Outside the train window, the scenery shifted and changed. Along the stretching rails, the train carried away not only their hometown, but also the once-peaceful life they had known.
For perhaps a second or two in between, Han Qingyu had thought about saying something to Wen Jifei, like, "I'll do everything I can to bring you back alive."
In the end, the words never left his mouth. First, it sounded too stiff and melodramatic; second, he had no confidence to back it up whatsoever.
He didn't even know how many days he had left to live.
In truth, even though he had already deduced that his constitution was somewhat special when it came to absorbing and assimilating source energy, Han Qingyu retained clear self-awareness: in the end, it was all just a matter of taking a single blade.
An ordinary blade would be enough to do him in, to say nothing of the black-armored robot's column sword.
Han Qingyu had seen the thing. In its entirety, it resembled an oversized, furled black umbrella, only without a hooked handle and with a tip like a spearhead.
The body of the sword did possess ribs and faceted segments like the canopy of an umbrella, except that every layered fold was an outward-curling cutting edge...
In his high school history textbooks, certain brutal battles had been described as meat grinders, but numbers and words were far too abstract... Han Qingyu had never truly understood the phrase before, but now he genuinely felt that every single column sword was a meat grinder in its own right.
Lao Jian had mentioned it later: the scene that night when he came flapping through the air like a kicked duck, crashing heavily to the ground, hadn't actually been from taking a direct hit. It was merely the result of him successfully blocking a horizontal sweep from a column sword head-on with his blade.
He blocked it... and still ended up like that!
What if he hadn't blocked it?
Han Qingyu's heart sank a little.
By the time he snapped out of his thoughts, Wen Jifei was already chatting up the other people in the carriage.
"Back when we were in tenth grade, during military training, everyone was out there having a singing contest... A snake suddenly slithered out of a flower bed on the sports field! Can you believe it? The ones who saw it said it had a sharp triangular head and was as thick as a wrist. Students, teachers—everyone panicked." Wen Jifei waved a hand, recounting the story with vivid enthusiasm. "And then, we saw a figure quietly walk into the flower bed, rummage around a couple of times... and haul the snake right out.
"The teachers were almost crying from fright, shouting at him to drop it right that second. That guy just smiled, waved, and said, 'It's a pit viper. Extremely venomous. I'll take it away for you.' That was how I met Qingzi.
"Nobody stopped him on the spot that day—not even the school security guard thought to stop him.
"He just strolled out onto the street dangling the snake in one hand, found a restaurant, and sold it.
"Later, the next day, the school finally came to its senses. They dragged Qingzi in for a lecture, slapped a warning on his disciplinary record... and privately rewarded him with twenty yuan."
"..."
Han Qingyu had no idea how Wen Jifei had even started, how he'd struck up the conversation, or why he was talking about such an uninteresting topic. Yet looking at the situation before him, everyone—including the recruit who had just been curled over his seat trembling and sobbing—was listening to him.
The scene was actually rather remarkable.
Because in the entire carriage, only one person was cheerful and chatting away without pause, and only this one person still had no idea what he was about to face.
However, someone soon whispered it to him.
The carriage doors at both ends were tightly shut, everyone present was one of their own, and Lao Jian wasn't there... The Azure Coalition soldier made no move to stop them.
Wen Jifei froze for a moment after hearing it, then chuckled and said, "Transformers?"
No one answered him.
"Megatron's side? Then what about us?" He was good at joking around, quick with words and banter. What he meant was roughly: what about Optimus Prime's crew?
After asking, he burst into laughter. He laughed and laughed... until his expression began to shift. His warmth chilled to numbness, then to bewilderment, to a feeling of absurdity, and finally to a streak of unbelievable anxiety.
Because around him, not a single person was laughing. Every pair of eyes was fixed on him, and wrapped in their gazes was a heavy, suffocating dead silence.
Wen Jifei hesitated, turning his questioning gaze toward each person before him in turn. "We..."
"We," spoke the only soldier present who had actually experienced the battlefield, answering his question. After a pause, he said with solemn helplessness, "charge in with blades and chop them."
Wen Jifei turned his head to stare at him.
"What about guns?"
"They don't work. They say gunpowder can't propel dead iron bullets—the energy gets absorbed. Normal bullets can't pierce them, and we don't have that much dead iron anyway. I don't really understand it all."
This guy wasn't the type to joke around—Wen Jifei had already figured that out earlier. Besides, nothing about his expression looked like he was joking.
Rising from his seat, Wen Jifei looked around before shifting his gaze to Han Qingyu sitting in the corner.
Meeting his eyes, Han Qingyu gave a slow nod.
"...Fuck." Wen Jifei slumped back down into his seat. He shook his head, buried his face in his hands, rubbed his face hard a few times, and lapsed into silence.
He wasn't stupid. He had realized early on that this unit was unusual and dangerous, and he had made plenty of guesses, but the reality was still completely beyond his wildest imagination.
Someone tried to offer a few words of comfort.
Han Qingyu shook his head, stopping them.
"Actually, they aren't robots. As for what they really are, someone will explain it once you reach the unit," the earnest soldier added. "Anyway, we usually call them 'Great Spikes.'"
...
Lao Jian returned. He said nothing, but whatever lingering energy had been left in the carriage vanished with his return, settling back into everyone's former, solitary silence.
Han Qingyu didn't know if everyone here had been forced onto this train by Lao Jian. But even if it wasn't him, it was probably someone similar; it wouldn't have made much difference.
Over the next two days and three nights, aside from washing up, eating, drinking, using the latrine, and sleeping, Han Qingyu merely sat in calm silence, watching the sun rise and set outside the train window.
He didn't even try to counsel or comfort Wen Jifei.
Because no matter how close their bond was, or how worried he felt, this first step—the process of acceptance—had to be completed by Plague Chicken himself. Otherwise, he would inevitably suffer even greater mental agony down the road.
Han Qingyu remained an observer. Over those two days and three nights, he witnessed firsthand the process of Wen Jifei coming back to life.
Plague-Chicken Fei was remarkably resilient.
As he gradually came back to life and returned to his usual self, starting to chat with people and placing his curiosity above the fear of death...
Han Qingyu was not only relieved, but also felt a touch of admiration and envy.
However, Carriage 14 never got another lively scene. Before Wen Jifei had a chance to get fully back into his element, around four in the morning after the third night had passed, the train slowly ground to a halt at a remote little station in the northwest, and another military officer boarded.
Lao Jian stood up, shook hands with him, and said, "Time to get off."
Yet not everyone in the carriage disembarked. Lao Jian called out names, and only four of the ten people followed him off the train, including Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei.
A canvas-covered military truck was parked outside the station, and they climbed aboard.
"Go back to sleep," Lao Jian said. "We still have a long way to go."
Chapter 16