Beyond the Zenith

The words weren’t said harshly, but they weren’t light either.

Regiment Commander Li Wangqiang had been leading a group of soldiers to push the rest of Dormitory 11 into the water. Overhearing this, he stopped and reached out a hand to hold back the soldiers behind him. After a moment’s thought, he didn’t continue forward. Instead, he took two steps back, bringing everyone with him.

It wasn’t unheard of for people to willingly step forward from within the Coalition ranks to identify themselves as Wipers. This wasn’t the first time.

On the lakeshore, Dormitory 11 turned back and froze for a moment, unable to help their disbelief. Then, one by one, their thoughts began to diverge.

“Grave Robber, don’t mess around. I know you’re scared of the front lines,” Liu Shiheng snapped, gesturing frantically as he glanced around at the people present, then at the regimental headquarters nearby. “I’m scared too, even more scared than you. But do you understand how much worse this is compared to the front lines? If admitting to this could’ve gotten me out of going, I would’ve done it myself. So, Grave Robber, take it back right now.”

The other six had their fixed eyes on Grave Robber’s face. Lai Shitou was smiling. The smile was a little forced and bitter, yet somehow sincere.

“I know,” he said.

That smile, combined with the tone of his apologies, was enough to convince some of them. Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei exchanged a glance. This was real.

Even his entire bearing had changed.

The Grave Robber they knew could never have been this calm about admitting to it. Even if he really were one of the Wipers, that Grave Robber would have been a mess, confessing and panicking and crying and explaining all at the same time.

Liu Shiheng didn’t seem to realize this yet. “No way, Grave Robber. You? A coward like you? You couldn’t purge a toilet, let alone Pure Purgatory. You? ‘Destroy the world?’ Come on.”

The Grave Robber in his mind’s eye was the one from their first night in Dormitory 11. He had been the only one to fold under Zhang Dao’an’s pressure and admit to being worthless, and had continued to be timid and self-deprecating in his day-to-day life ever since.

“If I were truly that much of a coward, how could I have spent half a month alone in the mountains, with wolves and wild boars around, looking for old graves in the dark to dig up?” Grave Robber asked.

Nobody had an answer.

“You have to understand, where I come from, there are plenty of ancient tombs, and just as many scary stories passed down about them,” Lai Shitou explained, calmly walking himself toward his own doom with a smile. “I actually don’t think the story they made up for me was very good. It was funny, though, and funny stories have a way of making people overlook a lot of details.

“Then there’s the supply depot. That wasn’t easy to find either. They gave me a rough area, and I still had a hard time locating it.”

The rest of Dormitory 11 felt their hearts sink at that.

Meanwhile, Regiment Commander Li went on high alert. This would be the second supply depot whose approximate location was known to Pure Purgatory. There had to be more to this than met the eye. Even someone like Lao Jian, a district platoon leader, only knew the location of one supply depot.

Still, Li Wangqiang gave them the space to finish talking.

“So you really are...?” Yang Qingbai asked, hesitating.

“I really am, Qingbai.” Lai Shitou grinned bitterly. “You see how awful your name is? Even I suspected you were one of us at first.”[1]

Lai Shitou laughed soundlessly. After a while, he finally walked toward Han Qingyu.

“You bastard, Little Qing... You just had to make yourself a worthy target. An A-rank recruit who also happened to be someone the organization wanted revenge against. If it weren’t for that, the one over there wouldn’t be dead, and I wouldn’t have been exposed this early,” Lai Shitou said plainly, now in full self-destruct mode. “Perhaps all of us could’ve been brothers a while longer.”

There was no talk about their past weeks together, of how kind, warm, and fun Dormitory 11 was. He didn’t mention how Miss Mira’s fruit was never given unfairly, nor did he say he had come to enjoy that kind of life, even a little.

“If I’d known from the start that you were that much worth killing, I probably would have done it. At night, in your sleep,” he admitted honestly.

The bluntness of his words sent a chill through the rest of them.

“You still had two days after we came back from the test. You had your chance,” Han Qingyu said, staring straight at Lai Shitou.

In truth, he had been warned about the danger and had been involved in the plan to lure them out the moment his test results were revealed.

“They told me the same thing. I just didn’t think I could take you in a fight. After seeing what you did in combat training, I was worried I’d tip you off.” He glanced back at the water. “The plan was for me to make my move in the water today, using the maneuvering device, once we were swimming. Miss Mira was too pretty, though, and none of us had the nerve to get in the water. Well, no, I guess that’s not true. You all were prepared from the beginning.”

Mira, standing at the back of the crowd, glanced at Lai Shitou and opened her mouth as if to speak, but couldn’t find the words.

“Alright.” Grave Robber waved his hand, turned, and walked toward Regiment Commander Li.

“Regardless of how things played out, the fact is, these past two days, you did have a chance to try!” Wen Jifei called from behind him.

Grave Robber’s footsteps stopped, his back still turned.

