Twenty years had passed since the Battle of Wusong. Blood, flesh, and gunpowder smoke had all become nothing. The fort’s remains lay collapsed in the morning light, with traces of road construction remaining in the mudflats.

However, during this hot summer season with rising water levels, the road was already covered by a thin layer of river water. The water gleamed clear, rippling with faint waves that refracted the roadbed into a winding line.

Looking closely, there were tiny fish fry in the water, darting back and forth like shuttles.

Su Minguan frowned. This was his first time here, and the environment was worse than he’d imagined.

He kept rain boots on the boat, so he wasn’t worried about himself.

He asked Lin Yuchan: “You didn’t bring rain boots, did you?”

Lin Yuchan quickly and enthusiastically declared, “I can walk barefoot! The water isn’t dirty.”

It would even be cool and refreshing.

Su Minguan looked at her like she was some kind of female demon and said coldly, “Aren’t you afraid of water parasites?”

Lin Yuchan froze, then her face turned ashen.

Leeches, schistosomiasis, and various other parasites… Ancient people’s understanding was limited, so they collectively called them “water parasites.”

“Green waters and azure mountains are wasted in abundance; even Hua Tuo was helpless against small worms.” In the countryside, patients with swollen bellies like drums and bones thin as sticks were common sights that made people’s hearts skip with fear.

Lin Yuchan had spent most of her time in the city, and with attention to personal hygiene, while she was somewhat wary of ancient parasitic diseases, she hadn’t experienced them firsthand and lacked that instinctive wariness carved into one’s bones.

Fortunately, she had this equally clean native young master to remind her from time to time, otherwise she’d be dead without knowing how she died.

Su Minguan crouched down halfway, and she obediently climbed onto his back, watching him pick up the bundle beside his feet.

Heavy. From its shape, there was a long rifle inside. Her heart itched with curiosity.

The plum rain season had passed, and they were now in the drought period, when the weather was at its hottest. Even though Su Minguan had deliberately chosen the early morning hours, the coolness brought by night was gradually retreating, and the air was stuffy with humid moisture.

Lin Yuchan could see sweat beads beginning to form on his hat brim.

“No one’s here, show your true form.”

She took it upon herself to remove his hat and fake queue, revealing a crew cut that deserved a beating, and blew hard on the back of his head.

Su Minguan shivered several times from her cold and growled quietly: “Stop fooling around!”

This girl was getting more and more presumptuous. Taking advantage of being “one twenty-fifth,” she was almost riding on his head now!

Oh, wait, she already was riding on his head. Literally.

Lin Yuchan laughed softly and blew on his neck, amused to watch him barely contain his explosive rage.

Military training! University life had finally begun!

The instructor’s haircut was quite realistic too, bristly and a bit prickly to the touch, like a special forces soldier!

Su Minguan especially wanted to throw her into the nearby swamp. Gritting his teeth, he threatened: “This kind of deserted place is perfect for robbery and murder. A silly girl who can’t assess risks, coming here alone with me today—you’ll have plenty to be afraid of soon.”

The girl on his back fell silent for a moment, as if truly frightened. Then she smiled gently and warmly: “I’ve already assessed all the risks and factored them into the price. If it were someone else, I would naturally charge more and wouldn’t sign such a favorable contract with them.”

Su Minguan froze. This answer was unexpected. He’d thought she would pinch or hit him or something.

So in her eyes, his character was quite valuable.

Then he felt too embarrassed to continue frightening her. Her hair was blocking his eyes, but he only reached up to brush it aside without further complaint.

“The principle of foreign rifles is the same as Chinese bird guns and firelocks.” Su Minguan felt a bit out of breath, or perhaps this girl had suddenly gotten heavier. The short walk of several dozen steps felt like a journey to the Western Paradise, so he steadied himself and started the lesson early. “You’ve even dismantled guns before, so I don’t need to explain much. But you must know that firearms are powerful—used improperly, before injuring others, they injure oneself first.”

Lin Yuchan thought this was common sense and urged softly: “I’ll be careful—first teach me how to load bullets.”

This step was what she was least familiar with. From her limited observation experience, the technique seemed quite complex.

“Wanting to run before learning to walk,” Su Minguan chided her. “Before loading and firing, you need to be prepared for various emergencies—for instance, what to do if the lead bullet gets stuck, what about misfires and duds, what if the gunpowder ratio is wrong, what about accidental discharge, what configurations need checking after firing—tell me.”

Finally reaching the stone steps below the fort, he dropped her on top with satisfaction and asked challengingly.

Lin Yuchan: “…”

Fine, she wouldn’t show off and would properly start learning from theory.

It was also because firearms of this era were too primitive (by her standards). In practice, they weren’t smooth at all and frequently malfunctioned, requiring various manual corrections. The gun Su Minguan commonly used, left behind by the previous Jin Lanhe, was quite old, and its construction was somewhat outdated. When Lin Yuchan had dismantled the gun, she’d noticed the manufacturing year engraved was 1835—the same age as Empress Dowager Cixi, more than ten years older than herself.

The reason Su Minguan could use that old gentleman’s gun like something from a 007 movie was simple: practice makes perfect.

“I heard that when we first fought the foreigners, the officers and soldiers were equipped with excellent firearms, some even better than foreign armies, all top-quality goods bought with silver,” Su Minguan said. “But training was neglected, leading to countless problems in battle. Later, when foreigners captured the soldiers’ firearms, they found many were still factory-new, never having fired a single lead bullet.”

