Silver Overlord

On the first day of the eighth lunar month, the new students of the archery academy officially started their academy lives.

To mark the official launch of the archery academy, 2,768 new students attended the archery academy’s first flag-raising ceremony on the training field in black martial garbs that morning.

The first flag-raising ceremony was extremely simple. Yan Liqiang personally raised the archery academy flag that he designed on a high wooden pole behind the stage as everyone watched him.

The archery academy’s flag had a red background with a golden dragon and tiger totem that was similar to the Yan Blades’ logo right in the middle. The center of the dragon and tiger totem had seven intersecting arrows.

Yan Liqiang originally wanted to design the archery academy’s flag with a pentagram with the two characters ‘8’ and ‘1’ at the center. However, after much consideration, the significance of the design would be too cryptic. Apart from him, no one else in the archery academy would be able to understand it. As an archery academy with a mission to continuously guide its people in moving forward, ‘visual composition’ was a very important factor. A complex and difficult-to-understand flag design would not be able to effectively convey the spirit and concept of the archery academy, thus failing to inspire its students. After pondering on it a bit more, he eventually sketched the flag of the archery academy by himself.

The coiling dragon and tiger totem in the center of the flag was traceable to the Yan Blades and Manufacturing Bureau — any perspicacious person would be able to make the connection between the three organizations. The intersecting arrows in the middle of the dragon and tiger totem firstly represented the identity of the archery academy, and secondly represented the discipline and unity pursued by the archery academy.

The end of the flag-raising ceremony marked the beginning of the life in archery academy that all the students looked forward to. They were stunned to learn that the first thing they would be learning after reporting in was to fold their blankets and tidy up their own living quarters.

Two days before the new students were to report to the academy, Yan Liqiang gathered all the veterans in charge of each respective unit of the academy to teach them the housekeeping requirements and blanket-folding method. Those veterans had a room of their own in the living quarters where Yan Liqiang had personally demonstrated to all of them on how to fold a blanket like cubes of tofu along with the housekeeping standards.

All the veterans were dumbstruck when they saw how Yan Liqiang tidied up the blanket by transforming it into a perfect tofu-like cube. It was probably their first time seeing anything like this since they were born.

Truth be told, Yan Liqiang once enlisted in the military. During his service, he folded his blanket in such a manner too. Back then, he didn’t understand why the military had such strict requirements. What was the use of folding a blanket so neatly? It wasn’t like it could kill an enemy. Not only that, but it was also a waste of time. However, as he gained more experience, he finally understood the meaning behind it. Of course folding blankets and doing housekeeping could not kill an enemy, but it could train a person to be strictly obedient with instructions as well as developing habits and unity to adhere to the rules. With such habit and style, it was an absolute guarantee and contributed to a powerful foundation of building a more powerful troop.

Aside from folding blankets, Yan Liqiang also gathered the veterans to personally demonstrate the specific formations of walking, marching, striding, running, making a left turn, making a right turn, halting and freezing, standing at ease, sitting, standing, and other military dispositions.

Those veterans were recruited with ‘high salaries’ by Yan Liqiang — they had been in the barracks for a long time. Therefore, they knew what military orders were. Even if they did not understand what Yan Liqiang taught them, they had no problem in learning them.

Yan Liqiang trained those veterans for two days and they practiced folding quilts for two days. He told those veterans about his standards and requirements so that those veterans could teach everything to the new archery academy students.

Not only those veterans, but even Shi Dafeng, Shen Teng, and Hu Haihe also participated in the training.

From the first day of the eighth lunar month, students of the archery academy began their ‘military training’ in the archery academy. They were all tormented to death by the strict daily schedule set by the archery academy from the time they woke up to the time they slept.

Yan Liqiang would first inspect the housekeeping of the veterans’ living quarters followed by the unit living quarters every day. If one person was found with unsatisfactory housekeeping, everyone in that living quarter would not be given any lunch. After inspecting the housekeeping, Yan Liqiang would then go to the training field to monitor the formation training. He would raise his concerns and correct any mistakes. More often than not, Yan Liqiang ended up personally demonstrating the formations.

