Lying in a pit was a solitary endeavor, a passable compromise for two, and for three... probably a hotpot.
After about two minutes of silence in the grassy hollow, He Tangtang seemed unable to bear it any longer. He reached out and nudged Han Qingyu up a bit, like using chopsticks to poke a meatball in a hotpot.
Then he gave a low "hey," waited for her to turn, pointed at himself, and said to Xin Yaoqiao earnestly with emphasis, "Um... I'm seventeen. Still a few days shy of eighteen."
"Huh?" *He's younger than me?* Xin Yaoqiao took another careful look at He Tangtang and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, Uncle."
He Tangtang: "..."
"I..." Embarrassment washed over Xin Yaoqiao. She shifted her gaze away from him toward the ground, seeming to exert great effort before finally blurting, "I'm sorry, Little Uncle."
"No, I mean little comrade-in-arms." She hurriedly corrected herself, her face flushed with embarrassment even as she fought back a giggle.
Fortunately, He Tangtang magnanimously accepted it.
The grassy pit fell quiet again for a short while.
"Um, my name is Xin Yaoqiao..." She had no idea why the three of them had to lie flat in the dirt... Were they planning an ambush on the Great Spike?
She didn't know fear either.
After a moment, the girl turned her head again and timidly addressed Han Qingyu's profile: "You can call me Qiaoqiao, or Yaoyao, or Huanghuang. Any of them is fine."
She knew Han Qingyu didn't know who she was. The guy hadn't even been informed yet that he had been placed in the Sub-Sequence.
As for the other members of the sequence, they only knew their own statuses and had no idea who the other individuals were... Xin Yaoqiao, as the Sub-Sequence's liaison officer, was the sole exception, granted access to everyone's profile files.
"..." Han Qingyu kept his head down, offering no reply or reaction, wondering whether he should just choke her to death.
Then He Tangtang turned his head, nudged him again, and politely nodded to Xin Yaoqiao. "All right... Yaoyao-huanghuang."
"..." Han Qingyu: *Maybe I should choke him to death too?*
Xin Yaoqiao: "...Mhm."
So, No. 10 was this taciturn? If Han Qingyu hadn't spoken up earlier to tell her to get over here, Xin Yaoqiao would have thought he was mute. Pondering for a second, she fished for another topic: "Back there, I almost thought you died, just for a second..."
"If either of you makes another sound, we really will be dead," Han Qingyu said sternly, suppressing his irritation.
"..." Xin Yaoqiao didn't dare say another peep. Lowering her head, she buried herself firmly in the hollow.
Finally, silence returned. Han Qingyu listened intently from the hollow. After listening for about two minutes, something felt off.
He suddenly felt a strange, inexplicable urge to loot a corpse.
Thinking about it, he realized what it was and said helplessly, "You're allowed to breathe... Otherwise I'll think you're... Otherwise you really will die."
Xin Yaoqiao whispered, "Mm... *gasp*."
As she drew breath, Xin Yaoqiao squirmed, twisting her shoulders and neck while remaining flat on her stomach... A moment later, she twisted again.
Han Qingyu turned to glare at her sternly.
"A little bug crawled down my neck just now," Xin Yaoqiao explained innocently, yet she only dared gingerly nudge her cheek against her shoulder, not daring to make any big movements to scratch it.
Even so, it was completely useless. She was wearing her apparatus and metal straps, and the velcro fasteners on the combat uniform ran all the way up to the collar; without some forceful tugging, it wouldn't open at all.
Han Qingyu looked at her. "Where?"
Xin Yaoqiao felt a sudden wave of nerves, gazing at him blankly. "...Here by the shoulder."
Quite naturally, Han Qingyu reached out and pressed his palm carefully across her shoulder a few times. With no small effort, his fingertips located it, but the beetle was tiny and slick; failing to pin it on the first try, it slipped away... leaving him no choice but to chase after it.
Finally, applying a bit more force, he succeeded in trapping the little beetle beneath his finger... pinning it right in the hollow of Xin Yaoqiao's left collarbone.
As for the other party involved in this process, Xin Yaoqiao hadn't expected Han Qingyu to lay his hands on her directly at all. Before she could even think or object, she fell into utter fluster. *Is No. 10... a pervert?*
Then she noticed that Han Qingyu was expressionless, looking utterly focused.
After that, her attention was completely stolen away by the hand pressing against her shoulder... Gradually, she noticed a very strange sensation stirring within her, intensely peculiar.
*Could this be the hormones the books talk about?*
*I wonder if he feels it too...*
*Crack.*
Han Qingyu squished the little beetle dead, popping it right in the hollow of her collarbone.
Then he withdrew his hand and flattened himself back down.
"You—I..."
"Shh."
"..." Xin Yaoqiao: "..."
Left with no choice, she tried her hardest not to imagine the squished bug carcass in her collarbone hollow, enduring with grim fortitude as she lay flat once more.
