Chapter 913
My teeth are in great shape!
Iron One-Eyed was shirtless, his body wrapped in white bandages. But he wasn't lying in a hospital bed; instead, he was sitting imposingly in a grand chair, holding a large bowl bigger than his face, gulping down a dark red, thick soup.
That was a bone broth made by simmering the skeletons of several third-tier earth dragons for three days and three nights, with the addition of blood-activating herbs specially prepared by Master Kulian.
"That feels great! That feels fucking great!" Iron One-Eye slammed the large bowl on the ground, wiped the soup from the corner of his mouth with his thick, bandaged fingers, and said, "My broken ribs only took three days to apply the real man's dog-skin plaster, and now they don't hurt anymore! They even feel stronger than before!"
In front of him stood a thousand heavily armored city guards, freshly dressed, in the morning light.
If an outsider were to see this army at this moment, they would definitely be shocked.
This group of refugees didn't look like people who had been scavenging for food in the mud just a few months ago. Each of them wore a set of heavy armor, dark gray in color and covered with natural bone patterns. It was made from the carapace of an armored rhinoceros, softened at high temperatures in a blacksmith's shop, and then reshaped and riveted together. Although it looked somewhat rough and bulky, its suffocatingly thick defensive power could be felt from a great distance.
In their left hands lay a heavy shield covered by the belly skin of a fiery lion, its surface still bearing traces of dark red fire marks—a natural anti-magic coating. In their right hands, they gripped a twelve-foot-long black spear. The spearhead was no longer ordinary refined steel, but forged from a mixture of wolf fangs and rhinoceros horns with black iron, giving it an eerie, deathly white hue. The blade gleamed with a bloodthirsty, chilling light in the sunlight.
Guo Tianyou, dressed in a slightly fitted general's heavy armor with a newly forged sword hanging at his waist, strode confidently at the front of the formation.
"Second in the third row, straighten up! You're wearing armored rhinoceros hide, don't cower like a turtle!" Guo Tianyou kicked a recruit in the butt. The recruit didn't feel any pain at all; instead, he chuckled and suddenly puffed out his chest. The armor plates rubbed together, making a sickeningly loud metallic clang.
"Listen up, all of you!" Guo Tianyou turned around, facing the entire army, his voice booming like thunder. "What you're wearing and what you're carrying was all obtained by trading the bones and flesh of those beasts outside! You think this armor is light and flimsy? Let me tell you, this set of armor weighs eighty pounds! If you hadn't been soaking in the 'Boiling Blood Ointment' of the withered lotus master every day these past few days, and gnawing on the big bones of demonic beasts, you wouldn't even be able to put this armor on!"
No one spoke in the queue, but a near-fanatical light burned in everyone's eyes. They could feel the changes within their bodies. Their once frail bodies, which would pant for ages after carrying a single load of water, now seemed to possess inexhaustible strength. Their skin and flesh had become rough and resilient, and they no longer felt the cold winter wind blowing on their faces.
"From this day forward, you are no longer laborers wielding wooden sticks for courage. You are the iron bulwark of Hongyun City!" Guo Tianyou suddenly drew his sword from his waist, pointing it diagonally to the sky. "For Hongyun City! For Mr. Zheng!"
"For Hongyun City! For the Master!"
A thousand men roared in unison, their spears slamming to the ground.
"boom--"
The earth seemed to tremble.
Zheng Yi stood on a high platform next to the training ground, quietly watching this scene. Beside him stood Xiao Liu and Xiao Shitou.
Both children held a steaming wooden bowl in their hands. The bowls did not contain thin porridge, but rather chunks of wolf meat stewed until tender, with a rich, milky-white broth.
"Sir, this meat is really delicious, it's so chewy!" Xiao Liu said indistinctly with his mouth full, his cheeks bulging like a squirrel. "My mother said that if I eat this meat, I can grow as strong as Uncle Guo."
Zheng Yi reached out and ruffled Xiao Liu's slightly messy hair, his fingertips feeling a heat beyond his years. It was a sign that a large amount of demon beast flesh was being transformed into qi and blood within the child's body. With a little guidance, these children who grew up in the orphanage would all become excellent martial arts talents in the future.
"Eat slowly, there's still some in the pot." Zheng Yi's gaze softened. "After you're full, go help Uncle Zhao. He's taking people to repair the pit in the moat today, so you guys go help pick up the stones."
"Alright! I'm really strong now, I can lift such a big rock!" Little Stone put down the bowl and forcefully gestured a circle bigger than his head.
