Lu Ming

Two blinding headlights appeared in the darkness in the distance. The outline of a troop transport emerged from the shadows, and the cab door swung open as Li Ce jumped down.

“Back already?”

His gaze swept over the group. “Not a single person missing. Good.”

An Changqing stepped up to him and gave a brief report on what had happened ahead.

Li Ce nodded, turned around, and pulled open the side door of the troop compartment. “Get in. We’re heading back to camp.”

Chen Guan was the last to board. Before stepping onto the metal ramp, he looked back once.

That blue fissure stretching from earth to sky still hung on the horizon in the distance.

Ugly as hell.

The heavy door slammed shut. The engine roared, setting the vehicle trembling as the troop carrier turned around and drove toward the military camp.

Wang Shuo leaned against the vehicle wall and let out a long breath. “We finally made it back.”

No one answered. One of the people in a Yanjing Academy uniform even turned his head away, as if embarrassed.

After some time, the vehicle finally leveled out, and the engine’s roar softened.

Li Ce’s voice came from the cab. “We’re at camp. Get ready to disembark.”

The heavy door opened again, and the camp’s lights and bustle poured inside. The warm yellow glow stung their eyes.

Chen Guan stepped down from the compartment. Only when his feet touched the solid concrete did he truly feel that he had returned from that frigid wasteland.

It was still cold, but at least there were people here.

White Eagle stood at the entrance to the temporary command tent, speaking with Li Ce. His eyes swept over the students as they got off and he gave a slight nod.

An Changqing stepped forward and began giving a detailed report.

No one knew what exactly they discussed. After a while, the open ground in the center of the camp had filled with people. The other three teams had returned one after another, gathering in small groups and speaking in low voices.

Hong Yuan spotted them immediately. She grabbed Yin Chen and squeezed through the crowd toward them. “You’re finally back. How did it go on your end? Our western team ran into some strange things too. The detector readings were jumping all over the place.”

Long Ao rolled his neck. “It was fine. Nothing came to blows.”

“Came to blows?”

Hong Yuan’s eyes widened, her interest instantly piqued. “You really ran into something?”

“…I said nothing came to blows.”

Long Ao was as concise as ever. “We just encountered something unusual.”

On the other side of the camp, the briefing tent to the north was brightly lit, its white canvas billowing gently in the wind.

The three teams were summoned inside one after another. A projection screen had already been set up, and Su Jin stood at the front with a file in her hand.

Behind her, Deputy Commander Song was adjusting the equipment.

The crowd fell silent.

Su Jin’s gaze swept over everyone present, her tone even. “We’ve received the reports from all teams. Overall, the situation is within our expectations, but some abnormal data requires further analysis.”

“As for the team that encountered an unexpected situation, I sent out a reconnaissance drone. We’ll now play the footage it transmitted.”

The screen lit up, filling the tent with a ghostly blue glow.

The image looked down from above, sweeping slowly over the wasteland, the fissure, and the crystallized ground. Streams of data rolled along the edges of the screen, marking parameters such as the frequency of temporal-spatial fluctuations. This was one of the military’s most advanced scientific achievements.

Everyone’s attention was fixed on the screen.

Standing behind An Changqing, Su Yuehe watched the rapidly changing images.

At the edge of a densely packed purple-crystal zone, a figure in a dark-gray protective suit flashed past. The person had their back to the camera and was crouched on the ground, inspecting something.

The figure appeared for less than a second before the footage cut to the next frame.

Su Yuehe’s fingers unconsciously tightened around the fabric of her sleeve.

The footage continued, showing images from other areas as the data kept updating. Su Jin began explaining the features of each region in a clear voice. Su Yuehe secretly glanced at her mother’s expression. Seeing no change in it whatsoever, she finally relaxed her clenched fingers.

No one noticed the unusual behavior of Su Yuehe, who stood at the back of the tent.

The briefing lasted about forty minutes. After the screen went dark, Su Jin gave one final instruction. “Return to your quarters and rest. Tomorrow at ten in the morning, we’ll continue according to the new routes.”

With that, she turned and left the tent.

The crowd dispersed.

Su Yuehe followed An Changqing out of the tent. The night wind struck her in the face. She kept her head lowered, her steps somewhat slow.

“Tired?”

An Changqing looked back at her.

Su Yuehe raised her face and forced a smile. “I’m all right. Just a little cold.”

“Let’s get something hot from the mess hall first. It’ll warm you up.”

An Changqing said, “I’m going to find Commander White Eagle and file a written report. I’ll come find you later.”

“Okay.”

An Changqing turned and headed toward the command tent.

Hong Yuan and Yin Chen had already left ahead of them, saying they were going to logistics to pick up a late-night meal.

Long Ao wandered toward the barracks, with Liu Feiyu and Chen Guan following behind him. Liu Feiyu still had his earphones on.

That left only Su Yuehe standing where she was.

…

Elsewhere.

With her back to the tent flap, Su Jin stood before the control console. The main screen was paused on the aerial footage from earlier.

She extended an index finger and tapped the metal keys on the console, breaking the segment of footage that lasted less than a second down frame by frame.

At last, the image froze on the figure’s back.

The coarse image quality had covered the figure in snowy interference. Even the texture of the clothing was impossible to make out.

Su Jin stared at the screen as the seconds ticked by.

In the darkness of the tent came the sound of leather shoes rubbing against the canvas floor mat.

“You let him appear in Yuehe’s field of vision after all.”

An Changsong emerged from the shadows.

He was not wearing formal clothes. Dressed casually, he looked completely out of place on this frozen wasteland.

He walked to Su Jin’s side, his gaze settling on the large screen as well.

Su Jin did not turn around. Her fingers left the keyboard.

An Changsong sighed. “It’s been almost twenty years. Seeing that young face again still feels strange.”

Su Jin folded her hands in front of her. The cold light from the screen illuminated the side of her face. “The drone captured it by chance.”

An Changsong turned, found a folding chair, and sat down, crossing his hands and resting his chin on them.

“When you use a word like ‘chance,’ do you really believe it yourself?”

He raised his head to look at Su Jin. “Back then, we agreed to seal away all of Lu Ming’s research completely and never let anyone come into contact with it.”

His voice echoed through the empty tent. “Most importantly, Yuehe could never be allowed to learn what kind of person her father really was. Now that you’ve shown her this glimpse of his back, you’ve given her a lead to investigate further.”

“If you were the one who proposed it back then, why are you the one breaking the agreement now?”

Su Jin turned around and looked at An Changsong.

“I thought that cutting off all contact between him and the outside world would eliminate any possibility of that child learning the truth.”

She walked to the makeshift sand table, her fingers brushing over the high ground marked by red flags.

“More than ten years ago, I used the Chairwoman’s authority to issue an order for protective house arrest, dragging you and everyone else who knew the truth into it.”

Su Jin turned to the man sitting in the chair. “As the president of the Superpower Association, you helped me conceal his whereabouts and created the false story that he had died in an out-of-control experiment.”

She came to a stop.

“You even let Changqing grow up alongside Yuehe. For that, I have always been grateful.”