UMU suffered heavy losses in this chaotic battle, but the worst part wasn’t the near-annihilation of one contingent.
UMU’s commander had delivered a lengthy, elaborate analysis, only to end up getting himself killed. This piece of news, worthy of a spot on San Yao’s annual list of absurd headlines, quickly spread across the major factions, greatly comforting the Second Military commander who had been wallowing in the misery of his own defeat.
Only shared suffering can forge unshakable alliances!
The more devastating the ally’s losses, the stronger the bond!
From now on, UMU is his family!
So this time, the Second Military commander took the initiative to extend an olive branch to his new family members.
The battered remnants of UMU were regrouping at their camp’s entrance. The deputy commander, exhausted from counting casualties, steadying morale, and incidentally having to oversee the election of a new commander, had absolutely no time to spare for the Second Military personnel who had come to gloat.
“I really feel for you,” the Second Military commander said, his tone dripping with sincerity. To emphasize his point, he nodded along vigorously.
“This isn’t what I wanted to see!”
That statement was a bit disingenuous; at the very least, he should have tried to rein in his smirk first.
He stepped forward and patted the UMU deputy commander on the shoulder, grinning broadly. “I get how you feel. Totally empathize.”
His expression, caught between a smile and a smirk, was ludicrous and laced with heavy sarcasm.
The UMU deputy commander finally snapped. “Get lost! We’re busy here!”
The Second Military commander composed his expression slightly, adopting a more serious tone. “I did warn you, you know. The UFU’s Third Route is notoriously cursed. Why were you still thinking of taking the conventional path?”
The deputy commander thought to himself, Could that even be called a conventional path?!
But then he reconsidered. When it came to UFU, shamelessness was the conventional path.
His expression darkened even further.
Netizens watched as the camera slowly panned across the still-youthful faces of the UMU team members. Unable to share in their pain or joy, the audience roared with laughter in the comments section.
“I don’t know how UFU managed a three-game winning streak, but I think I finally understand how UMU usually manage to lose.”
“The UMU instructor should have told them: don’t be overconfident! Not everyone is going to cut you some slack!”
“As a veteran doctor, I can now confidently diagnose: the patient died from having too many tricks up his sleeve.”
“That petite girl from UFU is impressive – accurate judgment of the situation, and decisive decision-making. What’s important is that her team genuinely trusts her; no one’s undermining her.”
“No kidding. At any military university, isn’t respect for the strong the fundamental rule?”
“Am I the only one who thinks this is complete chaos? UFU itself is already a target for the whole arena. Now they’ve managed to offend all three factions at once, and the Mobile University is an uncontrollable variable. Can they really withstand the wrath of the entire map?”
“You just said it yourself – UFU is inherently a target. What, you think hugging and coddling UMU would make them go easy on you? Dream on.”
“Play it safe and you’re done for. Go all out and you might just last forever! Go, UFU!”
…
Amidst the flurry of teasing comments, UMU elected a new commander, and the First Military joined their communication channel.
True to form, the three factions began to cooperate.
The Second Military commander suddenly switched to a bureaucratic tone. “This incident has taught us a painful lesson, but it has also brought us closer together. UFU’s bullying tactics will lead nowhere! Let’s join forces and put an end to their arrogance!”
“Damn it,” the First Military commander couldn’t help but curse, unwilling to engage with that nonsense. He forcibly changed the subject. “Let’s stop testing each other’s limits. If we keep this up, UFU will make fools of us all.
“Each faction will send fifty people. We and UMU will launch the main attack from Route One. The Second Military will conduct harassment operations from Route Five, while also keeping the Mobile University in check to prevent them from reinforcing UFU. Our goal is to split UFU’s forces and tear apart their defensive line.
“Once we breach their camp, if we get bogged down and can’t secure the kills, prioritize destroying their city infrastructure. Eliminate NPCs, sabotage their supplies.”
UMU had no objections.
The Second Military’s role seemed less glamorous, but after their previous internal collapse, they had developed a bit of psychological trauma regarding teamwork. They actually preferred operating independently and readily agreed to the arrangement.
The First Military commander concluded, “Then let’s select our teams. Time’s running out.”
…
The UFU team on Route Three was cleaning up the battlefield, collecting weapons and bullets from the bodies and stashing them into supply crates.
Cheng Feng instructed them to also strip the enemy of their jackets.
The clothes were stained with dirt, mottled red and gray, and emblazoned with UMU’ insignia. The team members were visibly reluctant.
But realizing these might serve as crucial passes for their “Cheng Feng’s Sidekick” candidacy, they sprang into action with renewed agility.
Number One asked, “Are we going to steal their uniforms and sneak into their camp?!”
“What are you thinking?” Cheng Feng was sometimes amazed by their thought processes. “Guess what the difference is between you and them.”
“What difference could there be?” Number One replied confidently. “I’m a great actor. I was the star of my high school’s talent show!”
Cheng Feng paused for a moment, then said, “Oh.”
It seemed acting ability and intelligence weren’t necessarily correlated.
After packing everything up, the group returned to the safe zone.
A few energized youths asked in the channel, “What’s next? Keep waiting?”
“The competition is almost half over, and we’ve only had small-scale skirmishes. Feels like the tournament is progressing slowly this year.”
Cheng Feng said, “It’ll speed up soon. The other side will definitely come to encircle and suppress us.”
Number One boldly declared, “Not afraid of encirclement! The First and Second Militaries are nothing special!”