He unwrapped the bundle and pulled out a flintlock rifle over half a person’s height, handing it to her. “This is the type. The simplest to use—I equipped the fleet with these, too. First, get a feel for the weight.”

Lin Yuchan grabbed it with one hand, and both her arms immediately sank. The weight was indeed beyond imagination.

Though it wasn’t the small handgun she wanted, this type of long-barreled firearm was the mainstream of current land warfare. She silently examined it inside and out—the Celestial Empire with five thousand years of history had been pointed at by these cold, hard, slender gun barrels, step by step forced to prostrate and submit, becoming meat for slaughter.

After she finished her reflections and looked up, Su Minguan’s expression was complex.

“Just now, for half the time, your muzzle was pointed at me. You touched the trigger eight times,” his calm voice carried undercurrents, like a volcano about to erupt. “Good thing I didn’t load gunpowder, or I should have died at least three times over. A’Mei, do you hate me that much?”

Lin Yuchan’s face burned with heat as she stammered: “There weren’t… that many times…”

She had forgotten to check if this gun was loaded!

“Understand what accidental discharge means now?”

She admitted defeat: “I understand, I understand.”

“What do you do next time you get a gun?”

“First, check if there’s gunpowder… um, can’t point it at people. Can’t touch the trigger.”

A quite comprehensive summary. Su Minguan couldn’t find fault. So he took out gunpowder and lead bullets, quickly loading them into the barrel and rear chamber.

“Try the feel. Don’t worry, if things look wrong, I’ll dodge—aim at that pair of egrets on the sandbar.”

Live ammunition this quickly?

This time, Lin Yuchan didn’t dare to be careless at all. Like carrying a time bomb, she first moved several steps away from him, then carefully held the rifle horizontally with both hands, mimicking the poses from “The Three Musketeers” comic book covers.

She wondered confusedly: didn’t he need to correct her posture?

But since the instructor said nothing, she was too embarrassed to ask.

“Can I not shoot the egrets?” she suddenly turned back to negotiate with him. “Shoot that rock instead.”

Su Minguan couldn’t help but curve his lips. As if she could hit anything accurately.

But he still accommodated her compassionate heart and nodded.

He also reminded her: “The bullet will drop—aim higher.”

After speaking, he walked behind her.

Lin Yuchan then slightly adjusted the gun barrel, standing to one side of the fort’s gap, trying to aim carefully. Unfortunately, her arm muscles weren’t up to it—within half a minute, they started trembling. Too heavy!

She’d been moving tea for several months and thought she’d developed iron arms…

This gun had no front sight either, and the muzzle shook more and more violently. Finally, she went all-in and pulled the trigger like she was gambling on luck.

Thunder crashed beside her ear. She was launched directly into the air!

It felt like a tiger had pounced on her, or someone had kicked her hard in the shoulder. The gun flew from her hands. She didn’t even have time to scream before being blasted several meters by an invisible shock wave, with the fort’s sharp rubble ruins right behind her!

At this critical moment, warmth spread across her back as she fell into Su Minguan’s open embrace.

He stepped back several paces to cushion the impact while kicking up with his toe to catch the free-falling flintlock, kicking it upright into a corner.

Lin Yuchan’s head ached from the enormous gunshot, snow snowflakes danced before her eyes. Clutching his hand and breathing deeply, she shamefully felt her nose tingle with tears.

…Nearly scared to tears.

This was a pure physiological reaction when humans faced great danger—she couldn’t control it.

Su Minguan reached out to brush away the cold sweat on her forehead, smoothing her hair that had been blown into disarray.

“Frightened?” Estimating that her tinnitus had subsided, he leaned close to her ear and spoke quietly, his voice flat and emotionless. “Now you know what ‘injuring oneself before injuring others’ means?”

Lin Yuchan wilted in his arms, not daring to move, making a pitiful “mm” sound with a crying tone.

People who had never actually practiced couldn’t truly understand the enormous recoil when firearms discharged. On the battlefield, that moment of stumbling instability could sometimes mean the difference between life and death.

Foreigners were tall and sturdy, so they suffered less from this; Qing soldiers were short and weak, greatly disadvantaged in warfare.

Not to mention Lin Yuchan, this naturally frail, slender girl who dared not go out during typhoons—being hit by a gun butt turned her into a kite.

Su Minguan finally smiled ever so slightly, patting that still-shaken little head.

After several consecutive reality checks, he was very satisfied to see reverence in her expression, finally not the previous joyful eagerness of “quickly teach me to play with a new toy.”

Jin Lanhe had taught him the same way back then. Truly harsh—the bruise on his shoulder took days to fade.

“Weapons are inauspicious instruments,” he remembered Jin Lanhe warning him. “Not instruments for gentlemen, only to be used when necessary…”

Su Minguan had been young and hot-blooded then. He’d grabbed the old gentleman’s gun that had followed his uncle for many years, pointing at the worn-smooth decorative patterns and mottled gun chamber, saying defiantly: “But you’ve been using it for so many years.”

Jin Lanhe had laughed, his full beard trembling along.

“Because right now is exactly that time of absolute necessity.”

Su Minguan suddenly felt thirsty. He pulled out a leather water bottle from his bundle, drank his fill in one go, then cupped cold water to wash his face.

That weathered, helpless laughter remained vivid. It surged from the depths of memory, following him from Guangzhou to Shanghai, drifting to desolate Wusong mouth, echoing in his ears along with that flintlock’s report.

Beside the fort, water flowed slowly, waves silent.

Su Minguan half-embraced a frightened little girl, suddenly a bit unclear about where he was, how old he was, who he was.