“From the future…”
Su Xiji repeated those four words in a low voice.
His eyes moved back and forth between the faces of Lin Mo and Chu You, as if he needed to thoroughly confirm this fact that transcended all his military experience and knowledge.
The dim yellow light in the warehouse flickered in his eyes, reflecting a complex radiance mixed with immense relief and deeper anxiety.
“No wonder… No wonder you could find those fuses. No wonder you are so sensitive to that thing, and no wonder…”
His gaze turned to Lin Mo.
“Zhu Yanqing’s fighting style and use of the Oracle revealed a sense of… refinement that transcends the battlefield standards of this era.”
He did not show excessive shock, perhaps because he had already come into contact with future soldiers, and his psychological threshold had been greatly expanded.
At this moment, he was more concerned about what role these two visitors from the future played in this war, which had already veered off track and slid into the abyss.
‘Are they observers?’
‘Judges?’
‘Or… troublemakers?’
“Since you come from the future,” Su Xiji leaned forward, his tone becoming extremely serious, even carrying a hint of imperceptible urgency, “then you should know how this blocking action… no, how the entire Beihai campaign, even the Province of Nanwan campaign, ended in your historical records?”
He did not ask for details of the future or how they arrived.
Instead, he pointed directly at the core—the answer of history.
This reflected his deepest concern: did the plan he had executed with everything he had, even at the cost of infamy and inner torment, actually change that desperate trajectory?
Lin Mo and Chu You looked at each other and exchanged a glance.
Chu You gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
Lin Mo understood that honesty was the foundation for gaining the other party’s trust and more information, especially after the other party had already shown a collaborative posture and shared an astonishing secret.
“In our historical records,” Lin Mo began, his voice steady, but every word carried the weight of a thousand pounds, “the archives are vague. They only say that the 103rd Division fought an exceptionally tragic battle in the Beihai blocking action before… the entire army was wiped out.”
“And the Abnormal Being tide in the Beihai direction also suffered heavy losses after this battle, eventually losing the strength to continue the offensive and retreating.”
“Finally…”
“The commander of the 103rd Division, Su Xiji, and the political commissar, Lu Sanshan, went missing and were presumed to have died for their country.”
Su Xiche listened quietly, the muscles on his face tightening slightly, but strangely, his eyes did not show much surprise.
Instead, there was a heavy sense of realization, as if things were exactly as he expected.
Shortly after, his hand resting on his knee curled involuntarily.
“The entire army was wiped out… records are vague…” He chewed on those words in a low voice.
Suddenly, the corners of his mouth twitched, revealing a smile that looked more painful than crying.
“It seems my plan was a success…”
He raised his head to look at Lin Mo and Chu You, his gaze sharpening.
“And you?”
“Did you come here to witness this ending I wrote with my own hands? Or… are you trying to change it?”
“We cannot change history.”
Chu You took over the conversation, her voice cold and clear.
“The Dead Realm we are in is essentially a special space formed by the obsession and energy remnants of major historical turning points.”
“We entered it to stop this abnormal area from continuing to expand.”
She paused, looking directly at Su Xiji.
“What Lin… my comrade-in-arms just said is roughly all the information about this blocking action, but there is one thing he didn’t say—”
“In the historical records, this blocking action only ended after thirteen days. In other words, the degree of defeat of the 103rd Division at this moment does not match historical records.”
“Thirteen days?” Su Xiji frowned, his finger lightly tapping his knee.
“Do you mean… besides you and those special people, there are other unknown people from the future interfering with all this?”
“There is a possibility,” Chu You nodded, “but it is only a guess.”
Su Xiji took a deep breath and remained silent for a long time.
When he looked up again, his expression had returned to calm, and his voice was low.
“We will discuss this later. First, let’s talk about what you care about… I think you must have many questions for me, right?”
“Yes,” Lin Mo said from the side, his voice indifferent.
“We want to know what exactly happened.”
Hearing this, Su Xiji nodded and sighed again, as if he wanted to exhale all the frustration that had accumulated in his chest for a long time.
