Chapter 38: Choosing the Path to Break the Deadlock

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Xu Yan did not respond to Duan Peng’s vicious words, born of an almost deranged idea.

He walked to the small window and gazed out at the leaden sky and the indistinct horizon beyond.

Fat Cat’s contempt, Jinjiang’s predicament, the Inspectorate’s noose… Every pressure turned like a set of cold gears in his mind.

Then, without warning, he spun around. The extinguished fire in his eyes suddenly blazed back to life, shining with startling intensity.

A plan so audacious that it bordered on sealing off every other possibility took shape in his mind in an instant.

“Break into the prison? No, Duan Peng.” Xu Yan’s voice was low and forceful, carrying the grim resolve of a man who had burned his bridges behind him. “We’re going to break out through the front gate, openly and honorably!”

“Through the front gate? Break out?” Duan Peng jumped. The idea was even crazier than his own.

“The Interstellar Corps!” Xu Yan said, a confident smile spreading across his face. “In less than a month, the Corps will hold its annual selection examination for official members! It’s the only stage where we can surpass Jinjiang, rise above the Inspectorate, and enter the direct view of the Interstellar Command Center!”

Light burst from his eyes.

“They want to investigate the ‘Cocoon Weave,’ don’t they? They suspect the source of my technology, don’t they? Fine! I’ll use the method they value most and smash the worth of the ‘Cocoon Weave’ right in their faces!”

He pressed a finger hard against Duan Peng’s chest.

“We form a team! You, me, Ouyang Nan, and Wu Mingjie! We’ll enter the selection under the name of the Jinjiang Special Forces! The goal—”

He paused.

“Not merely for all of us to pass. We’ll pass by an overwhelming margin! We’ll claim the greatest number of available slots! During the examination, we’ll use auxiliary technology based on the principle of ‘environmental stabilization’ in a reasonable and fully legal manner, and make them see with their own eyes what kind of miracles this technology can create on a real interstellar battlefield!”

Duan Peng’s eyes widened, and his breathing quickened.

“Old Xu… have you lost your mind?! You want to bring Wu Mingjie? His arm… And Ouyang Nan, she…” He remembered the accusations Ouyang Nan had made in the interrogation room.

“Wu Mingjie’s injury won’t keep him from serving as an observer and tactical support. His grasp of the bigger picture and his determination are both first-rate! As for Ouyang Nan—”

There was not the slightest trace of hatred in Xu Yan’s eyes. Instead, his expression held something closer to irony.

“Her doubts are both a thorn and a whetstone. Let her watch us use this technology to complete missions, save our comrades, and win victories! That is the most direct way to shatter her doubts—and the best way to prove its value to everyone.”

He slammed his fist into the metal cabinet beside him with a tremendous clang, prompting the sentry outside to cautiously poke his head in.

In choosing this path to break the deadlock, Xu Yan was gambling on the Command Center’s attitude toward scientific research.

“If we win, we’ll have leverage! We’ll have a voice! Then, under the name of ‘developing next-generation life-support systems for individual soldiers and light vehicles for the Interstellar Corps,’ we can apply for independent research authority and resources! The Inspectorate? Let them investigate thin air! The Interstellar Command Center will stand behind us personally! Jinjiang’s shackles, the Inspectorate’s noose—we’ll smash them all!”

The burning ambition in Xu Yan’s eyes, and the ruthless determination with which he intended to overturn the situation, set Duan Peng completely alight.

Every hesitation and reservation vanished into thin air.

“Let’s do it! Damn it, we’re going all in!”

He growled, the same fire blazing in his eyes.

“You tell me how to train. I’m staking my life on you!”

Abandoned Warehouse, Sector B-7.

Heavy lead plates shut out every prying eye from the outside world.

Jing Zhimin stood in the center of the warehouse, looking first at the battered yet stubbornly upright prototype of the “Cocoon Chamber,” then at Xu Yan, Duan Peng, Ouyang Nan, and Wu Mingjie, whose arm hung in a sling.

Using what little authority he still possessed, along with the last remnants of his “special stockpile,” he had secured an extremely limited amount of training time and resources for Xu Yan. The price was immense. If they failed, there would be no chance of recovery.

“Commander,” Xu Yan said, breaking the silence, “we’re short on time. There’s no time for conventional training. We need the most extreme simulated environments possible—to force the full potential out of the Cocoon Chamber’s auxiliary system.”

A look of grim determination flashed through Jing Zhimin’s eyes.

“Very well. As you wish. The Hellish Trio!”

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The training grounds were completely cleared and rebuilt.

First Trial: the Extreme Centrifuge.

But this time, the objective was not adaptation. It was to maintain precise control under extreme gravitational loading.

The four members of Xu Yan’s team were strapped into specially designed anti-G seats, with simulated shuttle controls before them. The centrifuge started. Savage G-forces crushed them into their seats, blood surged toward their feet, and their vision narrowed and dimmed in an instant. Every breath felt like a struggle through a swamp.

“Maintain… your breathing rhythm! Ouyang Nan! Lock on to the target! Ignore… your vision!”

Xu Yan’s voice came in broken fragments amid the enormous hum and the agony of bodies being torn apart. With sheer force of will, he activated a prototype field stabilizer worn around his wrist, simplified to the absolute minimum.

