Chapter Thirty-Five: An Unexpected Visitor

“Endure… endure, you are not yet a match for them. But with your intellect and willpower, one day you will surpass them. You are a hero, an irreplaceable hero…” Lying hidden in the grass, Li Chonglou’s eyes flickered with a trace of disdain. His head turned quietly, as if he were observing something.

“They have finally let down their guard. Now, begin! Ahead is the flagpole—pull down our camp banner, slowly… Then, take another banner from your belt pouch, and hang it up… This one doesn’t bear Instructor Xie’s signature, so they won’t notice. Good, now back away slowly… You are now leaving the first camp’s grounds, preparing to return to the fifth camp…”

Li Chonglou’s body suddenly stiffened, his eyelids twitching rapidly. Ye Xin hesitated, suddenly realizing that the conflicting logic between the two sides was disrupting the effect of the hypnosis.

“You cannot declare your victory yet…” Ye Xin murmured softly, “They are likely to make a move against you in an attempt to redeem their loss. If they rob you of the banner and insist you failed to capture it, no one will believe you, and no one will stand up for you. The time is not yet ripe. Endure, endure…”

Once again, Li Chonglou slowly lay prone in the grass, his jaw clenched tight, seeming to seethe with some anger.

“Sleep… fall into a deeper sleep… When the first ray of sunlight touches you, you will awaken from this dream.”

Li Chonglou’s eyes gradually closed, his body motionless. Ye Xin snapped his fingers and said softly, “When you hear this sound, that is the moment to announce your victory. Remember this sound… wait for it…”

Li Chonglou fell into a deathly stillness, his breathing barely perceptible. Having given his final instruction, Ye Xin bent down, scooped up a handful of earth and sand, and scattered it over Li Chonglou’s body, then turned and made his way back toward the fifth camp.

Xie En had been waiting outside. When he saw Ye Xin appear, he whispered, “It’s been nearly an hour. Ye Ling came looking for you just now, but I sent her back. What took you so long?”

“This was already very quick,” Ye Xin replied. For certain critical guiding words, he had to repeat them several times, sometimes even dozens, all while maintaining the same tone and pace. There was no rushing it—any slip, and Li Chonglou might have snapped out of his hypnotic state at once.

After a moment, Ye Xin and Xie En emerged from the dense forest. Upon hearing footsteps, Ye Ling got up and hurried over, asking as she walked, “Brother, where did you go?”

“I couldn’t understand what you were all talking about, and I was bored just sitting around, so I went for a stroll nearby,” Ye Xin replied.

“Brother, you mustn’t wander around here!” Ye Ling frowned. “There are many fierce beasts on Twin Ridge Mountain. Even though they are kept by our academy, they’re just as formidable as those in the ancient forests. Wandering off alone is too dangerous!”

“All right, all right, I’ll listen to you,” Ye Xin said.

Seeing how obedient Ye Xin was, Ye Ling couldn’t say much more. She glanced at the wooded area behind him. “Where’s Li Chonglou?”

“I asked him to help me with something,” Xie En replied.

Wen Rong and the others exchanged glances. Midnight was approaching, and the flag-capturing battle would soon begin in earnest. What could Xie En possibly need Li Chonglou for at this late hour? Did Instructor Xie have some other arrangement? Yet Li Chonglou was a rather mediocre student, lacking any particular advantage compared to the rest of them. Why had Instructor Xie singled him out? They simply couldn’t fathom it.

Soon, midnight drew near. The students of the fifth camp had finally settled on their battle plan: they chose eight people, led by a student named Du Hongsheng, to hide in the forest, while the rest stayed near the flag altar to guard it.

Outmatched in both strength and numbers, they truly couldn’t devise a better countermeasure. In the end, it was Wen Rong’s plan that won everyone’s approval.

Du Hongsheng and his seven companions weren’t hiding to steal the flag, but to force the first camp into a wrong assumption, thus compelling them to split their forces to protect their own flag altar.

Those who remained would bear the brunt of the first camp’s fierce assault. When Wen Rong and the others could no longer hold the line, Du Hongsheng’s group would burst forth from hiding, launching a surprise attack to turn the tide, aiming to rout the first camp’s students and force them out of the competition. By the time reinforcements came to defend the altar, it would already be too late.

Even if they couldn’t achieve a complete rout, at the very least, they hoped to inflict heavy losses on the first camp and narrow the overall gap in strength. After that, it would be a matter of holding out desperately until the next midnight, ending in a draw.

The students of the first camp were no fools. Given the stark disparity in strength, the only way for the fifth camp to win was through trickery—stealth attacks or flag theft. They were surely prepared for such tactics, and even if they weren’t, Instructor Wu Man would never let them make such a blunder.

Wen Rong’s plan was thus to go with the flow, exploiting the defensive mindset of the first camp, luring them into dividing their forces, and then concentrating all their strength to try to eliminate a portion of the enemy early, laying the groundwork for victory.