Under the gaze of Lin Mo and Chu You, he slowly began his narration.
His tone gradually became low and clear, as if he were reviewing a cruel chess game that had already been played out countless times.
“You guessed correctly. The primary reason the battlefield situation deteriorated so quickly and thoroughly was due to a traitor within.”
Su Xiche’s eyes turned cold.
“The operational plans and detailed defense maps were leaked before the war began… The enemy knew our troop deployment, firepower points, and reserve positions perfectly.”
“Every deployment we made was like jumping into a trap preset by the other side.”
“At first, I was still trying to save the situation by changing communication codes, using backup communication channels, and adjusting deployments… but it was useless.”
A hint of frustration and cold anger entered his voice.
“The other side’s reaction was incredibly fast. Every time we made an adjustment, a new strike followed immediately.”
“Until one time, I deliberately issued an obviously problematic, tentative fake order…”
Su Xiji paused, a cold light flashing in his eyes.
“That order only existed in an encrypted electronic meeting I dictated to a few core officers of the Operations Staff. But only a few hours later, the Shi Bian Ti launched a feint attack on the non-existent weak point involved in that fake order.”
“At that moment, I understood.”
His tone became incredibly heavy.
“The source of the leak was inside the Operations Staff, and the position was extremely high—high enough to participate in the most core secret meetings. It wasn’t that communications were intercepted; it was a problem with the person.”
Lin Mo frowned.
“You didn’t take action?”
“I wanted to.”
Su Xiji smiled bitterly.
“I wanted to control all suspicious personnel and conduct a thorough investigation immediately, but… the other side moved faster than I did. Or rather, they were well-prepared.”
His expression turned somewhat gloomy.
“Just as I noticed something was wrong and prepared to gather guards and trusted officers, I found… the orders I issued could no longer be transmitted normally.”
“It wasn’t a communication equipment failure. Rather… the instructions were intercepted, delayed, or even misinterpreted at the staff level.”
“At some point, the Operations Staff unilaterally cut off or shielded the efficient and reliable direct command link between the forward command and the various external units.”
“I could hear intermittent, noise-filled, and delayed requests for help and reports from various units, but the clear instructions I issued vanished like a stone in the ocean, or were transmitted only after being altered beyond recognition.”
He closed his eyes, as if seeing that suffocating chaos and helplessness again.
“While I lamented the speed and preparation of the other side’s actions… my heart also sank to the bottom.”
Su Xiji opened his eyes, which were filled with bottomless exhaustion.
“I am the commander of the 103rd Division, the highest commander stationed in Beihai.”
“I watched the markers on the sand table representing my soldiers and my defense lines quickly dim and disappear one by one under the enemy’s precise strikes and the paralysis of internal communications.”
“I knew very well that following this trend, the total collapse of the battlefield situation would happen in the next few hours, at most within one or two days.”
“That hidden traitor took full advantage of the information asymmetry.”
“We were like people with our eyes blindfolded and hands tied, fighting a pack of beasts with sharp senses of smell.”
“No matter how we struggled or tried to fix it, I had a few absolutely trusted old subordinates run countless simulations in private… the results were all roughly the same.”
His voice lowered, carrying a kind of almost desperate calmness.
“The 103rd Division will be defeated, or even… systematically divided, surrounded, and annihilated. Once the main force of the 103rd Division is lost, the outer defense line of Beihai will become useless, and the Shi Bian Ti tide will pour into the city without any obstruction.”
“Beihai… will become a land of the dead.”
“How many of the hundreds of thousands or even millions of citizens will be able to evacuate? And once Beihai falls…”
Su Xiji’s gaze suddenly became incredibly sharp, as if he wanted to pierce through the warehouse walls and see the strategic map further away.
“The situation on the Provincial Capital defense line is already severe, under immense pressure from multiple directions.”
“Beihai is one of the most important barriers and supply channels for the Provincial Capital. If Beihai is breached, the Provincial Capital will completely become an island in a sea of Shi Bian Ti. With logistics cut off and enemies on both sides, its fall will only be a matter of time.”
