The ground was muddy after the rain. With neither his source energy apparatus nor his lighting gear turned on, He Tangtang walked rather slowly in the darkness.
He told himself it was because he was afraid of making too much noise and waking his comrades, but in truth, his mood had at least something to do with it.
Liu Shiheng was gone.
Because neither Qingzi nor Plague Chicken was here, the final call had been his to make. From this moment on, whether the man lived or died, they would likely never see each other again.
Reflecting on everything he knew and understood of Young Master Liu, along with their conversation just now, He Tangtang didn't think he had made the wrong choice. It was just that their little clique was now short one person—someone who might not have looked important, but who had been there from the very beginning. It would take some getting used to.
Beaten down by the rain shower, the blades of grass beneath his feet were pressed into the mud, making his footing slick. Steadying himself, He Tangtang climbed up the reverse slope of the small hill step by solid step, preparing to circle back to where they were sleeping.
A single ember from a cigarette butt flickered in the dark. A figure sat on a rock atop the slope, waiting for him.
He Tangtang stopped and squinted to make him out. It was Captain Lao.
At once, a wave of nervous panic seized him.
"I thought you would bring him back," Lao Jian spoke, his voice neither loud nor harsh.
He Tangtang thought for a moment. "Couldn't catch up to him."
"Who the hell are you trying to fool?" Captain Lao cursed sullenly, then paused before adding, "Didn't you bring his apparatus back? He can't take that with him."
Seeing that the jig was up, He Tangtang didn't deny it any longer. "I told him to make sure he leaves it where our Azure comrades can see it before he exits the battlefield. He'll do it. I was afraid that if I took it now, he wouldn't be able to make it out alive."
Lao Jian looked at him and nodded. "I see."
"So... Captain Lao, you noticed a long time ago?"
"Noticed my ass! If I'd noticed early on, would I have let you two get away?! ...I just woke up suddenly, saw you both missing, and figured it out. But I didn't know if you'd drag him back... and in the end, damn it, you actually let him go."
In truth, if He Tangtang had actually brought Liu Shiheng back, Lao Jian might not have shown up on this mound at all. He would have feigned sleep and waited until they met up with Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei to discuss the matter in private.
Yet He Tangtang hadn't brought him back.
The faint dripping of water from blades of grass murmured in the dark, and the muddy earth shifted without a sound. He Tangtang said nothing, waiting with an anxious heart for Lao Jian's decision—such as reporting a deserter according to military discipline...
"Suspected missing on the march, cause unknown, status alive or dead unknown. That's all."
With that, Lao Jian looked down, ground the cigarette butt into the mud with his foot, braced his hands on his knees, and stood up, turning away directly.
He Tangtang remained motionless behind him, listening as Lao Jian muttered under his breath while walking away: "Damn it all... I haven't done something like this in my entire life."
He watched as Lao Jian reattached the captain's epaulet he had been clutching in his palm while walking.
So when he had spoken those words and made that decision just now, Captain Lao had put away his Azure military insignia.
Because Captain Lao had been on the battlefield this whole time, he didn't yet know that at the All-Army Conference that had just concluded, he had already been promoted to major—just like Qin Guowen and Han Qingyu.
More than an hour later, the squad set out. They quickly discovered a man was missing and searched the surrounding area... Pressed by the urgent military situation and difficult communications, they had no choice but to continue advancing toward Purang.
The unit marched on and on as the morning sun rose. Today was clear.
During their midday rest, He Tangtang's hand brushed against the three deposit passbooks inside his pack. From dawn until the evening twilight, Squad 1777 didn't spot the trace of a single Great Spike all day; their march went astonishingly smooth.
***
Across another area of the plateau, sprawling across the vast terrain to the west of Nganglaring Tso, there had been no shower the previous night, and the day had remained clear.
This area was rather lively today. "That man" from Azure's Xilang Peak had appeared here, leading three teammates on a search through the vicinity, stirring up quite a racket.
In the dusk of twilight, two Huaxia squads happened to cross paths. Coming down from their respective slopes, they gathered together to exchange news.
Passing around cigarettes and lighting them for one another, they chatted casually.
"Did you see them today?! That group with Major Han Qingyu—did you run into them?"
"What? Oh, we know of him. He's already a major? What about them?"
