CH 27

Forward (1)

Clank.

The blood-stained short knife fell to the ground, along with empty anesthetic injections, beam therapeutic equipment, hemostatic spray and bandages scattered below. Jiang Jianming took off the disposable non-toxic gloves and threw them on the ground. He stepped across the mess and said wearily, “Come, let’s clean up.”

“..Rest for another half an hour, and then we’ll head back.”

The wind and snow outside were still howling, and the smell of blood in the marching tent still lingered.

Just before his voice died away, the teammates who were sitting by the side in a trance all exploded.

“Return…back!?” Joe was the first to yell, “Jiang Jianming, are you kidding, we don’t know when that big guy’s going to appear, yet we are still going back!?”

Ellie spread her hands anxiously. “Yes, now that it’s finally safe, can’t we wait for the rescue from the fortress!?”

“No.” Jiang Jianming sat down on the side, and slowly tightened his coat, “Between the rescue and alien creature, it is very likely that the latter will come first, we must not lose the initiative.”

“Then…..”

Joe’s eyes widened, “Then you’re urging us to take the initiative to seek death!?”

“That thing…that thing…we’re all really going to die!!’

Jiang Jianming had no expression on his face, and merely said, “Not likely. I don’t have the strength to speak now, but I will talk about the specific plan later.”

Joe was still in a daze, staring and breathing heavily.

Which was rather embarrassing and a little pathetic.

He was stuck for almost half a minute, until his Adam’s apple rolled twice, and then suddenly said, “Jiang Jianming…let me tell you, we have endured you for a long time—”

” —just a mere diabled human being,” Joe raised his head abruptly, cursing in a rough voice, “you put on such a noble face every day, who do you think you are? Are you the military advisor of all of us!? Or better yet the commander, are you our commander!?”

The barrage of curses was so sudden that Ellie next to him was taken aback by Joe’s outburst. “Hey! Joe, you……what’s wrong with you?”

But the latter didn’t even give her a look… Apparently, the fear and anxiety brought about by the series of accidents completely overwhelmed this not-so-strong youth.

He suddenly jumped up, with an unusual red glow on his agitated face, he pointed at Jiang Jianming’s nose and cursed a series of words. “When we were against the giant spider, what else did you do besides shouting at us to retreat!?” 

“If our team had one less disabled human and one more new human, maybe it wouldn’t be like this at all!!”

“Even when saving Bei Maner, didn’t you choose to run away by yourself and let your intelligence go back to save her!? You are also a selfish guy, for whom are your pretentious acts for!?”

Jiang Jianming rubbed his forehead with a headache.

This is the most common psychological breakdown among recruits; he thought to himself.

It was not really surprising to encounter such a strong enemy when entering the battlefield for the first time.

Originally, Silver Big Dipper set up a one-year adaptation period to avoid this kind of situation, but unfortunately, this time it was indeed an unexpected tragedy. Jiang Jianming thought slowly, he took out the emergency energy water from the combat bag beside him, unscrewed the lid and drank the water.

“Joe!”

Instead, it was Li Youfang who stood up abruptly, and said angrily, “Have you lost your mind and gone crazy? In the final analysis, wasn’t it you who alarmed the subspecies when you fell down!? And wasn’t it you who ran away first in fright!?”

However, Joe had already lost control of his emotions. “I didn’t mean to!!”

He turned his head, displayed a smile on his face, and conversely pushed Tang Zhen. “Hey, Tang Zhen, you have to speak up too, you have to think clearly……..”

He waved his hands, as if he was trying to convince him. “If Jiang Jianming used the Snow Dove to save Bei Maner immediately and let her get treated, then she would definitely need not to be amputated! You actually think so, right?”

“……”

Tang Zhen didn’t respond. From the moment Jiang Jianming’s short knife fell on Bei Man’er’s right leg, he no longer reacted to the outside world. He sat aside blankly, as if he had become a walking corpse.

Joe became even more inflamed, and malice grew in his twisted heart.”There, you see, even your friends don’t protect you anymore.”