On Tradition Night, the veterans had grabbed him. It hadn’t been life-threatening. The others even laughed and joked about it at the time. Still, the fact that Han Qingyu had not hesitated to turn back for him lingered in his mind. That act had taken him aback, so much so that Han Qingyu had had to drag him the rest of the way out.

It had been a small moment, but the memory of Han Qingyu’s eyes in that moment, glimpsed by firelight in the dark, had made it impossible for him to go through with killing him.

He thought it over one more time, but in the end, chose not to say this. He was used to never acknowledging warmth.

“Is your real name Lai Shitou?” Han Qingyu asked one final question.

“It is.” Lai Shitou nodded with a smile, expression genuinely pleased. “And I really am from that place and lived that kind of life, for all those years. That kind of fate was all my own.”

“That still doesn’t mean you have to go and destroy humanity or whatever. That doesn’t mean you had to join Pure Purgatory.” Yang Qingbai looked pained.

“I don’t really understand it all myself.” Lai Shitou paused. “I used to have a little sister. I saved up money and sold blood to send her to middle school. I was so happy that I managed that for her.

“Then one day, she was just gone.

“They told me... They told me that the ones who bullied my sister were all underage, so nothing happened to them, but actually, one of them was already an adult. I knew it. His ID just said otherwise.

“I went to the lawyer, the principal, the village head, all of them. I got on my knees and begged. It didn’t help.

“There was nothing left to do. Her brother was the only one left willing to get justice for her.

“I killed them all. I thought I’d die too. I was ready for it. I didn’t, though. Someone helped me. He fed me, clothed me, taught me to read, taught me so many things, for two years.” Lai Shitou turned back and looked at Regiment Commander Li. “I’ll tell you everything else, but who he is? I’ll die before I tell you that. Not that it matters. You probably couldn’t find him anyway. He already left before I came here.”

With that, he walked toward the soldiers on his own.

“If you couldn’t bring yourself to kill Little Qing, and the others are dead already, then why couldn’t you just keep quiet as Regiment Commander Li said?” Wen Jifei shouted after him. “Forget the past and actually be one of the Coalition’s people? Why the hell did you have to step forward?!”

By then, Lai Shitou was already standing before the soldiers. Nobody moved. He lowered his head, silent for a few seconds, then raised his head to gaze up at the sky.

“You’re right. I just... Why should I fight for a world like this?”

Even if there are good people, even if there are feelings I like and things I’d be sorry to see destroyed, with the life I’ve experienced... Why should I fight for this world?

Lai Shitou was a person with no foothold in this world.

Pure Purgatory was always searching for people like that. They even intentionally created people like that.

And so, Grave Robber left with Regiment Commander Li’s men.

Afterward, Han Qingyu went to Li Wangqiang in private and asked if he would be put to death.

“No,” Regiment Commander Li said. “There will be interrogation, labor, and meals.”

***

So, the first to leave Dormitory 11 was Grave Robber.

The next was Yang Qingbai.

The Order Legion’s transport was the first to arrive. Yang Qingbai slung his bag onto his back, climbed aboard, and caught the apple Mira tossed to him through the window. He mimed taking a bite, but couldn’t bring himself to eat it. With a smile, he rubbed it against his palm and slipped it into his pocket.

“One day, I’ll come back and fly planes for all of you!” he shouted as the vehicle pulled away.

The rest of them were set to leave for the Ninth Army’s armoring-phase training base that afternoon. The veteran instructors wouldn’t be coming along, but Zhang Dao’an would, and so would Mira.

For lunch, Grandpa Geng cooked for every last recruit himself.

While the recruits ate, he limped from table to table, his gruff voice booming. “Get out of here, every last one of you. Good riddance. Next time you’re back, you can order whatever the hell you want.”

After the meal, Regiment Commander Li, the regiment lead advisor, and the others stood in front of the Three-Sided Building to see them off. Old Geng watched alone from a corner, waving.

Farewells were abundant as the recruits bade their goodbyes to the instructors, veterans, and female team leaders.

Rumor had it that in these final two days, some boys among the recruits had become men. Of course, those were only rumors.

“How come Lao Jian didn’t show up to see us off?” Wen Jifei boarded the bus, tossed his bag at Han Qingyu’s feet, and sat down. “That’s cold.”

Han Qingyu had been wondering the same thing. His bigger question, though, was why Plague Chicken was here at all.

“Wait, what are you doing here?” Han Qingyu asked, a mix of helplessness, bewilderment, and a little upset bleeding into his tone. He had spent the farewell trying hard to keep his emotions in check, and had felt much more reassured when Plague Chicken told him he’d probably join the Refusers.

Wen Jifei leaned all the way back in his seat and grinned proudly. “Pulled some strings and got myself a title. I’m an officer now. I’ll be managing you lot from here on.”

Their bus started moving. The big yellow dog chased after it.

Nobody dared make a sound.

From the front row of the bus, Zhang Dao’an leaned out the window and looked back. “34473, go home! Guard our home well!”

1. The “pure” in Pure Purgatory is 清白, which is the same as Qingbai’s name. ☜