Beyond the Zenith

In the span of just over ten minutes, Han Qingyu, a young man who had twice failed the Gaokao, stood at the third great crossroads of his life and gave what was perhaps the best performance he had ever managed, the finest answer he had ever written.

And so, he had narrowly escaped death and won himself another way forward.

Yet the outcome was still cause for dread and despair. His looming future had already been laid out before his eyes.

Corpses. The wounded. Combat. A powerful, unfathomable enemy... All of it left his heart dark and hollow.

Han Qingyu forced himself to redirect his thoughts and attention toward the moving figures around him. They were busy, working quickly to pack the spoils of war into bags made of some strange material.

Han Qingyu pondered quietly, Most of the people here are still alive. There’s a chance of surviving this. As long as there’s a chance, I have to fight for it. Fight to live. If I do, I can visit home. I can see Mom and Dad again. If this is inevitable, I suppose I could try to get some benefits for myself.

Lao Jian sat on the ground, smoking and coughing intermittently. Seeing Han Qingyu clearly struggling with fear before him, he called out with a grin, “What’s the matter? Did you never write those essays as a kid, never daydream about growing up to be a soldier, carrying a rifle, defending your home, protecting the peace, and dying a hero?”

He seemed to have already started treating Han Qingyu as one of his own soldiers.

“I did. But I was young then, and I didn’t know any better. Once I grew up, I knew I wasn’t cut out for it at all,” Han Qingyu said earnestly.

This instinctive, futile protest drew a round of good-natured laughter from several people nearby.

“Right now, I’m getting ready to take the college entrance exam next year. I’d rather be a scientist. I think that contributes just as much to the country and the world. And, well, my grades are very good.” Han Qingyu pressed on, not above lying to Lao Jian’s face.

This was grounded in the fact that he had, by now, gotten a fairly good read on Lao Jian’s temperament and knew that pushing back like this posed no real danger.

“You want to go to university? That’s good.” Lao Jian nodded with a smile, his expression carrying a hint of amusement. “You’ve come to the right place, then. I used to be a university professor. I’ll teach you myself when the time comes.”

Han Qingyu was caught off guard. He’d been wondering if presenting himself as a would-be college student and future scientist had even a thousandth of a chance of changing this man’s mind, or at least convincing him to offer some better alternative.

Yet, this man, the very same man who had hacked apart a metal hull with a blade, was claiming that he used to be a university professor.

“What, you don’t believe me? I taught physics. Some of my former students are right here in front of you.” Lao Jian gestured around the scene. “There are several university graduates among us.”

Han Qingyu stood in stunned silence. Shockingly, he believed Lao Jian.

Though Lao Jian clearly had the face of a battle-worn old soldier, weathered and steeped in the smell of smoke, Han Qingyu believed him all the same, and without difficulty.

“It’s been nearly ten years now.” Lao Jian himself seemed to feel something, pointing at himself and then looking up at the night sky as he spoke.

Han Qingyu asked, “So you just... vanished? What did everyone else think happened?”

“It wasn’t sudden. Everyone thought I’d resigned and went abroad.”

Han Qingyu hesitated. “Did you—”

“It was voluntary.” Lao Jian answered Han Qingyu’s unspoken question before he could finish. “The great majority of people here joined of their own free will.”

Pointing at the “extraterrestrial robot” wreckage, now almost entirely packed away, he explained, “These things are rarely seen. They almost never appear directly in places where people live and move around. We usually have ways to cover things up. This incident was an accident. You were just unlucky.”

Unlucky. That was a breezy way of summarizing a turning point in a person’s fate, but then again, when you stopped to think about it, wasn’t that the truth of so many things in life?

There was no time to think about what “voluntary” meant as a process, and no time for grievance.

“So what exactly are those things?” Han Qingyu pressed.

Lao Jian’s gaze sharpened at once. “You’ll find out after you’re in the unit.”

“Oh. All right.”

A platoon member walked over and whispered to Lao Jian, “Platoon Leader Lao, the scene has been fully cleared.”

By this point, less than forty minutes had passed since the spindle-shaped aircraft touched down.

“Good. Call all the lookouts in the perimeter back. Get ready to move out,” Lao Jian ordered, rising to his feet before turning to look at Han Qingyu again.

Han Qingyu was lost in thought. He stood there with his head tilted to one side, turning things over in his mind.

The lookouts. So if I had actually gone through with it earlier, grabbed Lao Jian by the throat and tried to run... no matter what happened, no matter what I did, there would have been no way out. The result would have been...

