So, Did You Look or Not?

They just left? Left without so much as a greeting, just walked away like that?! "Am I really not pretty at all today?" "I put so much effort into dressing up!" The young lady liaison officer's outstretched hand hung in the air, frozen for about five seconds. Ahead, that pack of stinking men was already walking into the distance. The situation gave her the distinct impression of village ruffians who had caught wind of a pretty girl, gathered together to gawk, only to find she wasn't all that much after all, and then slouched off in disappointment. On the way back, heaven only knew what foul-mouthed mockery they were heaping on her. "Wait!" The rustle of footsteps crunched over layers of fallen leaves. Yang Tieyu ran with a light posture, but her stride was massive and she closed the distance at blistering speed, shouting, "Tang—Major General He Tangtang! The Great Kidney-Striker! The Spike-Eating Demon..." "So, who are you actually looking for?" He Tangtang turned around and asked. Yang Qingbai stopped alongside him. As for the other few, they kept their mouths shut as if bottling up their feelings, continuing forward without even glancing back. "You." Yang Tieyu braked mid-stride with a sideways lunge, carving a trench into the dirt like a heavy-duty truck. She drew herself upright, choked back her breath for a second, and then said, "So you're Major General He Tangtang! Out of all the masters in Stream Blades, you're the one I've always admired most." "Is that right? Heh." He Tangtang calmly rolled his eyes. "Yeah! And there's one other person I kind of admire, too." Yang Tieyu tilted her head to look at the backs of those bastards walking ahead, lowering her voice timidly. "Um... is there really no news at all about your Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu?" He Tangtang snapped, "None of your damn business." *Damn it all, do you have a death wish or something?* Fury flared inside Yang Tieyu. She clenched her fist, then slowly relaxed it. "Sigh, actually, I know why you're upset. You must all be worried sick about her, terribly heartbroken, right? Especially Major Qing." "Yeah, it's pretty heartbreaking," Yang Qingbai chimed in from the side. His expression briefly turned mournful before brightening into an easygoing smile. "Still, people have to look forward. Since our fate with Rusty Sister only stretched that far, everyone grieving for a couple of days is good enough..." "Two—two days?!" The lady liaison officer's voice shot up several octaves, sounding as though she was spoiling for a fight. "Yeah, how many days did you expect? We're all very busy people, all right?" Yang Qingbai said placidly. "Th-that's just you! Only a heartless, callous person like you could take it so lightly! Major Qing, Wu Xu, and Second Lieutenant Wen definitely aren't like that. They must be devastated—grieving constantly, sorrowful every single day!" "Truth be told, out of everyone, those three bounced back the fastest. As for Wu Xu, he has no emotions anyway. Plague Chicken is busy with a long-distance romance. And Qingzi has to get ready for a blind date." "..." The lady liaison officer was struck dumb. She turned her head aside, struck speechless, looking both heartbroken and incensed. "We're off then." Ignoring her, Yang Qingbai clapped He Tangtang on the shoulder and turned to walk on, calling over his shoulder, "By the way, you've got an interesting name." ... "Tieyu... iron rain, prone to rust... Yixiu. She can't possibly think she's clever, can she? Does she think this is funny?" Amused and annoyed in equal measure, Wen Jifei walked up beside Han Qingyu. "How about it? What are you feeling right now?" "Nothing," Han Qingyu said. His voice sounded somewhat brooding, yet carried an inexplicable sense of relief. ...Rewinding time to the polar battlefield last year... In that final strike where humanity's survival hung in the balance, hundreds of warriors had leaped from high above to slash at the Puta'er. Seeing Qingzi plummet through the air, Rusty Sister, clad in full iron armor, had been among the fastest to charge. Yet that was a Puta'er, after all. Even though the vast majority of its desperate, dying blow had been spent countering Ne head-on, its strike was not something an ordinary super-level combatant could easily withstand. What was worse, Rusty Sister had only just awakened from a coma. Her iron armor was already fractured, long teetering on the verge of shattering. Amid a deafening roar, the iron armor was hurled backward. The heavy dead iron caved in like a struck sheet of tin with a violent thud, followed immediately by the sharp, brittle snaps of fracturing metal. In her last flicker of consciousness, Rusty Sister felt she might be dying. She wasn't particularly afraid of death... What terrified her more was being seen. The armor was already shattered; once the force exerted on it dissipated, it would begin falling away from her body. *Whoosh!