Chapter 114: Same Ship, Different Fates

Training, beatings, eating, bathing, applying "medicine"...

A show of force — this was definitely a show of force! After a full day of standing drills, not one of the sixty cadets escaped the rod (or whip). Even Mao Wu, nicknamed "Shorty Mao," got lashed. And everyone knew Mao Wu was a top hand aboard the Chengfeng — the Shopkeeper had already started teaching him the art of navigation and observation. The man was precious talent.

Mealtime was just as agonizing: sixty pairs of black, blue, red, and swollen buttocks forced onto the long benches of the Mess Hall. That one moment of sour bliss was beyond compare. And standing wasn't an option either — eating while standing? Anyone so uncouth as to stand and peck at their food would get two extra strokes.

Fortunately, the trauma "medicine" in the Hospital was miraculously effective, easing much of everyone's pain. After supper, several Apprentices — the masters called them "nurses" — took turns treating the sixty pairs of buttocks with strange bottles. A fine mist sprayed from the bottles, and the moment it touched the wounds, a deep coolness spread.

In the old days, half the cadets — gaunt, emaciated beggars — would have been beaten to death by now. But after months of conditioning, with the Transmigrators providing food without stint, these Young Attendants had long since regained normal physiques. They were even sturdier than most Ming People, with thicker rumps — three big bowls of rice topped with stew every day was something a Ming Dynasty Landlord certainly couldn't afford.

The result of all that meat on their backsides? Slap on some "medicine," and tomorrow they'd be stout fellows again! What was that — "No way we'll sleep tonight"? The drill instructor supervising the cadets' "medicine" application in the Hospital had overheard that grumble and burst out laughing. "Means I went too easy — didn't train you hard enough. Train you right, you'd be certain to sleep. Looks like we'll up the dosage tomorrow..."

That night, the cadet barracks echoed with howls of misery. Separated by a single corridor, the Army and Navy Cadets — who'd previously nursed a subtle rivalry — now had no attention to spare for each other. Each lay sprawled on his bunk, baring teeth and grimacing, buttocks exposed, in every conceivable undignified pose.

On the bottom bunk of the bunk bed deepest inside the camp lay Yang Er, also sprawled there. Head to head, eye to eye with the one called Shorty Mao across the aisle — like two turtles staring down a bean.

Ah, in the end, the Abbot still dragged me in to be a common grunt... Yang Er lay on the bed, and in that moment, he remembered the days when he was small, traveling the Edo with his foster father, performing martial arts and selling remedies. Back then, Yang Er was still young, and learning the trade meant inevitable bumps and bruises. It was all thanks to his foster father's ancestral "medicinal" liquor — applied externally and taken internally, meticulously administered — that he never developed hidden injuries.

Thinking of his foster father, who had died of illness in that ruined temple years ago, and then looking at his own black-and-blue backside now, Yang Er could not hold back the sorrow welling in his heart. He buried his head, about to weep.

"Brother Yang!"

"Ah, Brother Jiang!" Hearing that familiar call, Yang Er hurriedly raised his head and indeed saw Jiang Shang searching his way along the aisle.

The moment Jiang Shang reached him, Yang Er asked urgently, "There's a guard post at the gate — how did you get in?"

Jiang Shang crouched down and chuckled sheepishly. "Got Shopkeeper Mu to issue a pass."

"Navy Shopkeeper Mu? You should've gone to Wei Abbot — he's my direct superior!"

"Wei Abbot's too fierce. I didn't dare." Saying this, Jiang Shang fished an oilpaper packet from his pocket and secretly stuffed it to Yang Er. "Could only bring half — too big to fit in my pocket."

Yang Er sniffed it lightly and knew at once it was a pork knuckle. Silently, he tucked the packet under his pillow. In that moment, tears truly fell. "Brother, my lot is bitter indeed. Look at my beaten backside."

Poor Jiang Shang, just a youth himself — how could he know how to comfort anyone? All he could do was repeat, "Bear it and it'll pass. The Shopkeepers aren't bad people..."

The two talked for a while. Then Jiang Shang reckoned the time it takes one incense stick to burn had passed. Only then did he bid farewell to the reluctant Yang Er, promising to visit again when he had time, and left the camp.

The Dayuan Trading Post forbade going out without cause after dark. So after leaving the camp, Jiang Shang took advantage of the sky not yet fully dark and hurriedly ran across the central drill field of the Trading Post — the temporary room assigned to him was opposite the camp.

Jiang Shang knew he had only a few days left to stay in the Trading Post: three days ago at the Welcome Banquet, the founder of Moyun Temple, the Dharma-transmitting Great Monk Feng Jun, dressed in a casual Western Suit, had solemnly introduced Doctor Bai Jiabao from West Kunlun to the five hard-won Top Students.

Doctor Bai ran a tutoring center back in West Kunlun — the kind that hands out tote bags on every street corner, printed with "Doctor Ladder Education — Win at the Starting Line!" — an extracurricular education and training outfit.

Doctor Bai only had a graduate degree; his doctoral diploma was bought from a diploma mill in Britain. Still, Doctor Bai was vastly experienced and thoroughly versed in the extracurricular tutoring process for middle and high school. Back in the day, he'd been thriving on the education front. If not for the table he'd hitched his wagon to causing mass food poisoning among students, the Doctor's background would never have been exposed on Zhihu, and he wouldn't have ended up drifting all the way to Dayuan.

As the person in the Crossing Faction with the most experience handling all manner of brats, Doctor Bai Jiabao was, without suspense, appointed Principal of the still-in-preparation Chikan Normal College and concurrently Head of its Affiliated School.

At the Welcome Banquet that day, Doctor Bai formally issued the Normal College Admission Notices to the five Moyun Temple Top Students, and the Appointment Letters for the Affiliated School were handed down right along with them.

The next day, Jiang Shang and the others accompanied Doctor Bai on an inspection of the Chikan Academy Construction Site. Only after the Doctor's detailed explanation along the way did they realize they had already become National Academy Students drawing state salaries, as well as teachers of the Affiliated Elementary School.

Seeing Chikan Academy surrounded by its red walls, the older Top Students, understanding the implications, were secretly astonished... Well, the Emperor was far away — these Kunlun masters paid not the slightest heed to Great Ming's rules.

For now, the Normal College was merely an empty signboard parasitically attached to Chikan Academy. In the future, while teaching the brats, Principal Bai would also have to carve out time to teach the five teachers themselves. Jiang Shang and the others had already learned that Dean Bai would impart to them the secret, never-transmitted arts of Kunlun: the new subjects called "Physics" and "Chemistry."

Scholars they'd raised themselves naturally had to be cultivated with all their hearts — especially ones of Jiang Shang's age. The future hope of succeeding the Transmigrators rested entirely on them. The heavy responsibility of guarding the masters' gardens and wives would sooner or later fall upon the generation of Jiang Shang and his peers.

As for the already-molded literati of the Ming Dynasty, the type commonly known as "Feudal Intellectuals" — it was no exaggeration to say most Transmigrators were deeply wary of them. Posts brimming with killing intent, like "The Qin Emperor Wasn't Thorough Enough — Our Generation Digs New Pits," popped up on the Forum every few days.

And so, three days ago, while the Top Students chatted and laughed and gnawed on pork knuckles at the Welcome Banquet, the two Xiucai who had come on the same ship received a far more low-profile reception. This was despite one of the Xiucai bringing his delicate, pretty young wife along — the first woman to enter the Trading Post since the Transmigrators had occupied Dayuan.