Soon, the elderly, women, and children he had met last time all emerged. Some were in good spirits, while others rubbed bleary eyes, but every single one of them stood before Liu Shiheng without exception.
Simple, honest smiles and gratitude shone in their eyes as they looked at him with quiet excitement.
*Fuck me, this kind of scene really isn't meant for me,* Liu Shiheng thought. *What should be in front of me are bottles of wine and liquor—tall ones, round ones, all lined up—and across from me should be a mama-san leading a flock of slender girls smiling coquettishly.*
In his memories, he would sometimes toss cash into the air, and they would start leaping and dancing before him. That spectacle... it truly had been too long, and he missed it terribly.
*Ugh... I want to go back to my world of wine and roses!*
In truth, Liu Shiheng had stopped on the road and thought about just leaving on his own and never coming back. He had thought that countless times along the way, and a few times, he had actually walked a fair distance away.
But what then?
A bunch of old folks and little kids, obediently waiting for him here—three days, five days... waiting and waiting, only for no one to ever come, until they finally crossed paths with Great Spikes or something and died in helpless anticipation? Believing in him to their dying breath?
He just couldn't stomach that. *Sigh.*
"Soldier Uncle, we've been listening these past two days, and no one came calling for Jiayina. Now that you're back, are you here to take us out?"
When one of the children asked this, Liu Shiheng was chewing on roasted coarse grains and dried beef, his cheeks bulging... He mumbled indistinctly:
"We need to wait and see a bit longer. It's dangerous outside."
Liu Shiheng had already made up his mind. Coming back was merely to wait with them for a little while, nothing more.
*Didn't I already pass the word to Squad 1777?! Once they get out, Azure will definitely pull in troops to sweep the area and retaliate. And with how petty that Han Qingyu is, he'll definitely come scouring the whole map looking for revenge. In short, there's no worry about not running into our people when the time comes.*
When that time came, Young Master Liu would slip away first.
"Aiya, don't you see how tired Soldier Uncle is? Why are you rushing him!"
Jiayina stood beside Liu Shiheng. Though clearly the youngest child here, she acted like a little adult, saying, "Just look at him yourself."
Having run day and night for days on end, barely sleeping or eating a proper meal while gripped constantly by fear, inner turmoil, and struggle, Liu Shiheng was now utterly haggard. Even a child could tell at a single glance.
"Soldier Uncle is tired," another child muttered. Thinking it over, the child suddenly asked with fervent eyes, "Did Soldier Uncle kill the monsters?!"
Liu Shiheng turned his head to look at him, thinking, *You little brat, you really need a spanking. What bloody monster did your uncle kill? I've been in Azure for a whole year and haven't even touched a single hair on a Great Spike. If I weren't hiding from monsters, would I have been unlucky enough to run into you lot?!*
"Yeah. Killed one," he said.
The children cheered in hushed, thrilled voices.
Because they had all seen with their own eyes Great Spikes crash down, charge into their herds, and harm their fathers and elders, the look in their eyes as they gazed at Liu Shiheng was filled with reverent adoration.
"But there are still lots of monsters outside," Liu Shiheng continued. "So taking you out right now would be very dangerous. We need to wait and see a bit longer."
"Mm." The children nodded in unison.
Having eaten and drunk his fill, Soldier Uncle needed to rest.
Beneath the inner room lay a cellar-like space with old wooden boards laid over the dirt floor. After Liu Shiheng lay down, it felt as though he had only shut his eyes for a brief moment before waking back up.
Checking his watch, he saw he had slept for roughly four hours.
Dawn had not yet broken. An uneasy restlessness in his chest kept sleep at bay, so he sat up against the wall and looked around to his left and right.
Those plateau children lay sprawled every which way, bundled in their robes beside him and at his feet, sleeping soundly and appearing utterly at peace.
They were all the same, with sun-darkened, ruddy cheeks and smiles that, while not conventionally pretty, warmed the heart.
Pointing his flashlight toward the ground, Liu Shiheng stepped carefully out from among the pile of children and climbed through a hole in the wall out behind the house. Daybreak was nearing; he intended to scout around and assess the situation.
Two dark-skinned old men sat in a ditch beside the wall, facing opposite directions with their ears pressed against the stone wall jutting outward, intently listening for sounds outside.
This was why the people in the shack had stayed so well hidden on both occasions Liu Shiheng had arrived. The few remaining adults here took turns keeping watch every day, guarding the children inside.
The old men turned and looked up at Liu Shiheng. Unable to speak Mandarin, they simply offered a smile.
"I'm going to check out the situation outside," Liu Shiheng said, unstrapping the blade from his back.
The two old men nodded vigorously, though they had not actually understood a word.
Liu Shiheng climbed up out of the ditch. Having already asked about the location and general paths in the vicinity, he planned to scout another direction this time to test the route and check the surroundings.
