Chapter Forty-Five: The Day of Division, Encounter with the Elite Recruits

“Fatty! Hurry up and turn!”
“Yeah! Fatty, tomorrow is the last assessment!”
“Come on, Fatty!”
...
Night fell.
The recruit training ground.
It was the first month of winter, snowflakes swirling in the air. The training field had been cleared for a rare patch of open space. Several young soldiers in padded uniforms stood there, hands tucked, stamping their feet, white breaths swirling as they urged on.
These were the men of Squad Eight—Du Huaishan and his fellows.
After three months of recruit training, Squad Eight, all eight strong, had four members—apart from Du Huaishan and Guo Tingyu—who had already passed Zhou Zhongai’s balance training assessment with excellent results, earning the rewards of demon spirit guardians from the Martial Academy.
Now only two remained who had not passed. One of them was Fatty, Yang Anfu.
Tomorrow would be the final assessment, the day specialties were assigned.
If Yang Anfu failed once more, he would be unable to use the mobility grappling ropes, relegated to being a common infantryman.
And everyone knew what that meant—ordinary infantry facing demons had little chance of survival.
This was why Du Huaishan and the others pressed him to train harder.
“Ugh...”
Yang Anfu rolled to the finish line, tumbled off the wheel, sprawled in the snow, and vomited again. “I can’t do it, spare me, I really can’t handle this thing.”
“Fatty, get up, let’s keep practicing!”
Wu Ming grabbed his shoulder.
“Wu, just let it go, I really can’t manage it.”
Yang Anfu waved his hand.
“What do you mean ‘let it go’? We’re out here freezing with you at night, and you’re just going to give up so easily?”
Wu Ming shoved Yang Anfu’s shoulder, his emotions running high.
“Wu!”
Guo Tingyu called out.
Tan Hai scratched his head to ease the tension, “Wu’s worried you won’t have a grappling rope or a guardian spirit, that your survival on the battlefield will be too low. Fatty, why don’t we try two more rounds? You can do it!”
Fatty Yang hung his head, “Let it be, brothers. I’m really not cut out for this. I’m not as gifted as Du Huaishan, not as well-off as Tingyu, not as strong as Wu, nor as clever as you, Tan Hai.”
“These days I’ve thought it over—I might not be suited for combat. Tomorrow, when they assign specialties, I’ll sign up for logistics and communications...”
“What the hell is this? Not suited for combat? Where’s the Fatty Yang who brawled in the mess hall? Where’s your guts, man? We said we’d fight together! We said Squad Eight would never split up! You coward!!”
“Wu!”
Seeing Wu Ming about to lunge, Du Huaishan and the others quickly reached out to restrain him.
On the day recruits were assigned squads, Wu Ming and Yang Anfu had arrived first. They were the earliest friends in Squad Eight, often ribbing each other, their bond deep.
Wu’s outburst clearly showed he couldn’t bear to see Fatty fall behind.
“Wu! Listen to me—Fatty’s not a coward!”
Du Huaishan held Wu’s arm. In Squad Eight, only he could restrain Wu’s large frame. “Combat isn’t just the front line. Logistics and support are equally important. Everyone has their own strengths and passions. We should respect Fatty’s choice...”
Truth be told, he too was reluctant to let Fatty go.
Yang Anfu had always treated him well, personally cooking every training meal and taking care to make them varied, afraid he wouldn’t like the food.
But there was no help for it.
Du Huaishan saw no fighting spirit or killing intent left in Fatty’s eyes. If forced onto the battlefield, hesitation would cost him his life.
“Huaishan.”
Yang Anfu’s eyes reddened at his words, sniffing hard.
He stepped forward, patting Wu Ming and Du Huaishan’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, even if I go to logistics and communications, we’ll still live together, right? Wu, Squad Eight will never break up. We’ll always be family!”
Wu Ming turned to look at Fatty, his violet eyes trembling, fists clenched, then finally released. He gently patted Fatty’s back and choked out, “You damned Fatty! If you end up in logistics, don’t forget to sneak us some extra steamed buns!”
