Regiment 425 housed its recruits in the oldest, most dilapidated building on base. Word was that this was a tradition, which left one to wonder whether Captain Wang Liuzheng himself had once lived here during his recruit days.
Nearly fifty years had passed since the founding of the Eraser Ninth Army, and its history seemingly held no Grade S soldiers—or if any had existed, they had never been made known.
"Saying they're 'advising me to withdraw' is honestly cutting me a lot of slack," Wen Jifei remarked as they climbed the stairs, his fingers absently tracing the blade gouges carved into the aged plaster. "Really, I guess I'm practically an endangered species..."
"Pfft..." Han Qingyu failed to hold it in, bursting into laughter.
"Laugh all you want, you jerk. Your grandpa here is a pair of dice that flips faces on a whim," Plague Chicken chuckled at himself. "I know you're probably genuinely happy right now."
Han Qingyu honestly admitted it. "Yeah. I just feel this is better than you scraping by with a Grade E or something, strapping on armor, and getting sent to the front."
"There are Grade Es on the sighting frontline right now, though."
"With your personality, it'd be hard for you to stay in line and do what's expected of a Grade E."
"...Fair point." Wen Jifei conceded the truth in that. He fell silent for a few moments, then reached out and patted Han Qingyu on the back. "Qingzi."
"Yeah?"
"I really had things planned out pretty well, you know... and made it all the way here... Anyway, take care of yourself from now on. Looks like I won't be able to shoulder things for you anymore."
Back in the dormitory, just as he was about to climb into his upper bunk to sleep, Han Qingyu paused mid-step and stared intently at his iron locker for a couple of seconds.
"Did someone touch it?" Wen Jifei asked in a tense, hushed voice.
Han Qingyu shook his head. "No."
***
Around noon the following day, the fusion test results for the rest of the recruits were released. They were not posted on public bulletin boards, but once individuals received their grades, word quickly spread through conversation.
Apart from Han Qingyu's Grade A, which had already become common knowledge, the results for Dormitory 11 came in:
Liu Shiheng, who had spent every day praying he would not have to wear armor, scored a Grade D+;
Yang Qingbai walked away with his dream result, a Grade F;
Followed by three others scoring Grade E and D.
There was also a pleasant surprise with a Grade C, though it belonged to Grave Robber Bro Lai Shitou—the man who, on their very first night of enlistment, had readily accepted being labeled useless in front of Zhang Dao'an, remaining timid and muddleheaded ever since. Far from being thrilled by the outcome, he was terrified, mumbling that all he wanted was to hide in the rear.
The degree of source energy fusion was truly just that unreasonable, defying human will and operating on sheer randomness.
Regardless, Regimental Commander Li Wangqiang and the regimental leadership were in exceptionally high spirits. Aside from Han Qingyu's Grade A, Regiment 425 had yielded another pleasant surprise: a Grade B+, which under normal circumstances would have prompted Commander Li to crack open a few bottles of liquor in celebration.
The recruit's name was He Tangtang.
"Hey, what's this kid's deal?" Having paid little attention to him before, Commander Li turned to question his subordinates.
"He's a big guy... On Tradition Night, he overslept and missed the meat-snatching. Afterward, he snuck in right under the noses of over twenty veterans and made a brazen grab for it," a regimental staff officer recalled with a laugh, gesturing with his hands as he vividly recounted the scene from that night. "In the end, he genuinely came close to bluffing his way to a mouthful..."
"Hahaha!" Commander Li bellowed with laughter. But as he laughed, he suddenly checked himself, pressing a hand to his forehead in prolonged contemplation. "Regiment 425 seems to be getting better and better..."
His subordinates chimed in enthusiastically, "It certainly is!"
"...And yet, it also seems to be getting weirder and weirder."
"..."
"All sorts of oddballs are cropping up." With mixed emotions, Commander Li sighed wistfully. "Take Captain Wang Liuzheng's generation. Back then, you could tell at a glance that they were disciplined, upright, proper soldiers. Even on Tradition Night, they went head-to-head with the veterans fair and square..."
As one of those oddballs, Wen Jifei had been instructed to keep his unusual condition to himself. When anyone asked, he simply said he probably would not be able to wear armor.
"So, have you made up your mind? Where are you heading next?"
With his Grade F, Yang Qingbai was neither excited nor dejected. He had already chosen to join the Order Legion's Seventh Army. Because of his excellent driving skills, he would likely start behind the wheel, and if the opportunity arose later, they said they might let him try piloting an aircraft.
Wen Jifei shook his head. "Not yet."
"Why not just come with me to the Seventh Army? That way, we can keep each other company." After extending the serious invitation, Yang Qingbai grinned. "Look, your nickname is Plague-Chicken Fei—Plague Chicken Flies! You're clearly destined to take to the skies."