The sky glowed with faint light; the vast grassland stretched out under fading stars and a gentle breeze, with nothing else in sight.
Liu Shiheng walked along—holding his sword upright, carrying it loose, flicking his wrist to twirl the blade.
He did not know why he had relaxed, nor had he even noticed it happening. Perhaps the taut bowstring in his mind, stretched too tight for too long, had temporarily lost its elasticity and gone slack on its own.
He even subconsciously began humming a song called "500 Miles":
"...A hundred miles, a hundred miles; Lord, I'm one, Lord, I'm two, Lord, I'm three, Lord, I'm four..."
Walking like this for over an hour brought him to the misty gray of dawn.
Liu Shiheng lazily climbed up a steep slope onto a ridge. He poked his head out, his gaze sweeping past the crest and unfurling into the distance.
"What the... holy mother of fuck!"
What abruptly burst into view sent his feet kicking in panic. Loose stones and dirt tumbled down the incline, and he almost slid all the way down.
Scrambling with both hands, Liu Shiheng barely steadied himself and quickly dropped flat against the ground.
On the other side of this mountain, roughly a thousand meters away, was a pack of Great Spikes. Three black armors—in Liu Shiheng's book, three certainly counted as a pack. They were wandering at a modest pace, heading in his direction.
A gazelle was startled and bolted frantically in blind panic... only to be swiftly overtaken and impaled directly to the earth by a column sword.
*The Great Spikes seem to be searching and clearing the area.* A chill ran down Liu Shiheng's back.
Because this was not even the most terrifying part. Far worse, three to four hundred meters to the left, another pack of Great Spikes—four black armors—was roaming and searching in the exact same manner.
Then to the right, less than three hundred meters laterally and lagging a few hundred meters behind, were three more.
"We're done for!" Liu Shiheng was gripped by a dreadful premonition.
Engaging his device, he began sprinting. Naturally, he was not charging in to fight, nor was he fleeing toward the dilapidated shack. Instead, he traced a counterclockwise arc along the ridges, surveying the situation the whole way.
In the end, under the relentless grip of sheer panic, this arc grew into nearly a full circle.
The scouting results were in... They were utterly screwed. Liu Shiheng could not fathom why he was cursed with such rotten luck. He stood frozen for a moment, then ground his teeth and cursed viciously:
"Lao Jian, fuck your whole damn family! Squad 1777 is full of bastards!"
Squad 1777 had spooked the swarms of Great Spikes that the enemy had lured and amassed from all over.
"I bust my ass delivering you bastards a warning, and you sons of bitches screw me over!"
Liu Shiheng knew where he was: roughly in the southwest corner of the map, at a spot not far from the national border.
This sector had originally been swept and lured relatively clean of Great Spikes, making encounters rare. For so many to suddenly appear and sweep across the mountains and plains, where they came from could not be clearer.
Liu Shiheng's deduction was spot-on. Last night, Squad 1777 had not only disturbed the Great Spikes hiding in those three valleys, but they had also let a shuttle craft touch down, one containing a blue-sheened Great Spike.
At the time, Lao Jian's reasoning had been to use it to stall the enemy and buy time, subconsciously assuming that the enemy would have to wipe out those two Great Spikes—including the blue-sheened one—before pursuing any further.
Yet events had not unfolded that way. To ensure Squad 1777 was pinned down, the Alphonse family left behind only a small detachment to tie down the aliens and die, while the rest swept right past.
As a result, the subsequent alarmed swarm gained a blue-sheened Great Spike and an intact shuttle craft capable of conducting traction.
A blue-sheened Great Spike could not exercise sophisticated command, but it functioned as a focal leader. Given that they had encountered too many humans at the landing site and failed to wipe them out, they acted as they had in the past—hoisting the shuttle craft and migrating across the land to find a safe location to establish their traction array.
The traction process was neither simple nor swift; they required both time and space. Scattered groups of Great Spikes converged from all directions, preparing to purge the entire sector.
Some had scattered chaotically that night, while others had been drawn far away by the Officers' Corps. Now backtracking, they moved in groups as small as two or three, or as large as dozens.
"There's no waiting around anymore. *Sigh!*
"I fucking shouldn't have tried doing good deeds! That's how it always goes in movies and TV shows—the second a rogue or a scoundrel turns over a new leaf and starts doing good, he gets killed off immediately.
"Wait, no, I didn't even turn over a new leaf! What the hell is this?!"
Following the logic that *I can't even be counted as a good person, so I must still have a way out*, Liu Shiheng quickly realized that he truly did still have a chance to escape.
Though the Great Spikes were converging from all directions, they formed no neat battle lines, let alone a unified march. They were disordered and irregular, unevenly distributed across the terrain. Between some groups, the gap was only tens or hundreds of meters, while in other places, they were so sparse that two or three thousand meters separated them.
