Chu You’s heart skipped a beat, but her face remained calm.
She quickly assessed the group.
They had the advantage in numbers, and although they were in terrible condition, they were still trained soldiers.
They also had weapons — several rifles were slung over their shoulders or used as makeshift canes against the ground.
When an army collapses like a mountain crumbling, the retreating soldiers’ accumulated fear, anger, and despair could easily boil over.
With order collapsed and the future uncertain, such negative emotions could catalyze, driving them to irrational or even frantic actions.
Although the probability of such chaos occurring among the relatively disciplined Huafu military was extremely low, Chu You could not and did not dare to gamble.
The fingers of her right hand rested seemingly at random over the trigger guard of the pistol at her waist.
Her muscles were slightly tensed, ready to draw and fire at any moment.
Chu You’s expression remained neutral as her calm gaze swept over the faces of the defeated soldiers.
However, a deep sense of vigilance was hidden in the depths of her eyes.
“You,” she spoke first, her voice not loud, but clear and steady, “are you coming back from the front?”
The retreating soldiers clearly had not expected to encounter a lone female soldier here.
They froze for a moment and looked at one another.
Finally, the highest-ranking officer, a one-bar, two-star lieutenant, shuffled half a step forward.
He was not old, but his face was etched with exhaustion and the wear of the elements.
He was unshaven, and his lips were cracked.
“The front line… is completely ruined.”
The lieutenant’s voice was incredibly hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing together.
His tone was a dull, near-numb thrum.
“Logistics can’t keep up, the wounded can’t be sent out, ammunition can’t get in, and there isn’t even any damn food left…”
“The brothers are starving, holding guns with empty magazines, fighting those damn Variants with their bare hands…”
He paused, a deeper darkness flashing in his eyes.
“And… the Variants’ offensive is completely different from before.”
“They know how to coordinate attacks, probe for weak points, and send small groups to harass and exhaust us 24 hours a day… our regiment was scattered. The colonel is gone, the major is gone… and I, a company commander…”
He pulled the corners of his mouth into a self-mocking grimace that looked more painful than crying.
“Forget it… there’s no use saying all this.”
“Little girl, don’t go any further. Go back. Ahead… is a land of death.”
Hearing this, Chu You fell silent for a moment.
She could hear the heavy sense of powerlessness and the absolute despair in his words.
The situation at the front was even worse than what she had previously understood.
However, her finger slowly moved away from the trigger guard.
These people were defeated soldiers, but it seemed they had not yet devolved into thugs.
Chu You looked at the officer and shook her head, her voice steady.
“I have a reason I must go.”
“You will die.”
The lieutenant raised his head and looked at Chu You.
He spoke again, his tone this time carrying a hint of stubborn warning, perhaps because he did not want to see another life thrown away.
“I can’t do much to help you.”
Chu You did not continue the topic.
She fluidly removed the tactical backpack from her shoulders, crouched down, and took out some of the food she had scavenged from abandoned outposts and vehicle wrecks along the way — several packs of compressed biscuits, two cans of meat, and a few energy bars.
She carefully placed the items on the ground and pushed them toward the soldiers.
“Be frugal with these.”
She stood up, shouldered her backpack again, and pointed in a specific direction.
“Head straight back. It’s about half a day’s journey. There is a Wartime Hospital Temporary Settlement. There should still be some supplies there.”
“If all else fails… go back to Beihai. It’s at least safe there for now.”
Hearing her words, the seven or eight soldiers remained with their heads bowed.
No one looked at the food on the ground, and no one responded.
The atmosphere was oppressive to the extreme, with only the wailing of the Wilderness wind blowing through the mountain rocks.
Chu You sighed inwardly.
She could not stand this atmosphere of being completely swallowed by despair and silence.
She said no more, tightened her backpack straps, and stepped past the soldiers to continue her journey.
Just as she brushed past the lieutenant, Chu You paused.
She did not look back, but her voice was soft yet clear as it echoed in the rising wind.
“We…”
“We might not lose.”
With that, she stopped lingering and quickened her pace toward the other side of the slope, heading firmly toward the “land of death” the soldiers had described.
Behind her, the soldiers remained standing in place, silent like clay statues that had lost their souls.
Only the lieutenant slowly turned his head.
He watched Chu You’s receding figure — thin in the twilight but exceptionally straight.
In his clouded eyes, a very faint light seemed to flicker for an instant before quickly dying out.
The sun sank slowly, staining the horizon with a tragic, vivid shade of dark red and dim yellow.
As twilight descended, the world became a vast expanse of grey.
On a valley slope at an unnamed location on the defense map.
Lin Mo lay motionless on the edge of a high ground overlooking the valley below.
His body was perfectly hidden behind the withered yellow weeds and jagged rocks, leaving only his eyes visible.
His long period of lurking made him like a lifeless stone, and even his breathing was kept extremely shallow.
Below him was the forward command post!
But what greeted his eyes now was a heart-palpitating, deathly silence.
Low concrete walls, bunkers made of sandbags, watchtower foundations built from felled logs, and several tattered military tents… these man-made structures were scattered in a chaotic yet orderly fashion across the relatively flat area of the valley, forming the outline of a simple camp.
The remains of barbed wire and simple trenches could still be seen on the camp’s periphery.
Yet the camp was empty; there were no signs of human activity.
There were no patrolling soldiers, no campfires, and no lights.
The tents swayed gently in the evening breeze, making a soft thumping sound that only added to the eeriness.
Equipment and supply crates were scattered in the open space.
Some crates were open, their contents spilled out, left ungathered.
It was as quiet as a forgotten, true land of death.
Lin Mo’s brow furrowed tightly.
‘Something is wrong!’
Even if the forward command post had suffered a precision strike from the Variants, there were no traces of battle here.
There were no bodies, no bloodstains, and no abandoned, damaged firearms or artillery… there was nothing.
Aside from the pungent, peculiar smell inherent to the Wilderness, he could not even sense a strong aura of pollution.
What on earth had happened here?
‘And where did the people from the 103rd Division’s forward command post go?’
Seeing the scene before him, Lin Mo’s heart sank.
Night was quietly shrouding this land full of the unknown and danger.
Lin Mo remained motionless on the hillside, using the messy grass and the dim night to perfectly conceal his form.
If he wanted to continue investigating, he would have to go down and explore this eerie camp deep in the valley.
‘This place is strange no matter how I look at it…’
For a moment, Lin Mo actually felt a rare sense of hesitation.
Just then, a faint light, nearly impossible to detect, flashed like a brief spark of a firefly in the dark.
It appeared at the left edge of his field of vision — on the slope across the valley!
The light was extremely brief.
If Lin Mo had not been concentrating fully on observing the camp below, he would have almost mistaken it for an optical illusion or a faint reflection from some distant ore.
However, Lin Mo’s reaction was incredibly fast.
Almost the instant the light appeared, every muscle in his body tensed.
His neck turned toward the source of the flash at a miniscule angle that barely disturbed the surrounding air.
He stared fixedly at a certain spot on the opposite slope.
To be precise, he stared at a patch of weeds that was swaying slightly!
The wind?
No!
The air in the valley was currently stagnant.
The swaying on the opposite slope clearly carried an unnatural, hurried rhythm, like the residual oscillation caused by something moving quickly through the grass and then trying its best to return to a standstill.
‘That flash of light was no illusion!’
‘Someone is here!’
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