"They've gone mad! Guess you didn't run into them. Today, at least four or five squads saw them from near and far. Totally nuts! Damned if I've ever seen anyone hack Great Spikes like that... They pounce right on them! Can you even imagine that? No blades—just hands... rushing in to grab arms, grab legs, and choke necks!"
"Grappling... a Great Spike?!"
"Yeah! Just raw grappling! One on each side pinning an arm, wrenching it backward, then another grabbing the legs and getting dragged across the dirt, refusing to let go no matter what. And do you know what a cross armbreaker is? They tackle it down and slap on a cross armbreaker, one on each side, with another holding down the head!"
What terrifying strength. And it certainly wasn't just one of them who was strong; all of them were monsters.
"...What the hell are they trying to do?"
"No idea. Looked like they wanted to take one alive. They must be trying to capture one alive. Though it's also possible they just wanted to rip off arms... The time we saw them, they tore both arms right off a black-armored one."
"Huh?! ...Why take the arms?"
"Not sure, but they gave one to Squad 618. 618 had gotten into an encounter, and those guys rushed over to help. They tackled a black-armored one straight to the ground, ripped it apart... and handed over an arm, saying that handing it in would earn merit points, since the research department would really want it."
"I see. That makes sense, then."
"Yeah, but some people are saying they tore it off to roast it over a fire."
"What?!"
"A barbecue! Said they saw it with their own eyes. Once stripped of armor, a Great Spike's arm isn't that thick, but it's pretty long—maybe because it dried out from the roasting."
"...Holy shit."
When three people in a group could easily solo-kill a black-armored Great Spike and possessed ridiculous defense, they really could afford to try something like that. There weren't many truly dull-witted black-armored Great Spikes. After a full day of searching with everything they had, dull or not, Han Qingyu's group had pounced three times... They hadn't managed a live capture, but they had forcibly torn off four arms.
Later, while asking around along the road for Squad 1777's whereabouts, they gave them all away.
So it couldn't be called a total loss. Han Qingyu had gained another two metal blocks in his pockets, bringing the count to twenty-eight. However, they still hadn't managed to get clear word on Squad 1777's direction.
Once the mop-up operation around Xilang Peak began, things had grown somewhat chaotic. When the main force pushed forward, squads were scattered all along the way to search and clear out enemies, guided only by the commander's casual instructions scribbled down in a notebook.
"No one even knows where the commander went."
Twilight cast a golden glow across the ground. Over the open plains, blades of grass swayed in the gentle breeze against their faces.
Sitting beside a campfire and roasting a snake, Wen Jifei said, "Though they did say that even if we found the commander, we wouldn't necessarily be able to pinpoint their direction, because after that, each squad pursued Great Spikes on their own. They might easily have changed course on the way."
"Still, having a general direction would be better than nothing," Rusty Sister said, feeding dry twigs into the fire. She looked up at Wu Xu. "Don't you think so, Wu Xu?"
Wu Xu: "...Yeah."
"That's true," Wen Jifei chimed in. "In the end, though, we'll still have to rely on communications. This place is huge, yet there are only a handful of outpost stations. Let's just hope the engineering corps' base stations can catch up soon."
With that, Wen Jifei pulled back his roasted snake, took a bite, and found it wasn't quite done. He placed it back over the flames and poured a bit of dark soy sauce over the bitten opening.
The fire hissed and crackled loudly, belching a column of smoke.
Han Qingyu's figure emerged from the woods on the hillside, clutching two snakes by the necks behind his back. There were snakes on the plateau as well, and quite a few of them, though most were not large—mainly a kind of patterned tree snake and bamboo pit vipers.
It had taken him quite an effort to find two decently sized ones to bring back up the mound.
Silhouetted against the setting sun with his hands behind his back, he walked toward Rusty Sister with a mischievous grin.
"What... what are you doing?" Rusty Sister sensed something was off. Tilting her head, she spotted the snake tails swaying by Han Qingyu's legs.
With her strength and full suit of iron armor, a venomous snake couldn't harm her in the slightest. But she was a girl after all; there was no helping it, she was terrified—scared out of her wits... Scared of live ones, scared of dead ones, unless the snake had been roasted black.
Qingzi kept closing in. Propping her hands on the ground behind her, Rusty Sister scuttled backward before scrambling to her feet, threatening, "Han Qingyu, don't you dare!"
