An Jing's exploration of Suspended Fate Manor had yielded nothing, and for the first time in a long while, he had not slept well.
Roars of beasts, blood and flesh, gnashing teeth, and a beating heart left him seized by an inexplicable restlessness in his dreams. Only that clear, ringing sword chime could bring him a measure of calm.
The strange visions in his dreams, his restless sleep, and the heavy weight on his mind left An Jing visibly listless during morning practice.
However, this aroused no suspicion from others, as the vast majority of the children who had eaten the beast meat looked just the same—in fact, their conditions were even worse than his.
Yet this was not entirely a bad thing.
A few days later, everyone began to notice the effects of the "ferocious beast meat" and the "medicinal broth" they had consumed.
First, the time it took them to recover from exhaustion after training was noticeably reduced, and their strength was indeed steadily growing.
Movements they had once found arduous and exercises that had once drained their stamina gradually grew easier... Naturally, the Instructors, noticing this, immediately stepped up the training intensity, yet the children rarely felt that sense of powerless exhaustion or inner emptiness anymore.
An Jing felt the same. Under Suspended Fate Manor's training regimen and plentiful supply of food and medicine, his body, once depleted from his flight as a refugee, had completely recovered.
In fact, because he received a far greater portion of ferocious beast meat than the other boys and girls, the muscle and fat he had rebuilt—which had once been somewhat soft—condensed and tightened once more. They clung to bones that were growing ever sturdier, leaving him looking unremarkable from the outside.
Only by coming into direct physical contact with him could one discover with astonishment just how formidable An Jing's flesh, blood, and bones truly were.
As time passed, the boys and girls were growing at an astonishing rate.
Yet as time passed, more and more people were eliminated.
Those who consumed more resources but whose progress fell short were naturally culled.
After Zhang Ying came Ye Xiuyuan.
Two ten-day cycles later, on an early morning, Ye Xiuyuan also left Suspended Fate Manor.
This had become the norm at Suspended Fate Manor: people were sent down the mountain at any time, and departures were constant.
Gu Yeqi wiped away tears over this. Cang Linzu feigned indifference with stubborn words, but secretly cried in the latrine.
Even Zhan Feng was so gloomy he didn't finish his dinner, for Ye Xiuyuan had been teaching him to read and write; without Ye Xiuyuan's guidance, he couldn't even read the Scripture of Imperial Heaven smoothly.
He had once been a beggar who only cared about filling his belly, yet he still wanted to learn how to read and write, because only literate people could eat better food.
Although Ye Xiuyuan was always quoting moral lessons from ancient texts, reminiscing about the days when his family had prospered, and always hesitating and sighing, he had served as something like a strategist in An Jing's little circle. Full of clever, practical ideas that suited everyone well, he was well liked by all.
After another period of time, Zhan Feng left as well. The night before, this tall, simple-minded beggar boy had still been muttering in bed that he had to hold out the longest so he could eat more meat, since there would be none to eat once he went down the mountain.
More and more familiar faces and people whose names he knew departed.
Half the "friends" sharing An Jing's dormitory were gone, and the manor's original count of over two hundred children gradually dwindled to just over a hundred.
An Jing remained silent. He stayed calm throughout, speaking not a word.
Some had secretly complained about An Jing's coldness, while others countered that he was not unfeeling—he remembered everyone's name, but had simply known all along that those people were too weak to keep pace, so leaving was for the best.
Some said An Jing was the one deciding who stayed and who left; others claimed he was an unfeeling machine of steel who cared only about practicing martial arts and studying, a natural-born powerhouse.
An Jing offered no comment on these remarks. He was neither as heartless as they imagined nor particularly sentimental.
From the moment the first elimination began, he had known this was inevitable—that many "familiar faces" would ultimately fail to keep up and be culled.
He simply accepted it and silently remembered.
At this time, the children's grief was still genuine and pure.
Yet as time passed and partings occurred again and again, everyone's heart gradually grew cold and hardened.
Gradually, the children of Suspended Fate Manor began to see nothing strange about it.
Being allowed to stay was proof of their excellence. It made them feel fortunate and proud. As for those who left, though they were friends, they had only known each other for a few months.
While they felt nostalgia, they were no longer overly grief-stricken.
Those who valued bonds deeply and had truly become close friends merely hoped they would meet again one day after descending the mountain.
Most, however, simply began to forget.
As the training grew increasingly intense, everyone was consumed by drills each day, ending their practices utterly exhausted, eating voraciously, and collapsing into blank, dreamless slumber.
No one could remember all those who had left.
Except An Jing.
From beginning to end, no matter who left, An Jing observed and remembered in silence.
Outwardly he said nothing, but a surge of doubts swelled within him.
Only he remembered every single face, and so only he knew that among those who had departed... the vast majority, at least nine out of ten, were those who had failed to suppress the impulses after eating the beast meat and had roared publicly.
And those people were precisely the ones who absorbed the beast meat inefficiently and developed too slowly.
"What purpose do the beast meat and medicinal broth truly serve?"
"And that voice warning me away from the Medicine Pavilion—who was it?"
"Why did she warn me?"
These were the greatest questions weighing on An Jing's mind of late.
Setting aside that strange voice, ever since the first time they ate the ferocious beast meat, the youths of the manor had been given beast meat and herbal broth once every ten days.
Fewer and fewer children were unable to endure the heat of the beast meat and the effects of the medicine, but perhaps because of this, their temperaments began to shift as well.
The change was not obvious, but it was certainly there—everyone's disposition had grown increasingly composed.
Yet rather than composed, it might be more accurate to call it polarized and extreme.
The calm grew calmer, the quiet grew quieter, while the warm-hearted appeared indifferent on the surface but treated truly close friends with even greater warmth than before.
Even An Jing could not help feeling this way: his bond with Gu Yeqi and Cang Linzu grew stronger and stronger, while it became ever harder for any other child to be genuinely accepted by him as a friend.
If even he was like this, how much more so the others?
*Was this the effect of the beast meat, or of the herbal broth?*
An Jing could not say for sure. He only knew that his dreams were growing increasingly disturbed.
Several times he woke with a start in the dead of night, haunted by strange sounds—some like beasts gnashing their teeth, some like the clash and ring of blades, and others like a surging river of blood, stirring a sudden rage and unprovoked fury within him.
These things did not truly matter; the real question was, why was Suspended Fate Manor doing this?
"Could it be puberty?"
An Jing mused. "Or perhaps the awakening of Deathsworn, or even Heaven's Mandate, demands such extreme temperaments?"
Going by age, most of the children gathered by Suspended Fate Manor were entering adolescence, reaching a phase of rapid growth.
Ferocious beast meat promoted development, making them stronger and sturdier, while the medicinal broth suppressed impulsive urges, preventing rebellious adolescent outbursts from disrupting their training progress and squandering this critical window of rapid growth.
Those who failed to keep their impulses in check could not navigate this growth phase smoothly, which was why they were abandoned and sent down the mountain.
An Jing was, after all, the son of a martial family, and understood his own physical development well. It was hardly surprising that Suspended Fate Manor would use medicinal broths to keep things under control from this perspective.
As for the changes in everyone's temperament... living in an isolated manor, shaped daily by the words and deeds of numerous Instructors and lecturers, it was only natural for their temperaments to skew toward extremes.
And as for his strange dreams—could they simply be a side effect of his body's growth?
Chapter 15