The Princess Is On Top (GL) - Chapter 8

Liu Kun brought the three of them to an empty tent. “Rest here for tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll make other arrangements for you. If you need anything, just tell the soldier on duty outside the tent. I’ve already spoken to him.”

“Many thanks for your care, General.” After Du Fei settled Xiao Le down, he hurriedly thanked him.

“Don’t keep calling me General. I’m only a deputy general of the Black Armor Battalion. I don’t deserve the title of general.” After saying this, he looked toward Xiao Le with some concern. “Is this little brother still all right? Otherwise, I’ll go ask the military physician to take a look at him.”

“No need. I’ll be fine after resting for a while. No need to trouble you, General.”

Xiao Le was actually already much better by now; her face was only still a little pale. Hearing Liu Kun say this, she quickly refused. Though it was out of goodwill, she had long heard that traditional physicians could tell whether someone was male or female by taking their pulse. Whether it was true or not, she did not dare take the risk.

Seeing that she had said as much, Liu Kun could not force the matter. After giving them a few reminders, he left.

After Liu Kun left, someone brought them food. Having eaten dry rations for more than a month, the sudden smell of cooked dishes made all three of them unable to help gaining a huge appetite. After a full meal, they lay down comfortably.

“Hey, these past few days have really been like a dream. If my father knew I’ve now become a ‘rebel,’ he’d definitely be scared to death, haha.” Liu Yu rolled onto his side and joked with the other two.

“Once the bow is drawn, there’s no turning back. We’re ‘dead people’ now. We can’t go home. Going back means death. If we want to fight for a way out for ourselves, from now on, we can only rely on ourselves… Isn’t that right, Xiao Le?” Receiving no response, Du Fei turned his head to look and saw Xiao Le sitting with her back against the tent, holding her thigh, her expression a little strange.

“I… my leg hurts…” Xiao Le found it a little hard to say. She did not know why the inside of her thigh burned so painfully.

Du Fei had thought it was something serious. Once he heard this, he burst out laughing.

“You must never have ridden a horse before. You’ve been rubbed raw. Come here, I’ll take a look for you.” After saying that, he made as if to go over and pull down Xiao Le’s trousers. Xiao Le was startled badly by him and hurriedly stopped him. “No need. Stay there. Don’t come over!”

“What do you mean, don’t come over?” The tent flap was suddenly lifted, and the person who came in was none other than Ah Zheng, who had pointed a sword at Du Fei before.

As soon as Ah Zheng entered the tent, Du Fei’s expression changed noticeably. Clearly, he was still brooding over the fact that Ah Zheng had pointed a sword at him back then. Liu Yu sensed the change in Du Fei’s mood, so he quickly stood up and went over to greet her.

“Miss Ah Zheng, why have you come?”

Ah Zheng did not answer Liu Yu’s question. Instead, her gaze fell on Xiao Le, whose face was pale.

“The Commandery Princess said Young Master Xiao’s leg is probably feeling uncomfortable, so she had me bring some medicine.” After saying this, she took out a small porcelain bottle from her sleeve and handed it to Liu Yu.

“The Commandery Princess… How did the Commandery Princess know…” Xiao Le felt somewhat unable to keep face. Everyone else was fine, and she alone had ended up like this.

Ah Zheng seemed to see through her thoughts. “Young Master Xiao need not take it to heart. It is always like this the first time one rides a horse. It will be better in the future.”

Ah Zheng said a few more words, then went back to report.

Liu Yu held the porcelain bottle and looked it over. “No wonder people outside spread stories about the Commandery Princess of Luoyang like she’s a heavenly immortal descended to earth. Leaving everything else aside, just this consideration for those beneath her—who wouldn’t be willing to risk their life for her?” After saying that, he opened it and carefully smelled it. “Speaking of which, something given by the Commandery Princess really is good. This is top-quality wound medicine.”

