Xiang Yunjian followed Cheng Feng inside. After she sat down, he swung the bag at his feet and dropped it heavily by her side.
“You’ve only known each other for how long? Don’t you know that your relationship isn’t solid? Look – this is what your big brothers have prepared for you. Only kids in our family get this kind of treatment, got it?”
Cheng Feng gazed back at him with a deep, affectionate look – the kind you’d give an idiot.
Jiang Linxia, seeing that she still didn’t believe him, went over and opened the bag to show her. “Grenades! Smoke bombs! Which of these isn’t in high demand?”
Jiang Linxia laid the items out on the ground in a single row, making them look even more impressive. Seeing that Cheng Feng remained unmoved, he pulled down his mask to catch his breath. “We didn’t even spare water for ourselves – we gave you all of it. So tell me, MVP, what else are you dissatisfied with?”
Cheng Feng averted her gaze, still wearing the same unruffled expression. “I don’t need it. I’m not short on supplies.”
“Seriously? You don’t even want this gear?” Jiang Linxia felt like there was something seriously wrong with this kid. He sat cross-legged across from her, his expression turning grave, and tapped his right index finger on the ammunition box. “You know what the most important thing is for an outstanding military university studentt? It’s knowing when to bend and when to stand straight! You’ve been holed up inside with Zhong Yijie and the others – you don’t know what it’s like out here. Supplies are being drained fast. Even if you go out and loot ten supply crates, you probably won’t find a haul this good.”
In such a cramped room, Yan Shen was still pacing back and forth behind Jiang Linxia. He now stepped forward and, seizing the opportunity, asked, “If Cheng Feng doesn’t want them, could you spare me a smoke bomb?”
Jiang Linxia shoved him off with an elbow. “Come on, Yan Shen, don’t be like that -broaden your horizons! It’s all for team unity. Don’t you agree, Xiang Yunjian?”
Xiang Yunjian was surveying the room. After making a round, he picked up the only black backpack left by the stairs and asked, “Is this your bag?”
Jiang Linxia frowned. “What are you doing?”
Meanwhile, Cheng Feng shook her sleeve, reached her hand into the tight cuff, and pulled out a smoke bomb from inside. She held it out toward Yan Shen, tilting her chin up with an air of aloofness.
Yan Shen didn’t move for a long while, his gaze fixed blankly on her hand, then drifting toward her clothing.
Cheng Feng said dismissively, “The God of Wealth is handing you a gift. Take it.”
Yan Shen took it, hesitated, and didn’t tuck it into his pocket.
“Ooh, you’ve got quite the stash, huh?” Jiang Linxia teased. “If you’re so capable, pull out another one.”
With a poker face, Cheng Feng reached into her sleeve again and pulled out a handful of individually wrapped compressed biscuits.
Jiang Linxia egged her on: “You’re really stuffing supplies into your clothes? If you’re that good, pull out a grenade!”
Cheng Feng lowered her head, tugged her cuff outward, and something else slid out.
A silver casing – not just any grenade, but a directional blasting charge.
Cheng Feng said flatly, “Almost got stuck. Here you go.”
Jiang Linxia fell silent, his expression stiffening.
Yan Shen opened his mouth, but his brain seemed unable to form words, his thoughts in complete disarray. A vague, deeply foreboding feeling crept over him.
Xiang Yunjian had somehow already made his way behind her. With one hand holding her supply bag, he used the other to flick the back of her collar and asked, “Why is your jacket so big? Shouldn’t the standard-issue uniforms fit properly?”
Xin Kuang had just gotten up to the roof to keep watch and had no idea what was going on down below.
Hearing the usually loud and rambunctious Jiang Linxia suddenly fall silent, he chuckled and said, “What other surprises do you have that we don’t know about? Spill it.”
Cheng Feng stood up, removed her exoskeleton gear, and took off her jacket. A few more directional charges that had been tucked in the gaps of her clothing fell to the floor as she moved.
With a dismissive air, Cheng Feng casually swept the items toward Yan Shen’s feet with a push of her hand. Then she lay back down lazily, let out a long breath, and said, “It’s for easy access. After all, I don’t have teammates – I can only rely on myself.”
The ever-observant Xiang Yunjian had already started rummaging through Cheng Feng’s bag.
The weight of the bag was clearly off – noticeably light.
He opened it wide and dumped the contents onto the floor.
Sure enough – cookies, bread, chocolate – food items covered the ground. The mix of colorful wrappers all piled together was oddly spectacular to behold.
Cheng Feng made a casual “help yourself” gesture and said generously, “Eat up.”
To Jiang Linxia, it felt less like supplies had been dumped on the floor and more like they had come crashing down right on his head.
