264: Chapter 62 Trust Between People is Precious 264: Chapter 62 Trust Between People is Precious Nurse Liu once said that the most suitable time for ordinary people to begin cultivating the Twelve Laws was after graduating from high school.
The reason is simple: by that time, people have basically formed their own worldviews.
They can’t be said to be fully mature, but at least they are functional.
They know who they are, and they understand how the world works.
Young people with little cultural knowledge who rashly encounter knowledge beyond their understanding can easily succumb to Qi Deviation.
For example, two elementary school students are fighting, and one who can’t win runs away.
After running a few steps, he turns back and yells loudly, “Just you wait!
Tonight I’ll send Ultraman to beat you up!”
This might not be mere bravado.
He may truly believe that he can summon Ultraman and that the other will believe it too.
He might really think he can fire a ray of light from his emotions, and the Turtle School Qigong that the other sends flying towards him is also terrifyingly powerful.
Even within the most seemingly simple and expendable cultivation system of the Garrison Soldiers among the Twelve Laws, a special talent is required.
This talent is called trust, an unconditional trust in one’s comrades.
The brothers under Wang Yunxiao wouldn’t bombard him with questions or entertain wild thoughts.
Even Matuan, who loved to talk smart, and Youtiao, with the quickest mind, never contradicted their elder brother’s decisions.
This was the result of them growing up together, a bond formed through life and death experiences.
Normally, if the military wanted to train Garrison Soldiers, they would only select the elite from old camps that had truly been on battlefields and fought tough battles.
As for soldiers like Gao Shan, who had only completed basic military training and were discharged without having seen combat, there might indeed be a sense of camaraderie among them, but definitely not an unconditional trust.
They’re all young, full of youthful vigor and a strong spirit of rebellion.
It doesn’t matter whether they have a point or not; they just can’t stand being told what to do by others, and they would oppose just for the sake of opposing.
As soon as Wang Yunxiao left, Gao Shan’s officers couldn’t help but murmur complaints in low voices.
“Captain, that kid is way too arrogant!”
“Exactly, he’s not that old, but acts all high and mighty…”
“I think Liu Siliang has a point.
We overthrew the old Imperial Court, so why should we still be doing things for the people inside the Imperial City?”
“Shut up!”
Gao Shan glared fiercely at the officers who agreed with Liu Siliang.
“Are you here on vacation?
Did you forget everything Director Qin told you when you left?
Can’t you control your mouth?
Do you have to speak your mind?
Where do all these opinions come from!”
“I was just saying…”
“Can’t you just not say it!
Will it kill you to keep quiet?
Normally, you’re like a gourd with a sawed-off mouth, can’t get a fart out of you after three strikes, but how come you suddenly become talkative in this godforsaken place?
Can’t hold back the grumbling in your belly?
Don’t you feel something’s off about yourselves?”
Seeing his officers still somewhat resentful and unconvinced, Gao Shan also felt a headache.
He couldn’t just shoot the disobedient ones dead.
Bullets can kill people, but they can’t cure diseases, nor solve the problem of Echo Erosion.
“From now on, if you want to speak, you must raise your hand and report first.
Think it through in your head before you speak.
Say something useful, hold back anything useless.
I don’t want to hear these complaints anymore.
If anyone can’t control themselves, I’ll help you control it!”
After lecturing his own people, Gao Shan went to find Wang Yunxiao and saw he was leading people to take down lamps.
Not the lamps in their own compound but those near the main thoroughfare, pretty much all the courtyards along one street, extending half a street back through the smaller alleys.
In the midst of the brightly lit area, they created a “T”-shaped dark zone.
“What’s this for?”
“Creating a quarantine zone.”
“What is an isolation zone?”
Wang Yunxiao looked at him with the eyes of someone looking at an idiot, making Gao Shan feel as if his intelligence had been insulted.
“Those dead people——”
Wang Yunxiao gestured towards the Outer Palace Wall and whispered to Gao Shan: “They have no ability to act on their own; they’re completely driven as cannon fodder to fill in the lines, bit by bit grinding away at the lights in the Outer City.
The real brains are behind them, commanding.
Their goal is very clear, they want to get into the Inner City.”
“And the task Shi Hu assigned us is to slay the petty thieves, not to defend the Inner City.
In other words, our main objective doesn’t conflict with those things on the other side.”
“Now we’ve cleared a street horizontally to act as an isolation zone.
There are no lights here, so when they come here, they won’t conflict with us.
Then they’ll discover there’s another street leading to the Inner City that also has no lights, and they’ll continue moving forward.”
“This will reduce our pressure a lot.
Did you understand?”
“I didn’t understand.”
“If you didn’t understand, then stop asking useless questions.
Just follow my commands when the time comes!”
After removing the candle lanterns from two streets—one horizontal and one vertical—Wang Yunxiao’s own lantern was now filled up in the back courtyard.
He conducted an experiment and found that the candles inside the lanterns could be manually extinguished and relit, which relieved him somewhat.
Now he had at least two hundred lanterns and candles in hand, enough for each person to hold a lantern and carry several candles in their arms, without any worries about running out of light halfway through.
This was enough to help his team get through this long night that seemed to have no end in sight.
“Pack up the things, get ready to move out!”
There was still plenty of time.
The dead were consuming the lights at a slower pace than Wang Yunxiao had anticipated.
The gunfire from next door was incessant, never stopping.
With such strong firepower, it surely had some connection with the military, or maybe it was even a team sent by the military for training.
This approach had its pros and cons.
Even with ample ammunition and no fear of wasting it, such constant gunfire would obviously attract the attention of those things outside the palace walls.
This is not how the game is played.
If only relying on firearms could solve the problem, then the walls of his Inner and Outer Palaces would have been breached long ago.
“Big brother, the water is flooding over!”
Matuan, putting down the telescope on top of the wall, shouted loudly.
“Let’s go, it’s time for a patrol!”
Wang Yunxiao put on his eyepatch and face mask, waved his hand, and led his brothers out of the courtyard.
Out of cautious consideration, he still split the team into two groups.
Youtiao stayed behind, setting up the Heavenly Crossbow with Sorghum at a high vantage point, ready to provide support at a moment’s notice.
He took Guozi, Eryang, and a few others who were brave and good in a fight, always ready for close combat with the opposition.
The big street that had just been cleared was now shrouded in a dense fog.
“Detected Level I Undead: Wandering Corpses, quantity 259…”
“Detected Level II Undead: Noisy Ghost Shadows…”
“Detected Level II Undead: Hanging Ghosts…”
Huh?
This time there are actually Hanging Ghosts.
Next time I can bring Zhou Qing here, maybe she can communicate with them.
A thought like this flickered through Wang Yunxiao’s mind.
As an original ghost story from Qinghe Middle School, Zhou Qing hadn’t come out with them this time and stayed in the school to scare the group of newbies who had just started.
It’s a pity; otherwise, there really might have been a chance for her to switch sides.