Qin An, only sixteen years old this year, was the personal page to Qin Hu. He was frail and sickly, already worn down by constant torment to the point where he looked as if he had only one breath left in him.
In truth, Qin Hu was in no better shape. For the past few days, the vanguard battalion had been marching thirty miles a day. Their duties involved carving paths through mountains, building bridges over rivers, gathering firewood, stoking fires, digging trenches, hauling water, and constructing camps.
What would become of two soft, pampered fellows like them, forced to spend every day among hundreds of burly, rough-hewn soldiers? They were inevitably given the most exhausting labor, served the worst food, subjected to the cruelest beatings, and forced to swallow the most bitter indignities.
Chapter 704