Li Dao slept for a full sixteen hours.
He did not gradually wake until noon the following day.
"That felt good."
Li Dao stretched, and a series of crackles popped through his entire body.
Just then, a delicious aroma drifted into his nose.
"Meat? Where's the meat!"
"It really is meat. I want meat!"
"There's wine, too. Please, someone, let me have a sip."
"Give me one bite of meat and one sip of wine, and I'd gladly die right now."
"..."
The aroma soon filled the cells. The condemned prisoners went mad at the smell, especially those who had been locked up for a long time. They would rather die if it meant getting a bite of meat or a sip of wine.
Clinging to their cell doors, the prisoners saw a jailer approaching with a wooden tray.
On the tray sat a roast chicken and a flask of wine.
The sight drove the prisoners even wilder.
Some pressed desperately against the doors, frantically inhaling the scent of meat and wine before closing their eyes to fantasize, as though that could put the food in their mouths.
The jailer stopped outside Li Dao's cell.
He unlocked the door and carried the food inside.
"Who is Nine Five Two Seven?"
The jailer addressed the condemned prisoners in the cell.
Li Dao stood and walked up to him. "I'm Nine Five Two Seven."
The jailer chuckled. "Nine Five Two Seven, you did well on the last mission. Centurion Liu specifically sent this as your reward."
Li Dao accepted the meat and wine with a faint smile. "Sorry for the trouble, jailer. Please thank Squad Leader Liu for me."
"I will."
Perhaps he had learned something, because the jailer did not treat Li Dao as harshly as he treated ordinary condemned prisoners.
Before leaving, the jailer patted Li Dao's shoulder and said meaningfully, "You'd better eat quickly."
After the jailer left, Li Dao took the meat and wine over to the wall.
He tore off a drumstick and bit into it without hesitation, then uncorked the flask and took a swig.
The surrounding prisoners swallowed at the sight, their eyes fixed on the meat and wine in Li Dao's hands.
Suddenly, one of them could no longer resist. He stood and walked over to Li Dao.
"Young man, could you let me have a bite? Just one bite. I promise I won't take more."
Apparently worried about his appearance, the man even wiped his face, revealing kindly features.
Li Dao glanced at him, studied his face for a moment, then slowly asked, "A human trafficker?"
The man's face stiffened for an instant, but he quickly replied, "No, I was wrongly accused. I'm a ninth-rank official of the Imperial Court."
"A ninth-rank official?"
"Yes, yes, exactly."
"Then do you recognize this character?"
With his greasy finger, Li Dao casually wrote a character on the ground.
"This character, I..."
"It's the character for 'life.'"
"Ah... yes, yes, it's 'life.' I just didn't recognize it right away."
Li Dao gave him a mocking smile. "Sorry, my mistake. This isn't the character for 'life.'"
The man looked embarrassed, but his face quickly twisted with anger. "You're toying with me?"
"So what if I am?"
"I... I'll kill you."
The kindly old man suddenly bared a vicious expression and thrust his right hand toward Li Dao's face.
Li Dao immediately spotted something in the old man's hand.
A wooden spike?
He had seen Li Dao use one before and was now copying him to turn it against him.
Had Li Dao still been as he was at the beginning, he might really have failed to react in time and suffered for it.
But with his reaction speed now four times greater, the old bastard's attack looked like slow motion.
Li Dao decisively reached out and seized his wrist.
Crack!
With a sharp snap, he folded the old bastard's wrist in half.
"Aah!"
Faced with the old bastard's screams, Li Dao remained unmoved. Instead, he smiled faintly. "You old bastard. You don't even recognize the Death Character, yet you claim to be an official?"
The pain frightened the old bastard, and he hurriedly begged for mercy. "Don't kill me! I won't eat it! Don't kill me!"
"Human traffickers all deserve to die."
With that, Li Dao kicked him.
Bang!
The old bastard flew backward and hung against the wall like a painting before finally dropping to the ground, the back of his head drenched in blood.
Just then, the system notification sounded.