He turned his head again, he couldn’t wait to see Jiang Jianming’s hurtful expression emerge between his always leisurely brows and eyes.

However, unexpectedly, it was not Jiang Jianming who responded to him.

But a weak and hoarse female voice.

“…..shut up.”

Bei Maner looked up as she opened her eyes. They were quite bleary.

Then she moved her lips. “……coward.”

The stagnant air in the tent was like a piece of brittle glass, which was suddenly broken by the sound of her voice.

Tang Zhen raised his head instantly, and several other people also turned their astonished gazes—

“Maner?”

“Maner, you’re awake!?”

Bei Maner tried her best to raise her head……She was still lying flat on the makeshift “bed”, her right calf had been amputated, and was wrapped in layers of blood-stained bandages. 

“At that time…”

She tightly clutched the corner of her blood-stained clothes, and said hoarsely, word by word.

“At that time, when that giant spider rushed towards me, it was so sudden that no one could save me.”

“Only classmate Jiang, he asked me to jump out of the mecha, and I listened.”

In the slightly dim tent, Bei Maner’s voice endings trembled involuntarily. “If it wasn’t for classmate Jiang, it wouldn’t be my legs that would be pierced by the spider silk, but it would’ve been my head instead.”

Not reconciled…how could she be reconciled?

Ambitiously marched to the front line, survived so many days of hard training, and shouldered the expectations of her companions as the captain.

However, she lost half of her leg in such a vulnerable and disastrous defeat to a subspecies that suddenly appeared.

After losing her entire right leg, could she……could she still stay in  Silver Big Dipper?

“Classmate Jiang…….”

Bei Maner bit her bloodless lips, and tears welled up in her eyes. “You have a way to get us out of this dangerous situation, right?”

The surroundings were quiet for a while, and Joe stood there like a clown who had failed to perform, with a wonderful colorful face.

Jiang Jianming glanced down at his wrist device, and spoke lightly, “…….There are still twenty-three minutes left.” He raised his eyes again, and only said succinctly, “You are free to do whatever you want. If you want to argue or fight, go outside.”

No one argued inside the tent anymore.

After a while, Tang Zhen suddenly got up and slapped himself hard.

He didn’t speak, only gritted his teeth, and staggered into the snowstorm outside.

Li Youfang said in shock, “Hey! Don’t……”

“—let him go.”

Jiang Jianming lowered his eyes in the corner and said, “It’s not a bad thing to awaken your mind.”

As he spoke, he lowered his head and took a sip of the energy water, then waved his hands calmly, “Don’t worry, he won’t be so stupid as to run away, the Young Master of the Tang family isn’t that cowardly yet.”

Bei Maner coughed weakly.

She turned sideways, and whispered with a pale face, “Classmate Jiang, don’t…don’t be angry with Young Master Tang……..I’ll apologize to you on his behalf.”

“You need not to, I’m not angry.” Jiang Jianming sighed softly, and screwed back the cap of the energy water bottle, “If I was really angry, I would have scolded or beaten him long ago, don’t think about it.”

Several people stopped talking, and even Joe sat down numbly and began to eat compressed food. They were seizing this little time to somewhat recover their strength.

It took nearly ten minutes for Tang Zhen to come back. His face was smeared with icicles, and he looked extremely embarrassed, but his mental state seemed to have improved……At least, he looked like he had changed from a walking corpse to a living person.

He stood in front of Jiang Jianming, with shame in his gloomy expression, he hesitated and couldn’t even say a complete sentence.

“I……just now…”

Jiang Jianming only glanced at him lightly.

He simply patted Tang Zhen on the shoulder casually and then said, “You’ve been outside longer than I thought, aren’t you cold?…..you aren’t, then take off your coat, I’m cold.” 

Tang Zhen:”…….”

After a while, it’s already time.

Jiang Jianming, wearing Tang Zhen’s coat, waved to the rest of the people, signaling them to come over.

He turned on his wrist device, pulled out a three-dimensional projection of a map and showed it to several people to see.

