The reporter's words spread through the surrounding crowd, gradually stirring a reaction.
"Yeah, that person just now looked so much like him."
"It was him, no doubt about it. I caught a glimpse of Major Qing in a crowd once before. That was clearly Major Qing's face, down to his exact expression."
"So... Major Qing is actually still with us?!"
Color rushed back into the eyes of the people packing the street. Tinged with earnest longing and excitement, their gazes followed the small convoy as it receded into the distance.
"Perhaps our world just needs something to lean on too badly," another reporter in the crowd suddenly remarked with a sigh. "That's why a single newspaper could stir up such a storm, plunging the entire world into dread and despair. And a single expression can make us cling to an illusion and reignite our hope."
"But in reality, what does this actually prove?"
"It was nothing more than a performance of demeanor that any eighth-rate actor could pull off. Compared to the evidence—especially those photographs from the assassination site—this hope before our eyes is far too fragile, far too faint."
He spoke in a tone that sounded almost like he was muttering to himself, yet his voice was by no means quiet. The security personnel mingled among the crowd listened as well.
After hearing it, they couldn't find anything to dispute.
Yet the mood, which had only just begun to turn, gradually grew somber once more.
Naturally, the citizens around them were affected even more deeply.
In truth, their emotions had already been subtly manipulated. Any war of public opinion in this world worked this way: operatives would embed themselves in the crowd, tasked with controlling and steering the wind.
At this moment, such figures lurked among the people lining the long street, and among the reporters as well.
These people came either from Voyage's covert network of influence or from other factions that wished to see the world sink into darkness and despair. They might not even be in contact with one another, but at this stage, their goal was aligned, and their actions matched.
"Regardless, the Major Qing I know has always spoken with his war saber. Whether he's real or fake, alive or dead, let's see if he can still raise that saber again..."
Having said his piece, the reporter slipped away into the crowd.
Yet the thoughts of the surrounding people had already been steered back toward judging him by martial strength.
Indeed. No matter how much they argued, the truth would ultimately have to be proven with deeds on the battlefield.
Whatever dignity Major Qing had lost in yesterday's assassination, and whatever faith this world had lost, would ultimately have to be won back by the blade in his hands.
Speaking of which, there were two clear opportunities for observation lying ahead.
The distant one was two months away. In two months, Azure would launch an expedition to Antarctica to reclaim the planet's final lost continent. Before this, Stream Vanguard had explicitly promised to march alongside Azure.
As for the immediate one, it was right before their eyes—at the hero cemetery shortly ahead.
***
By this time, the formal military funeral convoy had already left the city and reached the northern outskirts of Shenghai.
Turning off at an intersection toward the mountain fields, the convoy slowly came to a halt.
Yet no cemetery lay before them. All that stood there was a mountain.
It was an intact, nameless small peak. There were no burial plots, no forest of tombstones. Sparse trees dotted the mountain, where towering blue-black stone cliffs stood upright.
The people of Shenghai had gifted a mountain to Zhang Chiyuan and the fallen soldiers of the Fourth Army.
During those cruel, desperate months half a year ago, it was Zhang Chiyuan who had led the soldiers of the Fourth Army to defend this city to the death, holding out for months on end.
The residents here were those they had evacuated at the cost of their own lives; the soil here was drenched in the blood they had shed in fierce combat.
And so, the people of Shenghai presented a mountain for the heroes to rest in peace. Using the mountain as their tomb, the mountain would never abandon the city, and the city would never forget the mountain, keeping the heroic souls remembered for generations to come.
"So, they're going to cleave open the mountain in a moment," someone in the watching crowd pointed toward the nameless peak from afar and said.
Naturally, people had come to the burial ground to see them off as well—civilians and reporters alike, some rushing over from the streets earlier, others having waited here since early morning.
"Cleave open the mountain? What does that mean?" a few newcomers who had hurried over asked in confusion.
