Six Thousand

Dinner lasted past ten at night—quite late for a small mountain village. After dinner, Han Qingyu helped his mother wash the dishes and filled both the rice vat and the water vat to the brim. Then he went out to the yard to chop firewood with his father, stacking the split logs along the base of the wall. Talking as they worked, father and son stacked the woodpile astonishingly high before they even realized it, reaching all the way to the eaves. In the lives of mountain folk, the rice vat and firewood meant a great deal. Words like "Full Vat," "Full Stack," and "Full Granary" were often chosen as given names because they gave people an enduring sense of security and peace of mind. "Come here, Qingzi. Mom has something to show you." When Han Qingyu came back inside, his mother, Zhang Jiexia, was sitting by the dining table, waving him over. She unfolded an old handkerchief with a blue border on a white background, revealing a silver bracelet. The old silver had aged, simple and quaint in color, its style plain and bare without any engraved patterns or carvings. It was likely part of his mother's dowry from years ago. "Take this with you," his mother said, offering the bracelet along with the handkerchief. "I don't think I should." Han Qingyu quickly tucked both hands behind his back and shook his head. "A silver bracelet? I'm a grown man—what would I do taking that with me?!" His mother paused, seemingly unable to come up with a good reason on the spot, and asked, "What do you think?" Han Qingyu thought about it. "Usually, isn't this the kind of thing you pass down to your daughter-in-law as her mother-in-law once I get married?" "Oh, so you do know?!" Hearing that, his mother immediately spoke with renewed confidence. "Isn't it because you're leaving home? You'll be gone for years, where Mom can't see you or look after you... Take it. If you happen to meet someone on your own, give the bracelet to her for Mom. Slip it on her wrist early so she doesn't run off." Han Qingyu was speechless. "Just don't let someone run off wearing our bracelet, mind you," Zhang Jiexia added thoughtfully, sounding genuinely concerned for the silver. "That's not the point," Han Qingyu said, caught between laughter and tears. "I'm going into the army, Mom." "So what, the army isn't allowed to have a few girls? Nobody has to cook?" "Men cook the food in the army." Even as he said it, Han Qingyu had no idea what kind of "army" he was actually joining. "Oh, well... isn't it possible you'll step outside one day and run right into one? Isn't it possible some officer's daughter in the unit will take a liking to my son? Isn't it possible... another Hua Mulan pops up in the barracks?" Zhang Jiexia indulged her wishful thinking, rattling on and on, lumping together every far-fetched possibility she could imagine. Han Qingyu remained entirely unmoved, especially by the part about Hua Mulan. Only at the very end did his mother sniffle and say with reluctant tenderness, "Our family doesn't have anything else decent to give you. Just take it and keep it close, as a keepsake." "...All right." Han Qingyu accepted the bracelet. Leaving like this, he truly did need a keepsake. After washing up, he returned to his room and calmed his emotions. There was hardly any luggage to pack—just a few simple items that wouldn't even fill the backpack he had carried to school. Once everything was set, Han Qingyu switched off the light and lay in bed. His current state of life could roughly be described as looking into the abyss with one eye and toward the light with the other. What happened tonight had made that light burn a little brighter. Yet Lao Jian had said that in the battle they had just gone through, seventeen people died, and every single survivor was wounded... Survive. I must survive... Source energy is hope. Han Qingyu viewed his ability to absorb source energy as a peculiarity of his physical constitution. Just as Lao Jian had said, he had heard of people with exceptionally high degrees of fusion, even if he had never seen one with his own eyes. Han Qingyu considered himself one of their kind, longing to know what their fates and achievements were like. The blue crystal source energy he had absorbed tonight was still inside his body, perceptible, but the amount seemed to have decreased slightly. So, did it work like this? In combat, it erupted outward with massive consumption; out of combat, the surplus nourished the body, slowly being absorbed. With no one to consult or discuss it with, Han Qingyu could only piece together the fragmented clues from Lao Jian's words and his own bodily sensations to analyze and deduce. Toward the early hours of the morning, he finally arrived at an initial understanding, or rather, a preliminary conclusion: First, the actual source energy contained in a dark-gold metal chunk the size of the previous one far exceeded that of the blue crystal source energy block he had received tonight. A true comparison would be at least a cup of water versus two or three drops on the tip of a finger. Therefore, turning in the metal chunks Lao Jian and his comrades acquired in a single battle for extraction could likely produce dozens of blue crystal source energy blocks. But after accounting for so many people's combat expenditure, there probably wasn't much of a "profit" left. No wonder Lao Jian had to go to headquarters to explain the situation and undergo an investigation just because one metal chunk had gone missing. Well, in any case, it has nothing to do with me... I didn't mean to do it, and I couldn't help it anyway. Second, what the military called scientific extraction wasn't actually purification. Rather, it introduced impurities—or perhaps guiding substances—to divert and divide the source energy so that more people could use it more widely. Consequently, compared to the dark-gold chunk, the blue crystal block was actually less pure, which explained the massive gap in absorption speed between the two. Something like that, probably? Having figured this out, Han Qingyu began craving metal chunks. But for now, getting one meant catching and hacking down at least two "black-armored robots." He definitely couldn't pull that off alone, and with teammates around, he wouldn't dare secretly pocket one... The practical difficulty was simply too high. Thinking of it this way, he felt that blue crystal blocks were pretty good too. If only he could get his hands on a huge pile of them... a cartload, a whole roomful... ... Lao Jian arrived close to noon the next day. His face looked somewhat pale and haggard, yet he showed up neatly dressed and tidy. It was hard to imagine that someone vomiting blood like that the night before could appear like this the very next day. If this had been in the village, a coffin would have been hammered together overnight. Moreover, his timing was quite deliberate. In the countryside, visiting relatives or friends at this hour was the unspoken equivalent of saying: *I'd like to have lunch at your place.