Trench: Did you buy my gun back? How much was it? I'll transfer the money to you!
Chen Ge: Of course I bought it. Twenty thousand dollars.
Trench: Did you hold a gun to the seller's head to talk him down?
Chen Ge: That's the friends-and-family rate!
Trench: I don't believe you. An MK23 in such good condition with the full military paperwork, the original SOCOM factory hard case, manual, and spare parts would sell for at least around thirty grand. Tell me the truth—how much was it?
Trench clearly assumed Chen Ge was lowballing the figure by ten thousand.
Chen Ge was utterly speechless. When he paid last night, Thunderstone really had charged only twenty grand for the MK23. He had taken twenty percent off everything from his cost price, refused to take a single penny more, and had even thrown in a pair of Gatorz Magnum titanium sunglasses.
In Thunderstone's words, it was a meeting gift for a young brother.
Chen Ge: I swear, if I'm lying to you, I'll go limp forever!
Trench: Uh... fine! What does this acquaintance of yours do? How did he get his hands on an out-of-print pistol like that?
Chen Ge: Not telling. Wait till I take a dump, and I'll bring it over.
Trench: You're disgusting! Remember to wash your hands.
Chen Ge chuckled. Just as he was about to scroll through some short videos, Lightbulb called.
"Sledgehammer, I don't want to go to that medal ceremony! Go find Trench and back me up. Tell him I've got a terrible internal injury and need to rest in bed!"
Even through the phone, Chen Ge could hear Lightbulb's intense reluctance to attend the ceremony; every single cell in his body was screaming in refusal.
Evidently, he was one of the seven who had asked for leave.
Chen Ge said smugly, "Sorry, but I already took sick leave. Hahaha."
"Holy shit! How come you got leave and I didn't? That's not fair!"
Lightbulb was furious. The sounds of him punching the bed and thrashing around came through the speaker.
Chen Ge pulled the phone slightly away from his ear, his face scrunching into the classic old-man-looking-at-a-subway-meme grimace.
A grown-ass man throwing a tantrum on his bed—gross.
"Shut up. I'm actually sick..."
"Hahaha, you? Sick?" Lightbulb gave an angry scoff, dripping with sarcasm. "You drank four bottles of whiskey, two bottles of vodka, and eighteen cans of beer last night. What, do you have alcohol poisoning?"
"Pretty much. Either way, I'm on sick leave. You guys go pick up the Cook's medals. Remember to take a few pictures for me."
As Chen Ge said it, it occurred to him that if he put a Platinum Star Medal up for sale on the Chinese internet, it would probably fetch a pretty penny.
Each recipient was awarded two Platinum Star Medals: a ceremonial edition made of real platinum, which held the highest collector value, and a stainless-steel everyday wear edition featuring the same design, with the word *Герой*—Hero—engraved on the back.
Before transmigrating, he remembered that prior to Wagner being split up and absorbed, only twenty-six Platinum Star Medals had ever been issued, four of them posthumously.
This time, forty-three were being handed out at once. The root cause was his own arrival, which had shifted the course of the Battle of Bakhmut.
Of course, it was only a minor deviation; the overall trajectory would not change drastically.
On the Russo-Ukrainian battlefield, short of Homelander himself showing up to turn the tide single-handedly, Chen Ge and the Falcon Hunting Team could at most do what they had done during Operation Late-Night Snack: assist the main forces in taking the Klishchiivka Heights ahead of schedule and accelerating the encirclement of Bakhmut's southern wing.
He had never intended to go all out anyway. Keeping a low profile was far wiser; he adamantly refused to stick his neck out.
As the old sayings went: the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, and the tallest tree in the forest is the first to be felled by the wind.
"By the way, bring my medal back with you. Thanks."
"Not a chance! Fuck off!" Lightbulb roared in resentment, then hung up.
Chen Ge smiled, browsed the trending news for a few minutes, flushed the toilet, washed up, and changed his clothes. Carrying the MK23 inside a plastic bag, he headed out, climbed up to the sixth floor, and knocked on the door of Room 601.
*Creak.* Trench opened the door, bare-chested. Looking at the scars covering Trench's upper torso, goosebumps erupted across Chen Ge's skin.
The most horrifying was a centipede-like scar on his abdomen, about ten centimeters long. Hailstone had mentioned that back in 2011, during a border raid against a terrorist cell, Trench had been slashed open by a tactical fixed blade. His intestines had spilled out, but without batting an eye, he shoved them back in and held on until the combat medic arrived.
Chen Ge sighed with genuine admiration. "It's a miracle you've stayed alive this long."
Trench did not reply. He reached out, took the heavy bag from Chen Ge's hands, turned around, and walked briskly into the room to set it on the bed. He pulled out an Eagle Industries soft tactical case in woodland camouflage—an exceptionally rare find.
Unzipping the full-length metal zipper, the left side revealed a dedicated pistol sleeve secured by retaining straps alongside two magazine pouches, each holding an original ten-round factory magazine.
The right side housed dedicated pockets for a suppressor and a LAM laser aiming module.
On the front was a transparent document pouch containing the manuals, certificate of compliance, and an external ID tag slot.