“And once the Provincial Capital is lost, the joint defense line built with countless human and material resources throughout the entire Province of Nanwan will collapse like a block tower with its key pieces removed.”
What he described was a chain of catastrophic strategic collapse.
“Therefore,” Su Xiji’s tone suddenly shifted from a heavy narrative to a nearly cold determination, “since the 103rd Division—or rather, this blocking action in the Beihai direction—is destined to be unable to escape the torrent of defeat under conventional means…”
“Then, as the commander, I must consider how to squeeze out the final and greatest strategic value from this destined defeat.”
He looked directly at Lin Mo and Chu You, saying word by word:
“I proposed a plan to Lu Sanshan and the other senior officers who were still at the forward command at that time.”
“A plan… that could be called crazy, even cruel, where jade and stone are burned together.”
He emphasized the words ‘jade and stone’ heavily, causing a cold echo to ring through the empty warehouse.
Lin Mo’s pupils contracted slightly.
Chu You pursed her lips slightly, her gaze becoming more focused.
“You should know, or rather, there should be records in the future,” Su Xiji continued, his speaking speed not fast to ensure every word was heard clearly, “that the old-era Huafu, at the peak of its technological era, once used the power of the entire nation to secretly build a massive underground nuclear bunker and counterattack network beneath major strategic directions and potential conflict zones. It was known as the Underground Nuclear Great Wall.”
Lin Mo and Chu You nodded.
This period of history was not considered a secret in the future; they had some understanding of it.
“With the passage of time, many entrances and nodes were buried in the dust of war and time.”
“But by chance—or perhaps by misfortune,” a smile with no hint of mirth touched the corners of Su Xiji’s mouth, “according to the highest classified archives I can access within my authority, in the area right beneath our feet, about 500 meters deep, lies a large strategic-level ammunition storage node of the Underground Nuclear Great Wall.”
“Sealed inside is the legacy of the old era’s destructive power—multiple high-yield thermonuclear warheads.”
Despite their premonition, when the term ‘thermonuclear warheads’ was spoken so calmly by Su Xiji, Lin Mo and Chu You still felt a chill run up their spines!
Using nuclear bombs to burn both the jade and the stone along with the Abnormal Beings?!
“I had the technical team run countless simulation calculations, combining our existing geological data with those few pathetic fragments of old-era archives.”
Su Xiji seemed not to see their shock as he continued to analyze with that nearly cold rationality.
“If we can lead a sufficient number of the main Abnormal Being forces to a precisely preset optimal killing radius area directly above that node, and then remotely detonate the underground nuclear bombs…”
He paused, letting this destructive concept ferment in the air.
“The direct killing power and overpressure of the explosion are enough to completely erase all Shi Bian Ti within that area, as well as any surviving buildings and terrain.”
“And calculations show that the early nuclear radiation and radioactive contamination produced by the nuclear explosion have a high probability of being interfered with, swallowed, or even neutralized by the highly concentrated original aura of Abnormal Being pollution erupting at the same time.”
A nearly paranoid light flickered in Su Xiji’s eyes.
“Of course, that area will be a forbidden zone for life for a long time in the future. The radiation levels may still be dangerous, and the residual pollution of the Shi Bian Ti will linger, perhaps becoming a cradle and paradise for Abnormal Being mutations…”
“But at least for now, in terms of the strategic goal of solving the imminent crisis of Beihai’s fall and severely damaging or even annihilating a main cluster of Abnormal Beings, this is the solution with the seemingly largest but actually smallest cost that I could think of.”
He looked at Lin Mo and Chu You.
“Using troops and land that are destined to be sacrificed as bait, leading the enemy into the grave while dragging them down with us—all to buy time for the Provincial Capital and the entire Nanwan defense line to redeploy, catch their breath, and even counterattack… This is my Mutual Destruction Plan.”
As his voice fell, the warehouse became deathly silent.
Only Su Xiji’s calm yet incredibly heavy words slowly settled into the dust.