Chapter Fourteen: Mushrooms Matter Greatly to Men

In ancient times, ten li was just over four kilometers by modern measure. For Anluo, this distance was nothing, but for Mingtian, walking it would have been nearly impossible. Luckily, one of the horses from the caravan had been left behind because its reins were caught, otherwise traversing those four kilometers, especially through the woods—even by the broadest paths—would have been deadly exhausting.

Mingtian felt as if his stomach had turned inside out, retching until he was bringing up nothing but bile. No one had ever told him that riding a horse could be so torturous. Apart from anything else, the horsehair alone left him covered from head to toe. If there were a modern Ice-Breaking Horse Vibration, in the past there was Mingtian’s Horse Sickness. He felt as if, should he vomit again, even his intestines would be expelled.

Fortunately, this accursed journey was finally over. Ahead lay Zihua Mountain.

The woods were not dense, so they could clearly see the mountain the bandits had described. So-called mountain—really just a hill, barely a hundred or two meters high. But thanks to its elevation and sunlight, the vegetation was far more lush than the surrounding forest.

Halfway up the hill, just as the bandits had said, there was a camp. The stronghold was as rudimentary as the entrance to a tunnel from the anti-Japanese war: the entrance was shielded by a few rotting black wooden barriers, serving as a sentry post. Dim firelight flickered from within, and three or four bandits paced back and forth as sentries.

Surprisingly, these bandits had some discipline, relying on manpower for vigilance rather than filling the forest with various alarm traps. The terrain was complex, and animals were scarce—the largest living thing Mingtian had seen was a lizard. With such ideal conditions, why rely solely on manpower? Was this foolish or clever?

“Mingtian, the bandits are in that cave, and Miss Yin Chan must be there too. Let’s go in and wipe them out!” Anluo’s honest face was now filled with barely suppressed excitement, as if Yin Chan mattered far more to him than his own life.

“You blockhead… Sheesh, is your head made of iron too?” Mingtian slapped the kill-crazed brute on the head. Anluo didn’t even react; on the contrary, Mingtian’s hand was left throbbing and swollen.

Steeling himself, Mingtian became uncharacteristically calm. “Tell me, how many bandits are there? Do you know?”

Anluo stared blankly and shook his head.

“Do you know if there are any traps in the cave?”

Again, Anluo shook his head.

“Do you know the layout inside?”

Anluo’s face stiffened, but he still shook his head.

“Then why are you so eager to rush in and fight head-on? They’re in the light and we’re in the dark. This is our only advantage, and you want to charge in and get us killed?”

“Strong A? What does that mean?”

Mingtian rolled his eyes. “Never mind, let me put it in simple terms.” He produced a repeating crossbow, aimed at a nearby tree trunk, and fired. There was a soft thud, and the arrow buried itself halfway into the trunk—which was so thick that two men could barely encircle it. The power of this weapon was astonishing.

Mingtian turned to Anluo, his manner grave. “This crossbow is powerful but inaccurate. We have to be close to ensure a hit. What we need to do now is thin their numbers as much as possible before they notice us.”

Anluo nodded, half-understanding. “But if we get close, we’ll never get a shot off before they see us.”

Mingtian’s face split into a sly smile—he was about to show off. “That’s right, we can’t get close… so we’ll make them come to us. With this!”

He opened a bundle of supplies scavenged from the ruined caravan: a copper pot, fire tinder, salt, malt sugar, lard, and even pepper—an imperial delicacy at the time. Even the county princess had only a tiny bit, so the caravan must have been smuggling. At any rate, Mingtian had brought every useful cooking tool he could find.

Even Anluo, for all his simplicity, understood his meaning.

Mingtian had nothing else to rely on. He knew some fighting techniques, but with his current frail body, he wasn’t much stronger than an ordinary man. Against a horde of bandits, fists and feet were useless.

So he would use the one skill he could truly make use of in this ancient world: cooking.

But Anluo spotted a flaw. “Brother Mingtian, you have tools but no ingredients.”

Mingtian’s smile grew even more smug. “Who said I don’t have ingredients?”

