Zhu Yu: From the Start, I Use a Butcher’s Knife to Summon the Snow Dragon Cavalry

Xie Zheng woke up in the Fan family's woodshed, with seven knife wounds all over his body and the stench of pig offal filling the room.

Outside, three thugs were grabbing a young woman's collar and extorting money from her.

In the original story, the Marquis of Wuan was supposed to pretend he'd lost his memory, marry into her family, and keep his head down for half a year.

He didn't. Xie Zheng grabbed the butcher's knife beside his bed, shoved the door open, and chopped off a thug's head.

As the blood spattered, ten streaks of cold light crashed down onto the open ground outside the courtyard. Ten armored cavalrymen appeared out of nowhere, their iron hooves crushing the snow as white breath steamed from their horses' nostrils.

Behead an enemy and summon troops. Kill one man, gain ten cavalrymen. The more he killed, the more troops he summoned.

He turned and wiped the blood from his face. To the young butcher's daughter, frozen with terror, he said, “My name is Xie Zheng, Marquis of Wuan. You saved my life. I'm taking you with me now.”

Before she could answer, he lifted her onto his horse. Thirty armored cavalrymen charged out of Lin'an Town.

Along the way, they cut down the checkpoints searching for him, chopped the heads off corrupt officials, opened granaries, and gathered scattered soldiers. With every enemy killed, more troops appeared, and the dragon cavalry behind him grew ever larger.

Three thousand men fought their way to the northwest. Thirty thousand crushed Wei Xuan. Eighty thousand trampled the barbarian royal court. Two hundred thousand cavalry surrounded the capital.

The blood on that butcher's knife never dried.

And the girl he'd carried onto his horse that day now managed half his army's grain and supplies.

Seated on the dragon throne, Xie Zheng wrote her appointment edict. He put down just six words: Half the realm is yours, my love.

But only he knew the truth: the System had been permanently sealed the moment his troops reached their limit. When he delivered that final strike at the Imperial Ancestral Temple, he had no cheats to rely on.