"No, Young Marquess, we'll face Military Law Execution."
Cowering against the wind, Qin Hu and Qin An bolted out of the camp, trudging forward through the thick, heavy snow.
The frail Qin An lost his footing for a split second and was knocked flat by a violent gust of wind.
Seeing them emerge, two sentries on changing guard exchanged sinister smiles, grabbed handfuls of snow to put out the warming bonfire, and ducked back into their tent.
Damn it, even the common soldiers have been bought off! They're trying to freeze me to death!
This was a tiny encampment of about twenty tents, encircled by wagons. There were neither barricades nor caltrops guarding the perimeter, and the terrain around it was flat and completely indefensible—clearly lacking any intention of a long-term deployment.
According to the memories of Qin Hu's past life, some two hundred men were stationed here, forming the Vanguard Camp of Li Qin, the North-Conquering General of the Dayu Dynasty.
Li Qin's army of twenty thousand was targeting the State of Liaodong, a long-standing enemy of the Dayu Dynasty on the border.
"Cough, cough... Young Marquess, do you think we'll make it back alive?" Curled up tight on the snow-covered ground, his lips and face bruised with cold, Qin An spoke in a feeble voice, as though he might die at any second.
Qin Hu sighed inwardly. Qin An was suffering purely because he had been dragged down by him, and if things kept going this way, the two of them were dead for sure.
Those who wanted him dead hadn't managed to finish him off at court, so they were stabbing him in the back and playing dirty in the military camp, driving him straight toward the grave.
Yet Qin Hu was certainly not one to sit around and wait for death. This was a blatant frame-up, and he was not about to let it rest.
Life was an endless struggle for survival. Just wait—not only would he survive, but he would fight his way back to the Capital and settle scores with every last one of them.
"Qin An, how much silver did we bring when we left home?"
"We don't have any bank notes left. All I have on me is twenty taels of silver. The imperial edict stated that we were exiled to the frontier as common soldiers and our family property was sealed up."
Qin An was only sixteen years old and served as Qin Hu's personal study attendant. Exceptionally frail, he had already been pushed to the breaking point by the torment, looking as though he had only one breath left in him.
In truth, Qin Hu was in little better shape. Over the past few days, the Vanguard Camp had been marching thirty miles a day, performing endless chores: clearing roads through mountains and building bridges over rivers, gathering firewood, digging trenches, fetching water, and pitching tents.
What kind of treatment awaited these two pampered, delicate young men when they were thrown together with hundreds of rough, burly soldiers?
Naturally, they drew the hardest labor, ate the worst food, suffered the cruelest beatings, and endured the worst abuse...
Qin Hu suspected that his predecessor might have literally been tortured to death.
Though, in a way, he had only reaped what he sowed.
Yet now, this heavy burden had fallen squarely on his shoulders, and if he couldn't bear it, he would die too.
"Give it to me."
Qin Hu had made up his mind. He had to find a way to save Qin An's life first, and figure out the rest later.
Securing survival was not actually that difficult; the simplest method was bribery. As the old saying went, money could move the gods. The method might be primitive, but it always worked.
Given the current circumstances, however, he couldn't possibly bribe high-ranking officials, as no one dared associate with him. Besides, he didn't have that kind of money.
So one person immediately came to mind: the Centurion, Li Xiaokun.
In other words, the current head of the Vanguard Camp...
***
"Young Marquess, hurry up and get up. It's our turn to patrol."
"Where am I?"
Drowsily, Qin Hu pushed himself up, feeling a chill seep through his body while the fierce wind howled outside. A wave of confusion instantly washed over him.
"Oh, Young Marquess, why are you so out of it? We're in the military camp! It's our turn to keep watch at this hour. If you don't get up now, you'll face Military Law Execution! Even the Old Marquis can't protect you anymore."
"What?"
Qin Hu opened his eyes to find himself inside a tent, facing a young soldier clad in leather armor.
Just as he was about to open his mouth to ask questions, a splitting headache struck him, and a massive flood of information surged into his mind. Seconds later, he realized he had transmigrated.
From a modern special forces soldier, he had crossed over into the body of a young marquis also named Qin Hu—the undisputed leader of the Seven Great Bullies of the Capital!
Yet this era, known as the Dayu Dynasty, never existed in history.
