"Did any of you ever have an older sister next door?" Sitting at the edge of the stage, Hu Haipeng asked suddenly in the easy tone of a friend chatting. "The kind who's three or four years older than you. When she was jumping rubber bands, you'd squat off to the side watching; when she slung on her schoolbag and went off to school, you'd watch with envy; she grew tall while you were still tiny... an older sister you followed around and looked up to.
"I had one from my village. I watched her jump rubber bands, followed her to pick fiddlehead ferns, watched her go to school... until one day, she grew up first, becoming a young woman who didn't play with me as much anymore. We weren't as close after that. We'd just greet each other when we bumped into one another and exchange a few words.
"But that didn't matter, because without realizing it, I got used to it too, and gradually started living my own life.
"Later on, after finishing junior high, she didn't continue school. She went off with a relative to work in a factory far away, so they said... leaving the image of her at sixteen, in a ponytail and a button-up shirt, etched in my memory... and then slowly fading.
"After that, I went to high school, went to college... and came to the Azure Coalition.
"That was around this time over five years ago. My recruit period was just like yours—miserable. Burdened with fear, choking down raw meat, getting yelled at, crushed by grueling training, and bullied by veterans every few days. I was depressed and miserable through and through...
"It was during that time, suddenly one day, I ran into her again.
"At the time, I was washing clothes for a veteran. She walked past, turned back, stopped, and stood there, hesitantly calling out my name... She was a veteran who had rotated back that summer for recuperation.
"Just like that, we met again. You can imagine the warmth of running into each other in a place like this. I almost cried on the spot... and she was deeply emotional too.
"She was a soldier on the sighting frontline. She was covered in scars, and there was even a shallow scar on her left cheek where shrapnel had nicked her. Yet she was still beautiful—perhaps even more beautiful than before—and her personality had become brighter and more open.
"I told her, 'So you didn't go off to work in a factory after all.' She laughed heartily and said, 'Well, I was at first...' Then she asked, 'You coward of a bookworm, how did you end up here too?'
"She said, 'Come on, my treat... let's grab a beer, and you can tell me how things are back home in our village.' I wanted to go so badly, but I was scared. I told her, 'I have to wash this veteran's clothes.'
"She said, 'Just leave them right there... If anyone gives you grief, I'll give them grief.' She told me not to be afraid as long as she was around, saying she was very formidable now—already a vice squad leader.
"We talked a lot that day without any reservations. We reminisced about the past, and she told me that back then, she had also regretted how we grew distant. I caught her up on what had happened in the village, which childhood playmates were doing what, who had married whom... Suddenly, a thought struck me, and I asked, 'By the way, did you ever get married? I heard people can get married here.'
"She laughed and said, 'Didn't you eat my wedding candy? A few years ago, I went back to host a banquet... I planned to invite you, but your aunt said you were about to take the college entrance exams and couldn't come. I even saved extra wedding candy for you.'
"I said, 'Oh, I remember now... I did eat your wedding candy.'
"She nodded, then laughed and admitted, 'Actually, it was just home leave. To put my parents' minds at ease, I got a squadmate to pose as an out-of-town groom and marry me off.'
"I asked, 'So between the two of you...'
"She smiled and said, 'Nothing. Just an act. He wasn't my type.'
"During the days that followed, she came to see me often, and after training, I'd muster the courage to go visit her too... She bought me clothes, showed me the ropes around here, and looked out for me.
"To protect me, she even fought a duel against a male soldier who had been picking on me. She wore a source energy apparatus but used an ordinary blade... With just a single charge, she won. She was truly powerful. She told me, 'If it weren't for the chance to give you a lesson and teach you things I learned the hard way in real combat, I wouldn't have wasted the source energy.'
"One day while we were chatting, her squadmate suddenly chimed in, 'Why don't the two of you just get together? Finding someone so close to you in a place like this is a rare thing.'
"Out in the ordinary world, a girl would feel shy, wouldn't she? But here, she didn't. She looked at me with a smile and said, 'Coward, college boy, would you still fancy an older girl like me?'
"I nodded vigorously.
"...
"Not long after, her leave came to an end, and she had to return to the front lines of sighting operations. The day she departed, I had training and couldn't see her off... She came to the edge of the training grounds, waved to me, and left.
"I waited for her letters—five days, ten days, half a month... until one day, the drill instructor suddenly told me the regimental chief of staff wanted to see me. I went, and there in his office, they told me... she had fallen.
"They said her ashes would be brought back soon through our special channel, and since none of her squadmates were here... 'Take your sister up to the Wall of Heroic Spirits on Mount Nine Armies.'
