Peeling Back from the Edge

Coughing up blood was no big deal. Han Qingyu still sat alone in the corner of the mess hall, continuing to eat by burying his face in his tray. Even though he had coughed up blood today, the situation hadn't changed at all. As He Tangtang put it: "I'd take a blade for you, but there's no way in hell I'm spoon-feeding you." A figure walked over to the opposite side of the table. Sensing it, Han Qingyu looked up. Lao Jian sat down with a somewhat stiff expression, picked up a spoon, and said, "I heard you coughed up blood during sparring today? If you really can't handle it, you need to go get checked. Coughing up blood is no joke..." Han Qingyu barely registered his words; his eyes were glued to the spoon in Lao Jian's hand. "You..." Lao Jian looked down at the spoon he held, his expression strained and conflicted. "An instructor showing concern for a recruit—that's, that's completely normal, isn't it? Besides, you're a soldier I brought into Azure with my own hands." "..." Hearing that was utterly terrifying. Han Qingyu instantly broke out in goosebumps all over. Forgetting about the rest of his meal, he rose to his feet, turned on his heel, and walked straight out. Right around the time he made it back to the dormitory, Lao Jian had returned to his office and dialed the Regiment 425 headquarters once again. "I'm completely out of ideas. Just to build rapport with him, I actually tried that disgusting stunt you suggested... Regimental Commander, you'd better come up with something else, and fast." "I don't know whether this kid feels any sense of belonging to 425, but as far as I'm concerned, he treats me like half an enemy." "On top of that, he's so pragmatic it's ridiculous. He used to care about money, but now all he cares about is source energy blocks... and when it comes to source energy blocks, we don't have as many as he does." Lao Jian rambled on. On the other end of the line, Regimental Commander Li remained silent. With less than twenty days until recruit camp ended, the undercurrents were surging. Regiment 425's greatest crisis was that it might end up with nothing at all... that its dream of forming a color Eraser would vanish into thin air. Lao Jian paused to think, then added, "Let me speak plainly. If I were the recruit leaving camp now and Golden Eraser came looking for me... heck, not even Golden Eraser, just any of the top six regional squads... I wouldn't even bother saying goodbye to you. After all, the difference in growth environments is just too vast." Silence lingered for a good long while before Regimental Commander Li asked, with evident strain in his voice, "Then... do we let him go?" Now it was Lao Jian's turn to fall silent. He knew full well what that question meant to his former captain and current regimental commander. This was a twenty-six-year veteran of Regiment 425 who had dreamed day and night of leading the regiment to a resurgence in his own hands. After all these years, he had finally caught a glimpse of hope... "I can't say for sure either. Don't ask me about this, Regimental Commander," Lao Jian replied perfunctorily after a long pause, quickly shifting the topic. "On the other hand, regarding Milla, do you think I should find a chance to talk to her in the next couple of days? We can't let her find out directly from army headquarters when the announcement is made. That might hurt her even more." "...All right," Regimental Commander Li agreed. Meanwhile, as one of the focal points, Han Qingyu had no idea he was caught in such an undercurrent. To avoid disrupting the recruits' training, the combat training base had not breathed a single word regarding their choices upon leaving camp. *** Day eight marked the start of the second sparring cycle with S-19. Because the afternoon training did not involve practical combat subjects, Wan Xiujing, her robot, and the cat arrived right as training ended. At that moment, He Tangtang, Liu Shiheng, and the others were preparing to leave. "Hey, you guys! Where's the person with you? That Green Fish?" Wan Xiujing scurried over from the side and asked, already growing a bit anxious after failing to spot Han Qingyu. It was already the eighth day, and somehow... she still hadn't received her source energy blocks. At the same time, with a sharp click, S-19 sidestepped and planted itself squarely in front of He Tangtang and the others. "Head Instructor Qi had someone call him away just a little while ago," Liu Shiheng explained hastily. Looking at the robot's ready-to-fight posture, recalling Han Qingyu's daily battered state, and weighing the strength of his own group against it, he didn't dare hesitate. Seeing that the fish hadn't run off on purpose, Wan Xiujing felt slightly