For seasoned generals on the battlefield, such a strategy would be unremarkable. But Wen Rong was not yet seventeen and had never seen real combat; her abilities far exceeded those of her peers.

Time flew swiftly, and before long, dawn arrived without incident. The Dragon Soaring Martial Academy had stipulated that the flag battle would begin at midnight, precisely to test students in various ways—not always through direct confrontation, but by encouraging them to consider alternate strategies.

Though well-intentioned, practical implementation was fraught with limitations. Any student casualties would mean the academy was held responsible, and night battles made it much harder for instructors to ensure the students’ safety. Over time, it became customary to avoid combat during the night.

The fifth camp’s students began bustling about—one must have a full belly before a fight. Wen Rong also dispatched three or four students to scout the left ridge.

Soon, shouts and calls echoed faintly from the forest—scouts from both sides must have run into each other. Not long after, two students, their faces smudged and clothes soiled, darted out of the woods and ran toward their camp.

Wen Rong dabbed her lips with a handkerchief, slowly stood, and drew her sword. Shen Miao, Shao Xue, and Ye Ling readied themselves as well.

As the branches rustled, four figures emerged. Iron Renhao and Iron Huizhen led the way, followed by a person wearing a wide-brimmed bamboo hat, their head entirely concealed, making it impossible to discern their features. Deng Duojie brought up the rear.

Iron Renhao and Iron Huizhen halted over twenty meters away, their expressions calm. Seeing the fifth camp’s students bristling for battle, a trace of scorn flickered in their eyes.

Wen Rong waited a moment, but as no one else appeared, her heart sank. Something was amiss… No matter how arrogant Iron Renhao and Iron Huizhen might be, they couldn’t possibly come to seize the flag with only four people.

“You should just surrender,” Iron Huizhen said quietly.

Iron Renhao nudged Iron Huizhen with his elbow, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on Ye Xin. He didn’t want the fifth camp’s students to surrender; that would rob him of the chance to teach Ye Xin a lesson.

Wen Rong lowered her head, looking at the tip of her sword. She had still hoped for a chance, but now she understood—the fifth camp was doomed to lose.

She knew why Iron Huizhen was urging them to surrender. Iron Huizhen was soft-hearted and didn’t want things to get ugly. Iron Renhao, on the other hand, was stopping Iron Huizhen because he didn’t want to let Ye Xin off so easily.

But… where would their defeat come from? Wen Rong’s gaze passed over Iron Renhao, settling on the figure wearing the wide-brimmed hat.

“We’re not in the habit of surrendering,” Shen Miao said coolly. “The flag altar is right over there. If you have the skill, try taking your camp banner yourself.”

“There’s no need for such hostility,” a voice interjected suddenly. Then the person with the bamboo hat stepped forward, moving past Iron Renhao and Iron Huizhen to stand at the fore.

He slowly removed his hat, revealing a delicate, handsome face.

“You…” Wen Rong gasped.

“Wei Qingfan? Weren’t you serving in Wei Shuai’s army?!” Shen Miao cried out.

“How shameless! Wei Qingfan, you’ve already joined the military—how can you still compete in the academy’s flag battle?!”

“You’re cheating! You’re cheating!”

“This is outright bullying!”

The fifth camp’s students erupted in an uproar, panic showing on nearly every face, their shouts merging into a cacophony.

All the students of Dragon Soaring Martial Academy could be roughly divided into five tiers of strength. The first tier had only two people: Iron Shudeng and Zong Yunjin, who were on the verge of breaking through to the intermediate innate martial artist level. The second tier was led by Wei Juan’s son, Wei Qingfan, with seven or eight others in this group. They had all left for the front lines as the academy had taught them all it could. To continue advancing, they had to hone their skills on the battlefield, reaching the mature stage of junior innate martial artists.

The third tier included Wen Rong, Iron Renhao, and others—students who had just crossed the threshold into innate martial artistry, but whose vital energy was not yet strong nor their meridians resilient enough.

Iron Huizhen had only just forged her innate technique, but Wei Qingfan not only possessed his long ago, he had also trained extensively in the army. This battle was a foregone conclusion; the fifth camp was simply no match.

“May I say a few words?” Wei Qingfan drawled.

The students’ clamor gradually faded, all eyes turning to him.

Wei Qingfan seemed to relish the attention, his smile broadening. “I have not yet graduated. I am still a student of the first camp. Participating in this flag battle… I don’t see anything improper about it, do you? Please, tell me, which academy rule have I violated?”

The students of the fifth camp were left speechless, even those usually sharp-tongued like Shen Miao and Shao Xue unable to find a retort.

“You’d best concede. There’s no need for hard feelings,” Wei Qingfan said, showing a measure of restraint, not wishing to make things too unpleasant with Wen Rong and her companions.