"On the Wall of Heroic Spirits at Mount Nine Armies, there are tens of thousands of little niches. Neither photographs nor names are displayed on the outside... Yet over these five-plus years, at any given moment, I can still clearly recall the spot where she rests. Without needing to count, I just know.
"The day after placing her ashes, I finally received her letter. She wrote: 'What do you say we have a child together?'"
Hu Haipeng's narration came to an end.
He offered no additional morals or advice. He had simply told the recruits a true story about what he had mentioned earlier—love in the Azure.
At this moment, total silence fell over the hall. Looking at Hu Haipeng, the audience suddenly remembered what he had said with such genuine joy when he first took the stage today: "My application was just approved... I'll be heading to the front lines of sighting operations."
So he had truly been happy.
As a scarce psychological counselor in the regiment, he had likely applied for five years, and only now was he finally able to go... to the place where she had fought.
Hu Haipeng stepped down from the stage first.
Zhang Dao'an walked up. According to procedure, he would answer the recruits' questions.
After a long while, the recruits' emotions finally settled.
Someone asked, "Why doesn't the Azure Coalition simply draw recruits from Huaxia's armed forces? Or convert the elite troops of nations around the world?" Another asked, "Why not inform the entire world about the Great Spikes and unite all countries in resistance?" Someone else asked...
Zhang Dao'an said:
"Because we do not know when the Great Spikes will arrive... To be precise, we don't know when a large-scale invasion from that civilization will actually come.
"If we knew it would be tomorrow, next year, or even in three or ten years, your questions would all be valid. But over eighty years have already passed. What if they don't come for several more decades, or even centuries?
"Meanwhile, our source energy and dead iron are extremely scarce, and we haven't found any replacement technology... Therefore, amassing more manpower and material resources serves no practical purpose at this stage."
In the audience, someone else wanted to ask a question.
"Enough," Zhang Dao'an cut them off impatiently. "The logical core behind every question and confusion is simply this: no one knows when a large-scale invasion of Great Spikes will arrive, and source energy and dead iron are in critically short supply. Once you grasp this point, you can answer your own questions. If you can't, so be it.
"Go eat," he concluded.
* * *
Lunch was still raw: raw leafy greens, raw fish slices, raw meat, raw melons... The variety, at least, had grown rich enough to offer choices.
The recruits remained perplexed, and some still felt disgusted and repelled. But perhaps because they were starved after skipping breakfast, or perhaps due to the results of a whole morning's indoctrination, nobody resisted anymore. Most forced themselves to eat some. After all, formal training was set to begin that afternoon.
When Han Qingyu, Wen Jifei, and the others returned to the dormitory, several members of Dormitory 11 were already back, standing and staring toward the balcony.
There were three sinks on the dormitory balcony. Right now, a woman stood by the middle one. She had naturally curly, short brownish-blonde hair reaching down to her neck. Her back was turned, and she wore a blue-gray short-sleeved shirt and loose trousers...
She was bent over the sink washing her hair—in a men's dormitory.
Tap water splashed over her blonde hair, streaming past her cheeks into the basin, with sunlight beaming onto the crown of her head.
Keeping her head down as the water washed over it, she angled her body slightly and glanced back over her shoulder. Catching sight of the men from Dormitory 11, she flashed a radiant smile.
Her teeth were bright white and even. She had grayish-blue eyes, a high-bridged nose, a scattering of freckles across her face, along with two sunburned red streaks and a few blemishes...
Stunned for a moment, the group began murmuring in low voices.
Wen Jifei mumbled, "A love story."
Yang Qingbai said, "A foreigner."
Wen Jifei countered, "What does that matter? She's gorgeous."
Liu Shiheng remarked, "Standing up, she's got to be at least one meter seventy-seven. The moment she tenses up, she probably packs more muscle than any of us. That's the result of long-term conditioning."
Wen Jifei asked, "What does that mean?"
Han Qingyu said, "A veteran."
Everyone fell silent. To them right now, "veteran" was a terrifying word.
"Does she understand Mandarin?" Wen Jifei asked quietly after a cautious pause.
"I understand it. And I probably speak it better than many of you," answered the blonde veteran on the balcony.
Finished washing, she stood upright and tossed her head back. Her short hair whipped around, droplets spraying in the sunlight, light catching the side of her face, the tip of her nose, and her freckles.
"Traveled all day—covered in dust," she continued, gathering her short hair into a single handful behind her head.
Water trickled down her neck into her collar, dripping steadily onto her blue-gray shirt, dampening the front and back.
"Do you guys have a towel that doesn't stink?" she asked, turning around in a natural, familiar manner.