Anluo was startled to see Mingtian’s gaze turn icy as he drew a dagger from his boot and pointed it at him.

A flash of white light.

...

In the mountain stronghold, Kema hadn’t slept well for two days, but he wasn’t the least bit drowsy. He’d heard that today they’d captured a beauty—none other than the famous Princess of Jiangmen. The boss, Lord Cui Jue, had said that after he was done interrogating her, all the brothers would get a turn.

The Princess of Jiangmen was said to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom—everyone agreed. Kema wiped his mouth, wondering how far down the line his turn would be.

He’d seen the woman himself—that slender waist, that exquisite face. The thought of riding such a beauty sent his imagination racing.

But wasn’t the Princess of Jiangmen supposed to have the imperial surname Xiao? Why did the brothers say her name was Yin Chan?

Not being one for details, Kema shook his head and lost interest. He just hoped the boss would finish soon so the brothers could have their fun.

Just then, a strange aroma caught his attention.

Looking around, he saw that the other sentries had noticed it too. It wasn’t floral—it was a rich, meaty fragrance, spiced with something sharp and tantalizing, that made his mouth water uncontrollably.

Kema had never smelled anything like it, but his instincts responded greedily. What sort of delicacy could emit such a scent? Had Lord Cui Jue prepared a feast?

No, the smell was coming from the woods.

He swallowed hard. The stronghold was poor, food scarce and always stolen. Kema’s hunger surged.

“Brothers, keep watch—I’m going to check it out.”

He called out, unable to resist, and slipped out of the camp, following the aroma.

After a couple hundred meters, he found a pile of coals in a patch of shadow. Over it roasted some strange chunks of meat. The smell came from these, but in the dim light he couldn’t tell what they were.

Why was there a fire and roasting meat here?

Kema stooped to investigate, but suddenly his vision jerked sideways—and then everything went black.

...

The power of this repeating crossbow was incredible! Mingtian was stunned. With a single sneak attack, the arrow had pierced the bandit’s skull and pinned his head to a tree.

Anluo emerged from the brush, checked the twitching bandit’s breath, and, finding him dead, allowed a rare grin to break through his usually solemn features. He grabbed the “roast meat” off the fire, his face wrinkling with delight.

In the moonlight, one could see these weren’t meat at all, but several large mushrooms, each the size of a king oyster.

In this era, mushrooms weren’t widely eaten. Many were poisonous, and southerners, with their fertile land, hadn’t had to study them for survival as northerners did. Thus, most people were ignorant of mushrooms.

“Mingtian, you’re something else. What are these things? How did you cut them from the ground and make them smell this good?”

Mingtian emerged from the forest, feigning mystery. “These are called Spring Amanitas—a poisonous mushroom. They can’t be eaten, but if you smear them with lard and roast them over pinewood, they release a powerful meaty aroma. Add salt and pepper, and the smell is irresistible.”

“Oh?” Anluo pointed at the grilled mushroom. “Can you eat it?”

“Yes,” Mingtian nodded.

Anluo, unable to resist, opened his mouth to bite.

“Of course, you should write your will before you eat.”

Anluo froze like an ice sculpture, hastily tossing the mushroom back onto the coals.

Mingtian wasn’t joking. He hadn’t cleaned the Amanitas at all, and roasting them only intensified their toxicity. The lethality of these three chunks was comparable to pure potassium cyanide. Fortunately, the fragrance wasn’t poisonous, or he and Anluo would already be dead.

Satisfied with his grim jest, Mingtian counted his arrows and gave instructions.

“Move the body. When they realize their scout is missing, they’ll send more, one after another. We need to stay hidden and take them out one by one. By the time they realize something’s wrong, their numbers will have thinned—and then it’ll be your time to shine.”

“Alright, I was waiting for you to say that.”

With one hand, Anluo lifted the hundred-pound corpse as effortlessly as if it were a chick, carrying it into the darkness as though it weighed nothing at all.

Seriously, is this man or a bear? Didn’t anyone tell him not to reveal his supernatural strength after the founding of the country?

...