Qin Hu's ancestors were among the four founding dukes and twenty-eight marquises of Dayu. Three months ago, his father passed away, and Qin Hu inherited the title, becoming the new Champion Marquis.
Spoiled rotten by his parents since childhood, Qin Hu had despised studying and martial arts, caring only for play, hedonism, and running amok through the Capital.
As he grew older, his family wanted him to settle down, so they arranged a marriage for him. The bride-to-be was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Chen, a young lady named Chen Ruoli—well-bred, accomplished, and possessed of both beauty and intellect.
While this Qin Hu was vicious and ruthless toward everyone else, he was entirely submissive to his beautiful fiancée, treating her like a precious treasure.
Yet disaster struck precisely because of this childhood sweetheart, the eldest Miss Chen.
According to Qin Hu's memories, on that fateful day he had accompanied his fiancée into the palace to pay respects to Princess Chang'an of the current reign. Since the princess and Chen Ruoli had been close friends since childhood, she arranged a banquet for them.
Later on, Qin Hu drank until he completely blacked out. When he woke up, he was already inside the Imperial Prison of the Inner Guard, where he was accused of getting drunk, harassing the princess, and attempting an unspeakable crime.
Even more bizarrely, Chen Ruoli subsequently submitted a memorial to impeach her fiancé, listing seventy-two illegal acts committed by Qin Hu, each one backed by solid evidence.
At the time, Qin Hu felt as though a thunderbolt had struck him from the blue. He simply couldn't believe his ears...
The imperial edict followed swiftly. In consideration of his ancestors' meritorious service, his death sentence was commuted, but he could not escape punishment: he was exiled to Youzhou for front-line military service, with his title retained on a probationary basis to observe his future conduct.
Yet upon arriving in Youzhou, he was promptly assigned to the front lines—at the disposal of the Vanguard Camp.
Once these events flashed through Qin Hu's mind, he basically figured it out. This was clearly a setup.
The Duke of Chen had long wanted to break off the engagement.
The alliance between the Qin and Chen families was purely political, with both sides seeking to aggrandize their power. But the later Qin Hu turned out to be a good-for-nothing wastrel, practically dragging the reputation of the Champion Marquis Manor through the mud.
One had to remember that past generations of the Champion Marquis Manor had all been heroic figures with unparalleled influence in the military. Yet this generation had produced a good-for-nothing who had never even set foot on a battlefield.
As long as the Old Marquis was alive, the Duke of Chen maintained appearances. But the moment the Old Marquis died, the Duke of Chen cast aside all decency, even staging a scandalous breakup of the engagement right in the mourning hall.
Yet Qin Hu had been deeply in love with Chen Ruoli and stubbornly refused to agree, whereas Chen Ruoli had long detested the young bully.
And so, catastrophe descended!
As for Princess Chang'an, her involvement was even simpler. She was the younger female cousin of Qin Hu's paternal cousin. The moment Qin Hu died, the vast fortune of the Champion Marquis Manor would naturally fall entirely into the hands of that cousin.
These various factions, each taking what they needed and colluding with one another, had united with terrifying speed...
Truly, stepping into the world of marquises was as deep as the sea. The number of people wishing him dead was staggering indeed.
"Qin An, do you think we can find somewhere to hide from the wind?"
Bathed in the bright moonlight, the fierce north wind swept across the barren wilderness with a piercing whistle, making the torches flicker between light and darkness as it cut into human skin like countless flying blades.
"No, Young Marquess, we'll face Military Law Execution."
Cowering against the wind, Qin Hu and Qin An bolted out of the camp, trudging forward through the thick, heavy snow.
The frail Qin An lost his footing for a split second and was knocked flat by a violent gust of wind.
Seeing them emerge, two sentries on changing guard exchanged sinister smiles, grabbed handfuls of snow to put out the warming bonfire, and ducked back into their tent.
Damn it, even the common soldiers have been bought off! They're trying to freeze me to death!
This was a tiny encampment of about twenty tents, encircled by wagons. There were neither barricades nor caltrops guarding the perimeter, and the terrain around it was flat and completely indefensible—clearly lacking any intention of a long-term deployment.
