Castle of Black Iron - The Alleged Life or Death
The Alleged Life or Death
The moment a doctor of the field hospital caught sight of Zhang Tie, he didn’t even give him a second glance. After single one at his thoroughly broken imperial Sharp-Arrow Type-B light lieutenant armor, he had just shaken his head and told those military officers of the Iron-Blood Camp who had sent Zhang Tie here, “This person is dead, no need to save him any more.”
Finally, once a great amount of field doctors were threatened by the military officers of the Iron-Blood Camp with sabers to their necks they started working on Zhang Tie.
It was a miracle that he was still not dead. After that, he was transferred to Blapei behind the frontier.
However, there were no more miracles for Zhang Tie. A broken earthen jar would never regain its original look, even if it was repaired. Would be unable to hold the items that it had once contained.
At this moment, Zhang Tie’s body was like that earthen jar which was fixed. His bones, guts, muscles, channels, and veins had suffered irreversible wounds. In the future, even though no scars were left on his skin, Zhang Tie would never be the same as before, as that invisible damage not only completely destroyed his cultivation but also would left a lot of painful aftermath.
Zhang Tie’s attending doctor told him that he might feel very uncomfortable and greatly pained in many places when the season changed in the future. He told him to pay more attention to his health. When he grew older, after 40 years old, these aftermath would show even more.
‘Am I good for nothing now?’
It was actually very easy to test this conclusion. When Zhang Tie could walk, he attempted to sense and polish his burning points.
His head and p*nis were not heavily wounded while the golden swirl of spiritual energy still existed in his mind, the fact which made Zhang Tie feel very lucky.
The Shrine burning point and the three burning points on his spine were as if they had not been ignited at all. Zhang Tie couldn’t feel them at all. When he forcefully moved his spiritual energy down towards the burning points in his body, that wisp of spiritual energy dispersed in his body the moment it left his head. No matter how many times he tried, compared to the past when he polished his burning points, this sense of dispersing spiritual energy made him so uncomfortable that he almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
In the past, Zhang Tie felt like his body was a water pipe. The spiritual energy was the water flowing in the water pipe while the burning points were the land to be irrigated. During cultivation, you needed to introduce the water to the burning points through the water pipe. However, this time, Zhang Tie felt that his body was not a water pipe any more, but instead a bamboo-woven basket. It was covered with holes. No matter how much water was poured into this basket, all of it would leak out. You could not use a bamboo basket to irrigate the land at all.
For several days, Zhang Tie dried all of his spiritual energy, but failed to turn the bamboo basket into a water pipe. He could not bring even a drop of his spiritual energy onto his burning points.
He gradually lost hope. The huge and proud spiritual energy in his mind could only be used to practice “Mental Arithmetic by Abacus” now. Even after activating the Trouble-Reappearance Fruits, he was give an alert that his health couldn’t bear the spiritual impact from Trouble-Reappearance Fruits. Therefore, they could not be used either.
Zhang Tie felt that he had suddenly become a penniless beggar from a billionaire. If his spiritual energy could not even be used to ignite his Shrine burning point, what could it be used for?
‘Is there truly no other way?’ Zhang Tie asked himself.
‘No, it’s not the moment to despair yet.’
A bright light flashed across his mind. He still had the Castle of Black Iron and that marvelous small tree.
At this time, the two items were his final hope that kept him from collapsing spiritually.
After many experts’ diagnosis, the hospital’s conclusion was that Zhang Tie could only be a commoner who had not ignited Shrine burning points at all. In this age, this conclusion meant that Zhang Tie was a disabled man from then on.
A commoner who hadn’t even ignited his Shrine burning point. He would not be able to cultivate, fight, or run as fast as wind with endless strength, neither would he be able to wave that “Man’s Certificate” and “Woman’s Excellence”. He could not even do heavy labor. Any LV 2 warrior could easily take care of ten Zhang Tie. In the Iron-Horn Army, to tell the truth, Zhang Tie was not even qualified to be the lowest-ranked cannon fodder.
Therefore, Major General Shwartz dispatched Zhang Tie to the Logistics Department and arranged a civilian’s post for him.
On the fifth day of being able to use a crutch to walk, he was out walking in the garden, supported by a nurse. When he returned to his ward, he saw Reinhardt, Guderian, Liu Xing, and some other military officers of the Iron-Blood Camp waiting for him.
“Boss!”
At the sight of them, Zhang Tie became very excited.
Seeing Zhang Tie coming back, all the military officers waiting in the ward revealed smiles and surrounded Zhang Tie.
“How’s your body?” Reinhardt patted Zhang Tie’s shoulders with a wisp of tiredness at his eye corners.
“Not bad, I can walk now.” Saying this, Zhang Tie looked around the military officers in the ward as he failed to see some familiar faces, especially that generous bald tough guy. Zhang Tie’s heart suddenly pounded. “Where’s First Lieutenant Freo?”