relieved. She followed up, "Will he be back in a bit?" "No idea. He probably won't make it back in time—it'll be time for dinner soon." "Oh. Then I have to wait until tomorrow again." Wan Xiujing looked somewhat aggrieved. "Tomorrow we're heading out to make up for the field march... We'll be gone for ten days or more." The army command had ultimately decided that regiments like 425 and 491 needed to make up for the indispensable field march. The order had just come down today, and He Tangtang blurted it right out. Wan Xiujing was struck speechless. The very first deal of her budding business had run straight into a deadbeat. *** Han Qingyu followed behind Qi Shantong, walking forward through an increasingly dark corridor. The crisp thuds of leather boots against the ground echoed uncomfortably, setting him on edge. If not for the fully armed Azure coalition soldiers who periodically patrolled past, he would have turned and bolted immediately. This was an underground facility—or more accurately, a sprawling subterranean complex, far larger in area than the three unassuming office buildings above the entrance. "We're almost there," Qi Shantong finally said as their visibility dimmed to the bare minimum, seeming to near the end of the passage. "Head Instructor Qi, where exactly are you taking me? What are we doing here?" Han Qingyu knew how formidable Qi Shantong was. If the man genuinely harbored murderous intent, his own chances of survival were slim, yet he still remained on high alert. "To let you meet someone." "Who?" "A member of the Cleansing Faction... from Snow Lotus. He used to be the deputy director of our Ninth Army's Information Control Center." "...Why do you want me to see him?" "Because I appreciate you, hahaha... That's why I want you to gradually understand a few things." Qi Shantong's abrupt burst of laughter sounded bone-chilling in the narrow corridor. Han Qingyu was baffled. "By the way, he's the one responsible for leaving you guys isolated and fighting on your own at Squad 1123. In a sense, he's the one who got so many of your recruits and instructors killed... including Zhang Dao'an." Qi Shantong briefly recounted how the intelligence had been blocked to stall reinforcements during the incident with Squad 1123. His tone carried not a trace of sorrow. As he spoke, he stepped closer, took a blade from Han Qingyu's side, and shoved it back into the boy's hand. "Have a chat with him. If you lose your patience, chop him to death whenever you feel like it. We can't interrogate anything out of him anyway... Utter disgrace." Qi Shantong spoke with an eerie, flat cruelty. Then he turned around. "Go on. I'll wait outside." *Tap, tap...* The footsteps behind him faded into the distance. Han Qingyu remained completely bewildered, having no idea why he had been brought here or what he was supposed to understand. Gripping the hilt of his blade, he stepped slowly into the darkness ahead. "There's a switch on the wall beside you," a frail voice suddenly drifted out from the shadows. After a pause, it continued, "Though I suggest you don't turn on the light... If you know Qi Shantong even a little, you ought to realize that the way I look right now will probably terrify you." Han Qingyu said nothing. "You must be the recruit who ruined my plan, aren't you? You destroyed that device." In the pitch-black space where neither could see the other, the voice pressed on. Han Qingyu still didn't make a sound. "Why aren't you speaking? Or did you just come to vent your anger by killing me? If so, I'd actually be very grateful... There are no bars in front of you, and I can't move. You can step right in and kill me whenever you wish." "I don't seem to have anything to say to someone from the Cleansing Faction. As for killing you, there are plenty of people here who can do that," Han Qingyu said, speaking for the first time. "Hahaha, Cleansing Faction? The name Azure gave us truly is terrible," the voice from within chuckled faintly. "Strictly speaking, at least for me and those I follow... shouldn't we be called the Evolution Faction?" "Evolution?" "Indeed. When the divine race descends, they will sweep away the foolish and the filthy... and allow exceptional humans to align with them and begin our evolution." "..." *A lunatic,* Han Qingyu thought to himself. "It seems you don't quite understand. In that case, let me speak of the Great Spikes," the voice continued in a measured cadence. "Do you know how long even the most ordinary Great Spike can live? At least three hundred years. That will be bestowed upon us." Han Qingyu froze for a second. "Do you want to become one of the chosen? Over the past few days, I've learned a bit about your situation through Qi Shantong. You will be one of them."