"Ah... yes."
Immediately, at least half the room scrambled to fetch their towels, holding—or rather, presenting—them in their hands.
Holding her hair, the blonde veteran walked over. She looked down closely, saw that all of them had been used, and glanced up at everyone with a slightly conflicted look before breaking into a smile...
As she smiled, she let go of her hair. Using both hands from the bottom up... she peeled off her short-sleeved shirt in one crisp, fluid motion.
Then, completely unbothered, she began drying her hair with the inside of the shirt.
Dormitory 11 went dead silent; Dormitory 11 had completely exploded inside.
In truth, the black garment she wore underneath was roughly similar to an athletic sports bra, probably the combat vest issued to female soldiers by the army.
Even so, it left a wide expanse of midriff bare, and the covered portion filled out the fabric generously.
For these young men, the visual impact was overwhelming.
After drying her hair, she gripped the shirt in her hand and, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness, looked at the dazed, foolish recruits before her, suddenly flashing a mischievous grin.
"Want to see more?" She winked. "Sure. Take first place in the recruit squad competition, and you can see more."
With that, she pointed toward the competition roster posted behind the door and chuckled heartily.
Everyone stood frozen, looking utterly bewildered.
Only after a moment did they recall that recruit training did indeed include a squad competition evaluated by dormitory rooms. It encompassed assessments across numerous events; points would be deducted for daily infractions, while merits or strong performances earned bonus points.
*That thing? There's no way in hell,* the men of Dormitory 11 thought. Just between last night and now, their discipline and housekeeping already ranked dead last.
What was worse, this bunch didn't care in the slightest; they possessed zero sense of honor.
"Alright, nice meeting you all, but I have to get going."
Even as she said this, she didn't head out right away. Instead, she returned to the balcony, retrieved an object sitting out of sight on the concrete washstand beside the sinks, and carried it back, striding past everyone with effortless poise.
Liu Shiheng had been right earlier: the blonde woman truly possessed more muscle than anyone present, at least unmistakably in her right arm.
That was likely because the object in her hand was quite heavy.
It was a piece of machinery that made onlookers think their eyes were playing tricks on them at first glance: a dark, gleaming metal apparatus equipped with a carrying handle, a slot for feeding an ammunition belt, a trigger, and barrels... five of them, massive, thick, and long.
Wen Jifei stammered, "Is that... a machine gun?"
Yang Qingbai muttered, "Machine gun...? That's an autocannon, isn't it?! What a beast."
"Correct," the blonde veteran answered as she walked. "My customized machine gun, the Milla 11... though people do prefer calling it an autocannon."
"But weren't we told bullets can't kill Great Spikes?"
"They can't kill them, but in my hands, it can accomplish plenty of things." Pausing at the doorway, she looked back and added, "By the way, my name is Milla Joe. I'm your direct drill instructor... From now on, you may address me as Squad Leader or Milla... though Squad Leader is preferred."
Milla took her leave, heading downstairs.
Dormitory 11 was left in a daze.
* * *
Downstairs.
"Isn't that Milla?" a veteran asked, spotting her from a distance. "Why would an esteemed vice squad leader stoop to coming down here as a direct drill instructor?"
The veterans nearby broke into laughter, because the title "vice squad leader" was an ongoing joke where Milla was concerned. She had already served as vice squad leader for four different squads. By all rights, she should have made squad leader long ago, yet she never managed to secure the promotion, earning herself the teasing nickname "The Ninth Army's Eternal Vice Squad Leader."
As for the woman herself, she dreamed day and night of becoming a squad leader.
"Haven't you heard? Rumor has it she's finally slated for promotion this year," another person in the crowd said. "She's probably down here to handpick recruits."
"Oh... snatching up raw talent. Got it."
The Azure Coalition's system for forming and replenishing squads operated on mutual selection. Recruits could choose a squad, and the squad leader could reject them; conversely, if a squad leader wanted someone, the recruit could decline and opt for a squad they preferred.
On the other side of the yard, Milla's female squadmate, who had been waiting downstairs and was now walking alongside her, was in stitches after hearing Milla describe the reaction in Dormitory 11.
She teased, "Aren't you trying a bit too hard, Milla? This isn't just recruiting or winning them over... you're practically seducing them, aren't you?"
Fighting back a smug grin, Milla shot her a glare. "Shh."
"And what if they actually take first place? Would you really...?"
"As if! With that bunch, producing two or three decent soldiers to follow me later is plausible enough, but winning the competition? Forget about it," Milla said breezily. "To borrow an old saying of yours, I just dangled a painted rice cake."
Chapter 23