Chaotic Times and Disasters: I Hunt Down Martial Arts Masters and Become a God

After rushing for a long time, An Sheng finally saw the crack.

He stood at the edge of the mountain stream in the Valley of Ten Thousand Gu for a long time, and finally couldn't hold back and burst into tears.

He cried like a child, and after he finished crying, he used his gun to carve a line of words on the rocks at the edge of the ravine—

"The Tomb of General Fu Qing, the General Who Pacifies the Nation, and the Goddess Suwen of the Medicine Palace".

He stared at the stone all afternoon. Liu Wentong arrived, leaning on his cane; Zhao Laotie arrived, smoking his pipe; and Su Xue also arrived.

They stood in front of the monument for a long time, and no one spoke.

The day before returning to Beijing, An Sheng, Liu Wentong, and Zhao Laotie came to the edge of the mountain stream again.

An Sheng squatted in front of the monument and poured a bowl of wine on the ground.

"Brother Fu, the army will be returning to the capital tomorrow. You should rest well here."

He poured another bowl of wine onto the ground; the liquid seeped into the cracks in the pebbles and was quickly dried by the mountain breeze.

"This bowl is for Doctor Su. If you need any medicinal herbs over there, just ask Su Xue in a dream and she will cook them for you."

Then he took out paper money and started burning it. Liu Wentong squatted beside him, poking at the fire with his cane, while Zhao Laotie silently watched the stone tablet with a pipe stick in his mouth.

Just as everyone was feeling down, two shadowy figures flew up from below the ravine and landed behind them.

Everyone turned around and looked, and they were all stunned, dumbfounded, and confused!

Fu Qing released Su Wen from his arms, revealing two rows of bright white teeth. "The brothers are busy. Who is this for?"

The paper money in An Sheng's hand fell to the ground.

He stared at Fu Qing, then at Su Wen, and then at the enormous lion next to Fu Qing, frozen in place as if struck by lightning.

Liu Wentong's cane fell to the ground, and Zhao Laotie's pipe rod slipped out of his mouth, but he was completely unaware.

"Are you... a human or a ghost?!"

Fu Qingye glared at him. "Can't you say something nice?"

"You're not dead!"

An Sheng was the first to react, rushing forward and punching Fu Qing hard in the chest. He used all his strength in that punch, and his own hand hurt from the force.

He grabbed Fu Qing's shoulders and shook him violently, crying and laughing at the same time, tears streaming down his face.

"You're not dead! If you're not dead, why didn't you come back sooner! Do you know we erected a tombstone for you! Do you know how much paper money I burned for you! I burned dozens of sheets! You owe me back the paper money!"

Liu Wentong, leaning on his cane, stepped forward, his eyes reddening. He slammed his cane on the ground and gave Fu Qing a crisp military salute.

"General Fu, it's good that you're back alive."

Old Zhao picked up the pipe stem, put it back in his mouth, took a puff, and the smoke obscured his slightly reddened eyes. He muttered something under his breath.

"You little rascal, you're tough..."

When Su Xue saw Su Wen standing next to Fu Qing, she was stunned for a moment, then rushed over, hugged Su Wen, and burst into tears.

"Junior sister, oh junior sister! How will I explain to Master if you're gone!"

Suwen patted her shoulder, took a small porcelain bottle from his medicine pouch, and placed it in her hand.

"These are some extinct medicinal herbs she found at the bottom of the valley. You can study them when you get back."

Su Xue took the porcelain bottle and cried even harder.

"If you do that again, I'll tell the master! I'll put you in solitary confinement!"

"Perfect, it's nice and quiet by myself."

Su Xue was stunned for a moment, then looked at her expressionless junior sister, and burst into laughter through her tears, "You wish!"

An Sheng finally calmed down and pointed to the Leo behind Fu Qing.

"Where did this lion come from?"

Leo tossed his mane and proudly puffed out his chest.

"I am the lord's mount! My name is Leo! The general gave me this name! We killed the thousand-year-old snake demon at the bottom of the valley, and I even helped the general kill the high priest!"

