Chapter 213: A Million-dollar Reward
Exploiting the position of a thousand captain!

As a disciplinary soldier who is only one rank higher than ordinary soldiers in the large army, Huang Hao’s favorite thing to do is to see the dejected expressions of those officer-level soldiers who were demoted for making mistakes.

In fact, for most soldiers with officer ranks, the position they hold is not only a symbol of status, but also a supreme honor that is more important than their own lives! To be deprived of their military rank is, to some extent, tantamount to sentencing them to death.

Because soldiers with "exile" records in their military resumes will find it difficult to be reinstated in the future even if they have the opportunity to make meritorious contributions, and they will not be able to hold their heads up in front of people. Therefore, no matter which country's army they are in, all soldiers are cautious in their words and actions, because they are worried that if they make a mistake, they will not only ruin their bright future, but also make all their previous efforts go to waste.

Of course, there are exceptions.

For example, Wang Yao, who not only became a powerful captain at the age of 19, but also because of his special background, he often walked on the edge of the bottom line of military regulations without being punished by the top leaders. For example, he always arrived late and left early in the army, and even handed over basic military affairs to his subordinates. He took over a main force of thousands of people with an attitude of no concern.
These things are unthinkable in any unit of the legion.

Huang Hao, who always felt that he was not appreciated for his talent and had always been relegated to the level of a disciplinary inspector, naturally had an innate hostility and hatred towards a gifted son of heaven like Wang Yao.

Why is it that Wang Yao, who was also a soldier, who had only fought in a canyon war, could rise to the top in a row among the ranks of centurions whose average age was 30? Why did Wang Yao's reckless behavior always receive the protection and tacit approval of the higher-ups? Surely it was because of his special background that he received special treatment?
Huang Hao often conspired like this in private and was extremely dissatisfied.

Fortunately, the wheel of fate has its own way. This young man finally got a bad fall today. Not only was he stripped of his position as a thousand-man captain, but according to the top leaders, it seemed that the thousand soldiers of the original Seventh Main Force were all wiped out in the enemy's high ground because of his fault!

How could Huang Hao not applaud this development?

It has always been a good genetic tradition for some people to beat a fallen dog
On the way here, every time Huang Hao imagined that he would soon see Wang Yao like those demoted soldiers in the past, with a depressed and regretful look on his face, he felt gloating but also very happy!

However, he was wrong.
When Huang Hao finished announcing the military order decided by the top leaders with a hint of mockery and his nose in the air, Wang Yao just sat there looking at him motionlessly, without even blinking.

This reaction stunned Huang Hao, who was originally looking forward to watching a good show.

Normally, shouldn't he have taken advantage of Wang Yao's ignorance and announced the high-level military order on the spot? Then the shocked Wang Yao would begin to collapse, regret and find it hard to accept it, and then hold his head and cry bitterly. Finally, he would say very timely, "Go to bed, kid, don't cry, you have to get up early tomorrow to meet your new boss!"
Isn't it supposed to be like this?!

Looking at Wang Yao's head wrapped in white gauze in astonishment, Huang Hao initially thought that Wang Yao didn't hear him, so he added without giving up: "Hey? Did you hear what I said? You have been stripped of your rank of captain!"

Wang Yao, still motionless.

He just sat back in a chair, his hand on his forehead and stared at Huang Hao coldly.

Huang Hao felt a chill down his spine. He was sure Wang Yao must have heard it, but what kind of reaction was this?
The hall fell into an eerie silence, and the air was faintly cold enough to make people shudder.

Huang Hao finally got a little scared.

Because in Wang Yao's creepy eyes, he read a silent and terrible message: Get out of here before I make up my mind to kill you!

It was not until this moment that Huang Hao realized that the saying "a tiger trapped in plains is bullied by dogs" was just a one-sided description. A tiger trapped in the plains after leaving the mountains might be less threatening, but it might not be bullied by dogs. After all, the tiger is still the king of beasts, and this fact will not change even if it changes the environment!
In front of him was the canyon's top soldier who had terrorized Shu Kingdom and had made outstanding military achievements in the past six months! Although he was young, he had seen many times more corpses and killed many more soldiers than a discipline inspection soldier who didn't have to go to the battlefield and was only responsible for internal attendance.
When he figured out the key, Huang Hao began to sweat uncontrollably.

According to the rules, he should have taken back Wang Yao's Level 4 inscribed military token, which represented the status of a thousand-man commander, after announcing the military order. Although Wang Yao's inscription had actually been used as a tool to vent his anger when he met Zhuge Liang, in this situation, seeing Wang Yao's murderous intentions, how could Huang Hao dare to ask again?

"Well, please take more rest. I, no... I'll take my leave." Huang Hao said this timidly and fled out of the mansion in a panic. His pale face formed a great contrast with his arrogant look before entering.

