Punked

Han Qingyu was used to it and hadn't paid it any mind, but the arm he had raised to wave carried an old silver bracelet on its wrist. Back when his mother had made him take it with him, he hadn't thought much of the thing. Now, whenever a battle ended and he came out alive, he was always in the habit of putting it on, as if sending a message home that he was safe. Moreover, it had already become a famous silver bracelet. Rumors outside claimed that it represented the will of the Han family—the will of Han Qingyu's mother. The source of this rumor was none other than the propaganda troupe of Azure Huaxia Research Institute 2. Being a propaganda troupe, the speed at which word spread was easy to imagine. It was just that the girls in the troupe all had fiery tempers and harbored grievances, so quite a few strange tales had leaked out along with it. "Wait, why doesn't he seem like the rumors say? Word is he's a dead iron straight man, completely cold toward women." "Not just women—I heard he's cold even to female cats." "I heard that too! He won't even eat female crabs!" "Haha, how could that be possible? Rumors are terrifying. But shouldn't the main point right now be that his old silver bracelet is still on his wrist?" a pretty girl from the medical corps chimed in. "...Oh, right." Not far from her, several girls were looking back and forth between the newspaper in their hands and the man himself, murmuring in hushed discussion. *Mhm... that's right. So, did his head get scrambled by that Red Shoulder?! No, he got knocked straight... his mind finally opened up!* Xin Yaoqiao thought slyly. She had never received such treatment before. Their previous progress—from beetle carcasses retrieved from the hollow of her collarbone to bundles of sugarcane—had amounted at most to gratitude between friends. Han Qingyu had never been someone who expressed warmth. For a person like that to suddenly act so warm toward her... Miss Yaoyao felt a bit thrilled, yet couldn't help suspecting something was amiss. So she didn't run over right away. She simply remained standing amid the crowd, smiling brilliantly, raising her hand to give a little wave in return. And then, Han Qingyu walked over of his own accord. Azure had just concluded humanity's first large-scale war against the Great Spike civilization. The most dazzling figure in this monumental clash known as the Flag War now bore visible battle scars from the front lines. He had just greeted her with rare warmth, and now he was walking straight toward Xin Yaoqiao. Across a plaza of thousands, he came toward her among hundreds. "Qingzi, you..." When he arrived before her, Xin Yaoqiao grew nervous. "I have something urgent to ask you." "...Okay." What could be so urgent? *Oh gosh, he—he grabbed my wrist!* With her wrist held through her sleeve, Xin Yaoqiao's mind turned to absolute mush. In a daze, she let Han Qingyu lead her under a tree by the roadside. Then Han Qingyu leaned close to her ear, very close, and whispered with a hint of urgency, "Yanxiu..." "Huh?" Puzzled, she turned to look at him. "What?" Xin Yaoqiao thought she must have misheard. "Yanxiu. Do you know what that means?" Han Qingyu looked at her with serious, earnest eyes. *Yanxiu? So what does yanxiu mean... Is he asking me to guess? Is it dialect from his hometown meaning 'I like you'? Don't tell me it's words for a proposal?!* *Aah! Xin Yaoqiao, calm down! Get a grip!* The girl knew her brain had turned to mush—she was like a fish sizzling in a pan, unable to flip over in time, smoke billowing around her. "Before Commander Liu drove the small Red Shoulder to its death, it uttered this word. Yanxiu. That's roughly the pronunciation. Can you figure out what it means?" Han Qingyu patiently explained. Xin Yaoqiao blinked, her mouth dropping open blankly. "Ah?" *So that's what it is. So... it's only because I'm his linguist friend...* Realization dawned, and she took a step back. Glaring at Han Qingyu, flushed with exasperated embarrassment, she said with deadpan calm, "Go drop dead." "Oh, so that's what it means." Han Qingyu pondered it earnestly, caught between tears and laughter. "And here I thought it had said something profound to me. Turns out it was just cursing." *Damn it, wasted so many of my brain cells,* he grumbled inwardly. "..." *He actually took that literally.* Xin Yaoqiao was thoroughly humbled now—completely and utterly speechless. She was mad enough to give him a fierce kick, but immediately found herself laughing in spite of herself. This dead iron hunk—once he reached the absolute extreme of dense, he was almost inexplicably cute. Wait, didn't he just say those were the words the Red Shoulder spoke before dying? Once her emotions cooled down and she caught that detail in Han Qingyu's words, Xin Yaoqiao quickly waved her hands. "No, no, I was just talking nonsense." "Huh? Nonsense?" "Yeah, just... a joke. The actual deciphering isn't that simple. I'll have to go back and analyze it slowly." When it came to scientific research, Xin Yaoqiao straightened her demeanor and continued, "Don't worry, I'll do my best. Everything about the Xilang Peak battlefield is crucial right now. Over half of Azure's top researchers, including my grandfather, have already headed there. I didn't even expect I'd get the chance to take part." "Going there is very dangerous." With such a massive Great Spike mothership parked atop Xilang Peak, hostile organizations like Snow Lotus would inevitably learn of it, and once they knew, they would most likely make a move... Han Qingyu pondered. "Still, that thing really isn't easy to dismantle." "It'll be fine. A lot of troops were left behind, along with plenty of supers and elites. Besides, it's not far from our Huaxia. If something really happens, Grandpa Chen can just head over." Because they were discussing serious business—and on the surface, matters of high confidentiality—their conversation stayed in hushed tones throughout. To onlookers, it looked just like a boy returning from the battlefield whispering sweet nothings to a girl. "Right, I didn't manage to catch a live Great Spike," Han Qingyu said suddenly with an apologetic tone. Back then, in a moment of impulse out of gratitude, he had bragged that he would. Now he realized he couldn't pull it off; even on a battlefield as vast and chaotic as Xilang Peak, there had still been no opportunity... The chances of breaking his promise were looking quite high. Han Qingyu looked rather embarrassed as he explained. "Huh?" Xin Yaoqiao was puzzled for a moment. She had never taken that seriously in the first place... *Besides, didn't I tell him it wasn't necessary? Did he not hear clearly back then? Misheard me?