Watching the two children run happily into the distance, Zheng Yi turned his head and looked in the direction of the Blackwater River.
The thick fog had completely dissipated, and the river surface shimmered in the sunlight. The gloom that had once hung over Hongyun City for years seemed to have vanished with the devastating beast tide and the destruction of the Huang family.
Han Wuhen climbed up the platform, panting, holding a thick ledger in his hand: "Sir! It's all calculated! Everything's been calculated!"
He didn't even bother to wipe his sweat, flipping through the ledgers with a rustling sound: "Besides the materials allocated to the blacksmith camp, leather workshop, and alchemy room, we still have a full four thousand complete low-grade animal hides, five thousand catties of dried demon beast meat, and two large boxes of broken weapon fragments! I didn't sell these things for money; following your instructions, I converted them all into 'work points' and 'grain coupons' and distributed them to the people in the city!"
Zheng Yi nodded: "What are the people saying?"
"The people have gone mad!" Han Wuhen's eyes widened, as if he had witnessed some unbelievable miracle. "Before, when we distributed porridge, they were grateful, but their eyes were numb, thinking they were just living one day at a time. But now, with those animal hides and grain coupons in their hands, they've all stood up straight! That blind old shoemaker in the south of the city, yesterday he traded a wolf pelt he was allocated for two live chickens. This morning when I passed by his house, I could hear the chickens crowing in his yard!"
Elder Liu slowly walked up as well. Looking at the heavily armored infantrymen on the training ground, who were displaying an imposing aura, he sighed and said, "I have lived most of my life and thought I was an expert in scheming. Only today do I understand what the true 'way to make money' is."
He turned to look at Zheng Yi: "Fellow Daoist Zheng, you didn't turn the spoils of war into spirit stones lying in the warehouse, but into knives in the soldiers' hands and meat in the people's pots. You turned these dead things into the 'life force' of this city."
"People need to be alive to have vitality," Zheng Yi said calmly. "Why did the Huang family lose? Because they treated people as numbers to be consumed at will. They thought that tens of thousands of mindless monsters could crush us. But they didn't understand that when a group of refugees who weren't even afraid of death suddenly had a home to protect, enough food to eat, and warm armor to wear..."
Zheng Yi's gaze swept across the entire training ground, past the blacksmiths sweating profusely by the furnace, past the women sewing in the leather workshop, and finally landed on the distant city wall.
"That is an impregnable fortress."
"Report—!" A scout carrying a command flag galloped from the direction of the city gate, his horse's hooves striking the bluestone slabs with a crisp sound. He reined in his horse below the platform, dismounted, and knelt on one knee, his voice filled with barely concealed excitement:
"Reporting to the sir! Scouts outside the Black Pine Forest report that there are no more traces of groups of demonic beasts within a radius of thirty miles! In addition, we have unearthed a cellar that was not completely destroyed in the former Huang family camp that was trampled to pieces!"
Guo Tianyou shouted from below, "What good stuff did you dig up? Is it that old bastard Huang Delong's hidden stash of money?"
The scout swallowed hard and reported loudly, "Commander Huiguo! It's not money! It's three hundred cartloads of unhulled new rice and five thousand bolts of coarse cloth!"
The entire stadium erupted in a deafening roar of cheers.
Han Wuhen slapped his thigh, his face trembling with excitement: "The Huang family is truly a great benefactor! They've traveled all this way to deliver grain and cloth to us!"
Zheng Yi's lips curled up slightly, revealing a faint but relaxed smile.
He raised his hand and pressed it down. The cheers on the training ground instantly ceased, and everyone stared intently at him, awaiting his next command.
"God bless you!"
"exist!"
"Let Iron One-Eye rest. You take a thousand heavy armored soldiers, load up all the carts, and head to Black Pine Forest." Zheng Yi turned around, his gray fox fur fluttering in the morning breeze. "Bring back our spoils, not a single grain of rice left. At noon, slaughter pigs throughout the city and stew them!"
"Yes, sir!!!"
The midday sun was at its highest point, its rays relentlessly drenching the bluestone slabs of Hongyun City. Inside the city gates, the once mountainous piles of demonic beast carcasses had been cleared away, leaving a large, clean area.
The stench of blood in the air was forcibly masked by another extremely domineering aroma—the meaty fragrance of fat rolling and bursting under high temperature, mixed with strong spices.
