Blood Mantou

Early in the morning, Lu Shen Jia awoke with a start from a nightmare, seeing his face.
That face had become a little unfamiliar, covered in dirt, so close to her that it made her both ache and feel a little frightened, especially those eyes, no longer clear and bright, but as if covered with a layer of greasy dust, and exuding a cold, emotionless gaze, which made her even more uneasy.
“I will leave immediately,” she said, bowing her head tremblingly.
“You don’t need to go, I will go.” Prince Long Qing knelt before her, murmuring in agony, “I beg you, never appear before me again. I am truly crippled. I have no future. My begging for a living is not cultivation in the mortal world, nor do I hope for any fortuitous encounter from Hao Tian. I admit I am craven, neither having the courage to face old people or old matters, nor the courage to die. I am just a rat in the sewers. I will reminisce about my glory as a tiger, but now I only want to eat rotten meat to live. Living is better than everything.”
Lu Shen Jia looked at the beggar kneeling before her, thinking of the perfect, imposing man he once was. Her heart ached so much she dared not touch him. With trembling fingers, she gently stroked the top of his head, pleading with choked sobs, “But you don’t have to live in the sewers. You can clearly live better. At least you should live on with me.”
Prince Long Qing lowered his head, seemingly unwilling for her fingers to touch his matted, dirty hair. He pleaded tremblingly, “But I don’t want others to see me alive. As long as I’m with you, I will definitely be seen by others. And I am barely surviving in the sewers; no one knows that it is the me of yesteryear.”
Lu Shen Jia stared blankly into the distance, her hand slowly lowering, gently caressing his cheek, a face once familiar now strange, once infatuated yet still reluctant to leave.
“Currently, in this world, only you know that the former Prince Long Qing is still alive. Forget him, then he is dead. In a dream, I once stabbed you with a sword. In fact, if I still had the ability to kill you now, I would not hesitate to stab you again, because I no longer want to be Prince Long Qing. I just want to live simply.”
After saying this, Long Qing left the forest without looking back. By this time, it was already morning. The morning sun shone on the dilapidated temple. He hunched his back and returned to the temple, staring blankly for half a day at the collapsed wall covered in accumulated snow, then was awakened by hunger. He returned to his seat under the brick wall and fumbled for half a day.
After fumbling for half a day, it was still empty. The half mantou he had hidden there, along with half a jar of vegetable soup, had vanished without a trace. Even the jar, which he considered a treasure, was gone.
Long Qing turned to look at his fellow beggars with various expressions in the dilapidated temple, angrily shouting, “Who the hell dared to steal my mantou! Give it all back to me! And where’s my jar? Where’s my jar!”
He lunged at two young, strong beggars with greasy lips, their faces smug and disdainful, wanting to snatch back his mantou and vegetable soup. However, he was gravely injured, his body weaker than an ordinary person. How could he be a match for those vicious beggars? In two or three moves, he was kicked to the ground, writhing in pain.
A violent cough echoed in the dilapidated temple. Long Qing continuously coughed up blood, in immense pain. The beggars in the temple looked at him without any sympathy or pity, but rather with schadenfreude and amusement.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, painfully curled up in his seat, burying his head in his knees and muttering in agony, “In the past, I lived in the imperial palace with silk and jade food, at Tao Mountain with infinite glory. I never cared about half a mantou. What if I gave it to you? You heartless bastards, even if I bully you your whole lives, you’ll never enter the imperial palace to eat dim sum!”
Outside the dilapidated temple, Lu Shen Jia clenched her mouth tightly, her pale cheeks filled with pain. Tears, like dewdrops on flower petals, fell one by one. From the Wilderness to Cheng Jing, a journey of ten thousand li, no matter how Long Qing tormented her mentally and verbally, no matter how desperate and painful she was, she had never cried, until this moment.
Even crying in pain, she could not make a sound. A moment later, she led the reins, distraught, and left the dilapidated temple, walking aimlessly into the distance. The snow horse behind her lowered its head, looking extremely sorrowful.
Not long after she left, the fight in the dilapidated temple erupted again. It was unclear if it was because the beggars found this new beggar dirtier, smellier, but also felt he didn’t fit in with them, or if the content of Long Qing’s muttering had angered some people. In short, it was another severe beating.
A clear bloodstain appeared on Long Qing’s face. Fresh blood washed away the dirt on his face, revealing the jade-white skin beneath. However, that perfect face was ultimately ruined.
Long Qing touched his face, staring blankly at the blood in his palm, then suddenly burst into insane laughter. He extended his right leg, tripping a beggar, then pulled out a broken bowl from his clothes and fiercely smashed it into the opponent’s face.
The porcelain shards embedded deep into that beggar’s cheek. One shard embedded deep into his eye socket, abruptly appearing on his eyeball. Fresh blood splattered everywhere, a terrifying sight. A gasp of alarm echoed in the dilapidated temple.