An Sheng looked at the Qi Refining Realm demon general with a mouthful of fangs who called himself his mount, his lips twitched, and he lowered his voice.

"Is this really the mount you tamed?"

Fu Qing smiled slightly and nodded.

"Yes, Suwen poisoned it."

"They can even subdue a demon general at the Qi Refining Realm?!"

An Sheng glanced at Su Wen, shuddered, and pulled Fu Qing toward the military camp.

"Let's go, let's go back first! The commander thought you were dead. He drank a whole jar of wine in front of your tombstone and scolded you for a long time. If you don't come back soon, he's even prepared to write to His Majesty to request a posthumous title."

...

When I returned to the barracks, the veterans at the gate were packing their gear.

A sharp-eyed veteran was the first to spot Fu Qing. His armor clattered to the ground as he pointed towards the mountain path outside the camp gate, stammering, "Who...who...who is that?!"

Everyone looked over, and the camp gate instantly fell silent.

Then it exploded.

The veterans, their bodies wrapped in bandages, some with missing arms or limping legs, all put down what they were doing and surrounded Fu Qing, laughing and crying at the same time.

"General Fu is back!"

"General Fu is not dead!"

Some people couldn't squeeze in, so they stood on tiptoe outside the crowd to look, their smiles more like cries.

An old centurion with a missing left arm squeezed into the crowd, leaning on his spear, and pounded his chest with his remaining right hand.

Looking at the cheering crowd, and then touching the old centurion's fluttering sleeves, Fu Qing felt a pang of sadness and couldn't speak.

He simply nodded emphatically.

When Fu Qing entered the central command tent, Zhang Wukai was sitting behind his desk looking at a map.

Hearing footsteps, he looked up, and the teacup he was holding fell to the ground with a clatter.

Fu Qing grinned, "General, your humble servant is back!"

He stared blankly at Fu Qing for a long while before slowly speaking.

"I drank a whole jar of wine in front of your monument, and I don't want it to be for nothing."

"This humble general may drink another jar with the commander-in-chief."

"it is good."

Zhang Wukai stood up and walked up to Fu Qing, giving him a heavy pat on the shoulder with his rough hand.

"It's good that you're back alive. I'll remember that jar of wine you brought back; we'll drink it when we get back to the capital."

When Fu Qing returned to the vanguard battalion's camp, he saw a huge stone tablet standing in the center of the camp, densely covered with the names of fallen soldiers...

Sun Bufan, He Shan, and hundreds of soldiers he knew and didn't know, whose names he could recall and whose names he couldn't recall.

Liu Wentong stood beside him,

"The total number of casualties in the army was nearly 60,000...less than 2,000 of the vanguard battalion survived."

Fu Qing remained silent for a long time, then walked to the stone tablet and stroked the top row of names with his palm—Sun Bufan, He Shan...

"After we return to Beijing, I will send a separate pension to the family of each fallen brother. I will pay for it."

"Give them the silver they deserve, and the land they deserve. The land they fought for with their lives should not be neglected by their families."

...

That evening, the vanguard battalion lit a bonfire in the center of the camp.

Two thousand remaining soldiers sat in a circle around the campfire, the firelight illuminating their scarred faces.

Fu Qing stood up, holding his wine bowl, and addressed the remaining brothers.

"This bowl of wine is offered to the living brothers, and to the dead brothers... You are heroes, but they... are even more heroes!"

Two thousand people simultaneously raised their wine bowls, spilling the wine onto the ground, seeping into this blood-soaked land of southern Xinjiang.

Leo lay prone at Fu Qing's feet, curling its tail around its bronze hammer, muttering softly.

"Humans have so many rules..."

It licked the wine bowl offered to it, its eyes lighting up.

"Hmm?! Human wine has power!"

Su Wen sat next to Fu Qing, her gaze fixed on the campfire, then glanced at Fu Qing, whom everyone in the crowd revered, her eyes filled with a slight tremor.