“Pfft, haha...”
Wu’s teasing broke the frozen atmosphere.
The men of Squad Eight looked at each other, grinning.
“All right! Steamed buns as much as you want!”
...

Back in the dormitory.
Du Huaishan first shed his padded uniform, then unstrapped the sandbags tied to his body.
“Huaishan, the sandbag on your left leg is leaking. Let me patch it for you.”
The speaker was Sun Tian, the one who had remarked that Du Huaishan’s first chicken dinner was better than his family’s New Year feast.
Sun Tian had a common face, rarely spoke, and sent all his enlistment bonus and monthly pay home, so he seldom joined Squad Eight’s outings.
Du Huaishan only started talking to him when he needed to buy fabric and sand for making weighted sandbags.
After chatting, he learned Sun Tian’s family worked as tailors, so he'd learned sewing from his mother since childhood.
Du Huaishan’s sandbags were sewn by Sun Tian—finely made and comfortable, never chafing the skin.
“The hole’s small, I can do it myself.”
“Let me handle it.”
Sun Tian had just passed the grappling rope test last week and gained a guardian spirit, thanks to Du Huaishan’s training tools. He was grateful to Huaishan.
“Huaishan, will you wear the sandbags to tomorrow’s assessment?”
Tan Hai returned with hot water, asking.
“I’ll wear them. The instructors don’t care about grades, as long as you pass.”
Since last month, Du Huaishan had been training with weights, starting with hidden sandbags and gradually increasing to weighted sandbags.
Now,
His arms bore two kilograms each, torso and legs eight kilograms each.
Eighteen kilos, as heavy as a full set of cotton armor.
“Comparing people really drives you mad.”
Guo Tingyu shook his head, laughing. “Huaishan, you have so much talent and work so hard, training with weights and still never falling behind. Amazing!”
“Talent and effort are both essential.”
Du Huaishan replied offhandedly, opening his notebook to jot down today’s training insights.
These three months,
Chang Suian’s combat training had moved from boxing to trench knives and sabers, even including firearms, shooting drills, and grenade throwing.
He had just returned from Luo Zongwen’s training room, practicing knife techniques in his demonized state.
Thanks to his previous life’s weapons training, Du Huaishan’s saber skills improved rapidly, but because his moves were too fancy, Luo Zongwen advised him to simplify—cut away unnecessary actions, keep only the most direct killing techniques.
Shamefully,
To this day, Du Huaishan’s demonization had broken past eight percent, yet he still hadn’t forced Instructor Luo to use his guardian spirit.
He set a small goal: find a way to make Instructor Luo call out his guardian spirit!
Lights out, notebook closed, crawled into bed.
Tiger-style relaxation exercises.
The next day.
The weather gave no mercy for assessment and specialty day.
On the contrary, the snow fell even harder.
Thick snow blanketed the sand-colored training ground.
Du Huaishan ran in the middle of the squad, surrounded by checking soldiers, while Lai Yanlong and the instructor group stood on the high platform, binoculars in hand, observing the recruits.
“This Du Huaishan, his grades lately are erratic, not as dazzling as before.”
Lai Yanlong had no idea Du Huaishan was wearing weighted sandbags.
In fact,
Du Huaishan performed well when he’d fully adapted to the weight; his grades faltered when he added more weight, hence the fluctuations.
“Maybe Instructor Luo taught him some new training methods...”
Chang Suian noticed that Du Huaishan’s knife practice was sometimes agile, sometimes less so.
“In my balance class, he stood out—second among recruits, just behind Xu Yuan.”
Zhou Zhongai smiled, “This year, more recruits passed the grappling rope test than ever. I heard privately it’s because Du Huaishan brought in some tools and rented them to recruits; a few weeks’ practice, and they pass my test easily!”
“Really?”
Lai Yanlong stroked his goatee, raising his brows. “After today’s assessment, I must ask this kid what kind of tool is so formidable!”