Trench ripped open the Velcro straps and lifted the pistol into both hands. Chen Ge was once again greeted by that familiar, lovesick expression.
Accustomed to it by now, Chen Ge walked over to the window, sank into an armchair, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.
Trench spent a full twenty minutes marveling over the weapon before finally putting it back into the soft case. He pulled on a gray short-sleeved shirt, grabbed two bottles of beer, sat down across from Chen Ge, and handed one over.
"The money's already in your TBC account. And there's something else you should know: while working in Ukraine, salaries and bonuses are paid entirely in cash rubles."
Georgia's TBC Bank was one of the Wagner mercenaries' favorites. Opening an account was remarkably easy, the barrier to entry was low, it handled multiple currencies, and it didn't scrutinize the origin of funds—making it the darling of mercenaries and digital nomads alike.
Chen Ge held accounts with quite a few banks: Sberbank, VTB, and Tinkoff in Russia, as well as NBD and ADIB in the United Arab Emirates.
He didn't have much money, but he certainly had plenty of bank accounts.
Working in Syria, pay was wired to the TBC account. Transferred back to the Ukrainian front, it was paid in cash rubles.
It was an absolute nuisance.
He hated rubles and favored the green... well, actually, the large-denomination US dollar bills circulating now were a mix of blue-green and green rather than purely green.
He loved US dollars above all else, followed by euros, RMB, and British pounds.
"Can't they just pay in dollars directly?"
Trench shook his head, popped open his beer, took a couple of swigs, then leaned forward to pluck a cigarette from the pack Chen Ge had left on the table and lit it.
"Doubtful. Can't you just exchange them for dollars and deposit them in TBC?"
Chen Ge shrugged, popped open his beer, and raised it toward Trench in a toast.
"Are the brothers' remains all prepared?"
"Yeah. We were at it until four this morning. They'll be loaded onto the trucks at ten tonight. Me, Thunder, Ice Man, and Carrier Pigeon will escort them home."
Trench let out a sigh, tilted his head back, and finished the rest of his beer in one gulp. Wiping his mouth, he said, "Hailstone starts selecting new recruits tomorrow. You... forget it. You don't like showing your face, so I won't put you through that."
Trench had originally intended for Chen Ge to assist Hailstone in vetting the newcomers, but taking Chen Ge's temperament into account, he dropped the idea.
Forcing him to go would only make things harder for Hailstone. Seeing Chen Ge's reluctant, impatient demeanor, Hailstone would probably end up punching him.
"You truly know me, Captain!"
What Chen Ge despised most was screening recruits. Seeing idiots who possessed minimal skill, swaggered around arrogantly, and spat racist bullshit made him thoroughly disgusted, to the point where he could barely resist beating them senseless.
"I really can't handle that kind of work. Have Big Bear, Lightbulb, Manhole Cover, and Night Cat help out instead. They've got the experience."
"By the way, are we expanding with this reinforcement wave? Or staying under a hundred men?"
Trench furrowed his brows, speaking with a trace of irritation. "Command has ordered an expansion for Falcon. We're selecting four hundred men from the fourteen assault detachments on the Bakhmut front to expand into a Special Assault Battalion."
Chen Ge's heart tightened. Adding so many men meant the Falcon Hunting Team's tactical role would shift. In all likelihood, they would be assigned to heavy assault tasks.
Yet on second thought, conventional assault operations might actually be just a tiny bit safer than special operations.
What concerned him most was whether new personnel would be shoved into the Fire Support Team. After all, he detested fighting side by side with people he didn't know.
"Is the Fire Support Team expanding too?"
Trench shot Chen Ge a meaningful look, flicked his cigarette ash, and said calmly, "No. You guys remain a five-man team assigned to Company 1. Hailstone will lead Company 1, and I'll command the other companies."
Chen Ge felt a pang of guilt, his thoughts racing. Had Trench figured out that they had arranged for past additions to the Fire Support Team to suffer 'plausible combat casualties'?
He wasn't wrong. Trench had indeed noticed the anomaly.
In March and June of that year, three new members had been added to the Fire Support Team on two separate occasions. Every single one had been killed within a month, while Chen Ge and his four guys emerged completely unscathed. It was hard not to suspect foul play.
Yet Trench hadn't made an issue of it. He understood Chen Ge's character well; anyone who earned Chen Ge's disgust was certainly no saint.
"Alright. Weren't you complaining of a headache? Go back and get some rest. I have things to attend to."
Chen Ge picked up the large black bag by his feet and handed it to Trench.
"A present for your thirty-ninth birthday."
Trench didn't bother with polite refusals. He took it, opened it up, and saw a Carinthia MIG 4.0 cold-weather jacket in Multicam alongside a pair of SOREL Caribou snow boots.
Winter was fast approaching, making cold-weather gear the most practical gift, and it wasn't overly expensive either—around six hundred dollars total.
Trench stood up to try on the jacket. It fit like a glove.
"Thanks. I really like it. How did you know my size?"
"I already knew your boot size. For the jacket, I had Night Cat try it on—he's about the same height and build as you."
Chapter 38