Chapter Sixteen: Dinner Party

  "These eight, you take back to the brothers who guard the mountain to enjoy." Long Chen picked out eight relatively sturdy snakes and threw them at Xu Cheng, "You can just cut off the snake heads here and then take them away."

  Xu Cheng also nodded, these snakes although in hibernation, but look still so frightening. As soon as the knife fell, eight snake heads were chopped off, and the remaining snake bodies seemed to feel pain only then, starting to move slowly.

  "Grown-ups and young ones, brothers of different generations, have accepted your feelings." Xu Cheng cupped his hands in respect.

  "It's nothing, we're all brothers in our own family, and there are things that everyone should share."

  Xu Cheng nodded, and soon Dragon Chen's direct subordinate would be a matter of time. Everyone would eventually become sworn brothers, so there was no need to say more polite words. He bent down to pick up the snake body on the ground, bid farewell again, and Xu Cheng headed down the mountain.

  Long Chen then used his pointed stick to pick up the remaining snakes, and with a short knife dug a small pit, burying all the snake heads that Xu Cheng had cut off. After cleaning up, he headed towards the mountain.

  At noon, Long Chen and Ruan Yi parted ways, with Long Chen heading down and Ruan Yi going up. By now it's almost evening. When they arrived at the place where they had parted ways, from a distance, he saw Ruan Yi washing his long spear in the creek water. This was the first time Long Chen had seen Ruan Yi's spear; usually it was wrapped in a thick layer of cloth. Now that it was taken out, the black spear body emitted a dazzling light.

  Look again at Rang Yi's side of the shore, where five or six fish are laid out, each one pierced through and through, "dying with eyes open".

  Ran Yi naturally also discovered Long Chen, but still frowned and continued to clean his long spear.

  "You go wash first, I'll go call those guys over, remember to help me keep an eye on things." Long Chen shouted to Rang Yi. The snakes he brought back didn't have "kill orders", if they were left here unattended, it's possible these snakes would "wake up" and slither away, which would be a waste of all the hard work he put into catching them.

  "You throw it over, I'll help you watch." Ruan Yi continued to wash the long gun with creek water, his own gun had always drunk human blood, today he actually used it to stab fish, feeling very uncomfortable.

  "Then you go ahead." Long Chen smiled and threw the sharp stick over.

  What's the big deal, it's just some fish, are you afraid they'll run away by themselves? Ruan Yi raised his head to catch the fish, but what entered his eyes was a dozen or so snakes skewered on a sharp stick. His heart skipped a beat, his feet rooted to the ground, and with coordinated force from his arms and waist, he swung his long spear in a horizontal sweep, splitting the stick in two, causing the snake bodies to split apart and scatter along the creek bank.

  "Snakes?" Rang Yi's heart still had lingering fear, anyone who prepared to catch fish and found out it was a string of snakes would be scared out of their wits. "You said you were going to catch fish, how did you end up with these things?"

  The spear was incredibly powerful. By this time, Long Chen had already turned around and left a distance away, but the sound of his spear piercing through the air still echoed clearly in her ears, and she couldn't help but secretly praise him in her heart.

  "Because I want to eat snake soup now."

  ……

  "Flag head, what's going on? Making us run laps around the playground in the middle of the morning, isn't this intentionally making things difficult for people?"

  "It's just, plainly showing others our joke."

  Zhang Xiaoqi didn't bother to suppress the complaints of his subordinates, and he himself wasn't feeling good either. He had been messing around for a whole morning without any reason, it was all just self-inflicted suffering.

  "Let me tell you, these are nothing. I just can't stand that Dragon guy, relying on his good martial arts skills to bully our brothers, always throwing punches! Look at what happened to Second Tiger this morning, he was really messed up by that Dragon guy. He's not a good person, right? Second Tiger?" Wang Liang narrowed his eyes, having been forced to kneel down in public earlier today, losing face completely. Even after everyone else left, he stayed behind running laps, and was even ridiculed by soldiers from other battalions. It could be said that he had been holding back a belly full of anger.

  "Stop muttering, let's just do what he says and not be lazy or try to play any tricks. This Dragon guy is not someone to be trifled with." Unexpectedly, the one who spoke these words was Zhao Erhu, who had been taken out by Long Chen today to serve as a warning example.

  "Second Brother Tiger, you're not intimidated by that Dragon guy, are you?" Wang Liang's eyes flickered with a hint of disdain.