* Seeing how earnestly apologetic Han Qingyu looked, she found it amusing and didn't burst his bubble. "I did manage to get a dead one, but they took it away too. I figured that since it couldn't talk, it would be useless to you, so I didn't bother stealing it back," Han Qingyu continued his earnest explanation. *He's so serious,* Xin Yaoqiao thought, smiling. "It's fine, I'm not in a rush." "Yeah, but I'm worried it won't be easy in the future either. What if I can never get one..." "Then what? If you can't fulfill a promise, what do you plan to do?" "I..." "How about we swap it for something else?" "Sure, name it." "Mhm." Xin Yaoqiao hesitated for a second or two, then stepped closer to Han Qingyu, standing on tiptoe as if to whisper into his ear, though she didn't say anything right away. At the same time, their hands drew close—though, of course, they didn't hold hands. Without looking down, Xin Yaoqiao used her right hand to slip a hair tie off her left wrist... briefly brushing the tips of Han Qingyu's fingers... and smoothly worked the hair tie onto Han Qingyu's wrist, settling it right alongside the old silver bracelet. "Wear this from now on too," she said, stepping back once she finished. So that was the exchange condition for the live Great Spike. The meaning was simple and direct: staking her claim! What of it? Surrounded by people, with so many girls around, Xin Yaoqiao felt her heart flutter. She cheered herself on inwardly: *It's not like I took an interest in him only after he became powerful and famous. I set my eyes on him early on, and I made my moves early on, earlier than any of you... So what if I staked my claim? I'll claim him openly and proudly... and wait for his dense head to see the light.* "This..." Han Qingyu looked down and raised his wrist. Just inside the old silver bracelet sat an intertwined red-and-black hair tie, predominantly black, with a tiny stray strand of broken hair caught in it. It clearly looked like something Yaoyao-huanghuang used on a daily basis. He looked up. "What am I supposed to wear this for?" "Just... you can use it to tie up a bag or something, it's convenient," Xin Yaoqiao fumbled for an explanation, then suddenly blurted out quickly, "Anyway, that's that! It's the condition of the trade—just wear it!" "Oh, all right." Han Qingyu nodded, gave his wrist a shake, and lowered his arm. Around the same time, the two super old men, Chen Buer and Jiang Longchi, had left the office for the venue. They took a dedicated passage—an enclosed bridge on the third floor connecting the buildings. Wen Jifei, Yang Qingbai, and the others stood in the distance, watching while debating what on earth Han Qingyu and Yaoyao-huanghuang could be talking about for so long... and whether Yaoyao-huanghuang had been provoked to death yet. "Got a light, little brother?" From behind and to the side came an oddly familiar voice, followed by a hand extending forward. The person asking for a light offered a cigarette. Wen Jifei turned around, glanced at the man, and took the cigarette. Putting it to his lips, he chattered, "Sure do. What smoker doesn't carry a light? Speaking of which, this cigarette seems different from last time..." Chattering casually, he fished a lighter from his pocket. "Mhm. How've you been lately?" Ye Jian, clad in the lieutenant's uniform of the Huaxia Front, asked with a smile. The Huaxia Front All-Army Conference was a sprawling, bustling gathering. While security was naturally strict, to an expert of Ye Jian's caliber, it posed no real obstacle. Moreover, he hailed from the Huaxia Front himself and was familiar with everything. "**Ye**t another night of partying, **just** couldn't be better." Wen Jifei pitched his voice slightly higher, laughing as he spoke. With He Tangtang and Liu Shiheng absent, he was the only one present who had ever seen Ye Jian. *It's Ye Jian! Holy shit!* "A pity. It seems they didn't catch your acrostic," Ye Jian chuckled, popping the cigarette into his mouth. "So, you're not planning to just shout it outright, are you? Because if you do, I will kill you." "I know," Wen Jifei groaned in helpless resignation. He shot Ye Jian a sour glare, then lowered his head, flicked the lighter, and lit his own cigarette. Then, he held the flame out toward Ye Jian. Halfway there, the flame went out, and he spun the wheel again. "Listening to you boast so fiercely that night, why is it that now on your home turf, you're just standing here watching someone else get cozy with a girl?" It really was just a coincidence that he had run into Wen Jifei, so Ye Jian joked casually as he bent his head to light up. *Whoosh!* A sudden roar. The flame shooting out of the lighter leaped dozens of centimeters high, nearly torching Ye Jian's entire face. In a situation like that, Wen Jifei had somehow—so completely naturally—secretly cranked the lighter's gas valve all the way to maximum. Even Ye Jian hadn't noticed or guarded against it. Instantly, Ye Jian reacted, his entire body flashing backward. At the exact same time, Wen Jifei leaped in the opposite direction and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Ye Jian! Snow Lotus's Ye Jian is here!" "..." Ye Jian was completely dumbfounded. *Son of a bitch.* To be fair, coming here had been part of his plan to expose himself anyway; he hadn't intended to do anything else, merely provoke them so that Chen Buer and the old monk couldn't pull away. Even so... he had still been completely punked by Wen Jifei's cheap trick. He had known for a while that the kid was clever and worldly beyond his years. What he hadn't expected was that Wen Jifei was far more juvenile than he thought.