Wen Jifei smiled, seemingly tempted. "Let me think about it."
*Knock, knock.*
The door stood ajar, and someone rapped on the open wood.
"Captain Milla."
"Mm."
Milla stood in the doorway. Ever since returning from her mission, she had rarely visited Dormitory 11, likely because she no longer needed to deliver medicine to them, nor had she returned to borrow their bathroom for a shower.
Setting down a bag of fruit, she chatted by the doorway for a few moments, looking over everyone present. Finally, she called out, "Wen Jifei... come out for a word."
Ordinary recruits did not know about Wen Jifei's bizarre test results, but as an instructor, Milla had naturally seen them.
Once the two stepped outside, the rest of Dormitory 11 immediately swarmed Han Qingyu, backing him into a corner.
"Qingzi, something's not right... I'm getting weird vibes."
"Yeah, why does Captain Milla look at you with such resentment now?"
"Did you do something rotten? Bullying our Miss Milla?"
"You went and played the heartbreaker, didn't you?"
"..."
Yang Qingbai sat on his bed, peeling an orange. He took a bite and sighed. "Man, these oranges are all sour... Nowhere near as sweet as the ones Captain Milla used to toss to us with her own hands."
Milla had always liked buying fruit for Dormitory 11.
Before, she would occasionally stand by the window of the instructors' building overlooking the training ground, calling out to ask what they wanted before giggling and tossing it down. Other times, she would pass by beneath the recruit barracks, not bothering to come up, simply calling out what they wanted and laughing as she tossed it upward...
Those memories had been the proudest, sweetest highlights for the boys of Dormitory 11.
***
"Have you decided where to go?" Milla asked Wen Jifei beside the training ground.
"Not yet," Wen Jifei said.
"Mm. Actually, I know you want to go to the sighting frontline—you want it badly... Even if I don't know whether that's solely to fight alongside your best friend, I can see how deeply disappointed you are." Milla paused briefly, pointing to herself. "For me, it was because of my brother."
"Yeah." Wen Jifei nodded. Having already learned about this earlier, he did not pry further.
"So, do you want to know why I haven't become a captain all these years?" Milla asked.
Wen Jifei glanced at her in astonishment. "Don't tell me you're a pair of dice too?"
"No, I'm not that remarkable." Milla gave a hearty laugh, though a hint of helplessness lingered beneath her smile. "My degree of fusion is Grade E... Across the entire legion, very few Grade Es ever become captains. In the Ninth Army, plenty of squads would welcome me, provided it's not as their captain...
"Back in my day, three-dimensional apparatuses were in even shorter supply than they are now. Grade E girls were often advised to withdraw," Milla continued. "I was the one who fought for this chance—using my gun."
Wen Jifei stared in surprise. "A gun?"
"Yes. I looked into your special circumstances. In my view, your core problem is that your teammates' combat cannot depend on you in the slightest... That means you can only exist as a variable, offering unexpected assistance... Such as staking your life when a fight goes south or a Great Spike breaks through, rushing in to strike a blow in the hope that it rolls an A or B... Or, for instance, a gun."
Milla delivered a lengthy explanation. As a foreigner, making such complex points in Huaxian was still a bit challenging for her.
Even so, Wen Jifei understood. So, aircraft, or a gun?
"Of course, this is just a very, very slim possibility," Milla said, promptly pouring cold water on the idea when she saw him hesitate. "There are probably plenty of people with a talent for shooting, but having talent great enough to use firearms on the sighting frontline—and convincing Azure to custom-craft a firearm specifically for you—is difficult. Extremely difficult... Because the Great Spikes are simply too fast.
"So, I'm only asking because I feel for you... Would you consider giving it a shot?" Milla smiled warmly, her eyes alight with longing. "If you do, maybe there'll be one more person looking toward the future with me."
"Looking forward?... You mean, to the day a firearm made of source energy dead iron is created?" Wen Jifei asked.
"Mhm, it's a dream of mine."
Milla looked slightly embarrassed. "I know how hard it is. Theoretically, not even dead iron can withstand an instantaneous burst of source energy, to say nothing of the fact that we still don't know how to detonate source energy through external force... It would also be terribly wasteful... And I heard the research institute has already suspended research in that direction... It probably won't ever happen.
"It's just a dream of mine," Milla emphasized once more.
The conversation came to an end without a definite conclusion. Wen Jifei still had a little over a day to think it over.
"Oh, right." Just as they were parting, Wen Jifei called out behind her. When Milla turned, he flashed a smug, shameless grin. "Captain Milla... I don't know if you still remember, but... well, our Dormitory 11 seems to have taken first place overall."
"Huh?!" Milla flustered instantly.
"It's true. If you don't believe me, go check the bulletin board over by the Three-Sided Building," Wen Jifei said, pointing toward the boards.
"B-but how could that be?"
