Beyond the Zenith

The scenery outside the train window shifted constantly. The train carried away more than just home along its stretching rails. It also carried with it the possibility of a once-quiet life.

Somewhere along the journey, for a second or two, Han Qingyu had considered saying something to Wen Jifei. Something like, “I’ll do everything I can to bring you home alive.”

In the end, he didn’t. For one thing, it would have sounded forced; for another, he had no confidence to back it up.

He didn’t even know how many days he himself had left to live.

The truth was, even though he had reasoned that he had a unique constitution when it came to absorbing and integrating source energy, he was still extremely aware that one blade was all it would take when it came down to it.

Even an ordinary blade would be enough, let alone the black-armored robots’ pillar swords.

Han Qingyu had seen one of those things before. The whole structure was like a folded, oversized black umbrella, except with no hook on the grip and a tip like a spear point.

The body of the blade also had a segmented structure resembling an umbrella’s panels, except that every crease in the layered folds was a cutting edge curling outward.

History textbooks from high school had a phrase for especially brutal battles: meat grinder. Such words or statistics had always been too abstract for Han Qingyu to fully grasp, but now he understood, viscerally, that each one of those pillar swords was exactly that: a meat grinder.

Lao Jian had once mentioned to Han Qingyu that his tumbling down and hitting the ground like a kicked duck had actually not been from taking a hit, but from successfully blocking a lateral sweep from a pillar sword head-on with his blade.

That was the result of him blocking it! What would have happened if he hadn’t?

A weight sat heavily in Han Qingyu’s chest.

By the time he came back to his senses, Wen Jifei had already struck up a conversation with the people in the carriage.

“So, back in the first year of high school, during military training, we were doing a sing-off competition when a snake suddenly crawled out from the flower bed in the drill ground,” Wen Jifei said animatedly, hands waving around. “You know what happened? Those who saw it said it had a triangular head and was as thick as a wrist. Teachers and students all panicked.

“And then we all watched as one figure quietly walked into the flower bed, poked around for a bit, and pulled the snake out.

“The teachers were nearly scared to tears. They kept saying ‘put it down, put it down!’ but this person just smiled and said, ‘It’s a viper, it’s extremely venomous, let me take care of it.’ That’s how I met Little Qing.

“Nobody stopped him. Not even the school gatekeeper thought to. In the end, he carried the snake out of the school with one hand and found a restaurant to sell it to.

“It wasn’t until the next day that the school finally came to its senses. They hauled Little Qing in for a talking-to and gave him a formal warning, then privately rewarded him twenty yuan.”

Han Qingyu had no idea how it had started or how the conversation had gotten going, or why it had turned to such an unremarkable topic, but everyone within sight, including the one who had been curled up in his seat, shaking and weeping just a little while ago, was now listening to Wen Jifei talk.

The scene was, in a strange way, remarkable.

Only one person in the entire carriage was in high spirits and talking endlessly. That same person was also the only one who still did not know what he was about to face.

Before long, someone quietly told him.

The front and rear doors of the carriage were shut. Everyone inside was one of their own, and Lao Jian was not there. The Azure Coalition soldier did not stop them.

Wen Jifei listened blankly. Then he laughed. “Mecha?”

Nobody answered him.

“They’re on Gigatron’s side? So then what about our side?” he quipped.

Wen Jifei had always been good at both throwing out jokes and catching them in equal measure. He was clearly alluding to Optimum Pride’s bunch with his question.

He laughed at his own joke. He laughed and laughed, then his expression gradually shifted. The warmth cooled to numbness, then bewilderment, and finally to a faint but unmistakable creep of disbelief and dread.

Not a single other person was laughing with him. Everyone was watching him. The air was wrapped in a thick, suffocating silence, the kind with a tangible weight.

Wen Jifei hesitantly turned his questioning gaze to each person in front of him in turn. “We—”

“We,” started the one soldier in the carriage who had actually seen the battlefield, voice laden with sincerity and a certain weariness, “go in with blades and hack at them.”

Wen Jifei turned to look at him.

“What about guns?”

“They don’t do any damage. They say that gunpowder can’t drive dead-iron bullets because the energy gets absorbed, and ordinary bullets don’t penetrate. We also don’t have enough dead iron anyway. I don’t fully understand it myself,” the soldier said bluntly.

This guy was not the type to joke around. Wen Jifei had already clocked that. The soldier’s expression only confirmed it.

Rising from his seat, Wen Jifei glanced around. Then, turning to find Han Qingyu sitting in the corner, he fixed his gaze on him.

Han Qingyu met his eyes and gave a slow nod.

“Fuck.” Wen Jifei dropped back into his seat, shook his head, then pressed both hands over his face and rubbed hard, falling silent.

He wasn’t foolish. He had already sensed early on that this unit was unusual, that there was danger. Although he had formed plenty of guesses, the final truth had still blown completely past anything he could have possibly imagined.

Someone tried to offer a few words of comfort, but Han Qingyu stopped them with a shake of his head.

“Those things aren’t actually robots, by the way. Someone at the unit will explain what they specifically are once you get there,” the honest soldier added. “In any case, by our habit, we call them Sharpies.”

There was silence.

Lao Jian came back. Although he didn’t say anything, the earlier atmosphere in the carriage seemed to return with him, and things went back to the way they were before, with everyone silent in their own thoughts.

Han Qingyu didn’t know whether all the new recruits had been coerced onto this train, but even if it hadn’t been Lao Jian, there would likely have been someone similar, and the situation wouldn’t have been much different.

Over the next two days and three nights, aside from washing up, eating, drinking, relieving himself, and sleeping, Han Qingyu did nothing but sit quietly and watch the sunrise and sunset pass beyond the train window.

He didn’t even try to comfort or guide Wen Jifei.

No matter how close the friendship or how deep the concern, this first step—acceptance—had to be completed by Wen Jifei alone. Otherwise, in the future, he would suffer an even worse psychological ordeal.

Han Qingyu became an observer. Over those two days and three nights, he watched firsthand as Wen Jifei came back to life.

Flying Plague Chicken was amazingly resilient.

As he gradually came back, he also became his old self again. He started to seek people out to talk to, letting his curiosity overtake his fear of death.

Han Qingyu did more than breathe a sigh of relief. Something like respect, or even admiration, bloomed within him.

Unfortunately, Car 14 never got to relive those spirited moments before Wen Jifei found out. Wen Jifei had barely recovered from the shock and hadn’t had enough time to return to his full form yet before they arrived.

At around four in the morning after the third night, the train slowly came to a stop at a small, remote station in the northwest. Another officer boarded.

Lao Jian rose and shook the officer’s hand, then said, “Time to get off.”

Not everyone in the carriage disembarked. Lao Jian called names. Out of ten people, only four followed him off, including Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei.

A military truck with a canvas canopy was parked outside the station. They climbed in.

“Get some more sleep,” Lao Jian advised. “We’re still a long way out.”