of the Northern Barbarians."

"If we complete the mission, it won't remove your status as condemned prisoners, but you'll receive military merit and enjoy a slightly better life in the Death Row Camp."

"On top of that, I personally promise you a feast with meat and wine if the mission succeeds."

Perhaps some of them were easily fooled. Quite a few prisoners grew excited at the mention of meat and wine, and a handful even started drooling. Heaven knew how long it had been since they had tasted either.

Even Li Dao's own stomach gave a shameless growl.

There was no helping it. How could one flatbread a day possibly fill him up?

Seeing their reaction, Squad Leader Liu nodded and whispered to a soldier beside him, "Stay here and guard these prisoners for now. When it's nearly dark, take them out of the city and issue their weapons."

"Understood."

"And bring them some flatbreads and water."

"Squad leader, isn't that a waste?"

"Are you stupid? If they don't eat their fill, how will they have the strength to take blades for you?"

"Squad leader, you really are clever."

"Of course. Why else would I be the squad leader while you're just a soldier?"

Night soon arrived.

Several soldiers soon led Li Dao and the others to an open patch of grassland outside the military camp.

There, they met Squad Leader Liu again.

"Issue the weapons."

At Squad Leader Liu's order, several soldiers brought out a basket filled with all sorts of weapons.

They handed them out, one to each condemned prisoner.

Before long, every prisoner had a weapon.

Their quality, however, did not seem particularly good.

Some held spears a meter long, others broken wooden staffs, and one prisoner's weapon was a broken saber with barely half its blade remaining.

Li Dao glanced around and felt that his own weapon at least looked the part.

It was a saber covered in rust.

Commonly known as the tetanus blade.

Unfortunately, its edge was rather dull-almost rounded, with no sharpness to be seen.

Still, he understood why.

No one would provide good weapons to a group of condemned prisoners who had practically no loyalty.

Otherwise, if the prisoners turned on them, those weapons would become deadly tools used against their own men.

Besides, they were merely cannon fodder sent to die. Giving them good weapons would be a waste.

The prisoners seemed to understand this too. Apart from a few quiet complaints among themselves, no one dared voice an objection aloud.

Of course, even if they objected, no one would likely pay them any attention.

They had clothes. They had weapons.

Next, under Squad Leader Liu's lead, the condemned prisoners set out across the grassland into the night, mingling with more than a hundred soldiers.