[One enemy killed. Attributes gained: 0.09]
Li Dao was rather surprised by the notification. He had not expected this white-haired old man to have such a strong body.
But once he thought of the man's profession, it made sense.
Without a strong body, a human trafficker would have been beaten to death long ago.
Such men were the human traffickers of ancient times.
Some women and elderly people were skilled at using their personal advantages to win others' trust through deception.
The instant the old man put on that kindly expression, Li Dao had guessed his identity.
After all, an old man could not possibly survive in the Death Row Camp without a few tricks.
And his tone when speaking to Li Dao evoked the smiles in photographs of elderly human traffickers he had seen in his previous life.
A smile like that outside would have meant little, but wearing it inside the Death Row Camp meant he truly took Li Dao for a fool.
After finishing off the old bastard, Li Dao sat down and continued eating as though nothing had happened.
Perhaps his ruthlessness this time had once again crushed certain people's little schemes, because no one else dared approach.
Li Dao felt regret at the sight.
It was all because that old bastard had been a human trafficker. He might have tolerated an ordinary criminal a little longer, but he had no patience whatsoever for human traffickers.
A few minutes later.
Having eaten and drunk his fill, Li Dao leaned against the wall.
Some nearby prisoners looked disappointed when they saw that Li Dao had even chewed up and eaten all the chicken bones.
They had thought they might at least get to lick the bones, but he had not left so much as a feather.
Li Dao ignored their reactions and silently added the attributes he had just gained to his physique.
[Master: Li Dao] [Physique: 4.49] [Available attributes: 0]
I worked so hard that I got stronger again!
Looking at the chains on his hands, Li Dao felt they probably could no longer restrain him.
Still, even if the chains could not hold him, his status as a condemned prisoner could, so he had to keep waiting.
Time continued to pass.
Soon, three days had gone by.
During those three days, Li Dao stayed in the Death Prison, either sleeping or resting with his eyes closed.
But he felt no urgency.
Had he never revealed his strength, things might have been different. Now that he had, however, he believed Squad Leader Liu and the others in the military camp would not simply let such a useful tool go to waste.
Just then, footsteps sounded outside the door.
A jailer appeared outside the cell. As he unlocked the door, he called inside, "Nine Five Two Seven, come out."
Li Dao stood and stretched, then walked toward the cell door, dragging his shackles.
Along the way, he saw many prisoners in the cell looking at him with gloating expressions.
In their eyes, his return from his first mission had been nothing but luck. On his second, he would surely die outside.
Soon after leaving the cell, Li Dao encountered a familiar face.
Squad Leader Liu.
"Nine Five Two Seven, I kept my word, didn't I?"
Squad Leader Liu greeted him first.
Li Dao smiled slightly. "The meat was delicious, and so was the wine."
Perhaps because they had dealt with each other before, Squad Leader Liu seemed quite familiar with him. He stepped forward, patted Li Dao's shoulder, and chuckled. "If you complete this mission too, I'll give you double the same reward."
Li Dao raised an eyebrow. "Squad Leader Liu, it sounds like this mission won't be simple."
Squad Leader Liu's smile faded, and he lowered his voice. "This mission is a little difficult. We need to ambush a unit of Northern Barbarians cavalry."
A unit of Northern Barbarians cavalry?
Li Dao wanted to say that this was far more than a little difficult. For an ordinary condemned prisoner, it was practically a mission straight out of hell.
That was because cavalry was precisely what the Northern Barbarians were most famous for.
As a nation formed from countless nomadic tribes, the Northern Barbarians Dynasty excelled at training warhorses and cavalry.
Even three-year-old children in the Northern Barbarians Dynasty could develop excellent riding skills. It was easy to imagine how terrifying the cavalry selected from their vast population would be.
Combined with their high mobility, cavalry was generally difficult to deal with.
Yet Li Dao felt no fear.
Or rather, the system's ability had transformed that fear into exhilaration.
When it came to fighting others to the death, he felt more excitement than terror.
Of course, his increased strength was also a factor.
