Chapter 276
[Master, the injuries on Cai Bing, Huo Shui, and Wei Yan's butts and backs are all from a father's love!]
The three of them blushed. Couldn't the Divine Artifact keep its mouth shut? Why would it tell the Lord Junior Preceptor such things!
"A father's love" indeed! This love was too heavy; they didn't want it! (Disgusted face JPG)
Meanwhile, the three old fathers silently nodded. Yes, yes, yes, sparing the rod spoils the child; the harder the beating, the deeper the love!
"Greetings, Lord Junior Preceptor!"
"Grandfather!"
"Father!"
"Greetings, my lords!"
Though they were dandies, their manners were impeccable. Upon seeing the crowd, regardless of whether they were about to be beaten, they made sure to pay their respects first.
Wei Ping spoke first, "I heard that you boys used items in the camp without your superiors' permission. Is this true?"
Although Wei Ping questioned them with a stern face, he mentioned neither stealing nor theft, and he used the word items instead of property.
It was a well-intentioned effort, secretly protecting the reputations of these dandies!
After all, the military camp was a restricted area. Even if they had merely eaten a few chickens, rabbits, and pigs, if taken seriously, it was a crime punishable by military law.
Taking a beating was a small matter, but ruining their reputations, being kicked out of the camp, or leaving a bad impression on the Lord Junior Preceptor would be a huge deal!
Wei Yan had secretly mentioned to him that he wanted to go to the Sancha region, and he naturally highly approved of his second son's choice.
As long as this boy successfully got on the Lord Junior Preceptor's good side, his future would be secure!
Wei Shouyi naturally understood the underlying meaning in Wei Ping's words.
He had only called their parents over to put on a show for outsiders and had never intended to punish the boys severely.
Now that the Lord Junior Preceptor had been drawn here, it was truly an unexpected pleasant surprise.
Huo Ying also chimed in, "These boys just lack discipline."
He circled around Huo Shui, and just as he was about to kick out his foot, he noticed Yue Fuguang staring at him with burning eyes.
Ahem!
"Nurture your body well and recover!" Huo Ying coughed lightly, silently retracting his foot when it was only a centimeter away from Huo Shui's injured butt.
Changing his kick to a pat, he slapped his large hand heavily on his son's shoulder, making Huo Sui's body bob up and down with each strike.
Cai Xian also nodded. They indeed needed to recover quickly, otherwise, they might really miss the opportunity to go to the Sancha region.
Yu Shuchun also said, "Yu Boming, in front of your grandfather and sister, what do you have to say for yourself?"
Yu Boming's toes had already awkwardly dug out the layout of a two-courtyard estate on the ground. If Yu Shuchun had asked him any later, he probably would have dug out a three-courtyard mansion.
Now hearing his father's question, Yu Boming stood up straight, his face flushed red.
With his head initially lowered, he quickly glanced up at Yue Fuguang and Yu Chongshan, stammering, "I... I was wrong. I let down my family's trust and my sister's cultivation!"
By the end of his sentence, tears were about to fall.
Yu Shuchun clicked his tongue. If Fuguang wasn't here today, he would definitely have taught this boy a lesson.
He hadn't even raised a hand yet, and the boy was already acting aggrieved!
Seeing Yu Boming's red face and red-rimmed eyes, Yue Fuguang's tone suddenly shifted as she smiled and asked, "Second Brother, was the food tasty?"
Gulp, gulp!
It would have been fine if she hadn't asked, but the moment she did, the whole group couldn't help but swallow their saliva.
[Master, what they secretly ate were chickens and rabbits that grew up eating grass watered by spiritual rain. The taste is naturally more delicious than ordinary ones.]
It would have been fine if the system hadn't spoken, but the moment it did, this group of parents all silently looked at Wei Shouyi.
We are your superiors and colleagues after all. We came all this way, shouldn't you host us properly?
At this point, the situation was successfully derailed by a single sentence from Yue Fuguang.
