Because it involved Major Qing, the photo development was expedited, and someone delivered the prints early the next morning.
Han Qingyu made a point of waking up early to wait outside and received the photos immediately. As he flipped through them briefly, he found that things were just as he had worried the night before.
Although most of the pictures turned out great, brimming with happiness and warmth without any issues, there was a small portion that was best kept from his parents for now.
During the photo shoot yesterday evening, none of them had truly succeeded in keeping their emotions completely hidden.
Perhaps in such a warm and tender atmosphere, people were especially powerless against their own inner feelings.
Azure was still doing everything possible to conceal the true state of humanity's dire situation. Naturally, Mother and Father Han remained unaware, but the others knew the truth all too well:
Tangtang wasn't here today. He should have been—he had always loved a lively crowd. Yet the reality was that Tangtang had stayed behind heavily wounded to cover the retreat and save others. He had been left alone on that hellish battlefield of Mars for twelve days now, without a single word, his life or death unknown.
And they themselves would likely have to leave soon.
This departure would undeniably be the darkest and most hopeless parting they had ever faced.
In all likelihood, once they left, they would never return.
In all likelihood, Father and Mother Han would stand side by side at the village entrance as they always had, waiting—except this time, the ones they awaited would never come back.
The glorious afterglow of the sunset and the cheerful mood in the courtyard had kept those poorly concealed emotions from being noticed in the moment. Even so, the camera had faithfully captured some of them.
In one print, Han Qingyu saw his own eyes abruptly reddening out of control, his lips clamped tightly together as he fought back tears.
In another, even Yang Qingbai, someone who rarely seemed sorrowful, had failed to maintain his customary grinning facade. His smile was bitter and filled with anxiety, his raised hand caught mid-motion as if shamelessly reaching to clasp Han Youshan's shoulder to offer comfort.
In yet another, if one looked closely, the smile on Rusty Sister's face could not conceal the sorrow in her eyes.
When Wen Jifei pretended to turn his head to tease Wu Xu, the expression on his face was terribly stiff. And Wu Xu's strained attempt at a smile to show he was happy looked completely off.
Before heading inside, Han Qingyu sorted through all the photographs. Because many of them had duplicates—some even with three or four copies—making selections wasn't too difficult.
Back home, Han Qingyu first gave the bulk of them to his parents, sitting with them to look through and discuss the pictures, watching their delighted faces for a good while.
Then, making an excuse to slip away, he privately divided the remaining photos among Wen Jifei, Wu Xu, Yang Qingbai, and Rusty Sister.
He kept quite a few for himself, and upon returning to his room, hid most of them beneath the compartment of his weapon box.
This was the second day at home. Aside from receiving the photos in the morning, there was practically nothing that required special attention.
In the morning, Han Qingyu joined his father in the fields for a while, planting vegetable seedlings and covering them with soil just like when he was small. Together, father and son planted a row of radishes and coriander.
At noon, he helped feed the stove fire while his mother cooked, listening as usual to her rambling on about how so-and-so among his old classmates and so-and-so's kid from the village were all married by now, with two or three children each; the eldest could already run errands to buy soy sauce, and some were even attending school.
With nothing to do in the afternoon, everyone went up the mountain together to pick fruit. Leaping and flying through the woods, they caught squirrels and small critters across the hills for little chats, and chased several wild boars across the slopes until the beasts questioned the very meaning of pig life.
Returning home in the evening, the consolidated briefing from Azure brought no unexpected surprises or ripples.
There was still no news from Mars. Azure Headquarters was concerned about alerting the Great Spike fleet, so they could not dispatch ships directly to Mars for reconnaissance just yet; they had to observe and wait a few more days.
The Martian evacuation fleet continued to drift aimlessly through the void of space, with no signs yet of any pursuing Great Spike fleets.
Over by the moon, the search had entered its second round, but nothing had turned up so far.
After dinner, when they played cards, Han Qingyu didn't join the table. His skill was only good enough to bully Rusty Sister and Tangtang. If anyone was to play with his parents while expertly controlling every win, loss, and margin, it had to be Wen Jifei and Yang Qingbai.
He slept soundly that night, just as before.
The next day, Han Qingyu didn't get up to wash until around ten o'clock.
Day three at home.
Aside from Rusty Sister needing to get up early for an examination and treatment, there didn't seem to be anything else to do. It would likely be another leisurely, peaceful day like yesterday.
However, at eleven o'clock, just as the Hans were preparing lunch, Lao Jian the Blood Calabash Baby showed up out of the blue.
He hadn't come alone, either; he had brought his wife and children—a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son.
In truth, ever since those earlier years, Father and Mother Han had harbored quite a few grievances against Lao Jian. Whenever they met, they would at least greet him with cold faces and a few sarcastic jabs before finally settling down to talk, eat, and drink.
This time was different: his wife had come along. Father Han figured he couldn't very well humiliate a grown man in front of his wife.
Moreover, Lao Jian had brought his two little tots.
A four-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy were at the peak of being lively, adorable, and endearing. Add to that the good upbringing given by the couple, and the moment their sweet little mouths spoke, Father and Mother Han completely melted.
And not just them; the truth was that Yang Qingbai, Wen Jifei, Han Qingyu, and Rusty Sister couldn't resist either. Throughout the entire day, apart from chatting with Lao Jian and his wife over meals, all their time revolved around the two little kids.
Even Wu Xu stayed by their side the whole time, watching, instead of quietly finding a place to train or sit alone as he usually did when there was nothing to do.
For the entire afternoon, three combatants beyond the super level, plus one Grand Chief of Staff and the God of Pilots, wholeheartedly accompanied the two youngsters up the mountain to pick fruit, catch squirrels, and catch birds, then waded into the river to catch fish and crabs.
Lao Jian and his wife, along with Father and Mother Han, simply followed along, watching and laughing.
While catching fish, things didn't go smoothly at first, and Wu Xu almost quietly prepared to blast a deep pool with a strike of his staff. Fortunately, Mother Han caught him in time, warning him that blast fishing was forbidden because it was illegal.
And so it went until evening. By the time they returned, both little kids had fallen asleep from exhaustion, and everyone finally had a quiet moment again.
"Take a walk together?" Lao Jian—the only one in the family who held zero status all day—walked over and asked Han Qingyu of his own accord.
Han Qingyu looked at him and nodded.
Stepping outside, neither spoke, but with tacit understanding, their footsteps chose the same path, strolling slowly along the mountain trail at the edge of the village leading toward the neighboring settlement.
Beneath the setting sun, they chatted idly as they walked, discussing Lao Jian's recent circumstances and the state of the Huaxia Front's grassroots units... Before long, the two arrived outside a stretch of woods between the two villages.
Han Qingyu stopped.
Lao Jian stopped as well. He turned toward the woods, his gaze traveling from the edge deep into the trees, settling on what appeared to be a naturally formed clearing.
In fact, it wasn't a clearing, and it certainly hadn't formed naturally.
It only looked that way because all the ancient trees there had once been completely destroyed, and the trees and vegetation that regrew later, lacking years of growth, were noticeably shorter than those surrounding them.
They stood there in silence, watching for a little while...
"Where the dream began."
Lao Jian suddenly spoke up, his voice neither fast nor slow, tinged with wistful emotion and a faint trace of pride.
Chapter 962