"A prominent figure will step up and split this mountain open with a single saber strike, entombing the heroes' coffins into the cliffside. Understand? That's the funeral standard of our Huaxia Sole Witness Legion."
The speaker's eyes shone with pride. Looking around at the crowd, he added, "Oh, and after today, this mountain will have a name. It'll be called Mount Fourth Army."
*Whoosh!* Commotion and gasps were choked back in people's throats, fearful of offending the heroic spirits of the Fourth Army and the solemn dignity of the ceremony. But still... splitting a mountain in a single strike!
"Doesn't that take a super combat power?"
"Far more than that! A strike to cleave a mountain isn't something an ordinary super could pull off."
"Then who's doing it?"
"At first, I heard it was Major The Qing. Then just now, I heard the Legion Commander himself might step forward. Since Major Qing didn't come, it's definitely the Legion Commander. Look over at the pallbearers—Stream Vanguard is represented by God of Guns Wen and Lieutenant Wu Xu."
The speaker gestured with a nod of his head.
By now, the military funeral ground was largely prepared.
Eleven trucks carrying the coffins were lined up horizontally at the very front. On both sides of each truck stood eight pallbearers.
Beside Zhang Chiyuan's coffin, in addition to his old partner and old subordinates from the Fourth Army and two old friends who had walked the path with him since their recruit days, stood another man named Chen Buer.
Behind him were Wen Jifei, Wu Xu...
And beside the coffin stood Zhang Chiyuan's wife and son, weeping uncontrollably in silence.
Zhang Chiyuan had been married, though rather late in life. His son was only seven years old this year.
The boy's name had been chosen before he was even born: Zhang Xinghe. Over the years, little Xinghe had never been told his father's true identity, knowing only that his father rarely came home and was a superman.
The notion that his father was a superman was something his mother had smilingly told him while watching cartoons one day. Because of that, little Xinghe had boasted about it at school, which brought him quite a bit of ridicule.
So he got into fights with them.
After the fights, the teacher would drag him in for reprimands and tell him to call his parents.
Then, his mother would come down from her office upstairs.
Zhang Xinghe's mother was named He Yunqing. She was also a teacher, working at the very school little Xinghe attended, though she didn't teach his class.
Due to Zhang Chiyuan's rank, He Yunqing had been permitted to know his true identity early on.
At first, she hadn't believed it, until her husband had suddenly leapt up a two-story-tall cliff face right before her eyes as though showing off, flipped around, and plucked a bouquet of wild flowers for her.
Even so, once He Yunqing understood the situation, she never went to Azure to act as an army commander's wife.
She couldn't control her husband, but when it came to her son, she gritted her teeth and adamantly refused to let him have any contact with Azure. What she feared most in her heart was that little Xinghe might one day become an Azure soldier too.
And so, mother and son had lived quietly for many years.
Until that day half a year ago, when the alien enemies her husband called Great Spikes suddenly arrived in droves. Appearing like swarms of hornets, they blanketed twenty-seven cities across the globe...
Azure immediately revealed the truth to the entire world.
After that day, her parents, colleagues, students, and students' parents—so many people—learned that the man He Yunqing had married years ago was actually an army commander of Huaxia Azure, and the supreme commander who had led the forces defending this city during this apocalyptic catastrophe.
His classmates all apologized to little Xinghe, because his father truly was a superman.
During that period, little Xinghe had been bursting with pride. Still too young to know worry or fear, he looked forward every day to growing up and becoming a man just like his father.
During that same period, every single day and night was an agonizing ordeal of worry for He Yunqing.
Until later, humanity triumphed, and the swarm of Great Spikes above Shenghai fled... Mother and son had waited outside the evacuation city, overjoyed.
What she waited for was the news that her husband was missing in action.
He Yunqing did not give up, did not despair. She continued to wait.
That wait lasted another half year...
Until two days ago, when a Fourth Army colonel arrived before mother and son, his eyes red, choking on sobs and unable to speak.
Chapter 743