After asking this, Zhang Tie cast a glance over them and noticed that their smiles lacked the joy and passion that they usually had. The moment they heard the name Freo, everybody’s smiles faded away.
“Freo sacrificed that night!” Major Guderian answered Zhang Tie in a low voice.
“How could that be?”
Zhang Tie couldn’t believe that. How could that first lieutenant who waved his double axes and was as fierce as a tiger have sacrificed himself? Zhang Tie remembered that after he threw out his last javelin to kill the flute-blowing guy, he could still hear Freo’s tiger-like howls on the battlefield. At that moment, the Black Feathers Regiment had already become chaotic. As Freo was still alive before this chaos, how could he have died after that.
“After you were heavily wounded and fell to the ground, in order to save you, First Lieutenant Freo rushed into the encirclement of Black Feathers Regiment. Because our enemy greatly outnumbered us and Freo wanted to protect you, when he picked you up and prepared to retreat, he held back many attacks for you…” First Lieutenant explained to Zhang Tie what had happened in a hoarse voice.
At that moment, Reinhardt, who had wanted to save Zhang Tie, was stopped by some high-ranked enemy fighters, as well as gotten surrounded by many common Black Feathers soldiers. Therefore, he could not break through the encirclement for quite some time. As Black Feathers Regiment was determined to kill Zhang Tie, the other members of the Iron-Blood Camp could not break through either. Without Freo, Zhang Tie would have definitely been slashed into flesh paste.
Freo sacrificed himself for Zhang Tie.
Zhang Tie’s tears came down in streaks down his cheeks…
“Don’t be sad, from the moment you caught up with the train in Blackhot City, everybody in the Iron-Blood Camp was ready to sacrifice themselves for you like how you were ready to sacrifice yourself for everybody in the Iron-Blood Camp!”
Hearing Reinhardt’s words, Zhang Tie burst into tears like a kid.
…
After the military officers of the Iron-Blood Camp came for visit him, Zhang Tie learned of the enemy’s plot. That day, all the booty of the Iron-Blood Camp had been sprayed with a strange medicament by the Sun Dynasty, including weapons, armors, and coins. People could neither smell nor see that medicament, but an animal called black fox fed by Sun Dynasty could smell it. With a lot of common soldiers as bait, Sun Dynasty allowed Iron-Blood Camp to expose the location of its wolf den by winning a great amount of booty.
After learning of their encampment, the enemy then dispatched the most terrifying Black Feathers Regiment, and gathered a superior force of that many times outnumbered what the Iron-Blood Camp could muster, wanting to totally clear it out from that battle zone through a raid at midnight.
However, the raid failed and gradually turned into an common melee and finally evolved into a deep-night bloody battle between the elites of the Iron-Horn Army and Brilliant Feathers. In this bloody battle, the Iron-Blood Camp had lost more than 600 people while over 1700 people of the Black Feathers Regiment were killed after being chased down by the Iron-Blood Camp for over 20 km.
Given the numbers, the last winner in that battle was the Iron-Blood Camp. The total number of the soldiers in the Black Feathers Regiment—fed and trained with some secret medicament and other special methods—was less than 10,000 people in the whole Brilliant Feathers Army. And Iron-Blood Camp had killed 1/5 of the all the soldiers of the undying regiment that night. For a fight between two regiments, this was a huge victory for the Iron-Blood Camp.
If Zhang Tie hadn’t killed that Double-Moon Muling in the black robe who had commanded the Black Feathers Regiment by blowing the flute, the final outcome would have definitely been that the Iron-Blood Camp of No. 39 Division wouldn’t exist any more, although over 1700 people of the Black Feathers Regiment were killed this time.
Judging by his military exploits, Zhang Tie was absolutely qualified to be promoted to be a first lieutenant. Nobody would speak ill of him about this promotion.
If Zhang Tie was the youngest second lieutenant of No. 39 Division before, he was now the youngest first lieutenant of the Iron-Horn Army.
Now, the Iron-Blood Camp was almost paralyzed, having suffered a great structural loss. It would take at least 3-4 months’ of rest and reorganization for it to return to the battlefield again. For such an elite troop, it was not as easy as just piling up a number of people to recover its combat effectiveness.
“No matter what, you have to live well. Even if you cannot go back to the battlefield, you have to live well for Freo!” Reinhardt told Zhang Tie before he left.
Zhang Tie knew that his life was no longer only his own, but also Freo’s. Therefore, no matter what, even if he was disabled, he had to live well and brilliantly, not only for himself but also for Freo…
In the first month since coming to Kalur battle zone, Zhang Tie experienced four things: became the “One-Hundred People Down”; was promoted to first lieutenant; was disabled; and was dispatched away from the Iron-Blood Camp of No. 39 Division…
During this month, Zhang Tie, age fifteen, most importantly understood the truth of life—men should be born as summer flowers and die as spring thunders…
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