Beyond the Zenith

Coughing up blood was no big deal.

Han Qingyu once again sat alone in his corner of the mess hall, eating with his head in the bowl. It didn’t matter that he’d coughed up blood. His food situation hadn’t changed.

As He Tangtang had put it, “I’d take a blade for you, but there’s no way I’m feeding you.”

A person sat down across from him, and Han Qingyu looked up.

Lao Jian wore a stiff expression, spoon in hand. “I heard you coughed up blood while sparring today. If it’s serious, you should really get it checked out. Coughing up blood is...”

Han Qingyu didn’t register the words. His attention was fixed on the spoon.

“You...”

Lao Jian glanced down at the spoon with a pained expression. “I’m just an instructor looking after one of his recruits. That’s... that’s perfectly normal. Besides, you’re a soldier I personally brought into the Coalition.”

Han Qingyu finally understood the true meaning of horror. Goosebumps erupted across his entire body, and losing his appetite, he stood up and walked away.

By the time he got back to the dormitory, Lao Jian had also returned to his office and was on the phone with ‌Regiment 425 headquarters again.

“I’m completely out of ideas. I even listened to you and tried that disgusting stunt to build rapport. Regiment Commander, you need to think of something else, fast. I don’t know if the kid feels any loyalty to the 425th, but as far as I’m aware, I’m really just half an enemy to him. Plus, the kid’s painfully pragmatic. He only cares about practical things. It used to be money, but now it’s energy cores... and as far as energy cores go, we don’t have more than he does,” Lao Jian ranted, rambling on and on.

Regiment Commander Li Wangqiang quietly listened to him vent.

Fewer than twenty days remained until recruit graduation. The 425th’s greatest crisis amid the swirling undercurrents was the possibility that all this could come to naught, and that the dream of a new Color Eraser platoon would evaporate.

“Honestly,” Lao Jian continued after a moment of thought, “if I were a recruit about to leave camp, and the Gold Erasers came knocking—no, not even the Gold Erasers, just any platoon ranked in the top six—I wouldn’t even bother telling you before I left. The gap in environment and resources is just too large.”

There was a long silence on Li Wangqiang’s end.

“So... do we just let him go?” he finally asked, seeming to have struggled to get that question out.

It was Lao Jian’s turn to fall silent. He knew what this meant for his former platoon leader turned regiment commander.

Li Wangqiang was a twenty-six-year veteran of the 425th and had dreamed every night of seeing the regiment rise again under his watch. This year’s recruits had finally delivered that hope, only for it to be dangled out of reach.

“I don’t know either. Don’t ask me about this one, Regiment Commander,” Lao Jian eventually replied after a long pause. “As for Mira’s situation, should I tell her in the next few days? She shouldn’t have to find out directly from army command when they make the official announcement. That’d be even more disheartening.”

Regiment Commander Li hesitated briefly, then relented, “Alright.”

Meanwhile, Han Qingyu himself, the person at the center of all this turmoil, remained unaware that he was caught in these undercurrents. The combat training base had not breathed a word about post-graduation assignments to avoid affecting the recruits’ training mindset.

***

Day eight marked the start of the second weekly cycle of paid sparring with S-19.

Afternoon training that day wasn’t a combat exercise, so Wan Xiujing, her robot, and the cat arrived right at the end of the training session.

He Tangtang, Liu Shiheng, and a few others were just getting ready to leave when Wan Xiujing ran over.

“Hey, you guys, where’s the person you’re always with? Bluefish,”[1] she asked anxiously, unable to find Han Qingyu.

This was day eight, yet she still hadn’t gotten her energy core.

S-19 stepped sideways with a thud, blocking He Tangtang and the others, clearly ready for a fight.

Liu Shiheng couldn’t help but recall the state Han Qingyu came back in each day and, after estimating the combined strength of their little group, hastily explained, “Head Instructor Qi called him away a little while ago.”

Wan Xiujing relaxed a little at the realization that Bluefish wasn’t skipping out on purpose. “Will he be back later?”

“No idea. Probably not in time. Dinner’s soon.”

