Chapter Two: The Choice

A battlefield emergency purifier, as the name suggested, had to accompany the base's soldiers onto the front lines, ready to perform purification at a moment's notice whenever their contamination levels spiked from fighting the contaminated.

Just a few days ago, she had encountered a single dangerous individual like Liu Wenle. But on the battlefield, especially during the spring and summer when the contaminated launched large-scale offensives, there would be people like Liu Wenle everywhere!

Qi An was briefly stunned, but she quickly put the pieces together.

Last week, she had suddenly been ordered to take the physical enhancement rating test.

It had been a one-on-one evaluation. The instructor from the 1st Regiment of the Land Defense Force had watched her with eagle eyes, monitoring every physical enhancement metric to ensure she didn't hide her true abilities or slack off.

Qi An looked down at the document on the desk to read her test results.

[Strength: 2, Speed: 3, Endurance: 3, Fortitude: 5, Self-healing: 6, Senses: 4. Overall Rating: C. Evaluation: Highly motivated in self-directed training, rapid improvement, high potential for enhancement, capable of adapting to battlefield environments. Priority transfer recommended.]

Qi An was indeed highly motivated when it came to her own training.

She woke up at five every morning to run five kilometers, and dedicated at least ten hours a week to shooting, combat, and strength training. She had kept this routine up without fail for three years, through the freezing winters and scorching summers.

In this apocalyptic world, everyone had to learn self-preservation, and Qi An was particularly vigilant, always preparing for the worst even in times of relative peace.

However, she rarely trained at the military facilities, preferring the private shooting ranges and boxing gyms scattered throughout the base.

Yet, she had still caught the attention of the higher-ups.

Qi An knew she had no choice but to comply. Although she worked at the military hospital and officially belonged to the Purification Alliance of the Base's Medical Department—meaning the Land Defense Force had no unilateral authority to transfer her—the fact that the order had reached Sister Qu meant a consensus had already been reached between the two departments.

Purifiers were scarce, and emergency purifiers were rarer still. Every combat unit on the front lines was desperate for them.

Qi An could only shake hands with Sister Qu, her expression turning resolute.

"Thank you to the base leadership for their trust in me! I will work hard in my new position and ensure the mental safety of our front-line soldiers!"

Sister Qu looked at her with a mixture of relief and pity. In the end, she merely patted Qi An’s slender shoulders and said softly, "Go on home. Come back the day after tomorrow to process the transfer. You can take tomorrow off."

Qi An offered a faint smile, turned, and walked out.

She finally had a day off, but it had cost her her life.

Battles against the contaminated outside the base were brutal and perilous. For a purifier working under such high intensity, the probability of being completely consumed by contamination or dying in action was astronomically high.

Moreover, Qi An harbored an even deeper, more pressing concern.

Skipping her grocery shopping, Qi An returned home. Without bothering to turn on the lights, she collapsed face-down onto her single bed.

With the base facing severe energy shortages, there was no heating in most residential areas, even on freezing nights like this. The room felt like an icebox.

Qi An wrapped herself in her blanket, trying to organize her chaotic thoughts in the dark, biting cold.

The reading on her wristband fluctuated wildly, spiking to 39% at one point before dropping back to 2%. Her pupils occasionally split in two before rapidly merging back together.

Anyone witnessing this—the extreme fluctuations of the reading, the rapid onset and reversal of the mutation—would have thought they were seeing a ghost.

After about ten minutes, Qi An poked her head out from under the blanket, her mind made up.

She couldn't refuse to become an emergency purifier, but perhaps she could choose which combat team she joined.

Sister Qu’s document stated that she was to be transferred to the 1st Regiment.

The Land Defense Force was split into three regiments. The 1st and 2nd Regiments were standard garrison units, characterized by sheer numbers—each combat team averaged over two thousand soldiers, and even their sub-detachments started at a minimum of one hundred personnel.

With so many soldiers, whose overall quality and mental resistance were generally low, the workload for a purifier would be terrifying.

The work was high-volume and repetitive. The garrison units rarely strayed more than twenty kilometers from the base, engaging primarily in defensive warfare with a strict division of labor. There, a purifier did nothing but purify.

Once the contamination reading on her wristband stabilized at 25%, Qi An turned on her phone and logged onto the base’s intranet, navigating to the Land Defense Force’s announcement board.

[Announcement No. 03, February 14: Regarding the dispute between the First and Second Detachments of the "Chengfeng" Combat Team of the 3rd Regiment concerning the small-scale skirmish outside the base perimeter on February 9, the Military Court hereby rules as follows:

The Second Detachment's accusation that the First Detachment retreated prematurely due to cowardice, leading to heavy casualties for the Second Detachment, is dismissed due to insufficient evidence.

The defeat and excessive casualties in the skirmish on February 9 were caused by both detachment commanders misjudging the enemy's strength, advancing rashly out of complacency, and failing to communicate and cooperate effectively due to personal grievances.

Zhou Yang, Commander of the First Detachment of the Chengfeng Combat Team, is sentenced to two weeks of solitary confinement, forfeiture of all salary and allowances for one year, and a major demerit.

Yu Shuang, Commander of the Second Detachment of the Chengfeng Combat Team, is sentenced to forfeiture of all salary and allowances for one year, and a major demerit.

The vice commanders and core members of both detachments will have their allowances forfeited for one year and receive a standard demerit.]

Qi An switched over to a forum called "Abstract Little Green Men's Rants," scrolled a few times, and found the discussion thread about the announcement.

[Pumpkin Gun: If both commanders are supposed to share the blame, why did the First Detachment's commander get hit so much harder than the Second's? Did he cuss out the judge in court or something?]

[Major Superman I'm Your Daddy: Cuss out my ass! Have you never heard of Zhou Yang from Chengfeng's First Detachment? The guy has massive backing! Even if he lost his mind and beat up a superior officer in court, someone would bail him out. The Second Detachment really got screwed. Anyone know how many casualties they took?]

[Hoping for Spring: Can we not jump straight to conspiracy theories? The announcement clearly states both sides were at fault, so they were. Trust the base, trust the official report!]

[Anonymous Big A: The Second Detachment lost four men. That's highly unusual for them; that squad is normally tough as nails.]

There were only a few replies, and Qi An couldn't find anything else.

The incident had been the talk of the town in the military and the military hospital for days. However, while the base's intranet was accessible, mobile phones remained a luxury. Very few soldiers owned one, so a thread with four replies was already considered a heated discussion.

Qi An knew that compared to the First and Second Regiments, the Third Regiment had a far more complex makeup. It housed specialized units like logistics escorts and covert intelligence teams.

The Chengfeng Combat Team was a long-range special operations unit, and every single detachment under its command was composed of elite soldiers.

For the first time, Qi An disregarded her usual strict conservation of electricity, scrolling through her phone late into the night.

After a night of fitful dreams, despite staying up late, she still got up at five for her routine morning run.

There were no streetlights, only the weak, scattered beams cast by the searchlights on the defensive fortifications at the edge of the base.

Qi An liked the base at this hour. In the silent darkness, the decay of the city and her own secrets could remain hidden, giving her a sense of solitary safety.

As she neared the riverbank, however, a flickering glow caught her eye through the thick fog ahead. Qi An slowed her pace.

She was cautious, but as she drew a fraction closer, a blinding beam of white light suddenly cut through the fog, pinning her in place.

The sharp click of a gun being chambered and a man's low growl rang out simultaneously:

"Who's there?!"