If he had still been his former weakling self, he could not have run away fast enough.
"Are we taking the lead again?"
As he chatted with Squad Leader Liu, Li Dao noticed many jailers approaching with all sorts of condemned prisoners.
Squad Leader Liu did not answer directly. He merely blinked and glanced at Li Dao's clothes.
That probably counted as tacit confirmation.
What followed was much the same as on the previous mission.
Li Dao and the others were taken out of the Death Prison and brought to a military tent to change clothes, after which Squad Leader Liu explained the mission.
When the condemned prisoners heard they would be ambushing Northern Barbarians cavalry, every one of them looked resistant.
But seeing the surrounding Great Qian soldiers with their blades half-drawn, none dared say anything more.
If they risked their lives, they still had a chance to scrape through. If they bristled now, they would die right here.
Perhaps because the mission was urgent, Squad Leader Liu had the soldiers distribute weapons as soon as he finished explaining.
Unlike last time, the weapons handed to Li Dao were no longer battered scraps, but two gleaming, brand-new long sabers.
The sight instantly upset the prisoners around him who had received damaged weapons.
"I won't accept this! Why do we get this rotten junk while his weapons are so new? I want new weapons too!"
"Exactly! We want new weapons too! We're all condemned prisoners. Why is he treated differently?"
"This is discrimination! That pretty boy doesn't deserve such good weapons!"
"..."
The condemned prisoners quickly began voicing their resentment.
"All of you, quiet!"
A sudden shout cut every prisoner short.
Squad Leader Liu looked at them coldly. "If you want weapons like Nine Five Two Seven's, fine. Go seize them from Northern Barbarians soldiers yourselves. Loot them. If you take them, they're yours."
"Then what about him?"
Squad Leader Liu chuckled and looked at the speaker. "Sorry, but those two sabers are precisely what he seized from Northern Barbarians soldiers on his last mission."
The condemned prisoners all looked incredulous.
Perhaps because this mission was important, the prisoners selected for it all looked fairly sturdy.
Although Li Dao had undergone several enhancements, his build had not changed much outwardly. He still looked a little "thin," which made him seem rather "small and dainty" among these prisoners.
That was also why so many of them doubted him.
Seeing this, Squad Leader Liu smiled and turned his gaze toward Li Dao. "Nine Five Two Seven, you can try to 'persuade' them."
Li Dao nodded, then looked at the prisoners with a faint smile. "Anyone who objects, step forward. Beat me, and these two sabers are yours."
The moment he finished speaking, someone immediately pushed through the prisoners and stood before him.
Nearly two meters tall, dark-skinned and powerfully built, the man looked fierce.
Many prisoners who had failed to react in time regretted it. Had they known that pretty boy was so easy to provoke, they would have stepped forward first.
The big, dark-skinned man seemed to know he had landed a bargain and grinned cheerfully.
Facing Li Dao, he sneered, "Pretty boy, hand over those two sabers willingly, and I might consider going easy on you. Otherwise, I might accidentally beat you to death."
Whoosh!
A gleaming blade was planted in front of the burly, dark-skinned man.
Li Dao raised a hand and beckoned with his fingers. "Enough nonsense."
"You're courting death."
Seeing a pretty boy provoke him like this, the burly man promptly grabbed the long saber and swept it straight at Li Dao's face, clearly intent on killing him.
Li Dao merely raised his blade, then swung.
Just as everyone thought Li Dao would die beneath the burly man's blade-
There was a crack, and a blade shattered.
When everyone came to their senses and looked at Li Dao and the burly man, they found Li Dao's blade intact.
The burly man, meanwhile, held only half a blade in his hand.
Riiip!
The next second, a tearing sound rang out.
Then a split extended from between the burly man's eyebrows all the way down to his abdomen.
In an instant, a great gush of blood sprayed from the split, and the burly man collapsed to the ground.
[One enemy killed. Attributes gained: 0.22]
The system notification made Li Dao's eyes light up. All that flesh on the burly man had not gone to waste-he had actually yielded so many attribute points.
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