Dozens of huge cast iron pots, used for boiling the mortar for defending the city, were washed until they gleamed and lined up on makeshift earthen stoves. The crackling firewood in the stoves wasn't ordinary firewood, but red pine wood cut from the edge of the black pine forest, imbued with a faint fire spirit. The flames, a beautiful orange-red, licked the bottom of the pots, making the water inside bubble and boil vigorously.
"Star anise! Cinnamon! Sichuan peppercorns! Pour them all in! Don't be stingy, Patriarch Han has spoken, the spice warehouse is open to all!" Zhao Sanhuai, holding a specially made long-handled iron ladle taller than himself, stood on the highest earthen platform and shouted orders.
Several burly cooks carried sacks and poured the entire bags of spices directly into the boiling water. Instantly, a thick layer of amber-colored oil rose to the surface of the water, and the aroma burst forth with a "whoosh," making the soldiers who were carrying stones nearby swallow hard.
"Old Zhao, the meat's here! Make way!"
Guo Tianyou's booming voice came from outside the city gate. He was shirtless, covered in sweat, and carrying half a carcass of freshly cleaned wild boar meat on his shoulder. This wild boar had been trampled to death by a panicked herd of animals at the edge of the black pine forest. It weighed at least 500 jin (250 kg), and was plump and strong, with its white fat meat at least three fingers thick.
Behind him, hundreds of city guards lined up in a long line, carrying wooden basins in pairs. The basins were filled with fresh pork and some low-level monster meat that had been gutted.
"Put it all in! Put it all in the pot!" Zhao Sanhuai waved a large iron ladle, and with a "thud," the half-pig on Guo Tianyou's shoulder was thrown directly into the largest cast iron pot, and the boiling broth splashed half a meter high.
"Wait a minute! You cripple, you've splattered oil all over me!" Guo Tianyou jumped to the side, wiped the soup off his face, and licked it. His eyes lit up. "It's so damn delicious! This meat stewed with red pine wood has a pine nut flavor!"
"That's right. Master Kulian also told me to throw half a pound of 'Purple Leaf Perilla' into each pot, saying that it could dispel the residual turbidity in the monster meat and wouldn't harm the spleen and stomach." Zhao Sanhuai stirred the large pot with pride. The meat chunks rolled in the boiling water, turning from red to white, and then were dyed a rich, bright red color by soy sauce and spices.
At the foot of the city wall, dozens of carts were lined up in a row. The bags of new rice seized from Huangjia Camp had already been opened.
"This rice from the Huang family is truly excellent. This year's new rice has not been mixed with a single grain of old rice; each grain is plump like a pearl." Han Wuhen stood in front of the cart, grabbed a handful of white rice, letting the grains slip through his fingers, his face full of delight. "Tsk tsk, three hundred cartloads! Huang Delong is quite a discerning man; even when he came to attack us, he didn't forget to bring plenty of top-quality grains."
"Don't just look at it, put it in the pot and simmer it! Today we're eating dry food, not porridge!" Elder Liu walked over from the side, unusually rolling up his wide sleeves, and surprisingly carrying a wooden basin for rinsing rice. "I've lived this long and I've never eaten rice delivered to my mortal enemy's door. I'll have to eat two more bowls today."
"Old Liu, can your body handle two bowls of dry food? Don't overeat!" Iron One-Eye was being carried on a stretcher by two new recruits, groaning and whimpering as he approached. Except for his two eyes and mouth, his entire body was basically wrapped in bandages like a mummy, but that still couldn't stop him from moving closer to the stove.
Elder Liu snorted coldly and handed the wooden basin to the cook beside him: "Although I don't cultivate my physical body, I am still a Foundation Establishment cultivator, and eating a cow is no problem for me. As for you, you have eight broken bones, so you should just drink your bone broth. Can you even chew this big chunk of meat?"
"Bullshit! My teeth are still in great shape!" Iron One-Eye exclaimed excitedly, pulling at his wound and wincing in pain. "Hiss... Ouch... Zhao Sanhuai! Pick me a piece of fatty meat with tendons! A piece as big as a washbasin! I'll swallow it down today, even if I have to!"
The entire Hongyun City felt like a huge, warm home.
There was no strict military discipline, no distinction between merchants and peasants. The common people helped chop scallions and garlic, the women sewed towels for the soldiers to wipe their sweat with newly captured coarse cloth, and the children darted in and out of the crowd and the stove like eels, sniffing and staring longingly at the chunks of meat rolling in the pot.
Zheng Yi didn't sit in the grand chair in the city lord's mansion waiting for his meal. Instead, he casually squatted down next to one of the large pots, holding a wooden bowl. (End of Chapter)