"Blame Qingzi," Wen Jifei said. "Didn't he earn that banner from the combat assessment earlier? That bumped our rank right up."
Milla nodded. "Still, that shouldn't have been enough, right?"
"Right, but then he was awarded a Silver Azure Guardian Medal. Word is the regiment even combed through the detailed regulations specifically for this... Even if that bonus clause hadn't been invoked in decades... it really does exist." Wen Jifei paused, flashing another grin. "So we were credited a ton of points all at once."
Milla was speechless.
"Of course, Captain Milla, you can always pretend you don't know anything about it... It's fine."
Having delivered his piece, Wen Jifei waved and said goodbye.
Later, around dusk that evening, Milla appeared beneath the windows of Dormitory 11, looking up and calling out, "Are you guys... going swimming tomorrow? How about... the reservoir on the mountain behind us?"
***
Cradled between two mountains beneath a vast, clear sky, the water's surface rippled with shimmering light.
The mountain reservoir was not large, hemmed in on all sides by dense forest. Even the small mound rising from the center of the lake was overgrown with tall weeds and shrubs.
The boys of Dormitory 11, clad in swimming trunks hastily bought from the commissary, sat together on a patch of grass by the water's edge.
Not a single one went in.
"We might have gone a bit too far... Milla is a squad leader, after all."
"Yeah. Yesterday we were all so stunned that nobody remembered to tell her it wasn't necessary."
"I tried telling her today, but Captain Milla seemed to be acting out of spite and ignored me... Sigh, who knew she'd actually follow through? When I brought it up back then, it was just a joke to see her squirm."
"Yeah, this really does feel a bit inappropriate."
To put it simply, Milla had turned up today wearing a skimpy, narrow, black-and-red swimsuit... It accentuated her tall, shapely figure and pale skin to a degree that made pulses race.
A two-piece swimsuit like a bikini might have been entirely ordinary at Western pools and beaches, but wearing one in Huaxia, in front of eight young men... required no small amount of courage.
Consequently, the moment Milla stripped off her outer clothes, she had plunged straight into the water.
Her swimming skills were evidently exceptional, and she dove beneath the surface for long stretches at a time.
More than ten minutes had passed, yet the youths of Dormitory 11 hardly dared cast a glance in her direction. Had this been a crowded seaside or public pool, looking would have been normal enough, but in this secluded setting...
"So... we're not getting in, then?"
"Nah, I don't know how to swim anyway. Any of you know how?"
"I can only dog-paddle."
"Hahaha..."
*Hum—clank, clank...* A bizarre sound suddenly cut through their laughter.
The instant several of them turned their heads toward the noise, three figures burst from the woods at blinding speed.
The intruders were equipped with three-dimensional apparatuses, moving so fast they were barely discernible.
"Qingzi!"
Calling out to Han Qingyu at a moment like this was useless—he was bare-handed, wearing nothing but swim trunks. Wen Jifei shouted only because he realized the intruders' primary target appeared to be Han Qingyu.
And then... damn it, Instructor Milla wasn't wearing her apparatus either!
In the few seconds it took that thought to cross his mind, forty meters narrowed to thirty. The blades in the assassins' hands were already raised level behind them...
Two of the three kicked off the ground and leapt into the air, lunging for the kill.
"Don't panic." Han Qingyu finally looked up, offered a faint smile, and said, "Rookies will always be rookies. They don't even know you shouldn't leap."
*Whoosh... bang! Crack!*
The instant the first airborne assassin prepared to swing his blade, an intercepting figure several times faster crashed straight into him, colliding and slashing in one fluid motion... sending the assassin's body flying skyward.
Backpack glowing with the blue light of a three-dimensional apparatus, Regimental Commander Li collided, slashed... and without pausing for a heartbeat, lunged toward the next target.
Just as the body he had sliced into the air began to fall—
*Bang!*
Another figure rammed in from the flank, blade flashing, launching the assassin skyward once again.
Lao Jian threw himself toward the third intruder.
*Bang!* The first assassin, who had only just started to descend, was knocked airborne a third time, taking another slash in the process... Zhang Dao'an charged toward the next.
What followed was a barrage of *bang... slash, bang... bang!*
The recruits of Dormitory 11 watched in utter bewilderment: *Is it really necessary to take it this far?!*
Less than thirty meters away, three blurred afterimages trailing blue light darted across the ground... while suspended in midair were three assassins, already slashed into mangled heaps of flesh and blood, unable to touch the ground.
Again and again, the trio began to plummet in stiff parabolas, only to be smashed, slashed, and propelled back into the air... rising and falling, rising and falling.
By now, they were almost certainly three corpses.
"Quit playing around and conserve source energy!" The regimental chief of staff, likewise equipped with a three-dimensional apparatus, stepped out from the woods on the opposite side. Unable to watch any longer, he yelled, "We couldn't take any captives—they swallowed poison!"