The food in a single military backpack could generally sustain a person’s hunger meter for about 24 hours. If you didn’t acquire new supplies in time, your character wouldn’t die, but you’d start suffering from hunger-related negative status effects.
And in this year’s assessment, supply points weren’t scheduled to officially open until tomorrow afternoon.
So basically, after the first day, there wouldn’t be any food left in newly looted backpacks. That made food a particularly scarce resource.
None of them dared to imagine just how loaded the first day’s supplies could have been.
If she could accumulate an entire pack like this, it meant she surely had more than just this.
Yan Shen bent down and picked one up, thinking of the half biscuit still left in his own pocket. The sound of his teeth grinding was audible. “Feels like… charity food.”
Jiang Linxia heard his own voice come out a little hoarse. “Did you rob Zhong Yijie and his crew?”
Yan Shen lost his composure. “How could Zhong Yijie and them possibly be this rich?!”
“Hello?” Xin Kuang asked in confusion from above. “What’s going on?”
No one on the scene had the attention to spare for him.
Xiang Yunjian was right – today’s rain was too heavy, falling from thousands of meters in the sky, hitting their heads so hard it left them dizzy.
Jiang Linxia’s voice wavered. “Is there anything else?”
Cheng Feng pointed in a direction. Jiang Linxia walked over, placed his hand on the abandoned wooden table, and turned back to ask, his face completely expressionless.
Cheng Feng nodded and let out a yawn.
Jiang Linxia moved things aside and spotted another familiar military pack inside.
Without a word, he unzipped it and pulled out the contents. His movements were heavy, slamming things down on the ground, producing a constant crisp clatter.
They were all ammunition.
A total of twenty boxes of submachine gun and rifle rounds, neatly stacked inside. Their metal casings reflected a cold, gorgeous golden gleam under the illumination of their lighting equipment.
Yan Shen followed behind, took one glance, and didn’t dare get any closer. He shoved his hands back into his pockets.
The bullets he had secretly stashed away were now lying in his trouser pocket, radiating an icy coldness through his fingertips – cold enough to freeze a person in the sweltering heat of July or August.
It was that kind of killing chill – unstoppable, the kind that withers grass and trees.
The two across from him seemed to have completely disconnected from reality. Xiang Yunjian, though his own emotions were in utter turmoil, still went through the motions and mechanically asked, “Anything else?”
Cheng Feng raised her finger arrogantly, pointing toward the ceiling.
Several seconds passed before footsteps were heard.
The sound of military boots striking the floor was heavy and slow, leaving behind large puddles of water wherever they trod.
They had been marching through the torrential rain today – their clothes and boots completely soaked through. They had brushed past danger and bullets more than once, their bodies stained with a gunpowder smell that wouldn’t wash away.
But they had never felt their footsteps so heavy before.
The ceramic tile on the ceiling wasn’t fixed in place. Jiang Linxia dragged a stool over, stepped onto it, pushed upward with his hand, and successfully pried it open.
Only he used too much force – the panel went flying right into the cavity above.
And then, grenades, directional charges, sealed explosive devices, and other critical supplies came raining down with a loud clatter, landing at their feet and rolling off into the distance.
In the midst of the shower of supplies, Jiang Linxia caught one in his hand.
It looked vaguely familiar.
Oh – it was the smoke bomb he’d been coveting for so long but could never bear to use!
The two men stood with their backs straight, yet inexplicably looked utterly desolate, their shoulders trembling slightly.
Cheng Feng couldn’t see their expressions and felt a bit disappointed. She tilted her head up slightly and asked for their reaction. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
Jiang Linxia stepped down from the wooden stool, turning his neck inch by inch.
Xiang Yunjian, quick-eyed and swift-handed, lunged forward, grabbing Cheng Feng and dragging her backward.
Yan Shen’s reaction speed was also unprecedented – he lunged from behind to restrain Jiang Linxia. But he found that the man in his arms had far less strength than he’d expected – Jiang Linxia was already on the verge of a breakdown, teetering on the edge of a heart attack. Yan Shen quickly freed one hand to pat his back and soothe him, urging, “Calm down, stay calm! She’s on our side!”
“Prodigal…” Jiang Linxia’s every word seemed wrung out from the very depths of his lungs.
Though it seemed unlikely, he still asked one more time, “Is there more?”
Xiang Yunjian reached up and covered Cheng Feng’s mouth.
He had realized it – Cheng Feng was the most dangerous instigator in the entire team, the one who loved to fan the flames.
But he forgot one thing: Cheng Feng had barely spoken just now. A single slight nod from her spoke louder than a thousand words.
And she did it again.
Jiang Linxia’s entire body jolted violently as he tried to process the news.
But reality was simply too brutal. He turned around and leaned on Yan Shen for a moment.