“Come, listen to me.”

Jiang Jianming’s eyes were clear and his expression was calm. “It’s not advisable to move forward to the low altitude areas. The subspecies came from that side. If we continue to go deeper, we don’t know what else we will encounter. We can only retreat in the direction of the fortress.”

………It’s very strange, he was obviously a military student who had just left school, and it should also be his first time designing a battle plan in a difficult situation, however his tone was very natural as if he had repeated such action a thousand times before.

Ellie raised her hand and made a gesture. “Then, if we change into flight mode, can we bypass that subspecies from a high altitude?”

“It’s unlikely.”

Li Youfang’s face turned ghastly pale. “The few of us have run too far…… In addition to the energy consumption of the mecha just now, even if the backup energy is included, it won’t be enough for us to fly back to the fort in flight mode.”

Tang Zhen: “Besides, there are alien creatures at high altitudes. We are not used to air combat and in case we encounter something more difficult….” He shook his head and closed his mouth.

“That’s right,” Jiang Jianming nodded and coughed twice, “But if we retreat while fighting all the way, our physical strength will not last. Therefore, the key to retreat is how to stop this subspecies….We can’t play the game of chase with it.’

Jiang Jianming reached out and clicked on the projection, and drew a circle at the exit of the canyon where they came. 

“Look here.”

Several teammates couldn’t help but look at the man’s fingers.

On the map, there, projected the narrowest part of the canyon.

The front was the road, and the back was the low basin where they found the subspecies. It resembled the neck of a round bottom flask.

“We’ll use the mecha to rush through the subspecies first. Of course, this will cause it to attack us. Never mind that, but we’ll have to stick to this place……”

Jiang Jianming placed a red cross icon.

He then spoke in a deep voice, “Afterwards, blow up the side of this valley.”

Everyone was shocked, and their sharp intake of breath was the only sound heard. Jiang Jianming didn’t move, and then continued, “Let the falling rocks pile up here to block the way.”

“I’m not sure if it can completely lock up the subspecies, but at least, there should be no problem in blocking it for a while.”

“Blow up……. blow up the valley!?”

“How to do this—”

Jiang Jianming: “Before we set off, I bought two medium-sized particle explosive bombs.”

These were originally intended to make up for his lack of combat power, but now these had other uses.

“This thing was originally a new crystal weapon for alien creatures, therefore there shouldn’t be a problem in blowing up a mountain.”

“This…….”

Several people were stunned and looked at each other.

The so-called “right time and place”, and the importance of correctly using geographical conditions in combat, everyone had already learned it in school.

(t/n Right time and place-a Chinese idiom, pinyin is tiān shí dì lì rén hé, which means the natural climate conditions, geographical environment and people’s aspirations during combat)

But now it’s life and death, and when others were either breaking down or crying, “blowing up the valley” it’s not something ordinary people could think of and could calmly say…..

Tang Zhen’s face lit up, and he murmured in surprise, “This can probably work…..this could work! If we can really blow up…….”

“But there is a problem.”

Jiang Jianming interrupted him, and looked back at the bed. Bei Maner had already fallen asleep again, and was breathing shallowly, which could make anyone feel alarmed. 

“We have a wounded person now. Bei Maner’s injury is too serious. The fierce fighting and turbulence will lead to the rupture of the wound and continuous blood loss. She can’t take the risk.”

“Therefore, Tang Zhen,”

Jiang Jianming called the Young Master of the Tang family specifically, “Take Bei Maner away, use the IP in flight mode to fly over the subspecies, and stop at the entrance of the canyon.”

“The remaining four people will use terrestrial mode IP’s to break through forcefully and attract the attention of the subspecies. We will drive the mecha and run all the way to the canyon.”

Tang Zhen was shocked. “Little Jiang!?”

Ellie said in a daze, “To forcibly break through……can we do it?”

Joe grew even paler. He seemed to want to refute something again, but he was speechless for a long time.

“No, this division of labor is unreasonable!”