Those who take advantage of the power of others are ultimately no more than this.

Wang Yao was even more disdainful of these small soldiers who used chicken feathers as tokens of authority.

A captain of a thousand men? Power? What did that mean? After he walked back to Jingzhou alone, these worldly positions had no meaning in his eyes.

So Wang Yao was indifferent, just holding his forehead, and remained silent. Perhaps he was too absorbed in his thoughts, so he didn't know how long it had been. When Wang Yao raised his head again, he found Luna holding two bags of food, standing at the door and looking at him blankly, her pretty face full of worry.

"When did you come back?" Wang Yao asked. He didn't want to make Luna worry, so he wanted to smile, but found that he couldn't.

"I just came back." Luna also came back to her senses at the question. At that moment, she was a little flustered and her face flushed. She didn't know what she was thinking. It seemed that she took a long time to calm down. Then she smiled and said, "Look, I bought a lot of ingredients. I've been eating rice balls for almost a month. I'm almost sick of it. Ah Yao, can you cook for me?"

To be honest, Wang Yao was not even willing to talk at this time, let alone cook. However, looking at the girl with a sweet smile, he couldn't bear to refuse, so he could only nod silently, stand up, take the ingredients from Luna's hand and walk into the kitchen.

Half an hour later.
After Wang Yao brought the last cooked dish to the table, Luna, who had already taken her seat, couldn't wait to pick up her bowl and chopsticks, and said excitedly, "Then I'll start eating!"

However, when Luna just picked up a slice of cucumber from a plate, she saw Wang Yao filled a bowl of soup, drank half of it, put down the bowl and turned to leave the table.

This development startled Luna, and she quickly stood up and asked, "Ayao, let's eat, what's wrong?"

"I don't have much appetite. I want to take a rest. You eat." After saying this, Wang Yao disappeared directly at the stairs on the second floor.

Luna stared blankly at the stairs for a long time before she put down her bowl and chopsticks in disappointment. She sat alone at the dining table, lowered her face and fell into silence.

Not long after, Huang Zhong also came back. When he entered the dining room, he saw Luna sitting alone at the table. He couldn't help but ask, "Hmm? Girl, why are you alone? Where's Wang Yao?"

"Upstairs. Uncle, A Yao doesn't seem to be in good spirits." Luna responded absentmindedly.

Looking at the depressed face of the girl, Huang Zhong finally understood why he felt the whole house was stuffy as soon as he entered the house. Pulling a chair, Huang Zhong sat down at the dining table and said with concern: "When I came back, I heard that he was dismissed by the top brass of the legion?"

"Yes." Luna smiled helplessly: "Although I have also complained to the military advisor, but the military advisor said that A Yao did have many negligent behaviors during the war. So."

"So this kid is angry?" Huang Zhong snorted, picked up a piece of meat with garlic paste and put it into his mouth, and said: "Isn't he just a captain of a thousand men? Is it necessary to be like this? A real man should not be burdened by fame and honor."

"I think it's not a matter of position." Luna lowered her head and silently squeezed the pair of slender hands on her thighs.

At this moment, she suddenly heard a muffled "hmm" from Huang Zhong next to her. Luna was surprised and turned to look.

Huang Zhong was chewing the meat slices in his mouth, and asked with a strange look on his face: "Girl, is this a new dish? Why is the meat so sweet?"

Luna blinked her clear eyes, looked at the plate of meat on the table, and said, "No way? This is the garlic pork that A Yao often makes, how can it be sweet?"

"But it is really, really sweet!" Huang Zhong swallowed the sweet meat in his mouth as hard as swallowing chaff. He shuddered with a greasy feeling, and then said with an unbearable expression: "Forget it, old man, just eat vegetables!" Luna didn't care, but soon found that Huang Zhong's expression became very "weird" again.

Huang Zhong, who was eating a leaf of lettuce, suddenly sat up straight, like a person who had eaten mustard for the first time. His nostrils flared and his face turned red. What was even more exaggerated was that after only a second, snot and tears started flowing out of him. His funny look was so inconsistent with his usual solemn and dignified appearance.

"Hahaha, uncle, what are you doing? This is very tasteless, you know that!" Even Luna at this moment, seeing Huang Zhong's terrible look, couldn't help but cover her mouth and laugh like a flower.

After a while, Huang Zhong seemed to finally recover from Luna's clear and sweet laughter, but he was furious: "What the hell is this?! Are you trying to poison me to death?!"

As he spoke, he hurriedly stood up and served himself a bowl of soup.

"Are you okay?" Luna couldn't help but ask with concern.