Long Qing then used the broken bowl shard to cut the beggar’s throat.
“He killed someone!”
“He killed someone!”
The beggars, holding various objects, surrounded him, crying out in fear, but no one dared to step forward to stop Long Qing’s actions, because there was no emotion on Long Qing’s face; that blank stare was extremely terrifying.
That beggar struggled twice and died. Long Qing still did not stop, continuously punching his face. No matter how soft and weak his fists were, after dozens, hundreds of punches, he could still smash a person’s face into a pulpy, cotton-like mess. Fresh blood oozed from those pulpy spots, washing away the flattened eyeball that had fallen out of its socket.
The indifferent emotion on Long Qing’s face also gradually melted with the severe beating, until his eyebrows and eyes gradually twisted, transforming into a bizarre expression, half-crying, half-smiling. In his gloomy eyes, there was neither light nor darkness.
He straddled the dead beggar, wailing loudly, “That mantou was frozen hard like a radish. It had to be soaked in vegetable soup to soften it to eat. Don’t you understand the principle of turning soup into food? How could you eat it like that? Why did you have to follow me? You made me not have any mantou to eat. Who will give me mantou to eat now?”
His insane shouts continuously echoed in the dilapidated temple.
The timid beggars had long since scattered like frightened birds. The brave beggars, unwilling to leave their difficult shelter, hid in corners in terror, looking at that terrifying madman. Someone trembled and cried, “Don’t rush, we drank the vegetable soup, but the mantou wasn’t eaten, it was too hard.”
Long Qing looked blankly at the beggar who had just spoken and asked, “Then where is my mantou?”
The person pointed at the beggar’s corpse beneath him and said, “In his chest.”
Long Qing fumbled inside the dead beggar’s chest beneath him and took out half a stiff mantou. He stared blankly at it for half a day, then suddenly dipped the mantou in fresh blood and asked, “Will dipping it in some blood also soften it?”
No one in the dilapidated temple dared to answer his question. When the beggars saw him put the blood-stained mantou into his mouth, they became even more silent, then some very strange thoughts arose. Following such a madman, could they perhaps live better in this world full of human blood?
It’s just that they didn’t know, the madman dipping human blood mantou in the dilapidated temple was now a beggar, but before, he was a true prince. Even if he later became a prince among beggars, what would it mean?

In recent days, Tuyang City, the furthest border city in the Great Tang Empire’s northeast, had an especially unusual atmosphere. When a thousand Black Armored Heavy Cavalry returned from the Wilderness, this atmosphere grew even thicker. Even the wolves in Min Mountain far outside the city seemed somewhat apprehensive of the atmosphere here, no longer daring to howl incessantly at night.
The reason for this was naturally related to those thousand Black Armored Heavy Cavalry. The soldiers and civilians in the city vaguely received news that the Chang An Military Department had sent a severe letter of inquiry, asking why such an important troop deployment had gone unnoticed by both the military department and the imperial court, demanding that the Great General immediately explain. However, the Great General’s residence remained silent. General Xia Hou used the excuse of recovering from illness, and the two red gates had not opened for a very long time.
Suddenly one day, the General Zhen Jun’s residence gates opened wide. The soldiers and civilians in the city all knew this meant a major event was about to occur, greatly surprised as to who was worthy of General Xia Hou’s solemn treatment?
A dilapidated carriage, under the gaze of countless eyes, slowly entered Tuyang City.
Compared to the simple carriage body that looked like it could collapse at any moment, the black horse pulling the carriage was extraordinarily spirited and very tall. Moreover, its demeanor when shaking its head and wagging its tail was very innocent and joyful. Border soldiers and civilians often saw warhorses, but they had never seen such a mount. They couldn’t help but be surprised, wondering who in the carriage was so extravagant as to use this kind of horse to pull a carriage?
A corner of the carriage window curtain was lifted. Ning Que in the carriage looked at a beggar at the foot of the city wall, and for some unknown reason, fell silent for a moment, then said, “Back then, no matter how difficult things were for Tang Tang and me, we never thought of begging.”
First Senior Brother looked at him and asked with a slightly strange expression, “Why?”
Ning Que looked at the broken bowl in front of the beggar and said, “Because things obtained by begging are always easily stolen by others, and begged food doesn’t taste good. Compared to that, I’d rather steal.”
Mo Shan Shan somewhat didn’t understand the logic of his statement. She thought seriously for a moment and then said, “Are you saying that thieves and bandits are more deserving of sympathy and pity than beggars?”
“This is the crux of the problem.”
Ning Que lowered the carriage curtain, looked at Mo Shan Shan, and said seriously, “Understanding and sympathy are very cheap emotions. This world is always treacherous. If you want to survive, you must learn to refuse these emotions, and not let yourself be immersed in them without being able to escape. I always believed that those who encounter a little setback then feign loneliness, imitate despair, cry and wail, harm themselves and their loved ones, believing the whole world owes them, are trash among trash.”