*Thud... thud, thud.*
The three corpses finally hit the ground.
"Sigh, and here I thought they'd send someone decent... If you're going to be this weak, at least send more men," Commander Li muttered, coming to a halt and disengaging his apparatus with an audible sigh of disappointment.
Zhang Dao'an and Lao Jian stopped as well, disengaging their devices, their expressions similarly tinged with regret... Neither had seen combat in quite a while.
"This one..." Zhang Dao'an nudged one of the bodies with his blade, squinting to identify the face. "Looks like a recruit from this batch. The other two are too mangled to tell, though judging by the age, at least one of them came from the outside."
"Mm," Commander Li nodded.
Meanwhile, the recruits of Dormitory 11 stood with their backs to the lake, still frozen in shock.
"So... was it just a coincidence that Commander Li, the chief of staff, Instructor Zhang, and Captain Lao... strapped on their apparatuses and came out here together to peep at Milla swimming?"
*Hum.*
At that exact instant, less than fifteen meters from the shore—and barely twenty meters behind Han Qingyu's back—a sound emerged from the mound in the center of the lake without so much as the scrape of a drawn blade.
A black figure skimmed almost parallel to the water's surface, blade poised, hurtling straight toward Han Qingyu.
Then—
*Bang!*
A figure spiraled straight out of the water, rocketing upward.
Still wearing her bikini, but now equipped with a three-dimensional apparatus flashing with blue light, Milla seemed not to have even had time to execute a proper slash. Raising her blade with both hands, she drove straight through the center of the dark shadow...
And continued rocketing directly into the air.
Severed in two, the black figure crashed into the water, a dark stain of blood spreading across the surface.
Landing on the other side of the lake, Milla dove beneath the surface and swam toward an inlet of flowing water to wash off the blood. Her degree of fusion might have been Grade E, but she was still a nine-year veteran and a vice-captain of four years.
"Anyone left?" Once the scene settled into silence, Commander Li asked.
"Even if there are, they won't expose themselves at this point," Zhang Dao'an said.
Beside them, Lao Jian kicked one of the corpses over. "I've always said it: Pure Purgatory is full of useless trash, garbage... foul garbage."
On the ground before him, mounted on the backs of the three corpses, were triangles paired with circular plates—Generation 7 apparatuses.
"Say what you want and kick what you want, but don't go sneaking peeks over here," Han Qingyu remarked with a grin, keenly catching their wandering gazes.
Behind him, Milla emerged from the water.
Without turning around, Han Qingyu tossed his autumn jacket back to her.
Milla caught it and wrapped it tightly around herself.
"So, what the hell is going on here?" Wen Jifei could not help asking.
Clearly, Han Qingyu had known. Milla had known. Commander Li and the others certainly had not shown up strapped into three-dimensional apparatuses just to spy on Milla swimming. Wen Jifei looked around the group, waiting for an explanation.
"One or two manage to slip in every year. It's impossible to prevent, but there are always ways to ferret them out," Zhang Dao'an explained as the head recruit instructor of many years.
He was describing the reality of Azure's recruit intake: nearly every year, it was difficult to avoid a few infiltrators.
It was just that this year's circumstances were particularly unique. Regiment 425 had an unarmored Grade A recruit who, prior to enlisting, had killed two Pure Purgatory operatives, disrupted their plans, and earned a Silver Azure Guardian Medal for it.
Both pieces of news had already leaked out.
To lunatics yearning for mutual destruction, nothing could be more satisfying or glorious than dragging him down with them... When they came, they had no intention of escaping alive; they came solely to kill.
"Yesterday, the plan was to use source energy blocks as bait to lure them out," Han Qingyu explained to Wen Jifei. "Last night, when I checked the lock, it wasn't because I noticed someone had touched it. It was because I saw that the locker and lock hadn't been touched at all... Nobody had set foot in Dormitory 11.
"Since they could resist the temptation of source energy blocks, what they wanted was obviously my life.
"And since they were being so cautious, Commander Li had no choice but to ask Captain Milla to help set up a golden ambush opportunity like today's."
He finished his explanation.
***
Because the operation was classified, the brief skirmish quickly drew a large contingent of garrison soldiers and veterans rushing up the mountain, trailed at the very rear by a crowd of recruits.
Among them, might there still be operatives from Pure Purgatory? Or perhaps Snow Lotus... Were there members of the Self-Preservation Faction?
Han Qingyu turned his head to watch the soldiers collecting the dead men's equipment. As he saw them extract the source energy blocks and carefully stow them away, he felt a pang of sorrow. He desperately wished he could taunt the onlookers on the spot and give them a reminder... *Next time, pick a deserted place to come kill me.*
*Next time, I'll have armor.*
Chapter 45