According to the memories of Qin Hu's past life, some two hundred men were stationed here, forming the Vanguard Camp of Li Qin, the North-Conquering General of the Dayu Dynasty.
Li Qin's army of twenty thousand was targeting the State of Liaodong, a long-standing enemy of the Dayu Dynasty on the border.
"Cough, cough... Young Marquess, do you think we'll make it back alive?" Curled up tight on the snow-covered ground, his lips and face bruised with cold, Qin An spoke in a feeble voice, as though he might die at any second.
Qin Hu sighed inwardly. Qin An was suffering purely because he had been dragged down by him, and if things kept going this way, the two of them were dead for sure.
Those who wanted him dead hadn't managed to finish him off at court, so they were stabbing him in the back and playing dirty in the military camp, driving him straight toward the grave.
Yet Qin Hu was certainly not one to sit around and wait for death. This was a blatant frame-up, and he was not about to let it rest.
Life was an endless struggle for survival. Just wait—not only would he survive, but he would fight his way back to the Capital and settle scores with every last one of them.
"Qin An, how much silver did we bring when we left home?"
"We don't have any bank notes left. All I have on me is twenty taels of silver. The imperial edict stated that we were exiled to the frontier as common soldiers and our family property was sealed up."
Qin An was only sixteen years old and served as Qin Hu's personal study attendant. Exceptionally frail, he had already been pushed to the breaking point by the torment, looking as though he had only one breath left in him.
In truth, Qin Hu was in little better shape. Over the past few days, the Vanguard Camp had been marching thirty miles a day, performing endless chores: clearing roads through mountains and building bridges over rivers, gathering firewood, digging trenches, fetching water, and pitching tents.
What kind of treatment awaited these two pampered, delicate young men when they were thrown together with hundreds of rough, burly soldiers?
Naturally, they drew the hardest labor, ate the worst food, suffered the cruelest beatings, and endured the worst abuse...
Qin Hu suspected that his predecessor might have literally been tortured to death.
Though, in a way, he had only reaped what he sowed.
Yet now, this heavy burden had fallen squarely on his shoulders, and if he couldn't bear it, he would die too.
"Give it to me."
Qin Hu had made up his mind. He had to find a way to save Qin An's life first, and figure out the rest later.
Securing survival was not actually that difficult; the simplest method was bribery. As the old saying went, money could move the gods. The method might be primitive, but it always worked.
Given the current circumstances, however, he couldn't possibly bribe high-ranking officials, as no one dared associate with him. Besides, he didn't have that kind of money.
So one person immediately came to mind: the Centurion, Li Xiaokun.
In other words, the current head of the Vanguard Camp...
***
"Young Marquess, hurry up and get up. It's our turn to patrol."
"Where am I?"
Drowsily, Qin Hu pushed himself up, feeling a chill seep through his body while the fierce wind howled outside. A wave of confusion instantly washed over him.
"Oh, Young Marquess, why are you so out of it? We're in the military camp! It's our turn to keep watch at this hour. If you don't get up now, you'll face Military Law Execution! Even the Old Marquis can't protect you anymore."
"What?"
Qin Hu opened his eyes to find himself inside a tent, facing a young soldier clad in leather armor.
Just as he was about to open his mouth to ask questions, a splitting headache struck him, and a massive flood of information surged into his mind. Seconds later, he realized he had transmigrated.
From a modern special forces soldier, he had crossed over into the body of a young marquis also named Qin Hu—the undisputed leader of the Seven Great Bullies of the Capital!
Yet this era, known as the Dayu Dynasty, never existed in history.
Qin Hu's ancestors were among the four founding dukes and twenty-eight marquises of Dayu. Three months ago, his father passed away, and Qin Hu inherited the title, becoming the new Champion Marquis.
Spoiled rotten by his parents since childhood, Qin Hu had despised studying and martial arts, caring only for play, hedonism, and running amok through the Capital.
As he grew older, his family wanted him to settle down, so they arranged a marriage for him. The bride-to-be was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Chen, a young lady named Chen Ruoli—well-bred, accomplished, and possessed of both beauty and intellect.
While this Qin Hu was vicious and ruthless toward everyone else, he was entirely submissive to his beautiful fiancée, treating her like a precious treasure.
Yet disaster struck precisely because of this childhood sweetheart, the eldest Miss Chen.