Beyond the Zenith

Although Wen Jifei’s right hand was wrapped in bandages, his left hand was perfectly fine. Despite this, the others in the equipment hall still brought him food, fussing over him and feeding him.

Meanwhile, Han Qingyu sat alone in a corner of the noisy, bustling mess hall, both arms numb and limp on the table as if detached from his body. He had no choice but to bury his face directly into the bowl to eat, getting oil and grains of rice stuck to his cheeks.

“If I helped feed you, how much would you pay me in energy cores? How about one core for every three meals?” A vaguely familiar voice came from behind him.

Han Qingyu turned his head to see Wan Xiujing standing there with a large white porcelain pot.

The girl had done some asking around after their last encounter and learned that this guy already had a Silver Azure Guardian Medal to his name, and would likely be getting a Gold Medal soon. Basically, she viewed him as a walking pile of energy cores, a super source-wielder.

“You wish,” Han Qingyu mumbled before turning back and shoving his face into the bowl again.

Wan Xiujing had been about to laugh at the grain of rice on his nose, but his reply had her small nose wrinkling instead. “Why are you being so rude? As if I’d want to do something that gross anyway. Hmph. Tomorrow you’ll get hit so hard you won’t be able to bend your neck.”

With that, the girl spun on her heel and marched off with the porcelain pot, chin raised as her footsteps thudded loudly.

Quiet laughter rippled around them.

Some of the female soldiers probably wouldn’t have minded helping if the person in need were just an ordinary fellow recruit. However, Han Qingyu’s reputation had them feeling too self-conscious to approach him in front of the crowd.

Han Qingyu struggled through the rest of his meal, then went to the washbasins and used his face to push the faucet open. After clumsily rinsing his face and mouth, he used his face to turn the faucet off again.

The crowd watched on in pity. They seemed to find his situation far more pathetic than he did.

Han Qingyu shuffled back to his dormitory one stiff, halting step at a time and slept through the night.

The next day, he was back in full, energetic form for training.

After practice, the exhausted recruits sat under the trees at the edge of the training ground, chatting.

“What a terrifying constitution.”

“Well, he does have those bonus energy cores from before. He can use them separately to nourish his body.”

On the training ground, Wan Xiujing was holding out her hand toward Han Qingyu. “Where’s your energy core?”

“I didn’t bring it,” Han Qingyu flatly replied.

“You didn’t bring it?!” Wan Xiujing glared, failing to strike fear in the way she intended.

“Based on what I know of you, I’m worried that you’ll stop putting in effort if I pay on the second day,” Han Qingyu said seriously. “I need to observe you for a while longer.”

Wan Xiujing was speechless.

“It’s not like I’m going anywhere, right?” Han Qingyu added. “There’s still almost a month left in the recruit training period.”

Wanting to avoid a mob of spectators like before, this time Han Qingyu had preemptively filed a request to move the session to the sparring hall and didn’t allow an audience inside.

A short fifteen minutes later, S-19 and the girl walked calmly out the main doors. A cat, perched on a high windowsill, leaped down into S-19’s arms, and all three departed together.

Then, roughly another ten or fifteen minutes later, Han Qingyu half-crawled, half-rolled out the side door.

Days three, four, and five passed.

Wan Xiujing still had yet to receive her energy core. Meanwhile, S-19 appeared to be enjoying these sparring sessions more and more, though this could perhaps be attributed to it developing a growing taste for beating people up.

During this stretch, Lao Jian shamelessly barged in to watch twice. As he was the head instructor, Han Qingyu had no authority to stop him. Occasionally, other officers also showed up unannounced and sat in the stands without a word. Han Qingyu couldn’t say anything about that either.

Lao Jian sat in his office, chatting on a call with Regiment Commander Li. “I’ve known about that kid’s tenacity for a while. His rate of improvement every single day, though, is genuinely frightening.”

Li Wangqiang’s hearty, satisfied laughter came through the phone.

“There’s something else, though. Yesterday and today, while he was sparring, a few unfamiliar faces showed up in the hall. They looked like they had just come in from the front lines.” Lao Jian added seriously.

The laughter on the other end stopped.

“One of them... I think I’ve seen them before. If I’m not mistaken, even the Gold Erasers from ‌Regiment 402 have sent someone,” Lao Jian continued. “I didn’t notice anyone from the White Erasers, but they’ve almost certainly come to take a look too.”

There were a total of four Color Eraser platoons in the Ninth Army’s fifty-year history. Of those, two still existed: the Gold Erasers and White Erasers.

One provision in the Coalition’s rules for recruit graduation stated that district platoons ranked in the top twenty of the previous year’s all-army standings could recruit new members regardless of division or regiment assignments. This essentially meant they could invite outstanding recruits from other regiments.

While the process of joining a platoon technically involved mutual selection, nobody in their right mind would turn down an offer from a Color Eraser platoon. It meant better safety, more learning opportunities, greater glory, and easier access to energy core rewards.

Granted, if a recruit joined a platoon under a different division or regiment, the military would ‌recommend that they return to their original regiment to form their own platoon if they ever became a platoon leader. The idea was to raise the army’s overall strength.

In practice, though, loyalties tended to shift after years away. There was the possibility that the individual would not even want to return, in which case there were always excuses and workarounds to be found.

If that person had the potential to form the next Color Erasers, the housing division commander would even step in and personally haggle with army command to keep them there.

Lao Jian and Li Wangqiang both fell silent. It had been so long since the 425th Regiment had faced this kind of situation that they had unconsciously overlooked the possibility.

“Well... you’re there, aren’t you?” Li Wangqiang said nervously. “Your relationship with the kid...”

“I’m half an enemy to him,” Lao Jian said bitterly. “The kid is especially filial, so it can’t be helped that he’s holding a grudge against me.”

“Huh?! Then what do we do?” Li Wangqiang panicked.

The source of his troubles at this moment was also the origin of his earlier delight. Han Qingyu’s performance during the recruit period had simply been too outstanding.

Lao Jian thought for a moment. “How about sending Mira? Isn’t she due to be promoted to platoon leader this year?”

“No.” Despite it being a private phone call between just the two of them, Li Wangqiang lowered his voice, as though confessing something he wasn’t comfortable saying aloud. “Army command denied it again.”

“What?”

“When they bumped her up to first lieutenant, part of that was meant as a pre-emptive consolation... I’ve known for a few days now, but I’ve been sitting on it. I just don’t know how to break it to Mira.”

***

After the sixth day of training, Han Qingyu dragged himself back to the dorms like a wounded dog once again.

Their dormitory this time was number twenty-two. While their new dorm number was exactly double what it had been back at the regimental base, only half of their original group remained, with others like He Tangtang supplementing the losses.

Of their original dormmates, one had died at District 1123; Grave Robber, Lai Shitou, had vanished without a trace; and some others had joined different parts of the Coalition.

When Han Qingyu arrived, the others were reading a letter from Yang Qingbai, who had gone to the Order Legion.

In the letter, he said he turned out to be a natural at driving and had been selected for flight training mere days after arriving at the Order Legion.

If he performed well, he’d most likely be sent to the Tenth Army as part of the air combat reserve to become a “fledgling eagle.” Perhaps he would one day fly a source energy warship and carry them all out beyond the zenith.

At the very end of the letter, Yang Qingbai wrote:

I don’t know why, but even though we weren’t together for very long, I really miss you guys.Maybe it’s because we can lose our lives at any moment. I think it’s incredibly rare in this place to start off meeting people you believe in like that, people you hope to fight alongside and survive with.