"What do you think?" Han Qingyu smiled. Whoosh! He whipped out a snake from behind his back.
His fingers pinched the base of the snake's neck. Its mouth gaped wide, and its tail writhed.
"Aahh!" A shriek, followed by a sharp clink!
Rusty Sister drew the battleblade from her back. She wanted to stay on guard cautiously, yet she didn't dare look directly at the snake... so she could only keep retreating.
Her iron armor shivered with a rapid clatter.
"I didn't even provoke you!" she protested aggrievedly.
"Didn't you? Think carefully," Han Qingyu reminded her in a low, teasing voice. "You've gotten pretty bold lately, Rusty Sister. Now you dare to blackmail me with metal blocks and take the lead in snatching my little ledger."
"It wasn't me... I'm not bold at all. It was Wu Xu! He suggested it and talked it over with me!" Rusty Sister declared earnestly.
Wu Xu slowly lifted his head, looked at her blankly, and then looked at Han Qingyu.
"Excuses." Han Qingyu made a motion as if to toss the snake at Shen Yixiu.
"Aahh..." Rusty Sister scampered around frantically. "It was me, it was me! I was wrong!"
Han Qingyu held up the second snake. "Do you admit defeat?"
Rusty Sister hurriedly sheathed her blade, stood obediently, and said solemnly, "I admit defeat."
"Do you surrender?"
"I surrender!" Not a shred of hesitation.
Wen Jifei burst into hearty laughter, and even Wu Xu's eyes carried a hint of amusement.
"Remember to behave yourself from now on." Satisfied, Han Qingyu shook the two snakes, tossed them into a nearby stream ditch, and began cleaning them.
Wen Jifei and Wu Xu sat beside the fire, while Rusty Sister stood behind them, terrified yet unable to resist watching out of curiosity.
"Have you two noticed?" she asked suddenly after watching for a moment.
"Noticed what?"
"Qingzi... he's always right behind the snake's head. No matter how the snake moves, he circles around to its back and pinches it," Rusty Sister observed carefully. "It looks like he moves even before the snake does."
Hearing her observation, Wu Xu paid close attention as well. To his surprise, it really was like that. Qingzi didn't seem deliberate or hurried at all; strolling with easy, relaxed steps, he consistently planted his foot right behind the snake's head.
That required a fair bit of skill.
"Oh, that?" Wen Jifei took it in stride. "Completely normal. Remember what I told you? In Old Han's family, catching snakes is an ancestral craft passed down eighteen generations."
"Catching snakes—do you understand what that means?" he continued. "For a family like that to carry on for eighteen generations is nothing short of a miracle."
"Don't doubt it; this has nothing to do with source energy. Back when we fought people at school, he could already do it. What I mean is, he could always slip right behind the other guy."
"Back then, I even came up with a special name for that move of his: the Eighteenth-Generation Snake-Handling Family Shifting Step—a hundred percent guarantee to appear behind you..." Wen Jifei chattered on with a grin.
Beside them, at the mention of fighting, Wu Xu perked up. So Qingzi had practiced fighting by catching snakes? He looked at Han Qingyu, then turned back to Wen Jifei and said, "I've only fought dogs."
"Huh?" Rusty Sister and Wen Jifei froze for a second, then both laughed.
They assumed he had probably been bitten by dogs as a child.
"When I was around ten years old, the Yu family kept dozens of dogs. They drove them mad and locked them in a room to fight us. We weren't allowed to kill the dogs, but the dogs were allowed to bite us to death," Wu Xu said.
He rarely brought up the past. His expression remained utterly calm, as if he felt nothing about it.
Yet when Wen Jifei and Shen Yixiu heard this and tried to picture it, chills ran down their spines, leaving them thoroughly horrified.
Han Qingyu returned carrying the two dressed snakes, handed one to Wu Xu, and they each set theirs over the fire to roast.
In truth, their packs held plenty of military rations and compressed biscuits... but being Huaxia folk, if they didn't eat something hot and freshly cooked, they always felt like they hadn't had a proper meal, and their stomachs would never feel quite right.
"If Young Master Shiheng were here, he'd insist on taking one to make soup," Wen Jifei said with a laugh as he ate, his roasted snake now done.
Liu Shiheng was from Gangcheng. Just like the folks from Yue Province, whenever he saw anything, his first thought was to brew it into a pot of soup.
Chapter 312