"You're quite afraid of death, aren't you?" the Quartermaster teased with a laugh.
Tang Wen smiled: Who isn't afraid of death?
"Hmph! The heaviest Scale Armor weighs 120 pounds! Wearing it, even the average guard can barely walk, let alone you who also has to wear a 60-pound suit of armor."
"How would I know without trying?"
"Team Zhou, you're letting him mess around like this."
Zhou Bing's face was cold, and she remained silent.
"Fine! Let's see if you can handle it!"
With the heavy Scale Armor on, Tang Wen immediately felt a bit more secure.
Why hadn't he thought of this earlier? Wearing it daily for training would surely speed up his progress.
As for the 120-pound weight, he didn't even bat an eye.
Tang Wen tightened the Scale Armor, ensuring it was snug against his Inner Armor to prevent any noise while running.
Watching him spin and jump without stopping for a while, the Quartermaster couldn't help but gape in astonishment. After the two left, he turned to inspect the Scale Armor in the wooden crate: Could he have made a mistake with the weight? Did he give him the lighter one?
Back home, the two had tea and rested while Tang Tang busied herself alone in the kitchen.
At dawn the next day, Tang Wen put on his Inner Armor. While donning the armor, he noticed a pouch sewn inside, bulging with a package.
Pulling it out, he found it was wrapped in parchment, containing a large chunk of brown sugar and some thick jerky, with a pair of flint stones at the very bottom.
It was heavy, weighing about six or seven pounds.
The jerky aside, the brown sugar was quite valuable.
Almost as much as tea.
Tang Wen silently stuffed the package back into the armor, secretly wondering how much his money-loving older sister had spent to prepare this sugar.
When they left the house, Tang Tang, who usually rose early, had her door tightly shut.
Tang Wen looked towards her room, opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing and left with Zhou Bing.
This trip wouldn't be peaceful.
He had a strange premonition.
Just like the feeling he had the first time he was followed in the woods.
That's why he insisted on wearing the Inner Armor.
"Giddy up, giddy up!"
"Captain, the path ahead is clear."
"Good, stay alert."
After traveling 30 miles from the camp, Tang Wen's hunting squad was sent out as scouts.
Wu Tian, Liu Su, and others scouted the road ahead, while Tang Wen and Zhou Bing lagged slightly behind. Tang Wen held a hand crossbow loaded with a Signal Arrow.
If there was any trouble, his primary task was to fire the Signal Arrow immediately to alert the troops behind.
As for any potential attacks, Zhou Bing would shield him.
Fortunately, the journey was uneventful.
Eleven hunting squads, along with General Zhou and Commander Zhao, totaled nearly two hundred people.
By a little past four in the afternoon, they arrived at the open-pit coal mine.
"Neigh~"
After running over a hundred miles, Tang Wen's tall steed was exhausted, its tongue hanging out.
When the coal mine's stable hand came to take the horse, he was puzzled.
This young man, though his chest muscles were bulging, wasn't particularly fat. Why was the horse so tired?
Was it not fed enough? Or was the horse just old?
The mining rights of the coal mine were currently in the hands of Tang Wen's Flame Camp, and all the workers and guards at the mine were their own people.
"General! The hot water is ready. We've slaughtered three fat pigs and three goats for the hunting squad brothers to have a good meal, soak their feet, and relieve their fatigue."
"Good. Teams 10 and 11, stay on guard. The rest, enter the camp to rest."
"Yes, sir!"
Two teams, consisting of more than 30 people, stepped forward.
The hunting squads in the camp varied in size. The smallest, like the one Tang Wen was in, had only eight members.
The larger squads had nearly twenty people.
Tang Wen had asked Zhou Bing about the reason for this disparity on the way.
Zhou Bing replied indifferently, "I can take on ten of them by myself. The remaining few can be handled by Wu Tian and his trio."
Tang Wen quickly did the math and quipped, "Then the four of us can just clap. I'm really good at clapping."
Zhou Bing rolled her eyes at him.
Perhaps due to the privilege of being elites, their squad wasn't assigned night watch duty.
The members of the squad slept in the same room, fully armored.