He hadn’t vented for long before the realization hit him. He whipped his head around fiercely and demanded, “Does Zhong Yijie’s crew have some too? That bag they left with was huge – super bulky and loaded!”
Cheng Feng nodded.
Unable to curse at Cheng Feng, Jiang Linxia finally found a second outlet for his anger, channeling all of it toward Zhong Yijie. He exploded in a rage. “Bastards! I knew it – I knew they suddenly became so generous for a reason! Turns out they were just in it for the loot!”
His lung capacity reached an all-time high as he ranted without a single pause. “Zhong Yijie and his crew are lying around in their room, eating and having fun, while MVP’s team is out here starving and enduring hardship! We’re fighting for the honor of the Alliance University, and they have the nerve to loot our supplies?! Why?! How dare they?!”
Cheng Feng pulled down Xiang Yunjian’s hand that was covering her mouth and said, “I gave it to them.”
Three words. The final straw that crushed Jiang Linxia’s already crumbling defenses.
His fighting spirit surged back through his rage.
“Why didn’t you tell us?! We’ve been roughing it out there – licking every last crumb of a biscuit, fighting over every single bullet – and still scraping together supplies for you! Do you know how tight we’ve been, how hard it’s been, how miserable we’ve felt? We gave you all the best we had, and you went and gave all the best to Zhong Yijie instead! What’s your relationship with them anyway? We’re your teammates! We’re your people!”
Yan Shen gave him a shove.
Come on, not that dramatic.
Have some dignity, will you?
Cheng Feng shot back just as loudly. “You didn’t come to pick me up!”
She stood up, pointing at the time as she protested. “I waited for you guys for so long! I didn’t even go out to farm points – I didn’t sleep until 1:30, I kept waiting! I saved all the supplies to team up with you, but none of you even sent a message! You never treated me like a teammate at all.”
She had sacrificed a lot!
Jiang Linxia was choked into silence. His gaze drifted vaguely toward the person beside him, and he pointed at his brother, saying, “Xiang Yunjian said we shouldn’t come find you first. He was afraid you’d get caught in the rain.”
Xiang Yunjian raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Jiang Linxia didn’t give him a chance to respond, nor did he look at him. He focused entirely on Cheng Feng and yelled, “Was it you guys who blew up the mountain last night?”
“It was me!” Cheng Feng, well aware that the louder voice carried more weight, shot back, “When things got that dangerous, none of you came for me! Only Zhong Yijie and two of his guys came down the mountain with me!”
Jiang Linxia recalled the spectacular scene from last night – the earth-shaking explosions – and became even more unsettled.
So those were their grenades!
It was their prodigal daughter who had blown up the mountain!
With immense anguish, he asked, “How many grenades did you use?”
Cheng Feng rolled up her sleeves and counted on her fingers for him. “Blasting charges, grenades, and various other explosives – over a hundred in total, I think.”
Jiang Linxia’s HP: -100.
“There were only four of us, but fifty or sixty people were blocking the way. The situation was critical, so we had no choice but to carry out a large-scale bombardment. Bullets were pretty much useless – we relied entirely on smoke bombs to fight our way down the mountain. Someone in Zhong Yijie’s team even got injured,” Cheng Feng said. “We were outnumbered, couldn’t see the path clearly, and couldn’t communicate with them on the team frequency channel. We couldn’t coordinate well either, and we lost quite a few supply packs to other people scavenging.”
Jiang Linxia’s HP: -1000.
“We had way too many bullets – couldn’t bring them all out. I buried some of them up on the mountain.”
Jiang Linxia’s HP: -10000.
The problem was, his maximum HP was only 50 to begin with.
This time, Jiang Linxia didn’t need Yan Shen’s help. He pressed a hand to his chest and said weakly to himself, “She’s one of us. She’s our own kid. It’s not her fault. Stay calm.”
He repeated this to himself over a dozen times, but he still couldn’t quite take it. All kinds of indescribable regret flooded his heart.
He turned and met Yan Shen’s gaze – and the overwhelming emotions finally broke through.
The two of them leaned into each other, slapping each other’s shoulders hard, howling silently in shared anguish.
Xin Kuang had been listening to the team frequency and felt something was increasingly off. He abandoned his lookout post altogether and came clattering down the stairs.
Bending over and peering through the stair railings, he caught sight of the supplies scattered all over the floor – and nearly tumbled down the stairs.
The only one in the entire room who still seemed like a normal human being was Xiang Yunjian.
But he had been silent all this time. He was now crouched on the ground, picking up the supplies one by one and putting them back into the bag.
Slowly and carefully – as if he were savoring each one, or perhaps lost in a daze.
It was heartbreaking at a single glance.
Xin Kuang took a deep breath, turned around on the spot, and quickly headed back up to the roof.
He had no idea what was wrong with the world anymore. He needed some quiet time too.