Physical fitness, written test, balance test—
Du Huaishan passed them all.

By afternoon, it was time for the combat assessment.
Divided into two rounds: firearms and cold weapons.
As for shooting,
After intensive dynamic vision practice, he’d achieved some skill, but among the recruits he was only average—his sole weak point.
The top shooter in the assessment was Wu Ming!
That’s right.
Wu Ming, born to a family of hunters, was a marksman. His aim was perfect, grenades thrown with precision.
If he hadn’t received a guardian spirit in the form of a giant tortoise and refused to leave the infantry, he would have excelled in artillery!
Then came cold weapon assessment.
Within the time limit, recruits used trench knives and sabers to break stone targets.
Many recruits immediately triggered demonization, with the strength boost shattering the stone targets in seconds.
Tan Hai summoned his guardian spirit as well—
A tree-shaped demon over three meters tall, with a beast-like bloody maw on the trunk.
When he first got his guardian spirit, he was excited for a week in front of Du Huaishan.
Tan Hai named it Beast Locust.
Du Huaishan summoned his own spirit, enhanced by red marrow medicine, now nearly five meters tall in its spectral form.
Infusing it, three percent!
Du Huaishan’s fusion threshold halfway there—he swung the saber, recalling Luo Zongwen’s power technique from last night, and slashed forward, three rapid strokes. The stone target crackled and was split into pieces!
Passed!!
A checking soldier came forward, raised a small flag, marking the end of the assessment.
“Ha...”
Looking at the scattered stone fragments in the snow, Xing Zhenhao dismissed his giant wolf guardian spirit after passing the test.
His sidekick glanced at Du Huaishan’s target—the fragments were bigger than Xing Zhenhao’s—and cheered, “Brother Hao, your saber skills are already far superior to Du Huaishan’s!”
Xing Zhenhao turned, frowning.
He couldn’t understand—Du Huaishan had gained his guardian spirit a month before him, so should have been stronger, yet his performance was ordinary.
Unfortunately, Du Huaishan never attended the demon training class, so no one knew his fusion percentage.
As for demon fusion talent, Xing Zhenhao was confident.
In two months, his demonized state had reached four percent fusion!
One by one,
More recruits passed the assessment.
But for most, it wasn’t easy.
Of over fifteen hundred recruits, only two-thirds opted to stay with infantry; the rest, like Fatty Yang, chose logistics and communications, or artillery.
Of the thousand infantry, less than forty percent passed the mobility grappling rope assessment and completed their spirit fusion.
“First, congratulations to you lucky ones for standing out among these 1,569 recruits.”
After specialties were assigned, Lai Yanlong stood at the podium, addressing the three hundred elite recruits left: “But don’t get complacent. You’re still fresh recruits—unable to use the mobility ropes, never seen them even.”
“If I threw you outside the city right now, you’d still be demon fodder. In fact, compared to when you enlisted, maybe you’d be even more tender; so, from now on, you’ll face even harsher training, become real warriors who can defend the three provinces of Yingzhou. Do you have the confidence?”
These elite recruits, having passed all assessments, were no longer the greenhorns they once were.
Faced with Lai Yanlong’s mocking, they shouted back:
“Yes! Yes!”
“Good! At least those two shouts show a soldier’s spirit!”
Lai Yanlong paced, eyes fierce, green pupils swirling: “Remember the Yingzhou Army’s motto: ‘Honor in death, shame in life!’ No matter how hard it gets, grit your teeth and push through! Dammit! If any of you dare to quit halfway, don’t blame me for kicking your ass!”
Snap!
In an instant, over three hundred elite recruits snapped to attention, feet together, backs straight, right hand holding their saber upright, left hand across their chest, shouting at the top of their lungs:
“Honor in death! Shame in life!!”
“173rd class of recruits, never retreat!!”
Hearing the thunderous roar, Lai Yanlong finally nodded in satisfaction. “From tomorrow, mobility rope training and armored drills officially begin!”