He was privately glad about how things turned out.

Lao Jian finished his preparations to move out and stood waiting. “Do you have any more questions?”

“C-can I go home first?” Han Qingyu asked, turning to look at him.

“Of course. You’re a smart kid and level-headed enough. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t want you.”

The easy immediacy of the reply surprised Han Qingyu.

Lao Jian continued, “Tomorrow... actually, make it the day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow at noon, the relevant local authorities will come to your house with a notice. I’ll come along to collect you. They won’t know the specifics. As far as they’re concerned, you just have connections up the chain. Remember not to let anything slip.

“You’ll be under special enlistment, and you’ll have all the proper paperwork and procedures. As long as you don’t say a word, no one is going to think anything is wrong.

“And remember this well. You cannot tell anyone. Not a single word. If even a hint of this gets out, it won’t just be you who dies. Think about your family. Don’t get them killed. Don’t get any clever ideas either. Think it through carefully. Do you really believe you could run and get away?” Lao Jian fixed Han Qingyu with a sharp look.

Han Qingyu nodded in understanding.

By now, he had already given up on resisting. The other side was not merely terrifyingly powerful in the physical sense; they could even arrange his enlistment through proper official channels, as casually as if it were nothing. Han Qingyu, a country kid and a high school student, could not quite understand the implications behind this, but he knew enough to be afraid.

Lao Jian asked for his name, home address, and basic information. With that, the platoon prepared to move out, heading toward the mountains and forest.

After walking some distance, Lao Jian turned back to see Han Qingyu still rooted to the spot.

“Go on, then,” he prompted. “You can go home now.”

Han Qingyu didn’t move. It was as if he hadn’t even heard, still standing there, lost in thought.

Are we not done yet? Lao Jian smiled wryly to himself and stopped to wait. What on earth could this kid possibly still have to ask, or does he intend to try struggling a little more?

“Uh...” After a brief moment of hesitation, Han Qingyu finally asked,“Do we... get paid?”

Almost everyone present broke into a grin.

“Yes, and not badly either.” There was a bit more approval in Lao Jian’s eyes, and he continued warmly, “You’ll be able to send money home to your parents.”

“Good.” Han Qingyu nodded. “And if I die out there?”

“The typical treatment for those who died in the line of duty with commendation and compensation,” Lao Jian said evenly.

“How much would the compensation be?”

“Depends on the circumstances.”

“Could I get some of it in advance? My family is in a tough spot. We borrowed a lot to pay for my schooling. I was supposed to be going to university, and my parents only have me... And I just saved your life.”

Lao Jian paused. “How much are you after?”

“Two... five... ten thousand.”

“Quite the nerve on you, trying to hit ten thousand in one shot. You know how much ten thousand yuan is? You brat...” Lao Jian turned the matter over in his mind. “Even if we give the money to you, how will you explain it to your family? And how will your family explain it to outsiders?”

“Villagers don’t flaunt their wealth. We hurry to hide even the smallest bit of money. They won’t tell anyone. As for the excuse... You can say I’m a special talent, and since this is a special enlistment, we get extra money for our families.”

“You’re shameless,” scolded Lao Jian, though he smiled bitterly. “Fine. I’ll ask around when I get back. There’s no guarantee how much you’ll get.”

Han Qingyu’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, Platoon Leader Lao.”

That was what he had been mulling over earlier: What benefits could he still try to get now that things had already come to this?

At the very least, he wanted to leave some money behind for his parents.

***

That night, in the quiet twilight hours, a little mountain cove that had been bathed in moonlight for half the night was suddenly overtaken by a roaring storm of wind and rain.

Several sections of the long ridge at Fenglong Valley—that stretch of mountains said to resemble the spine of a crouching dragon—came crashing down in succession.

Fortunately, the collapse did not trigger a mudslide thanks to the layers of dense forest standing between the ridge and the village, so it did not cause any loss of life or property damage in the village below.

The men, women, and elderly of the village were startled from their sleep. They ran out of their houses and stood in the downpour, yelling at the mountain for a while before heading back inside and settling down again.

Han Qingyu had little room to be frightened, but that did not mean he slept peacefully either.

For him, that night held something far greater and far more terrible than a collapsing mountainside. Mere hours ago, his understanding of the world had been turned upside down. His life, his fate, the road ahead, and the future beyond it had all been irreversibly changed.