“And you know that too?” Xiao Le replied irritably. Her body was hurting, and Liu Yu was still rambling on and on there.

“Of course I know. My family started out selling medicinal herbs!” After saying this, he laughed sneakily twice and teased, “Speaking of consideration for those below, why didn’t the Commandery Princess show consideration for the two of us too? Why did she only care about you? Could it be because you’re fairer and cleaner-looking?”

“Keep talking nonsense!” Xiao Le was so angry she climbed up from the ground and wanted to hit someone, but how could she possibly catch Liu Yu right now?

“All right, Liu Yu, stop making trouble. Xiao Le is still unwell,” Du Fei hurriedly played peacemaker between the two.

“Who told her to kick me so hard? It still hurts even now!” Liu Yu said unconvinced. He still remembered the kick Xiao Le had given him two days ago.

Du Fei did not care about all his nonsense. He spread his hand. “Hurry and hand over the medicine!”

Seeing that Du Fei’s expression had turned serious, and that Xiao Le had also been angered badly by him, Liu Yu finally handed over the medicine unwillingly.

“Thank you, Brother Du. I’ll do it myself… Could you two… step out for a moment? When I was young, my body was burned, so I don’t like other people looking at my body…” Xiao Le took the porcelain bottle from Du Fei’s hand. Only after a long while did she speak haltingly.

“Why do you have so many…” pain-in-the-ass issues. Liu Yu had not finished the second half of his sentence before Du Fei grabbed him by the ear. Du Fei smiled at Xiao Le. “Of course. I’ll take him out for a walk. Do as you need.”

Early the next morning, the three of them were woken by Liu Kun and led to the infantry camp.

“The Commandery Princess entrusted the three of you to me. Strictly speaking, you should have entered under my command. But the Black Armor Battalion is a special formation and does not accept people lightly, so I can only entrust you to Commandant Lu. If possible, I hope to see you again in the Black Armor Battalion someday.”

The three thanked Liu Kun once more. As for the Black Armor Army, they had never even thought about it. The Black Armor Battalion’s great name had spread throughout the land. The three most elite forces of the Su family army were the Black Armor Battalion, the Huben Army, and the Valiant Cavalry Battalion. Each had a formation of five thousand men, all composed of the elite troops from the original Su family army. These were the coming-of-age gifts Su Qian had prepared separately for his three children. The Black Armor Battalion belonged to Su Luoyang, which was also why Liu Kun could not disobey Su Luoyang’s orders.

The Valiant Cavalry Battalion belonged to Su Cheng. The Huben Army should originally have belonged to Su Huai’an, but because he had spent years in the capital as a hostage, Su Qian had always managed it on his behalf. No one had expected that once he did, there would never again be a chance to return it.

It could be said that these three armies had the highest loyalty to the Su family. The Su siblings were originally one body, and there was no struggle over power between them. Su Qian also did not treat Su Luoyang differently simply because she was a daughter. On the contrary, Su Luoyang was the most favored person in the family. Aside from her father, her eldest brother and younger brother also doted on her in every possible way.

The reason the Black Armor Battalion had appeared here this time was entirely because He Yan had borrowed soldiers from Su Luoyang in order to attack Youzhou.

Although Commandant Lu was doing Liu Kun a favor, he would not personally handle such a small matter. He only ordered someone to take the three of them to collect their military tags and armor, then brought them to the tent they had been assigned.

The moment Xiao Le lifted the tent flap, a smell hit her in the face, nearly making her drop the military tag and armor she was holding to the ground. Looking again at Du Fei and Liu Yu, the two of them looked completely normal… all right, then.

As soon as they entered, everyone inside the tent stopped what they were doing and looked toward them.

“You’re the three newly assigned green recruits?” A middle-aged man with a full beard, wearing only his inner clothes, asked them.

Xiao Le did her best to adapt to the smell. To distract herself, she secretly looked over the environment inside the tent. Ten bed spaces, simple and clear—very much the style of soldiers. She just did not know why the smell was so heavy.