The original trial assembly suddenly changed its tune, turning into a military camp inspection.
Wei Shouyi thought: Don't you guys just want to check out the livestock farm and grab a bite before leaving? As if no one could tell!
As for the erring dandies, Wei Shouyi asked Yue Fuguang, their half-sugar-daddy of a sponsor, how to handle them.
Technically, she did have the actual authority to deal with them. Since the camp's establishment, Emperor Mingxi had granted her full administrative power over the entire military camp. She was arguably the superior of all the officers and soldiers.
It was just that her personality—put politely, she didn't covet power; put bluntly, she was a slacker who hated managing things—meant that Wei Shouyi had always been fully in charge.
Since she was present today, Wei Shouyi naturally wouldn't overstep his bounds.
Yue Fuguang looked at the boys and said, "Although the matter isn't big, we cannot let it go lightly."
Hearing her words, their faces turned pale. It wasn't that they feared military punishment, but rather they worried that because of this incident, the Lord Junior Preceptor would view them in a bad light.
Did that mean all of them, except Yu Boming, had lost their chance to go to the Sancha region to gild their resumes?
"However," seeing their drastically changed expressions, Yue Fuguang curled her lips into a smile and continued, "However, considering it is their first offense, they will be punished by cleaning the pigpens and teaching the soldiers how to read and write for half an hour every day."
"Do any of you have objections?" She dropped her smile, her face filled with the majesty of a superior. The boys even felt a pressure from her that surpassed their Emperor's.
Led by Bao Zihui and Yu Boming, the group quickly knelt on one knee, cupped their fists, and said, "We obey the Lord Junior Preceptor's command!"
"We obey the Lord Junior Preceptor's command!"
The dozen or so people shouted with the momentum of dozens, causing the soldiers training in the distance to turn their heads.
Lord Junior Preceptor?
The Lord Junior Preceptor had come to their military camp?
Because Yue Fuguang was young and short, she and the two behind her, Shen Chunying and Liu Wei, were surrounded in the circle, so the people training in the distance didn't see her.
Who knew that Yu Boming and the others' shouts would expose her whereabouts.
The soldiers training on the martial arts field slowly gravitated toward their group as they practiced.
The Lord Junior Preceptor—leaving aside the fame of the potatoes, just the fact that a part of their three daily meals came from her was enough to fill their hearts with gratitude.
Regarding their diet, although it was everyone's first time serving as soldiers and eating military rations, whose village or town didn't have a few grunts eating military grain?
Even if they hadn't seen the food firsthand, they had heard plenty about it.
Not to mention, their superiors were elites transferred from other military camps. Whenever mealtime arrived, they would talk about their past lives in other camps.
They all sighed with emotion that life in the new recruit camp was much better!
They didn't even compare it to other armies; they just compared it to their own family's meals. During busy seasons, they ate solid food; during idle seasons, they ate watery porridge, let alone having three full meals a day.
That was a treatment reserved only for when doing heavy physical labor.
As for meat, they used to eat it only two or three times a year at home. They might have it a few more times in a good harvest year, but in a bad year, surviving without starving or freezing to death was already a blessing, let alone eating meat.
But now, they could eat it once every two or three days, and it was always big chunks of fatty meat.
They had also heard General Wei say that once the adjacent livestock farm reached a proper scale, they would be able to eat meat every day.
They walked past there every day, eagerly awaiting that day.
However, some people clearly thought more and further ahead. Unlike those who only waited to eat meat every day, they thought more about how to be selected to go to the Sancha region.
The General had also said that for their ten thousand men, apart from the food, everything else—whether it was training, armor, weapons, or military pay and other treatments—was incomparable to anywhere else.
And all of this was connected to only one person: Junior Preceptor Yue!
Although they all appeared to be on equal footing right now, the clever ones among them knew perfectly well that only those heading to Sancha could truly be considered Junior Preceptor Yue's inner circle—her own people!
And they wanted nothing more than to become the Junior Preceptor's own people.