White Tiger Rides Forth

The third day belonged to Su Yuehe.

She didn’t arrange any training. Instead, she had all the soldiers sit cross-legged, close their eyes, and then used words infused with her special power to guide and soothe them, attempting to build a strong mental defense within them.

“Feel the wind. Feel the snow. Feel your breathing…”

Her voice was gentle, carrying a strange, mesmerizing rhythm. It truly brought these soldiers, who had been pushed to the brink for two days straight, a sense of peace they hadn’t felt in a long time. Some of their tightly wound nerves slowly began to relax.

But that was all the effect it had. Su Yuehe wasn’t surprised by the outcome. After being thoroughly put through the wringer by the previous two instructors, bullying them any further would simply have been too much.

Her Word Spirit could leave a seed in the depths of their hearts.

Finally, it was Chen Guan’s turn.

Everyone’s eyes focused on him, including Long Ao and An Changqing. They were all curious to see what this man, who had acted as though none of this concerned him from the very beginning, was going to do.

Chen Guan yawned and ambled slowly to the front of the formation.

“I don’t have anything to teach you.”

His first sentence left everyone stunned.

“My training is very simple. There’s only one thing you have to do.”

He pointed toward a row of bare birch trees in the distance.

“From now on, your task is to walk over to those trees and use your fists to leave a mark on the trunks by any means necessary.”

The soldiers exchanged bewildered looks. They had no idea what the point of this training was. Punching trees? What kind of training was that supposed to be?

“Report, Instructor. What’s the purpose of this?” That same question-loving company commander couldn’t help asking again.

Chen Guan glanced at him and smiled. “No purpose.”

“When you can leave a clear fistprint on one of those trees, my training will be over.”

With that, he went to the side, found a clean stone, and sat down, looking as if he were prepared to watch until nightfall.

The soldiers approached the trees suspiciously and began throwing punches.

Thud.

Thud, thud.

The dull impacts rang out through the woods, accompanied by muffled cries of pain. Their fists quickly became swollen and red, the skin splitting until threads of blood began to seep out.

Su Yuehe, watching from the sidelines, secretly tossed a few buffs their way, but they still had little effect.

Apart from a few smears of blood, the hard tree trunks didn’t bear even the slightest dent.

Half an hour later, everyone stopped. They clutched their hands, their faces twisted with pain.

Long Ao frowned. “What the hell are you doing? This is self-mutilation.”

Chen Guan ignored him and simply shouted at the soldiers, “Continue.”

No one moved.

It wasn’t that they were afraid of the pain. They simply felt that this training was pointless—that they were being humiliated by this young instructor for no reason. The atmosphere grew tense.

Just then, a voice filled with amusement and a lazy, languid air drifted in from the edge of the training ground.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. And here I was wondering what kind of groundbreaking elite instruction this was.”

Everyone turned toward the voice.

A tall man in a black trench coat was leaning casually against one of the training posts. His hair was somewhat messy, and his eyes held a faint, half-hidden smile as he took in the chaotic scene before him.

“So after all that, you’re just playing house.”

[At this moment, a powerful piece of music suddenly begins.]

[Holy crap, it’s Tiger Bro!]

[That entrance, that BGM—he just looked so damn cool.]

“Good to see you again, kids.”

Jing—now shifted into the White Tiger persona—pushed away from the training post. With both hands in his coat pockets, he sauntered over.

His gaze swept across Long Ao, paused for a moment on An Changqing’s face, and finally settled on Chen Guan, who had adjusted his sitting position and was preparing to enjoy the show. The corners of his mouth curled upward.

“Instructor Jing.”

An Changqing clearly recognized the instructor who had trained them before, while Long Ao turned his head away somewhat awkwardly.

“Don’t be so formal. I’m just passing by. I figured I’d stop and see how the so-called prodigies the Council and the Academy have been hyping to the skies are turning the Great Wall’s finest soldiers into a bunch of useless wrecks.”

His words were utterly merciless.

White Tiger didn’t use a single vulgar word, but his undisguised contempt was even more humiliating than outright insults.

A deep crease formed between Long Ao’s brows. He took half a step forward, on the verge of speaking before his reason could stop him.

An Changqing pressed a hand to his forehead, feeling another headache begin to throb at his temples. He tried to steer the situation back under control.

“Instructor Jing, we’re just trying out our own methods.”

“Your method is to make them run in circles inside that battle plan of yours written in ancient celestial script until they get dizzy enough to lose their way?”

The muscles in An Changqing’s cheek twitched. He looked somewhat ashamed.

White Tiger shifted his attention to Long Ao.

“Or is your method to treat them like monsters such as yourself, pushing their physical limits to select the so-called survivors?”

Long Ao’s face turned livid. He had no answer.

White Tiger then looked at Su Yuehe, who was shrinking back among the crowd. Although the girl had no grudge against him, with the atmosphere already like this, he felt obligated to say a few words.

“Little girl, your method can indeed help them get a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, dreams have everything in them—except combat ability.”

Su Yuehe’s smile didn’t change. She accepted the criticism with an open mind.

[I love this. Keep it coming.]

[Tiger Bro, my superhero.]

[Brother Coffin: Luckily, I’m sitting down. None of it can splash onto me.]

[The people above are too naïve. This one is an even bigger heavyweight. He absolutely has to be targeted properly.]

Sure enough, White Tiger’s gaze finally locked onto Chen Guan, who was sitting there as though the whole matter had nothing to do with him.

“And as for you…”

White Tiger drew out the words as he circled the stone Chen Guan was sitting on.

“You’re the most ridiculous of all. You actually told them to punch trees. Are you trying to teach them how to break their bones faster so they can claim their death benefits ahead of schedule?”

“You want to teach them?”

“I’ll teach them, then.”

White Tiger snorted twice, stopped, folded his arms, and looked down at Chen Guan from above.

“If I were you lot, I’d be looking for a block of tofu to bash my heads against right now.”

He stopped paying attention to the three prodigies and turned toward the confused soldiers.

“You.”

White Tiger’s voice wasn’t loud, but it clearly reached every one of them.

“Do you think their training is useful?”

The soldiers looked at one another. No one dared answer. Military discipline kept them silent.

“Looks like it isn’t very useful.”

White Tiger answered his own question. He pointed toward the row of white birch trees Chen Guan had designated earlier.

“That kid who told you to punch the trees actually has a somewhat interesting idea.”

Everyone’s eyes—including those of Long Ao and An Changqing—instantly focused on Chen Guan. Even Chen Guan himself looked surprised. He truly hadn’t expected White Tiger to give him even that much credit.

So he wasn’t just here to pick a fight.

“But he only taught you what to do. He never taught you why you were doing it.”

White Tiger walked up to the thickest birch tree. Its trunk was smeared with mottled blood, yet it hadn’t suffered any meaningful damage.