Han Qingyu didn't see anything wrong with the situation, but that was only because Wen Jifei wasn't there. If he were, he would definitely have trotted out the line he always used to lecture and needle Han Qingyu: "Qingzi, my boy, you just wait for a blind date later in life and marry some random girl your mom picks for you... You don't know jack shit about love."
They lay there for another three minutes.
"Aren't we going to look for the instructors?" Xin Yaoqiao asked cautiously, unable to hold it in any longer.
"Too risky. We might run into the Great Spike if we head out," Han Qingyu said.
"Oh... that's fine then." Xin Yaoqiao tilted her head up, speaking with airy confidence, "If we run into it, I'll just slash its fucking head off with one blade."
The young girl's sudden burst of profanity left both Han Qingyu and He Tangtang stunned. "What did you say?"
"Slash the Great Spike's... fucking head off."
Xin Yaoqiao flushed with embarrassment. She realized she had zero control over adding "slash" before "Great Spike" and "its fucking head off" after it.
"Of course, I might not be able to take it down alone, but with the two of you helping, that should do it. And if the instructors are there too, it'll be easy."
She hurriedly steered the conversation back to business.
Han Qingyu and He Tangtang exchanged a look. *Does Regiment 491 have a female soldier this fierce?* Obviously, neither had ever heard of one.
Just as they were about to question her further, heavy, rapid footfalls suddenly echoed nearby.
Zhang Dao'an and the other sixteen men, with their three-dimensional apparatuses engaged, rushed over with almost no attempt at concealment, sweeping past not far from the hollow where the three were hiding.
"You two stay put. Don't wander off," Han Qingyu instructed after they passed, then activated his apparatus and gave chase directly.
***
Zhang Dao'an had just received a transmission: someone in an evacuating squad of recruits had caught a faint glimpse of the Great Spike halfway up a mountain slope not far off.
Terrified and panicked, the recruits who spotted it engaged their apparatuses right away and bolted, even yelling for the others to run with them.
In such circumstances, there was no way the Great Spike wouldn't notice them...
Which was why Zhang Dao'an had charged out like a madman the very next second.
At this moment, sprinting desperately, Zhang Dao'an was tormented within. Years ago, he had made a mistake. Because of that mistake, he could only watch helplessly as a column sword pierced his squad leader's chest, watching many comrades die, leaving him saddled with an unbearable burden of debt and resentment.
Recently, a slight change had finally come over him. In all his years as head instructor, Regiment 425's current batch of recruits had finally produced promising young men, and he had thought that perhaps it might bring a measure of solace to Wang Liuzheng in the underworld.
Because of that, he had begun to live a little more lightly.
Yet today, in his first decision—turning back to rescue Squad 1123 after escorting the recruits to what he believed was a safe distance—perhaps that in itself hadn't been wrong... but the consequence was that at least sixty recruits from Regiment 425 were dead.
And now, while they were lying in ambush here, prepared to fight for their lives... it was once again recruits who had spotted and encountered the Great Spike first.
If Heaven truly existed, it seemed as if Heaven had been endlessly punishing him... slowly destroying him with other people's lives and an ever-accumulating mountain of guilt.
"I won't let you have your way this time... One last time. I'm betting my life."
Zhang Dao'an muttered silently to himself, then accelerated once more.
***
At that moment, a scattered squad of recruits—a mix from both Regiment 425 and Regiment 491—was fleeing in blind panic.
Those terrifying footsteps followed right behind them through the mountain woods, yet made no move to attack.
It was as if it were playing a game of slaughter.
Panic mounted steadily; some were already on the verge of breaking down.
Until someone shouted, "Instructor Zhang..."
Immediately, recruits began calling out the names of their respective drill instructors one after another.
Zhang Dao'an and the other ten instructors, alongside the six members of Squad 1123 who had received only rudimentary treatment, finally arrived in time.
The instant they reached the scene, they wheeled around, formed a battle array, and held their blades at the ready.
A wave of relief washed over the recruits, and some even halted in their tracks. What they had learned in the classroom told them that a battle array of sixteen to twenty-four men led by veterans and top combatants was usually enough to grind down and slay a Great Spike.
And both conditions were met before their eyes. Besides the two head instructors, there was also a second lieutenant who served as Squad 1123's vice squad leader, while the rest were all seasoned veterans.
Yet Zhang Dao'an said, "Run... run."
At the same time, right in the dense woods before them, the sharp snapping of breaking brush rang out clearly—*crack, crack, crack*.
Dragging its heavy column sword, the Great Spike finally emerged from the forest at a leisurely walk... and simply stood there.
Though its face was featureless, it seemed entirely unhurried.
Seventeen against one—a bizarre, tense standoff, a rare encounter between humanity and a Great Spike where neither side immediately struck.
Chapter 63