Li Youfang retorted, “It’s better for you to take Bei Maner and go first! Tang Zhen’s crystal bone is the strongest among us, he should stay. And your physical strength is not suitable for fighting anymore……..”

Jiang Jianming looked firm and unmoving. “This is my plan, and all the personnel are required to listen to me.”

He took out a black hand grenade from his combat bag and handed it to Tang Zhen.

“Detonate it on my signal. Be careful when using it.”

Tang Zhen’s mouth turned dry and he couldn’t help swallowing his saliva.

He felt that the thing in his hand was as heavy as a thousand catties.

“Little Jiang.” He said in a low voice, “You……….Can you tell me the truth? How sure are you?”

Jiang Jianming thought for a moment, raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“Guess for yourself,” he simply said.

A moment later, the tent was put away.

Several people came out, stepping onto the layer of snow and ice.

“Really……” Joe’s teeth were chattering, his hands and feet were cold, “Do you really want to rush through like this.”

Suddenly, he felt a gaze fall on him.

Jiang Jianming was standing under the mecha and was looking over. Snow particles skimmed over his hair, his face, and those deep eyes.

“Are you afraid?” 

Joe froze for a moment, and fell into a trance.

The black-haired, black-eyed remnant human stood in the snow, with his back against the steel mecha, and only spoke lightly as he gazed over.

“It’s normal to be afraid. Everyone will eventually have to face fear. Thus it is not ridiculous to feel afraid, but it is ridiculous to succumb to fear.”

……..He was just like a painting. This idea came to Joe’s numb mind for no reason.

Tiny yet tremendous, fragile yet cruel.

Just like a painting, in which a small flower blooms on the ruins of the apocalypse.

Before parting, Tang Zhen held Jiang Jianming’s arm for a long time, and said hoarsely, “…..don’t let there be any accident.”

“I believe in your plan, but the thing that happened to Maner..……..” He paused, “I beg you.”

Jiang Jianming simply patted him. “Nothing will happen, see you at the mouth of the canyon.”

Tang Zhen took a deep breath, and a hard look appeared on his face.

He carried Bei Maner into the cockpit and sat in himself.

Soon, the flight mode IP lifted up in the snowstorm.

“Let’s go as well. At present, the snow isn’t deep yet, and the IP’s still have the energy to run. If we drag this on, the longer it takes, the worse it will be for us…Cough, cough…..”

Jiang Jianming choked on the cold wind, frowned again and started coughing.

Li Youfang came over. He didn’t know if it was intentional or a coincidence, but he blocked the strong wind for Jiang Jianming.

“Why don’t you take the Snow Dove?”

Under the dark sky, Li Youfang, with a gloomy face, stared at the remnant human who he once looked down upon.

The muscles on his face twitched, he gritted his teeth and said, “You stayed behind, is it to…….show consideration for us.”

“…..”

Jiang Jianming took another look at him and seemed to smile.

“No.” 

He turned around and got into the cockpit, raised his hand and slammed the door.

“The energy chips of A-level mechas are very expensive, and the fortress does not include them in the rations, thus I want to save some.”

“If you have time to think about what type of mecha I should use, why don’t you think about when you can pay me back.”

Li Youfang:”…..”

He cursed secretly, patted his cheek hard, turned his head and then also climbed onto his IP.

In the cockpit, Jiang Jianming carefully checked the data of each item, and finally turned on the communication channel.

What follows from here on, will be a life and death breakthrough.

“Are you ready, good teammates?”

His voice was cool and the tone was lazy and leisurely.

“Remember, once you start running, you can’t stop, and especially don’t rush into the air. The IP switching mode will produce a dead time of about two seconds, which is too dangerous.”

Jiang Jianming squinted his eyes, and on the screen in front of him displayed maps, data, positioning cursors, and communication projections of his teammates. Various numbers and lines that would make anyone overwhelmed upon seeing it.

He fastened his seat belt skillfully, and his hands with black gloves fell on the console.

Jiang Jianming’s eyes were clear, and he swiftly gave out an order. “Go!”