* *So he really is shameless... He definitely isn't from a regular army unit. A regular army never takes so much as a needle or a piece of thread from the masses, yet here you are eating our egg-laying hen.* To host this military leader, Zhang Jiexia slaughtered one of the family's egg-laying hens, and Han Youshan opened his very last bottle of aged liquor, which he had never been willing to drink. Han Qingyu quickly filled his belly and watched from the side. Hearing Lao Jian shower them with "Sister-in-law" and "Older Brother," warmly exchanging cups and toasts with his father, Han Qingyu felt as if he were looking at a demon draped in human skin sitting there. Behind that genial visage was the true face of a man who could turn hostile and draw his blade at any second. *He held a blade to your son's throat, Dad, Mom! He forced your son to become a "soldier" who could die at any moment! He...* Unable to stomach it any longer, Han Qingyu made an excuse, stepped away from the table, and went out to linger in the courtyard. Before long, Lao Jian finished eating and drinking inside. Without any preamble, he pulled a thick stack of banknotes straight from his bag and laid it on the table. "I applied for a special talent enlistment subsidy for the boy... There's six thousand yuan here. Take a look." Han Qingyu's parents froze, looking bewildered and confused. "It's issued by the state. You can take it with peace of mind." Lao Jian paused, then added, "Oh, by the way, given the special nature of this matter, it's best not to spread the word outside, to save yourselves the trouble of having to explain." With that, he stood up to give the parents time to process it and went out to the courtyard to find Han Qingyu. "Six thousand..." Six thousand was a lot. Asking for ten thousand earlier had just been an exorbitant demand. In truth, to put him through school over the years, the Han family had never even seen a lump sum of a thousand yuan. Han Qingyu thought this was great, but he showed no excitement on his face, merely uttering a flat "Oh." Of course, he didn't know the money actually came from Lao Jian's own pocket. Higher-ups hadn't approved the funds. Although the Azure Coalition was wealthy, in the eighty-plus years since its founding, it had never had any rule or precedent for granting a pension before sacrifice... No military in the world had such a policy. Lao Jian had paid out of his own pocket. Of the six thousand yuan, four thousand was what he had saved up, while the other two thousand had been borrowed the night before from the doctors and young nurses at the medical station while he was coughing up blood. As for Han Qingyu's attitude, Lao Jian understood what the kid was concerned about and naturally took no offense. He chuckled right there and said, "You... I like everything about you, kid, except your heart... you're really far too petty." Han Qingyu remained silent. Instead, Han's father and mother came out of the house together, holding the money in their hands, walking up beside Lao Jian with faces full of worry and unease. The father spoke first, his voice low but anxious. "Brother Lao, this... giving money for enlisting, and this much... we've never heard of such a thing." "That's right, Brother Lao," his mother chimed in. "Is the kind of soldier our boy is becoming going to face terrible danger? Is that why..." Lao Jian froze. He hadn't expected that when confronted with six thousand yuan, the very first thought of these honest, hardworking parents would be this. *This family...* It wasn't hard for Lao Jian to understand why Han Qingyu was so filial and sensible. He zoned out for a brief moment. Han's parents immediately sensed something was wrong and hurriedly tried to push the money back into Lao Jian's hands. "Then... could we just not take it? No special recruitment... It's not that we aren't willing to defend the country... It's just that the boy really isn't cut out for it." "Indeed, Leader, you have no idea—this boy is actually timid to a fault! Just a couple of years ago, he didn't even dare go outside alone to pee when he woke up at night." This... Han Qingyu had never imagined his parents could play off each other like this. Knowing this was unavoidable and that arguing was useless, Han Qingyu stepped forward with a smile. "Dad, Mom, look at you two, what are you thinking? What danger could there be? I'm going in as a cultural soldier..." "Really?" "Of course it's real." While Han Qingyu consoled his parents, Lao Jian quietly lowered his head and lit a cigarette, then glanced toward the distant mountains beyond the courtyard for a moment before turning back to join in: "Yes, Older Brother Han, Sister-in-law, you're overthinking it... Besides, aren't I there? I'll do everything in my power to take good care of Qingzi for you." As he spoke, he patted his chest sincerely, though lacking any real confidence. Han's parents looked at each other and believed him. After a momentary awkwardness, they remembered the urgent matter at hand and hastily said they would go pack his bags right away. "My parents packing bags?" Han Qingyu asked Lao Jian with a puzzled look once his parents went inside. "The new recruits board the train in the city," Lao Jian said. "During lunch, your parents asked if they could come along to see you off... I agreed. I've got a vehicle anyway. While we're at it, I'll take them to the bank first to deposit the money. What do you think?" "...Thank you." Han Qingyu thought for a moment and lowered his voice. "So will I also wear a red rosette and board the train just like the other recruits?" "Of course. I told you before, all the formal procedures are in place," Lao Jian said. "It's just that the carriage you get into won't be the same."