Do you not see Han Zhongjun, who, in his youth, bound the enemy and asked for a long cord?

Do you not see Ban Dingyuan, who, in distant lands, urged his light cavalry to charge through the clouds of battle!

A man should value perilous deeds—how could he let the scholar’s cap ruin his life?

Especially when the nation is as fragile as a pile of eggs, and urgent military dispatches race without pause!

David Carter's life was destined to move forward amidst slaughter and bloodshed.

From the northern Hanmo to the southern jungles, north and south of the great river, wherever he went, there was the smoke of war, blood flowing everywhere, and lives as fragile as grass seeds.

The enemy feared him like a demon; his subordinates revered him like a god.

But who would know that he was like a lost child, spending his whole life searching for his own path and his own glory?

When he looked back, his epic and glorious life was stained with blood—was he filled with endless regret, or did he leave behind only a ferocious smile?

Prologue

Chapter 0001 Gathering

The blaring of car horns filled the air, and the exhaust from the cars added another layer to the already foul-smelling street, making the atmosphere even more unbearable. David Carter waved his arm, letting the cars on one side pass through in turn.

July’s heat was blazing, and this year the weather in C City was unusually oppressive. Sweat gushed from beneath the skin like a fountain, soaking David Carter's black uniform until it was dripping wet. From a distance, steam seemed to rise from him, as if he were in a sauna.

Although the sticky dampness was uncomfortable, the habits built up over years still made David Carter stand ramrod straight. Under the scorching midday sun, his face was expressionless as he mechanically waved his arms, letting car after car pass before him.

David Carter was now an ordinary traffic officer in the Fifth Traffic Police Brigade of C City. C City was a small city, but its strategic position was fairly important. Before 1990, there were artillery positions on the northern hills of the city, their barrels aimed at the powerful neighbor to the north. Although those have since been withdrawn, the three garrison zones around the city remain to this day. The city isn’t far from the capital, and its economy has developed rapidly in recent years. In just over a decade, a town with a population of less than 100,000—once known for its three main streets running north to south—had grown into a medium-sized city with nearly a million people and rows of high-rises. But discouragingly, the city’s infrastructure hadn’t kept pace. These days, every family had some spare money, and people who could afford cars were everywhere. So, unlike ten years ago when the streets were filled with bicycles, cars now sprang up like bamboo shoots after the rain, with no matching parking spaces. People parked their cars along the roadside, making the already crowded streets look like an ant nest in chaos.

Officials, of course, didn’t care about any of this—they had all moved to the newly built districts. The old city was like a stepchild, abandoned and neglected.

In a small city like C City, there were more than a dozen traffic police brigades, but half of them existed just to ease traffic at noon when people got off work. So, after leaving the army, David Carter easily found a job as a traffic officer here.

Compared to his previous life, he preferred standing under the sun, finding a hint of hidden peace and calm in this dull and tedious work, rather than struggling for survival amid flying bullets or facing instructors who always looked as if everyone owed them money.

David Carter's past was actually quite simple; his file was only a few pages long. But it was a top-secret state document. Aside from himself, many people could see this file, but none of them would ever appear in a small place like C City. The local personnel department could only see a file as pure as a newborn child, stating that David Carter was a native of C City—born, raised, educated, enlisted, demobilized—his background clear and simple.

But David Carter himself knew he was born in a small coastal city, a place whose people had always been known for their toughness and unruliness. Shandong was a land of heroes; in ancient times, during periods of chaos, the place was full of outlaws—some killed officials, some rebelled. Courage and boldness had long been part of the local blood. Yet, for such a monster as David Carter to emerge from that dirty, chaotic little city was an anomaly.

To call him an anomaly didn’t mean David Carter was like that famous monkey in the novels, born from a stone. He had parents. His parents were once educated youths sent to the countryside, and later, when the wave of returning to the cities came, they went back to their hometown. By then, he was already four years old.

But city life wasn’t as wonderful as they had hoped. They couldn’t find work, had no place to live, and the few relatives they had left avoided them like the plague. His somewhat pedantic father died of depression not long after returning to the city. For the young David Carter, this left no deep, unhealable scar—he couldn’t even remember what his father looked like now.