Chapter Five: A New Day

"Lieutenant Qi An, as of today you are a member of the Land Defense Army. Your assigned unit is the Second Detachment of the Windrider Team, Third Regiment.

You remain a member of the Purification Alliance, but you now hold formal military rank and an officer’s record. Your salary, allowances, promotions, and appointments all fall within the Land Defense Army system.

You are a soldier. Your duty to fight for the base and for humanity will continue until the day you are discharged because of injury, or until the day you give your life!"

The enlistment ceremony was simple, yet solemn, and as Qi An took the oath, she could not help feeling a surge of grave excitement.

It was a pity that even the smallest uniform still hung too large on her; the trousers, loose and dragging on the floor, spoiled the atmosphere and dampened her mood somewhat.

From the direction of Team One came a faint whisper: "That Qi An probably can’t even carry a gun. I thought Team Two had stumbled into some damn fine luck..."

At a glance from Yu Shuang, a baby-faced young soldier in Team Two suddenly shouted, "Report! Someone in Team One is whispering and appears to be defaming a member of my team!"

Wei Fengduo, the commander of the Windrider Team, and the officers from the military affairs office in front all looked over. The baby-faced soldier pointed precisely at the Team One member who had been muttering about Qi An.

The man snapped to attention at once, his face flushing red.

Wei Fengduo swept him with one glance and said in a low voice, "Silence! One more little meeting down there and you can get out!"

If Zhou Yang, Team One’s captain, had been here, he would have shot back with something, no matter what. But Zhou Yang was confined to quarters, and the only Team One members who had come to watch the excitement were the deputy captain, Liu Wei, and two core soldiers.

Under Liu Wei’s warning look, the Team One soldier who had spoken up reddened and answered with a reluctant "Yes."

But with his head lowered, he sneered inwardly.

He had probably stepped on Team Two’s sore spot. This purifier was so frail that if she went onto the battlefield, she would be nothing but a burden!

The ceremony ended smoothly, and Qi An completed all her transfer procedures.

People in the lecture hall gradually dispersed. Wei Fengduo called away Yu Shuang and Zhao Bohan, and Qi An was surrounded by the remaining members of Team Two.

Every one of them had experienced her purification, and every one of them showed her tremendous goodwill.

"Now that Dr. Qi has joined the team, that calls for a celebration, doesn’t it? Come on, let’s find a place to eat, and have Deputy Zhao foot the bill!" The baby-faced soldier was named Zhuang Xiao; he was short, but his voice was thunderous.

A graceful, pretty female soldier with a long scorpion braid snorted, "The deputy captain told us to prepare for cooperative training before he left!"

This was medic Su Qingran.

She was a medical officer, yes, but her physical enhancement was B-rank too. She looked delicate, but when she fought, she might well be able to take down one person with a single punch.

At the back stood a towering, bear-like soldier, over six feet three and weighing no less than two hundred and twenty pounds, named Tang Long. He was the one who had helped rescue Qi An together with Yu Shuang.

In terms of balanced enhancement, he was the weakest; his overall grade was BD. His strength was terrifying—he could even lift a car with one hand—but his mental and intelligence enhancements were both only 2.

Tang Long said softly, "We should go back to the lounge first and decide after the captain and deputy captain return."

He glanced at the uniform Qi An was wearing and hesitated for a moment. "If Dr. Qi doesn’t mind, I can alter the spare uniform for you. If I work quickly, you could wear it by tomorrow."

Qi An was stunned. Those huge hands could hold a needle?

But she was also deeply grateful—she had no skill at sewing whatsoever.

So the group went back to the lounge first. Qi An sat quietly in the corner of the sofa while Tang Long busied himself pouring water for everyone. Zhuang Xiao and Su Qingran grew more and more heated as they argued over whether "celebrating the new recruit joining" was more important than "doing a proper assessment through training."

Zhuang Xiao’s voice was like he had swallowed a hundred suonas, and Qi An felt her eardrums ache. But only about ten minutes later, the two captains returned.

"You brats, it’s time for another round on the grindstone!" Yu Shuang slapped a hand down on the desk, looking rather helpless.

Zhao Bohan shut the door firmly. "Just now, the commander issued us a new mission order: a reconnaissance satellite has detected signs that there may be large-scale Fallen Insect activity in the abandoned city cluster northwest of the base. We need to verify this intelligence.

"If it proves true, we must determine the general area of the Fallen Insects’ encampment, their scale, and their movement patterns.

"The mission will last one to three weeks. We leave tomorrow."

In present-day Huaguo, there was a base cluster made up of thirty-seven local bases, centered on North One Base.

North One Base preserved a substantial portion of the nation’s remaining military and scientific strength, and three years ago it successfully launched more than a hundred nanosatellites in a single operation.

These nanosatellites replaced the old satellites that had long gone unmaintained and become space debris, forming regional constellations and restoring communications across the entire continent.

Only now did humanity once again possess satellite reconnaissance capabilities.

Everyone in Team Two exchanged looks, not expecting that a mission would come so soon after the newcomer had joined.

The quarrel died down, and those altering the uniform worked overtime. In the afternoon, Qi An and the new team members held a hasty cooperative training session for assessment. At night, she went to bid farewell to Tang Xinying.

She brought a box of dried dates she had saved up all winter as a gift, and she also cooked a meal herself to repay Teacher Tang for helping her change teams.

When she left Tang Xinying’s apartment, the moonlight was bright. Qi An could not help stopping to look at the jade disk hanging in the clear night sky.

It was said that pollution information had first been brought back by the astronauts who landed on the moon.

What pain and struggle must have lain between a hero and a sinner?

Qi An looked at the moon, and Tang Xinying looked at her from the window as well.

The heat of the tea wrapped the woman’s expression in a hazy blur. Her gaze, passing through the thin mist, followed Qi An all the way until she could no longer be seen.

In the logistics department of the Land Defense Army, at the registration desk for special combat equipment issue and return, a middle-aged woman also stood hidden behind a glass wall, her expression unreadable.

On February 17, the two brown-and-yellow camouflaged off-road vehicles of Windrider Team Two passed through the base’s heavy iron gates, through layer upon layer of defensive sentries, and along the old road buried beneath windblown sand, heading west without pause.

It was Qi An’s first real departure from the base in three years.

It was sunrise. The sky burned in magnificent shades of purple and red, while the branches of the poplar trees caught a streak of rich golden dawn. The earth stretched broad and majestic before them.

Zhuang Xiao rolled down the car window and began humming a wildly off-key song in the crisp morning wind.

The two captains in the two vehicles communicated over the radio, confirming the direction of their destination, trading banter and jokes from time to time.

"We’re already out of the base support range, so perk up, you little punks!"

"Old Zhao, launch the reconnaissance drone!" Yu Shuang called with a laugh.

Qi An tightened her grip on her gun and felt a shiver of tension, or perhaps excitement.