Cheng Feng shook his head. “This time it’s serious.”
The command channel had already erupted into chaos.
Five minutes ago, when the scout reported to the camp that the enemy had assembled a punitive force of a full hundred and fifty, the channel was plunged into gloom and despair.
Although everyone had anticipated this, they hadn’t expected it to come so soon.
In this wave of encirclement, even if UFU could fight tooth and nail to make the enemy pay a heavy price, it was more likely that they would be directly eliminated from championship contention.
“What do we do? Our morale is at its peak right now – should we strike first and eliminate one faction? At least we can rack up some points, better than waiting for our doom.”
“Which faction do you think is so easy to eliminate?”
“No, I think we should pull all our infantries back and strengthen city defense. What’s the point of high morale if we return to find our home base lost?”
“UFU’s trademark style is low-key and indirect. If we keep this up, forget a three-peat -we might not even make top three.”
“Everyone stop obsessing over the three-peat. The difficulty is too high. Just relax and do our best.”
The commander felt mountains of pressure crushing down on him; even the wind that blew past seemed weighted with oppression. Drowned out by the heated discussions, he could barely breathe, yet still had to maintain a composed facade to comfort them.
No matter how he tried to console himself, if UFU’s three-peat truly ended with him, he would undoubtedly bear an inescapable responsibility.
For the next four years, he’d want to live under a different name.
The commander scanned the team frequency list and, for some inexplicable reason, called out a name: “Um… Third Route, what’s your take?”
Cheng Feng was a bit surprised he’d asked her voluntarily, given that the commander seemed to disapprove of her combat style.
She gave her honest assessment of the optimal solution. “Pull everyone back. Focus on defense. You can’t maintain an advantage forever.”
“No more competing for gold?” a teammate said regretfully. “Say what you will, we are going for a three-peat. If we lose so badly we can’t even save face, that’s just too humiliating.”
“Since the beginning, we haven’t been proactive, haven’t been aggressive…”
“If this match ends like this, our reputation as opportunistic scavengers will be sealed forever – I mean in the derogatory sense… Will the instructor kill us?”
Seeing them all so dejected, clearly missing her point entirely, Cheng Feng’s tone grew urgent. “I didn’t say give up on winning the championship.”
The commander was confused. “Didn’t you just say focus on defense? How can we still compete for excellence with that? No matter how well we defend, the losses will be heavy.”
“I think the low profile UFU has relied on for its multiple victories isn’t the literal low profile of staying under the radar. It’s about keeping our points and casualties aligned with – or slightly lower than – the other factions, making ourselves seem non-threatening,” Cheng Feng explained. “‘The gentleman keeps his abilities concealed and bides his time.’ That’s something only great wisdom can achieve. There’s nothing shameful about seizing opportunities at critical moments to pick off the spoils. It’s just about waiting for that timing.”
The kind of results that machine programs struggle to calculate are precisely what humans call experience and intuition.
She stated it bluntly, “Sacrifice half our forces. That should be about right. Inflict as much damage as we can, then start over.”
The commander had initially thought Cheng Feng’s decision this time was overly conservative, but hearing this, he realized her vision might be even bolder than his own.
“Then what? How can we turn the tide with only half our people left?”
Cheng Feng said, “Time’s running out. Recall all teams first.”
The commander had no choice but to trust her. He immediately recalled all the guerilla units and assembled every soldier, preparing for the enemy’s assault.
Although Third Route had twice emerged victorious against enemies, even they felt a bit daunted hearing the sheer size of the opposing force – let alone the other routes, who hadn’t yet adapted to defensive warfare.
Number One had been listening to Cheng Feng the whole time, his spirits sinking lower with each word. When she finally fell silent, he asked, “Do we have to go die too?”
“Sacrifice is necessary,” Cheng Feng said, her tone as casual as if discussing something trivial. “We need to keep a low profile.”
Number One hesitated, then murmured quietly, “But I don’t want to die. And I don’t want to watch others die either.”
Cheng Feng looked at him, puzzled. “This is just a game. So-called ‘deaths’ are just data. What’s there to want or not want? Victory is what matters most.”
“Because we’re comrades!” Number One said firmly.
Cheng Feng’s fingers, which had been tracing the map, stopped. Slowly, she raised her head and turned toward him.
Her expression was contemplative, a hint of confusion in her eyes as she studied him. After a moment, she repeated uncertainly, “Comrades?”
“Aren’t we?” Number One declared loudly and emphatically. “Of course we are! We just fought together for so long!”
Cheng Feng murmured thoughtfully, as if savoring the word: “Com! rades!”
Number One: “??”
The teammate beside him asked nervously, “Sis, you okay?”
Cheng Feng took a deep breath. Her eyes and expression grew resolute. She raised her hand and gave them a thumbs up.
Then, under her teammates’ stunned and bewildered gaze, she offered them the most sincere smile she had given all game.
“Ah?” Jiang Linxia nearly tumbled off the sofa. Shifting position, he leaned forward toward the screen and asked, “What’s that supposed to mean? Did this little robot suddenly malfunction?”
Yan Shen shuddered as well. “…That expression is so creepy.”
Xiang Yunjian, engaging with them for the first time this match, said with amusement, “It means ‘Leave it to me,’ probably.”
Consider it diagnosed – the word “comrade” is basically a robot trap.
Girls’ thoughts are so easy to guess.