External resources were no longer assigned to cater meals or attend to the housekeeping of the entire archery academy — they made use of the duty roster instead. Each unit was in charge of the academy’s meals and housekeeping for one week, and with such an arrangement, each unit would take about two turns per year. The food for the archery academy could be purchased at the few villages outside the academy. Those villages planted grains, so they had lots of grains and food but not other materials. Usually, they had some grains in hand. However, there were challenges in selling their grains as they needed to either deliver them to town or wait for the market fair to exchange the grains and eggs at home for some money. Sometimes they were not even able to sell them for any money at all. With the presence of the archery academy, the surrounding villages no longer had any issues in selling their grains, vegetables, meat, and eggs as not only there was a high demand from the archery academy, but the price offered by the archery academy was very generous too. The villagers from the surrounding villages were all delighted.

The archery academy gradually moved toward the right track and the systems were also slowly moving toward perfection.

Even though Yan Liqiang was in the archery academy, he did not relax on his cultivation. Every other night since the first day of the eighth lunar month, the secret cultivation room underneath the courtyard would be filled by flashes from the Heavenly Bestowments.

To Shi Changfeng and the rest, Yan Liqiang’s aura became more mysterious with each passing day.

When the sun rose on the 21st day of the eighth lunar month, Yan Liqiang once again stood on the stage of the training field overlooking the lines of troops shouting the ‘one, two, one’, ‘one, two, one’ cadence in between the rhythmic sounds of the whistle. Traces of smiles finally appeared on the faces of the students as they marched in uniform steps into the training field.

After over twenty days of harsh training, all students of the archery academy were changed anew. The scene of the troops of two thousand people entering the field was entirely different compared to twenty days ago. A unique strength appeared from the troops of young men.

Two thousand people performing the entrance march was indeed firm, powerful, and uniform. Even from above the stage, one could feel the slight tremors on the ground.

Shi Dafeng, Shen Teng, and Hu Haihe were also in the troop. Shi Dafeng and Shen Teng both led a unit each while Hu Haihe was part of a troop. After going through challenging experiences for more than half a month, they were a bit more tanned but they appeared more capable.

The twenty-eight troops that came to the training field went to their respective regions and began their formation practice without waiting for Yan Liqiang’s order.

Shi Changfeng stood beside Yan Liqiang and looked at the troops that had entered the field with flashes across his eyes. In Shi Changfeng’s eyes, although the troops in front of his eyes were still young, he had already seen the prototype of a strong army troop. In the uniform steps and resounding cadence, there was already a different energy being nurtured.

“Last night, students from the 3rd Unit and 17th Unit were caught fighting!” Shi Changfeng narrowed his eyes to look at the training field as he spoke to Yan Liqiang.

“Were they put into detention?”

“Yes, they were!” Shi Changfeng nodded, “These young men were bursting with energy, so they got agitated easily. Although the push-wrestling ring promoted by the archery academy is widely accepted to help drain most of their energy, fighting still happens frequently and the incidents have been increasing for the past seven days. It seems that putting them into detention is not enough…”

A few ideas suddenly flashed through Yan Liqiang’s mind, some were from the movies and documentaries that he had watched during his previous life. Yan Liqiang muttered to himself before he finally made a decision to toss away the apprehensions and put in some of the measures that he was hesitant about for some time. “Make some preparations within these two days. Starting from the day after tomorrow, once everyone in the archery academy hears the reveille, half of the people will be blindfolded using black cloth and it shall not be removed for the rest of the day. On that day, those people who are blindfolded will need to be assisted by those who are not blindfolded in going through their daily tasks such as eating, drinking, going to the toilet, and even training. They can only remove their blindfold after hearing the lights-out command. They will swap roles the next day. Once everyone within the units completed this training, we will do the swap by units after two days. Today, we will blindfold everyone in the 1st Unit and let the 2nd Unit assist them in going through their daily duties and training in the archery academy for a day and the next day it will be the 2nd Unit’s turn to be blindfolded.”

Shi Changfeng stared blankly at Yan Liqiang — he had not thought that Yan Liqiang would came up with such a solution. That solution was novel, but what was the use of it…

As Shi Changfeng was still pondering over Yan Liqiang’s intention of using such a method, he saw an anxious servant from the Yan Residence who came into the training field. After he saw Yan Liqiang, he hurried in front, “Young Lord, Old Master was injured.”

Upon hearing this, Yan Liqiang’s expression suddenly changed.