"Is everything alright?! Stir-fried lettuce with mustard noodles, I feel like my entire cranial cavity is ventilated! I'll go find that guy to settle the score later!" Huang Zhong cursed in a low voice several times, then quickly picked up the bowl to drink the soup.

then
With a "Puff!" sound, Huang Zhong spat out all the soup that had just entered his mouth in front of Luna's astonished eyes, and then began to cough violently, tearing his lungs apart.

Luna was frightened now, and quickly stood up and patted Huang Zhong on the back: "Uncle, what happened?"

Huang Zhong looked as if he had been beaten to a pulp, his face turned pale, and he pointed at the soup in the bowl and said tremblingly: "How much salt was added to this soup? It's so salty that it tastes bitter!!"

"Too salty and bitter?" Luna stared at the table full of dishes in a daze. Having eaten the meals that Wang Yao had been cooking for half a year, she quickly realized that the garlic pork must have been added with sugar by mistake, the water spinach had been added with mustard powder, and the thick soup had too much salt in it. She probably had the wrong seasonings on the other dishes on the table as well, right?
Sure enough, it still doesn't work?
Luna sighed in her heart and could only comfort him: "Forget it, uncle. Yao may just be in a bad mood and didn't notice it."

Huang Zhong immediately blew his beard and glared, and said very unhappily: "This kid is in a bad mood, why does he want to kill an old man like me?! No, I have to go and give him a lecture!"

As he said that, Huang Zhong was about to stand up, but was immediately pressed back to his seat by Luna.

Huang Zhong turned his head, only to see Luna with a serious face, looking at him silently. Her eyes, which were always clear and innocent, now had ripples of suppressed water flowing through them.

Huang Zhong, who was originally angry, suddenly sighed heavily like a deflated ball.

He watched the girl grow up and treated her like the apple of his eye, like his own daughter. Now seeing her in such a tearful state, how could he not feel heartbroken?
"Girl, this won't work. Do you think that kid will get better on his own if you don't say anything?" After shaking his head and straightening out the disordered breath that was choked several times, Huang Zhong said earnestly: "I have met countless people in my life. Believe me, this kid is not as strong as he looks. What he needs now is someone who can give him hope and motivation again, instead of blindly accommodating and agreeing with him in order to avoid irritating him. Do you understand this principle?"

Luna wiped her eyes and was silent for a while before she said softly, "It's okay, I believe in A Yao, he will get better."

After saying that, Luna picked up the half bowl of soup that Wang Yao had left, frowned and took a sip.

Really, it's so salty and bitter, so bitter that it's hard to swallow
It turns out that Luna was wrong.

Because Wang Yao’s sluggish condition, just as Huang Zhong said, did not “get better” with time.

In the four days after the end of the Shu-Wei War, Wang Yao locked himself in his room except for washing and cooking, and rarely spoke to Luna and Huang Zhong.

The first day, that’s it.

The next day, the situation remained the same.

On the third day, there was no improvement at all.

On the fourth day, Wang Yao was not crazy, but Huang Zhong was.

"Old man, have I become a guinea pig?! How can I still live my life?!" This is the angry accusation of an old man in his sixties who has been exhausted by all kinds of "dark dishes".

It is no exaggeration to say that now, as soon as Huang Zhong hears someone shouting "Time for dinner", his legs will instinctively start to go weak, as if facing a powerful enemy.

It was not until the fifth day that the unchanging situation suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse.

That morning, when Wang Yao was sitting on the edge of his bed in his bedroom, deep in thought as usual, he inadvertently heard a conversation between soldiers outside the window.

"Brother, you are fully armed, what are you going to do?"

"Didn't your commander tell you? There's a spy from Wei in our army!"

"My child was born these two days, and I didn't report to the army. Is this true?!"

"Yes, it's absolutely true. The top brass has issued a wanted order. The target is the former captain of the bottom lane army, 2 Da! Whoever captures him alive will be promoted to captain and rewarded with gold!"

"Oh my god! Is this possible?! Wait a minute, I'll go home and get my armor and weapons, and then we can team up and catch the traitor together!"

inside the room.

Wang Yao's bloodshot right eye slowly opened wider.

Three seconds later, he suddenly jumped up like a cheetah and rushed out of the room. Outside the corridor, Luna was happily walking towards him, carrying a plate with a fragrant smell of food.

"Hey? A Yao! Look, this is what I spent the whole morning cooking." The girl, whose pretty face was stained with all kinds of oil like a little cat, hadn't finished speaking when the plate in her hand was knocked away.

bang-

The plates shattered with the harsh sound of cracking porcelain, and the dishes that had taken a whole morning to cook were ruined and scattered all over the floor.

Luna was stunned for a moment, then seemed to realize something and turned back hurriedly: "Ayao, where are you going!"

However, Wang Yao had already disappeared from the long corridor.
(End of this chapter)