Grade C degree of fusion, Qi Rourou, male, five-year veteran of Eraser.
He had apprenticed to learn opera at the age of three. Seeing that his features and bone structure were a natural gift from heaven, his master had been overjoyed, renaming him, dressing him in women's garb, and meticulously nurturing his craft... Fourteen years flew by in the blink of an eye.
If not for the fact that opera performers eventually couldn't make a living, forcing his master—originally a comedic clown actor—to switch professions and become a cobbler, and his Eldest Senior Brother, a martial painted-face actor, to rely on his martial skills to become the most renowned butcher king across ten leagues and eight villages...
Normally, when a slaughterer worked, he required the host family's able-bodied men to help drag the pig and pin its legs. His Eldest Senior Brother, however, always strode up completely alone, wielding a Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
In short, had he been born seventy or eighty years earlier, the name Qi Rourou might very well have belonged to a generation's celebrated opera star, Master Qi.
Alas, life offered no "what ifs." At seventeen, he cast aside his opera robes, yet he was already... a blur of ambiguous charm—who could tell whether he was male or female?
His original reason for wanting to join the army had been to reclaim a man's masculine spirit. Unfortunately, he failed the official enlistment screening and had to pull strings for help.
After asking around from one connection to another, he finally found someone who patted his chest and vowed he could make it happen. The man asked if Qi Rourou was afraid of dying; he said no. The man asked if he was afraid of monsters; he said that would just serve to hone his courage...
And so, he was brought to Azure.
To this day, the enlistment method recorded on his personnel file still read: "Voluntary."
"So you're saying you had no idea at all in the beginning? Weren't you terrified when you arrived?" He Tangtang asked curiously. "A little girl like you... wait, little broad... little..."
"Get lost!"
Qi Rourou walked off.
From Han Qingyu's perspective, their squad had ten slots, so accepting a Grade C five-year veteran was naturally completely fine. Moreover, the man had an old relationship with Milla, and word was that he fought like a madman once on the battlefield.
Of course, his agreement was merely an expression of attitude; the formal approval process still had to go through Captain Lao.
And then Lao Jian would likely seek out Han Qingyu to talk it over.
For Captain Lao, this was probably quite a difficult situation. After all, Da Wa was the captain, and deep down, he had always possessed a proud heart.
Yet if he didn't discuss it, he would worry about botching things and feel uneasy.
*He's probably agonizing over it right about now,* Han Qingyu thought as he lay in bed that night. The next time an opportunity arose, he would have to ask Captain Lao: if they could start over from the beginning, would he still hold a blade to his throat to frighten him?
At the same time, Han Qingyu had worries of his own weighing on his mind.
He was not someone who made close friends easily. From Regiment 425 to this base, though he got along harmoniously with his dorm mates, there were a few with whom he always kept a distance. He simply wasn't the type to treat everyone he met as a brother.
Yet once he truly accepted someone, he would shoulder the weight of that bond.
In the present situation, he had already acknowledged Shen Yixiu as a comrade, and they had fought side by side through life-and-death crises. There was absolutely no reason to cast her aside as a "burden."
What troubled him was not what to do about her as a person, but how to guarantee a steady supply of source energy blocks. It wasn't enough merely to scrape by; there had to be a surplus for growth and improvement. Otherwise, their little squad would likely fall into a vicious cycle and end up as a stagnant pool.
Nor did he mind Shen Yixiu knowing that he was pondering and fretting over this.
Up to this point, the best thing their group had done in their dealings with Rusty Sister was that they had never offered her pity—only friendship.
Even being teasing, rib-poking friends was fine.
Yet right now, there was truly nowhere to scrape up or swindle any blocks. As far as the eye could see, the only substantial income of source energy blocks out in the open was selling himself out, which would yield twenty blocks.
After racking his brain for a long time without coming up with an idea, Han Qingyu cast the troubling thoughts aside. *Let's see what Commander Shen says tomorrow first.* Soon enough, he drifted into a deep sleep.
Early the next morning, he headed downstairs.