A faint, almost invisible blue halo enveloped his hands and forearms, counteracting part of the vibration.

His bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the screen. Though his fingers trembled violently, he continued entering complex navigation-coordinate correction commands with perfect precision.

“Coordinates… entered!” Ouyang Nan’s voice trembled with pain and disbelief.

At the instant she was nearly crushed and her fingers completely ceased to obey her, Xu Yan tossed her an identical wrist device.

That faint stabilizing field was a lifeline in the darkness. Amid the dizziness and suffocation of extreme overload, it enabled her to complete the lock-on by some miracle.

Second Trial: the Vacuum Depressurization Simulator.

Amid the shriek of alarms, the cabin pressure dropped instantly to zero.

The hull of the simulated shuttle was “breached.”

Bitter cold and the terror of sudden decompression swept over them. The air was sucked away, and their lungs seemed to be clenched by an invisible hand.

Wu Mingjie clung desperately to the safety line with his one uninjured hand. His other arm hung uselessly, swinging limply, while his face turned as pale as paper.

“Activate… life-support… assistance!”

Xu Yan roared as he activated another device, no larger than a palm, and slammed it against the cabin wall.

With a hum, a thicker pale-blue energy membrane unfolded, like an overturned bowl, barely enclosing all four of them.

Though thin, it stubbornly isolated them from the absolute vacuum outside.

Within its shelter, the pressure continued to plunge, but remained barely within tolerable limits.

Cold air surged back into their lungs, carrying the smell of ozone.

“Duan Peng! Repair protocol! Hurry!” Xu Yan shouted from inside the glowing membrane.

Fighting through overwhelming discomfort and the dizziness of oxygen deprivation, Duan Peng used the pale-blue halo for support. His hands miraculously steadied as he operated the simulated welding arm, precisely “welding” the virtual breach shut.

Third Trial: tactical coordination under intense electromagnetic interference.

The entire training area was engulfed by a raging electromagnetic storm. Only shrill electrical static remained in the communications channel. Snow filled the tactical visors, and every electronic device failed.

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With command gone, vision gone, and even their sense of direction gone, the four men moved through the simulated maze of twisted steel ruins using nothing but the most primitive hand signals and the understanding forged between them through repeated battles for life and death. They advanced, attacked, and covered one another.

Xu Yan activated no equipment.

He closed his eyes and strained with all his might to stir the perception that was beginning to awaken within him.

In his consciousness, the chaotic electromagnetic storm became countless twisted, shrieking serpents of energy.

He could not “see” his teammates, yet he could vaguely “sense” three familiar points of energy—each representing life and will—struggling to move through the chaos.

He suddenly thrust a hand signal toward one direction.

Amid the absolute confusion, Duan Peng, Ouyang Nan, and Wu Mingjie almost instinctively caught Xu Yan’s seemingly baseless yet utterly resolute guidance.

The four of them became a single entity. In the desperate darkness of total disconnection, they tore open a breach in the simulated “Redeem” defensive line and successfully “destroyed” the target “signal source.”

When the green light signaling the end of the simulation came on and the raging electromagnetic interference vanished, the four of them collapsed to the floor as though they had been dragged from the water. They gasped and coughed violently, while the pain in Wu Mingjie’s injured arm sent cold sweat streaming down his face.

Yet their eyes shone like stars tempered in flame.

The miracle they had created in that extreme environment—relying on the faint but extraordinary auxiliary power and their near-telepathic coordination—had shaken even them.

Ouyang Nan leaned against the cold metal wall, her chest heaving. Sweat ran from her temples, mixing with dust.

She looked toward Xu Yan, who was just as exhausted yet had immediately gone to examine Wu Mingjie’s wound. Then she lowered her gaze to the field stabilizer on her wrist, now drained of energy and dark.

The cold accusations in the interrogation room, Xu Yan’s furious defense, and those moments in the vacuum and the electromagnetic storm when they had been pulled back from the brink of despair again and again collided violently in her mind.

Struggling to her feet, she walked over to Xu Yan.

Xu Yan raised his head. His face was marked by exhaustion he could not conceal, but his gaze remained calm as he looked at her. There was no accusation, no explanation—only the composure that followed the completion of brutal training.

Ouyang Nan opened her mouth, but her throat felt dry. In the end, the words of interrogation never came.

She merely raised her hand—not to point at him, but toward the small life-support device beside him, its energy exhausted. Her voice carried a trace of hoarseness and an emotion too complex to name.

“This thing… the ‘Cocoon Weave’… it…” She paused, apparently searching for the right words.

Finally, with the relief of setting down a heavy burden and the faintest glimmer of hope, she asked softly:

“…Can you make it… a little more reliable by the time of the examination?”

She did not mention her doubts. She did not mention trust. But she had chosen to stand here. She had chosen the mission itself. She had chosen this team.

Xu Yan looked at the complicated light in Ouyang Nan’s eyes. At last, the tension at the corners of his mouth eased upward by the slightest degree.

It was not a smile, yet it carried more strength than a smile ever could.

He nodded firmly. His voice was quiet, but it held the solidity of steel.

“It can. It will. We’re going to win.”