Daoqi Huangcheng

Chapter 1.1. I Want to Live

The capital city of the Great Yong Dynasty, in the suburbs.

The soldiers, who had been training all day, finally returned to their tents. The training, which was so severe that it was almost cruel, had not treated them like human beings at all.

They wielded sharp iron knives and slaughtered each other without holding back; they dragged themselves across thick nets spread several meters across, face up and back down, crawling over pits filled with wooden spears. If they lost their grip due to exhaustion, they would fall into the pit, be pierced through the back and chest by wooden spears, and bleed profusely. If they were unlucky, their skulls would be pierced, and their fleshy noses would turn into wooden noses, resulting in a gruesome death.

Can.
who cares?
They were just homeless people, beggars, prisoners who should have been implicated and exiled, or unregistered people without household registration.

General Que is about to lead an expedition against the northern barbarians. The barbarians are dangerous, and these soldiers who were forcibly conscripted are just cannon fodder.

Song Chen was eating a steamed bun.

Coarse grain steamed buns, and meat paste made from some kind of meat.

He wolfed down his food.

He was really hungry.

He transmigrated here, and the original owner's memories are insignificant. Even if he hadn't been conscripted, he would have frozen to death under the bridge this winter. The yamen runners would have dragged him out of the bridge with disgust, casually tossed him onto an oxcart, and had the farmers leaving the city send him to a mass grave in the wilderness to be eaten by hungry wolves.

Once inside the camp, at least you'll be able to eat your fill.

At least we can survive this winter.

The army will not break camp until the following spring.

"I made a profit, that's good."

Song Chen burst into laughter.

But there was an indescribable bitterness in his laughter.

Even if I was a corporate slave before I transmigrated, it was still better than my current situation, wasn't it?

As for the original owner, he probably didn't survive today's training and died suddenly, which allowed him to transmigrate here.

As Song Chen was thinking, the tent flap was suddenly opened, and a pungent, sweaty smell rushed into the camp with the bleak autumn wind. Three strong young men followed in one after another.

From his memory, Song Chen knew that these three people were his "roommates" and also his "big brothers". The tall and strong one in the lead was Brother Lin, and the two behind him, the one with the better looks was Brother Cheng, and the one with the fierce face was Brother Yong.

After entering the camp, Brother Lin glanced at Song Chen and said, "Sickly guy, how did you manage to pull through?"

Cheng Ge's eyes darted around, and he sat down next to Song Chen, patting him on the shoulder. Before he could speak, Lin Ge gave him a wink, so he chuckled, closed his mouth which he had been about to open, grabbed Song Chen's shoulder and squeezed it hard, saying with a smile, "Tonight, the brothers are going out for a walk and will be back late at night. You're not in good health, so don't come along. You can come next time."

Immediately, his expression changed, and he said fiercely, "Don't talk nonsense during the day."

Song Chen nodded.

These camping trips are chaotic, with discipline existing in name only. As long as you don't desert, everything is fine.

The three of them sat down together and hurriedly began to eat steamed buns and meat paste.

As Yongge ate, he sighed and said, "I was originally a guard for the Ding family. If it weren't for being implicated, how could I have ended up like this?"

Brother Lin said in a deep voice, "The three of us brothers are all skilled in martial arts. We may well achieve great things in the north, and when we return, we will have earned merit."

Yong chuckled and said, "Could it be that you still want to become one of the Five Mysterious Guards?"

Brother Lin asked, "Why not?"

Brother Yong said, "Dream on!"

Brother Lin's face immediately darkened.

Cheng, who was standing next to him, quickly smoothed things over, saying, "Not all of the Five Mysterious Guards are Dragon Guards. Below them are the Immortal Talisman Guards and the Sword Guards, right? Even if we brothers can't become Immortal Talisman Guards, we can still become Sword Guards after we return with merits and bring back a few heads of alien races, right?"
"Never mind that, I heard that the higher-ups are going to conduct some field testing in the next few days. If someone is qualified, they might be able to be taken out of this camp and directly join the Five Mysterious Guards."

