Given Du Chenfei's superb martial skills, slaying a hundred foreign invaders was hardly a difficult task, nor …
Given Du Chenfei's superb martial skills, slaying a hundred foreign invaders was hardly a difficult task, nor would it take much time. Yet, perhaps due to the lesson learned from the arrow wound, or perhaps because he was bound by a promise, he abandoned his former death-defying fighting style and became cautious and prudent.
Thus, after several years, Du Chenfei finally fulfilled the pact of killing a hundred invaders. He took his killing blade to the blacksmith and had it reforged into a cleaver for deboning and slicing meat.
Entering the Toilgrain Barn once more, he searched high and low, but could not find the old man anywhere.
Just as he was feeling puzzled, he suddenly heard someone softly call his name, as if confirming something.
He turned around and saw the face of a young man, whose features bore some resemblance to the old man.
The young man was Old Man Zhang's son. Not long ago, Old Man Zhang had taken a fall and was never able to get back up. On his deathbed, he kept muttering that Hero Du would come to inherit his meat stall, and told his son to wait for him here. In truth, he didn't believe for a second that Du Chenfei would actually return, but for the sake of his father's dying wish, he had no choice but to wait a little longer.
Du Chenfei was somewhat curious: since Old Man Zhang had a son, why did he insist on leaving the stall to an outsider like him?
Zhang smiled, saying he had no desire whatsoever to inherit the meat stall; being trapped here for a lifetime would be too boring. Over the past few years, he had listened to Old Man Zhang tell the story every day of how Hero Du was out there and would only return after killing a hundred foreign invaders. Such heroism and spirit were exactly the life he wanted to live. With that said, he dug out a chest and told Du Chenfei that this was the secret recipe for the Five Flavor Jerky.
The young man fastened the steel broadsword at his waist, leaped onto his horse, and rode away with dashing swagger.
Du Chenfei gripped the kitchen cleaver in his hand and reopened Old Man Zhang's meat stall.
The flames of war at the border grew fiercer by the day, and the troops stationed in the Toilgrain Barn were rotated batch after batch. Fortunately, Zhang would return every so often, recounting how many more invaders he had slain and how many commoners he had saved. He also boasted that when he reached his quota of a hundred invaders, it would surely be faster than Hero Du back in the day. During his most recent return, he told Du that he was heading to Zhongdu Bridge; a large number of invaders were gathering there, and he would surely be able to kill to his heart's content.
When he returns from this trip, I must make him prepare the Five Flavor Jerky with his own hands, no matter what, Du Chenfei thought to himself.