“Oh. Well, I guess I’ll wait until tomorrow then,” Wan Xiujing said dejectedly.

“We’re heading out for field exercises tomorrow,” He Tangtang blurted out. “We’ll be gone for about ten days.”

Army command had ultimately decided that the 425th, the 491st, and a few other regiments needed to complete the field training phase after all. The decision had just come down.

Wan Xiujing was speechless. Her very first business deal, and she’d run into a deadbeat.

***

Han Qingyu followed Qi Shantong through a corridor that grew darker and darker with each step. The sound of their boots on the ground echoed with a crispness that left him feeling unsettled.

If not for the fully armed Coalition soldiers patrolling past now and then, he would have turned and run on the spot.

This was an underground facility. More accurately, it was an underground complex. Its actual footprint was far larger than the three nondescript office buildings that sat above its entrance.

“Almost there,” Qi Shantong finally said as they neared the end of the dark corridor.

By this point, the meager, dim light had all but given way to darkness.

“Head Instructor Qi, where exactly are you taking me? What are we doing?” Han Qingyu asked. With Qi Shantong’s strength, if the man truly meant him harm, his chances of survival were slim. Still, he stayed on guard.

“To meet someone.”

“Who?”

“A Wiper. Someone from Snow Lotus. He used to be the deputy director of the Ninth Army’s Information Control Center.”

“Why do you want me to see him?”

“Because I approve of you.” Qi Shantong chuckled, the unprovoked sound echoing through the corridor, seeming to send a chill through the air. “I’d like you to start understanding certain things.”

Han Qingyu didn’t understand anything at all.

“By the way, this person is the reason you had to fight alone at District 1123, so in a way, he’s the one who got all those recruits and instructors killed... including Zhang Dao’an,” Qi Shantong explained.

He followed this with a brief account of what had happened behind the scenes at District 1123, including the blocked communications and reinforcements. His voice carried no trace of sorrow, and as he spoke, he stepped closer to Han Qingyu, drew a blade from Han Qingyu’s belt, and pressed the handle into Han Qingyu’s hand.

“Have a chat with him. If you get sick of it, just kill him whenever you want. We haven’t been able to get anything out of him anyway... Disgraceful scum.” Qi Shantong’s tone was flat, but something savage lurked beneath the surface. “Go on. I’ll wait out here.”

With that, Qi Shantong headed back up the corridor, his footsteps fading behind Han Qingyu.

Still baffled as to why he was here or what he was supposed to learn, Han Qingyu gripped the blade and slowly approached the darkness ahead.

“The light switch is right there on the wall beside you,” a weak voice said from the darkness. “I’d suggest you leave it off, though. If you know anything about Qi Shantong, you would know that my appearance now would probably scare you.”

Han Qingyu stayed silent.

“You’re the recruit who ruined my plan, aren’t you? You destroyed the device,” the voice continued in the pitch-blackness.

Neither of them could see the other.

Han Qingyu still said nothing.

“Why won’t you speak? Or maybe you’re only here to kill me for revenge. If that’s the case, I’d be grateful. There’s no barrier between us, and I can’t move. You can come here and do it whenever you like.”

Han Qingyu finally broke his silence. “I don’t think I have anything to say to a Wiper. As for killing you, there’s no shortage of people here for that.”

“Wipers?” The voice in the darkness laughed. “The Coalition really gave us an awful name. At the very least, my group and the people I follow should be called the Evolutionists.”

“Evolutionists?”

“Yes. The divine race descends to sweep away the stupid and the filthy... then the worthy among humanity are permitted to join them—to evolve.”

This guy’s insane, Han Qingyu thought.

“You don’t seem very receptive. Fine, I’ll use ‘Sharpies’ then,” the voice continued. “Do you know how long even the most ordinary Sharpie lives? Three hundred years at minimum. That lifespan will be bestowed upon us.”

Han Qingyu paused.

“Don’t you want to be among the chosen? From what I’ve gathered about you through Qi Shantong these past few days, you would be.”

1. A mispronunciation of Qingyu (pronounced Qīng Yǔ) sounds like Bluefish (青鱼 Qīng Yú) ☜