In the training base, some of the recruits who had joined regional squads had already shouldered their gear and set out alongside the veterans... From this day forward, they were no longer recruits.
Han Qingyu exchanged greetings with people along the way as he walked toward the dining hall.
"Over here. Come have a chat." Qi Shantong was sitting on a roadside step, smoking.
Wen Jifei and the others walking beside him grew tense.
"It's fine. There's actually a method to his madness," Han Qingyu said. "You guys go eat first. Grab a portion for me; this probably won't take more than a few words."
If Qi Shantong were truly so mad that he lacked all restraint, he could never have remained in his position as a Major General to this day. Han Qingyu had reached that conclusion long ago.
"Major General Qi," Han Qingyu saluted.
Qi Shantong looked up, tapping a cigarette out of his pack. "Know how to smoke?"
Han Qingyu shook his head.
"Once you're down in a squad, it'll be hard not to learn." Qi Shantong put the cigarette away and said, "Actually, I kept telling myself to overestimate you, but in the end, I still underestimated you. That Bai Ji..."
"..." He had actually brought it up voluntarily, but Han Qingyu had no way to respond.
"Three months this time. If he can pull through mentally, his future achievements won't necessarily be small. If he can't, he might end up half-ruined... Regardless, White won't abandon him." Qi Shantong spoke of the matter without the slightest hint of awkwardness.
Yet he clearly hadn't come here just to say that; that wasn't his style.
Qi Shantong stood up, walked to Han Qingyu's side, and said, "Promise me one thing: don't touch politics."
Han Qingyu turned his head to look at him. "I don't understand that stuff. But thinking about it, if doing that means dealing with guys like you all the time, I definitely wouldn't want to."
"Fair enough, haha!" Qi Shantong laughed, then asked abruptly, "Do you know what post the Legion Commander held before he became Commander of the First Army?"
Han Qingyu shook his head.
"None."
If someone was a top expert, all the more reason to stay on the sighting frontline and not trade in their war box for colored epaulets. That had once been Chen Buer's philosophy.
Back then, the higher-ups wanted him to serve as a regiment commander, a division commander... He refused. He remained a martial brute.
He taught himself to drive, got his hands on an open-top military jeep, and set up a shack to herd sheep where seven or eight regions converged on the grasslands.
Wherever a Great Spike landed, he drove his jeep there, throwing his blade onto the passenger seat.
Arriving at the scene, he slammed on the brakes, leapt out with blade in hand, and flew in to slash down the Great Spike.
In those days, his future had been boundless. Groomed as a key talent, he was forced to study literature. When his instructor asked him to write a poem stating his life's ambition upon graduation, he wrote:
[At dawn, roosters crow and water splashes on the dirt;
At noon, shade, a chair, and melon by my side;
At night, when I can't beat my wife, I beat the kid.]
Qi Shantong lit another cigarette and said:
"Later came the battle to crush the Red Shoulder. In the end, we won, but the morale of the entire Huaxia Front collapsed."
"The Red Shoulder was too terrifying. Under the circumstances back then, only he, the dare-to-die squad leader who personally severed the Great Spike's head, stepping forward could convince everyone and rally our morale."
"Just like that, he took up the post of Commander of the First Army, and later Legion Commander. And slowly, his back began to hunch."
Han Qingyu felt a flicker of confusion. Qi Shantong's account seemed to differ from Shen Fengting's. Hadn't the Legion Commander ended up like that because that single strike had drained too much of his vitality and damaged his foundation?
He hesitated for a moment, but did not voice it.
"Everyone knows the Legion Commander is formidable," Qi Shantong continued, "but in truth, no one has ever seen him at his true peak... Before his peak could even arrive, it was already too late."
Having delivered this profound parting remark, Qi Shantong walked away.
*So he wants to advise me to focus on being a pure warrior?* Han Qingyu thought to himself, *Damn it all, then why don't you cough up eight or ten source energy blocks for me?!*
...
"Metal blocks... there's more than one."
After breakfast, at the Shen residence, Shen Fengting spoke.
Chapter 117