“Yes. My name is Du Fei. These two are Liu Yu and Xiao Le.” Du Fei gave a simple introduction for them.

The bearded man nodded. “I’m Xue Li, your squad leader.” Then he pointed out the other six people in the tent for them.

“Wang Fu, Wang Ping, Xiao Kai, Qi An, Yu Huai, Ziyan…” After that, he pointed to the three empty beds furthest inside.

“Your bunks are over there. There will be drills later. Change your clothes first.”

The three greeted everyone, but everyone’s reactions were extremely cold, as if they did not welcome them at all. They did not think too deeply about it and simply assumed this was the posture veterans deliberately took toward new recruits.

Xiao Le chose the bunk furthest inside. She could not sleep next to anyone.

When she placed her things on the bunk, Xiao Kai across from her suddenly sat up and stared at her for no apparent reason.

Xiao Le looked back at him in confusion. “Is there… something wrong?”

The other party did not answer her. He simply lay back down again on his own. What a strange person. These people were too strange.

Xiao Le had only just changed into her armor when the assembly horn sounded outside.

Everyone rushed one after another toward the outer training ground.

The three of them followed and were drilled for an entire day. Liu Yu and Du Fei were so exhausted they barely looked human. Xiao Le, on the other hand, faced with drills of this intensity, merely had a slightly flushed face and somewhat breathless breathing. This left the two of them completely unable to understand it no matter how they thought.

In the military camp, daily activities were all conducted by wu units, with ten wu forming one team.

Over the next few days, Xiao Le and the others trained together with the other seven people in their wu. Aside from Xue Li, who as the squad leader would correct some of their movements, none of the others ever took the initiative to speak to them. Even if they tried to start a conversation, they would only receive cold replies. Once they returned to the tent, the situation was even worse. The tent was like a silent execution ground, the air pressure so low it made people feel stifled.

“Do these people have some hidden illness or something? How can they go half a day without squeezing out a single sentence…” During dinner one evening, Liu Yu finally could not hold back anymore. Being tormented physically in this military camp was bad enough, but now they also had to be rejected psychologically. What kind of nonsense was this?

Xiao Le glanced at him and reminded him, “Keep that mouth of yours under control, or someday you’ll get beaten and won’t even know who you offended.”

“I keep feeling like they’re hiding something from us,” Du Fei said, voicing his thoughts.

“Going straight over to ask definitely won’t work. Why don’t we first ask around with other people and find out whether something happened before?”

“Let’s do that. These next two days, we’ll go ask around. It can’t keep going on like this.” Xiao Le also felt something of a headache over the current situation.

Her studies at a modern military academy had made her deeply understand that the most important thing for a group was unity. Otherwise, when it came to combat coordination, the entire team’s ability would be greatly reduced. In the army, it was impossible to rely forever on individual combat ability. Comrades-in-arms were one’s strongest left and right arms.

Over the next few days, they used their spare time to ask others about the matter. Just as they were about to figure out the truth, the entire military camp entered a tense state of preparation for battle. Everyone’s nerves were stretched tight, and no one had any attention left to spare for these small matters. They were about to step onto the bloody battlefield.

When Xiao Le and the others were woken by Xue Li slapping them awake, it was deep in the night. The others in the tent had long since heard the gongs and drums outside and had already put on their armor. Although the orders during the day had clearly notified them to stand by at any time, they still had not expected it to happen in the middle of the night. In a flurry, they put on their armor, grabbed their long spears, and followed their squad leader outside at a run.

Standing in the formation, Xiao Le did not even know what she was supposed to do. All around her were people, a dark mass of people. Someone said something, and the formation began rapidly pressing forward. Slowly, the siege ladders at the very front were already placed against the city wall. The sounds of killing rose wave after wave, each one louder than the last. Arrows from the city wall began shooting down in dense sheets, and people beside her began being struck by arrows and bolts, collapsing to the ground.