adore-my-battle-scars:

As he stood there, Yao pondered what the general would make the army-in-training do today. Sword fighting? Fireworks? Another trip through the mountains? Hopefully not searching for food, or fishing. The last time he took the recruits fishing the new kid had nearly drowned him. The memory made Yao grunt. 

And just then he heard footsteps coming closer. Oh, no. “Hey! Who goes there?” he barked, growing annoyed. Where was the time when a man could just take a piss in the grass in peace? “Show yourself, scum!”

Hua Zhou had once told his daughter that in battle – in the face of fear - all men had the same decision to make.  Would they drop their weapons and run, hiding in the woods and possibly creeping back to their farms in shame?  And shame they would certainly bear, because if they escaped enemy soldiers they must also escape punishment from their commanding officer.  It was an understandably hard path to choose: Ping was almost sure that death at the hands of a Hun warrior would be preferable to Captain Shang’s anger.  (Almost).  Besides, a man owed it to his country to fight and possibly die in battle – and if he could not, well, that was why his daughter had turned soldier. 

Or would they don their helmets and charge into the fight with fearsome grimaces and swords held high?  It went without saying that this was the best choice to make, although Zhou held that such men were less “brave” than crazy.  From this, Ping inferred, all men had to be crazy when they went into battle.  There was nothing else to do.

For all of that, the aged war hero would have been disappointed in his only child.  Nobody had told Ping that there were brawls and quarrels long before you reached the battlefield – of course, because nobody had expected Ping to be a recruit – and on top of that, he seemed to have a genius for starting them and running.  By accident.  Away from Niu Yao.  Whose voice Ping recognized: also, the hiss of urine.  Oops.  The recruit blushed, glad the shorter man was blocked from view by the tall grasses, and backed away quickly.

“Sorry,” he stammered.  “It’s just me.  Ping.  I’ll – I’m gonna go away now…”