With gaps like that, as long as Liu Shiheng remained cautious enough, moved fast enough, and had luck that was not utterly atrocious, slipping through was not impossible.
Of course, that meant him alone. Just one person.
He couldn't get them out. The odds were pathetically slim. Instead, there was an overwhelmingly high probability that doing so would get him killed.
...
By the time he finished circling back, it was past nine in the morning, nearly ten. Returning to the dilapidated shack, Liu Shiheng said nothing. With his pack strapped on and his gear fully equipped, he sat on the ground with his head hung low.
The torment of this conflict tore at him, pushing his sanity to the brink of collapse.
His expression was dreadful, but the children did not notice; they had not yet learned how to read a person's mood. Seeing Soldier Uncle return, they gleefully darted into the back room, only to rush out together a moment later.
One child reached out both hands, cupping a handful of roasted coarse grains.
Another held dried beef.
And finally there was Jiayina, beaming radiantly, carrying a warm bowl of butter tea in her hands.
This was ordinary fare when hosting guests, but here, it was precious beyond measure.
"Soldier Uncle, Soldier Uncle, eat breakfast!"
Jiayina felt a flutter of excitement and anticipation, wondering if Soldier Uncle might praise her. If Uncle said the butter tea was delicious, that would be praising her.
Liu Shiheng did not say a word, nor did he look up. He wasn't hungry, nor did he care about any butter tea.
"Soldier Uncle, butter tea," Jiayina said again. "Soldier Uncle..."
"Can't you just leave me alone?! What time do you think it is?! How can you be messing around with this stuff now?!" Liu Shiheng's temper snapped. He roared, his hand lashing out as he jerked his head up.
*Clatter! Crash! Splash!*
Inside the quiet dilapidated shack, the ceramic bowl clattered to the ground, butter tea spilled everywhere, the dried beef fell, and the cupped grains scattered across the floor.
The old men and women poked their heads in from outside, eyes full of bewilderment, yet quietly scolding the children.
The two children who had brought the grains and beef stood with empty hands halfway drawn back, frozen at a loss.
Jiayina quickly wiped the butter tea from her hands and hid her slightly scalded, reddened hands behind her back.
"..." Liu Shiheng froze. He looked down at the mess strewn across the ground, then looked up at the children standing before him.
"Soldier Uncle, I'm sorry," Jiayina said in shame.
She had just realized that Soldier Uncle must be angry because they had lit a fire to brew tea in such dangerous circumstances.
She had done wrong.
"...Fuck!" A suffocating weight crushed Liu Shiheng's chest.
*Drip, drip.*
"No... I'm the one who's sorry," he murmured against his propped forehead, his voice barely audible. After a moment, he looked up and asked, "If Uncle takes you out, and we hide... and we see the monsters walk right past us, can you stay quiet without crying or being afraid?"
"Yes!" the children answered in unison.
"Crawling through piles of cow dung—every single one of you crawling through, covered in dung and grass. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"Good." Liu Shiheng fell silent after answering. He reached down, scooped up a handful of the scattered grains from the floor, stuffed them into his mouth, chewed vigorously, and swallowed.
Then he picked up the ceramic bowl and drank the little bit of butter tea remaining inside.
Having done all this, he said, "How about Uncle teaches you a motto?"
"Okay."
Liu Shiheng hesitated for a moment before speaking. "In Uncle's army, there's a slogan. Every time we go into battle, everyone shouts it."
A faint smile curled at the corner of his lips as he added, "Just between us, Uncle has never actually shouted it. At most, I just moved my lips to pretend."
Then, his voice dropped so low it was nearly inaudible as he finished, "Because I always thought it was the stupidest fucking thing in the world."
The children looked at him blankly, yet stayed well-behaved and silent.
"Come on." Liu Shiheng needed to search for a shred of courage and drive—the kind of courage and drive he had never possessed... He worked himself up, feeling awkward and uncomfortable, and spoke: "For all who breathe."
"For all who breathe," the children echoed eagerly and earnestly, as if reading along with a teacher in a classroom.
"In battle, there is no retreat," Liu Shiheng murmured.
"In battle, there is no retreat!" the children said with all their might.
"With our bodies, we bar the skies," Liu Shiheng said with a bitter smile.
"With our bodies, we bar the skies!" The children smiled along with him, radiant and bright.
Terrified that he would change his mind in another moment, Liu Shiheng scrambled to his feet. He reached out to pinch Jiayina's cheek, then ruffled the round, buzz-cut head of a young boy.
"Uncle is going to scout the route one more time. I'll be right back.
"Go hide first."
Liu Shiheng set down his backpack and left behind all his reserve source energy blocks. That way, the energy blocks in his device would not be enough for him to get cold feet and flee on his own.
Chapter 325