  "Yes, I was thoroughly intimidated by him today, don't tell me you weren't scared. Brothers, I saw it clearly, this Dragon guy is not to be trifled with, I'm really scared!" Recalling the scene from this morning when Long Chen grasped his neck and lifted him up, he remembered the look in his eyes, which contained boundless killing intent, under that gaze, Zhao Erhu had already chosen to surrender.

  Wang Liang just hummed twice and stopped talking. To say that he was not afraid of Long Chen would be absolutely false.

  Just as the house fell into a brief silence, Hu Meng's voice suddenly came from outside the door: "The master has ordered, go to the back mountain stream to assemble."

  Hu Meng stood outside the door, watching as each of the soldiers came out one by one, every face filled with a hint of fear. None of them knew if Hu Meng had overheard their discussion about Long Chen just now. After all, Hu Meng and Long Chen's relationship was not ordinary; if he were to report this, they would be in for another round of trouble.

  Zhang Xiaoqi could only force a smile and ask, "Brother Hu, when did you arrive? You really gave us a surprise." This sentence was half polite and half probing. Although Zhang Xiaoqi had not spoken up to participate in the blame, he also adopted an attitude of tacit consent.

  "Hu Meng snorted coldly: 'I, Hu Meng, hate it the most when people badmouth others behind their backs. That's something only women do. If you have the guts to say it to my face in front of everyone, then I'll respect you as a man.'"

  After Hu Meng said this, everyone's face was a bit hot, but in their hearts, they had finally let out a sigh of relief. Hu Meng's words meant that he wouldn't go and report this incident.

  Less than twenty people, including the four little flags, had arrived at the creek. In sight were several bonfires, some of which had pots on them cooking something, while others were roasting things. The soldiers who came first had already started to get busy. Seeing these people still in a daze, Hu Meng said with a bad tone: "Still not going over to lend a hand, really thinking you're the masters? The adults have brought back wild game for you, and are waiting for it to be done before serving it up for you to enjoy?"

  The crowd then went up and started moving forward. Before long, the creek side was already filled with the aroma of meat. In the military camp, almost every meal was coarse grains or leftover rice, and it was rare to see any non-vegetarian food. Now they had fish soup to drink and snake meat to eat, everyone felt extremely delighted. In this chaotic world, being able to survive was already a great fortune, of course, living a more comfortable life was even better.

  Zhao Erhu was intently devouring a piece of snake meat. These hibernating snakes wouldn't be too big, their flesh tighter, but also more flavorful. As Zhao Erhu tore at the snake meat with all his might, he used his peripheral vision to steal glances at Long Chen sitting far away, his eyes revealing some complexity and confusion.

  Wang Liang drank two large bowls of fresh fish soup, for which he had taken out all the salted fish he had privately stored. After finishing the two bowls of soup, the anger in his heart was also calmed down a lot.

  Long Chen and Rang Yi sat on a rock farther away from the stream, not joining in the lively bustle by the creek.

  "How about you go and polish your gun again?" Long Chen couldn't help but tease Rang Yi.

  Ran Yi didn't pick up on this cue, but instead nodded towards the crowd by the stream and said: "Are you planning to use both kindness and intimidation?"

  "No, if I can make those under me eat a little better, then I'll try to make it a little better." This is actually what Long Chen has in mind.

  "I want to see what you'll use to feed them after you've eaten all the fish and snakes on Iron Mountain to extinction."

  "Let them eat a bit better and they will go find something to eat themselves. If there is nothing on Iron Mountain, then just go outside of Iron Mountain."

  "Outside the mountain are Koreans." Yan Yi's words were half answer and half warning.

  "You also said they are Koreans, remember, we are the soldiers of the Great Ming, not their Korean soldiers!" Long Chen broke the withered branch in his hand, "Tomorrow I'll go down the mountain to take a look, you come and train these guys."

  Ran Yi could also roughly guess what Long Chen was going down the mountain for, but he didn't bother saying anything.

  "Two seniors, have some fish soup." Hu Meng hurriedly brought over two bowls of fish soup.

  Long Chen and Rang Yi took over the bowl, and Long Chen instructed again:

  "Get some fish soup and snake meat for those few people lying in bed."

  "Alright then." Hu Meng listened and turned around to leave.

  "Haha, you're the one who hurt them, and now you're acting like a good person too. How can you be both the good guy and the bad guy?" Ruan Yi teased with a smile.