* Rusty Sister never saw what happened next; she had already passed out. Yet many people on the battlefield and watching through satellite feeds witnessed it, even if their view was fragmented and unclear. A single man: Major Qing. A single banner: the battle standard of Stream Blades. That figure, having just plummeted in a straight drop, was bathed in blood. With a warblade in his left hand and the banner in his right, he rose like an unfurling flag, rocketing straight toward the sky. Soaring alongside him was the gigantic, ethereal phantom of a red-and-gold flame dragon, ascending at blinding speed. "Major Qing is back to slay the Puta'er." That was what everyone thought. And from the visual at the time, that was indeed what it looked like. Amid the chaotic melee high in the sky, the warblade in Major Qing's left hand thrust clean and deep into the Puta'er's chest from below, plunging all the way to the hilt... At the exact same moment, amidst the mournful wail of a colossal dragon, the massive phantom of the flame dragon shattered and drifted away into nothingness. Through the haze of light and shadow across the sky... The warblade in his left hand remained lodged in the Puta'er's body. Releasing his grip, Han Qingyu leveraged the momentum to leap, his entire form arcing away as he snapped open the military standard with his right hand, sweeping sideways out of the frame. Many years ago, when Han Qingyu was still an Azure recruit and first learned that the sparring partner encased in iron was not a robot, but concealed a young girl, he had promised her: if she were ever on the brink of death, he would let her see what she looked like all grown up, and at the same time, he would never let anyone else lay eyes on her. Sometimes people might think that in the face of life and death, such things were not particularly important. But Rusty Sister had lived inside that iron armor since she was barely ten years old. If she thought it mattered, then it mattered. ...The blood-stained banner wrapped around the iron armor in midair. Han Qingyu scooped her horizontally into his arms against his chest. Falling. "When he hit the ground that day, Qingzi didn't even look human anymore. He stood there like a blood-drenched corpse, his mind clouded, looking around as if searching for something," Yang Qingbai recounted later. "I tried to step up and help, but he couldn't recognize me anymore. He roared to keep me away. He wouldn't let anyone get close, not until Plague Chicken arrived with Zhe Qiuhong and spoke softly to soothe him. "In the end, he carried Rusty Sister into the temporary medical tent with his own hands. His eyes were crusted shut with congealed blood, so he followed the sound of voices step by step until he laid her onto the operating table, and then collapsed right beside it." That was where Yang Qingbai's knowledge ended. Afterward, the tent was heavily cordoned off, barring anyone from approaching. ... When Han Qingyu groggily woke up on a makeshift hospital bed, Zhe Qiuhong glanced over at him from beside the operating table and said, "Rusty Sister really is beautiful, isn't she?" "Huh?" Han Qingyu seemed not to have heard clearly. "As a doctor and as a woman, that's the most perfect body I have ever seen." Zhe Qiuhong gestured toward the operating table. "Stop playing dumb. You saw it long before, didn't you? When you brought her in, the iron armor was already gone from her body." "No, I didn't notice back then." Han Qingyu turned his head, then shook it. "Then why not take a look right now? Don't worry. If you don't want to take responsibility, I won't tell Rusty Sister that you already saw everything." It was rare for Zhe Qiuhong to indulge in gossip like this. "Get lost!" Han Qingyu forced himself up, climbed out of bed, and dragged his heavy footsteps toward the tent entrance. Without looking back, he said, "Better yet, don't tell Rusty Sister that I carried her here. Otherwise, it'll be impossible to explain... Just say you found her on the ground. Tell her that when you picked her up, the armor was still on." "...Fine, if she manages to wake up," Zhe Qiuhong answered from behind him, caught between tears and laughter. ... "So, back then, did you actually look, or did you not?" When Wen Jifei asked this, the lady liaison officer calling herself Yang Tieyu was still trailing far behind them, pouting in irritation while quietly cursing certain people for being callous and heartless. Due to the looming threat of Ne and Nikola, Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu's survival and whereabouts were one of Azure's greatest post-Antarctic secrets. Aside from a death notice, not a single detail regarding her condition was permitted to be mentioned, even over satellite communications. A few days ago, when Rusty Sister finally woke from her uncertain coma, the Azure Board of Elders had sent a recommendation through Zhe Qiuhong: to use this opportunity to adopt a new identity and live under it for the time being. Rusty Sister had thought about it for two seconds and decided the idea was utterly delightful.