Yong scoffed and retorted, "If someone were truly qualified, why would they end up here?"

The three of them said no more.

A moment later, Cheng lowered his head and whispered a few words in the ears of the two men with a grin. Immediately, the men showed a strange, impatient look, with a lewd smile on their lips and a gleam in their eyes.

Song Chen sat to one side like a superfluous person. He got up and dragged his tired feet to the water vat outside the camp.

Yesterday's heavy rain left the water tank still full.

He grabbed the old gourd ladle, raised it high, and rinsed himself from head to toe.

The autumn wind carries the last rays of the setting sun, along with an endless chill.

He shivered, goosebumps rising all over his body, then hurried back to camp, wiped himself down, hung out his clothes to dry, lay down early, made room for himself beside him, and then curled up in a corner, panting heavily, trying to recover as quickly as possible to survive until tomorrow. 'I want to live.'

Song silently clenched his fist.

He didn't complain or blame others; a strong will to survive burned within him.

He wants to live.

He must live.

must.
for sure!
Finally, he fell asleep.

In a daze, he felt his three "roommates" leave the tent.

It was raining heavily outside the tent.

Whether in the rain or in a dream, he heard a faint voice coming from a distant place, as if a woman was crying for help, urgently calling out, "Master, Master, no!"

The long, drawn-out "ah" sound, like a crane raising its neck in a mournful cry, held a fatal attraction for every man in this cannon fodder camp.

Song Chen's breathing became faster and faster. He suddenly sat up, his body was hot, and even the little Song in the slightly damp bedding was full of energy.

"Did you have a nightmare, or one of those?"

A thought flashed through his mind.

He remembered that there seemed to be an abandoned pavilion in the woods next to the camp. When he first arrived, he vaguely heard people say in a mocking tone, "That abandoned pavilion has a nice view, and it might be a good place for lovers to meet."

'Could it be that Brother Lin and the others knew a woman would go to that pavilion at night, so they went there?'

With faces covered by black cloths and in complete darkness, once you're in, you're in; who knows who's who?
Song remained silent for a moment, then shook his head, dismissing his wild guesses from his mind.

The desolate pavilion was some distance away, and even with a strong wind, he would have no way of hearing the sounds coming from it.

'It's because the repression has been too great.'

He secretly thought.

When he woke up from the dream, he was surprised to find that he was much less tired and his drowsiness had subsided.

So, Song Chen subconsciously got off the bed, lifted the tent flap, and looked outside.

The torrential rain was unlike any autumn rain, carrying an indescribable sense of gloom and abnormality.

Just as he was about to lower the curtain, he suddenly noticed a faint light shimmering among the tall grass not far away.

Song Chen was taken aback, then glanced around, bent over and quickly went toward the faint light. He raised his hand and flipped it, but felt a cold sensation flow into his fingertips. When he looked again, the faint light had disappeared.

He was filled with doubt and confusion, and quickly flipped through the pages, but it was truly gone, nothing at all.

'strangeness. ’

Song Chen frowned, then quickly turned back, crouching low.

The heavy rain hasn't stopped, and the person who left hasn't returned.

Song Chen climbed back onto the bed, thinking about what had just happened.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his brain.

A thick ancient book slowly unfolded in his mind, each page filled with decay, darkness, and death. But after turning nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven pages, that page finally became blank.

Strange black and white specks, like snowflakes, drifted across the blank pages before becoming clear.

The first line displays "[Name: Xiao Fan]", but the two characters "Xiao Fan" quickly disappear, as if torn apart by deep-sea black water, and then change to "[Name: Song Chen]".

The second line displayed "[Nine Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Seventh Incarnation]", but then the characters distorted and disappeared, reforming as "[First Incarnation]".

The third line displays information about various [treasures]:
1. The Treasure Box of Time
2. The Mirror of Illusion and Reality (Extremely Damaged)
3. ? ? ?

4. ? ? ?

5. ? ? ?

P.S.: The next chapter will be updated at 5 PM. Thereafter, there will be two chapters every day at 5 PM.

(End of this chapter)