Zhou Bing and Tang Wen slept on the beds, while the others slept on straw.
Although they shared the same room, everyone was silent, with no interest in casual conversation.
Whoo!
In the early morning, a low horn sounded.
The coal mine workers were about to start their shift.
The hunting squads had already risen early.
While having breakfast in the coal mine canteen, someone glanced outside, and soon more and more people followed suit.
Tang Wen peered through the thin fog and saw a group of cavalry approaching from the distant hills.
"The people from Black Mountain Camp have arrived. The 11 captains of the hunting squads, step forward."
Zhou Bing and the other captains, armed with weapons, stood in a row.
Tang Wen noticed that none of them were wearing armor.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
The sound of hooves grew louder, and the number of people arriving was more than expected.
There were over 400 of them. Except for the three leaders in silver armor, the rest were clad in black armor.
"Something's wrong," Commander Zhao's serious voice echoed in everyone's ears. "The aura of half these people feels unfamiliar to me."
General Zhou snorted, "The Black Mountain Devils are probably up to some Strange Occurrences."
"Whoa!"
A cavalryman with a black face mask approached and shouted, "By the order of the Black Mountain King, the rules of the competition have been changed. Only those under 24 years old are allowed to participate. The rest of the rules remain unchanged."
"Haha! What a coincidence, I'm 23 this year," Commander Zhao's voice boomed.
Tang Wen and the others burst into laughter.
"Zhao, stop being shameless! You're at least 53!" one of the silver-armored men from the opposite side shouted with full force.
Commander Zhao snorted, "Black Three! Who's the shameless one here? Are you Black Mountain Devils afraid of losing? Changing the rules again and again, and now only those under 24 can compete? Why not let your 4-year-olds fight instead?"
"Your Flame Camp has won three times. Did we Black Mountain men say anything? This is the first time we're changing the rules, and we're allowed to change them twice. Who's the one afraid of losing?"
"Why wasn't the rule change announced in advance?"
"It's not too late to announce it now. Only those under 24, male or female, can participate. The competition can be postponed for three days. You can go back and call for more people!"
Huh?
Tang Wen and his teammates exchanged puzzled glances.
It seemed like the other side was playing dirty, but they also appeared quite straightforward.
They even allowed them to go back and call for reinforcements.
But if only those under 24 were allowed to compete, why wasn't it announced earlier?
Was it really a last-minute decision to change the rules?
Commander Zhao remained silent, as the situation had taken him by surprise.
He had expected the Black Mountain Devils to play dirty, but he hadn't anticipated the competition being postponed for a few days.
"Calling for more people is such a hassle! I'm really 23. Don't I look it?"
Commander Zhao took off his helmet, turned to his subordinates, and winked.
"You do!"
"Commander, you look so young!"
"Haha, Commander, you just celebrated your 22nd birthday yesterday. I can vouch for that."
The crowd at Flame Camp burst into loud laughter.
On the other side, curses and grumbles filled the air.
After a while, a silver-armored general from Black Mountain Camp rode forward on his horse: "Zhou Bighead, you've been practicing martial arts for half your life. Surely you can determine someone's bone age? The person I'm about to send out can be personally inspected by you."
General Zhou spoke up: "I don't want you inspecting my people."
"No need!"
At this point, a middle-aged man stepped out from the ranks of Black Mountain Camp. He looked at General Zhou and Commander Zhao and said, "One of you is just over 51 years old, and the other is 47 and a half."
Commander Zhao's expression darkened: they had come prepared.
General Zhou remained calm: "You've got quite a few tricks up your sleeve. What else do you have? Lay it all out."
"Good! I won't hide it from you, Zhou Bighead! This time, we're going all out in this arena. Our Black Mountain King is ready to raise the stakes! If our man can win six consecutive matches, we want six years of mining rights! Conversely, if your man can defeat six in a row, you can dig coal here as much as you want for t
he next six years. Dig it all out, and we won't have a problem with it. Got it?"
The members of the hunting squad exchanged uneasy glances, their eyes filled with doubt and suspicion.
Is the Black Mountain Devil that confident?
Have they produced some young, formidable expert?
(End of Chapter)