Beyond the Zenith

“Did any of you ever have a big sister next door?” Hu Haipeng suddenly asked, as if casually chatting between friends, still sitting at the edge of the stage. “You know the kind. The girl three or four years older than you. You squatted off to the side and watched while she played jump rope. When she carried her schoolbag and went off to school, you could do nothing but see her off with envy. When she grew tall, you were still just a little thing... The kind of big sister you followed around and admired.

“I had one, from my own village. I watched her jump rope, followed her to pick bracken, and watched her go off to school. Then, one day, she matured. She became a young woman and no longer took me along to play. We were no longer so close, only exchanging basic greetings and pleasantries when we happened to cross paths.

“But that was all right, because without realizing it, I was also slowly building a life of my own and getting used to not having her around.

“Later, she finished junior high and didn’t continue school. She went off with relatives to work at a factory said to be very far away. Her sixteen-year-old self, in a ponytail and a shirt, stayed fixed in my memory... and then gradually blurred.

“After that, I went to high school, then university, before finally coming to the Azure Coalition.

“That was around this time of year, though more than five years ago. My recruit period, just like yours, was miserable. I carried a lot of fear with me. The routine of eating raw meat, getting cursed at, training heavily, and getting picked on by veterans every couple of days was suffocating and painful.

“It was at that time that I unexpectedly met her again.

“I was washing clothes for a veteran when she happened to pass by. Noticing me, she stopped and stood there, then hesitantly called my name. She was a veteran who rotated back that summer for rest and recovery.

“Just like that, we reunited. You can imagine the warmth of meeting here, of all places. I nearly cried. Big Sister was very emotional, too.

“Big Sister was a soldier at the front lines of the Witnesses and had many wounds on her body. There was even a faint, shallow scar from a shrapnel cut on her left cheek, but she was still incredibly pretty, possibly even prettier than I remembered, and her personality had become more forthright.

“I said, ‘So you didn’t go off to work at a factory after all.’ She burst out laughing. ‘So it is you,’ she said. ‘How did you, a timid little boy, a bookworm, end up here too?’

“Then, she invited me out, saying, ‘Come, it’s my treat. Let’s drink beer, and you can tell me how things are in our village these days.’

“I really wanted to go, but I was scared. I said I was washing clothes for a veteran. She told me to just toss it there. ‘Whoever gives you trouble, I’ll give him trouble,’ she assured me.

“Big Sister said that I didn’t need to be afraid with her around, as she had climbed the ranks to become a deputy platoon leader.

“That day we talked about a great deal. Neither of us held anything back as we reminisced. She told me that she regretted how we had grown apart back then. I told her how the village had been since, which playmate was doing what, who had married whom, when suddenly, a question occurred to me.

“‘Big Sister, are you married?’ I asked. ‘I heard people can marry here.’

“She laughed and said, ‘Didn’t you eat my wedding candy? A few years back, I went home and held a banquet. I planned to invite you, but Auntie said your college entrance exam was just days away, so you couldn’t come. I even set aside extra wedding candy for you.’

“I said, ‘Oh, now I remember. I did eat your wedding candy.’

“Big Sister laughed again and told me it had actually been a family-visit leave, that she found a comrade to play a groom from out of town to put her parents at ease.

“I couldn’t help but ask about the two of them, but she just smiled and told me that it had just been an act. That she hadn’t actually been interested in him.

“After that, Big Sister often came to find me, and after training, I often worked up the courage to go find her. She bought me clothes, showed me around this place, and protected me.

“At one point, Big Sister even had a sparring match with a male soldier who was giving me trouble. She carried her source energy device on her back but used an ordinary blade. In a single charge, she won. Big Sister was really strong.

“She told me that she had only been willing to waste source energy because it was an opportunity to teach me the things she had learned from real combat.

“One day, while we were chatting, Big Sister’s comrade suddenly suggested that the two of us become a couple, saying that it was rare to meet someone as close to Big Sister as I was.

“If this were outside, the girl would definitely be shy, right? But Big Sister wasn’t. She looked at me, laughing, and asked, ‘Little Cowardly College Student, do you fancy your Big Sister?’

“I nodded with all my might. Not long after, Big Sister’s leave ended, and she had to return to the front lines. The day she left, I had training and couldn’t see her off, so she came to the edge of the training ground and waved to me before she left.

“I waited for her letter. Five days, ten days, half a month...

“One day, the instructor suddenly said the regiment lead advisor wanted me. I went, and in the office, they told me that... Big Sister had sacrificed her life.

“They said her ashes would be sent back before long through our special channels, and that none of her comrades were around. They told me to take Big Sister up to the Wall of Heroic Spirits on Ninth Army Mountain.”

“The Wall of Heroic Spirits on Ninth Army Mountain had tens of thousands of small compartments with no photos or names to mark them. It’s been five-plus years since this happened, but I can still clearly recall where Big Sister is. I don’t need to count. I just know.

“Only on the day after I delivered her ashes did I receive Big Sister’s letter. In that letter, she had written, Let’s have a child together.”

With that, Hu Haipeng’s account was over. There were no lessons or advice in his speech. He had simply told the recruits a true story about love in the Coalition.

The whole hall digested this account in silence. As some stared at Hu Haipeng, they couldn’t help but remember his introduction.

“My application has just been approved,” he had said. “I’ll go to the front lines of witnessed combat for the first time in my life.”

The smile on his face wasn’t fake at all. He really was happy.

The regiment was likely critically short of counselors like him. That was probably the reason he could only follow his Big Sister into the battlefield after five years of applications.

Hu Haipeng said nothing more, exiting the stage. Zhang Dao’an took it in his place. Per procedure, he would answer the recruits’ questions.

After a good while, the recruits’ emotions finally settled down.

“Why doesn’t the Azure Coalition convert soldiers directly from the Oriental Republic’s forces?” someone asked. “Or from the most elite units of every country in the world?”

Another asked, “Why not tell the whole world about the Sharpies and unite all the nations to resist together?”

“Because we don’t know when the Sharpies will come,” Zhang Dao’an explained. “Rather, we don’t know when a large-scale invasion from that civilization will actually arrive.

“If we knew it was coming tomorrow, or next year, even three years or ten years from now, your questions would all hold. But it’s already been more than eighty years. What if they don’t come for another few decades, or even a few centuries?

“Our source energy and dead iron are already in severe shortage, and no substitute technology has been found. As things stand, more manpower and resources serve no practical purpose.”

Some recruits still had burning questions, but Zhang Dao’an was done answering them.

“Enough,” Zhang Dao’an impatiently cut off their clamoring, “The fundamental logic to all your questions and confusion is just this: We don’t know when the Sharpies’ large-scale invasion may come, and source energy and dead iron are extremely scarce. You can answer your own questions if you just think about that information for long enough. If you can’t figure it out, then forget it. Now, it’s time to eat.”

***

Lunch was just as raw as breakfast, from the lettuce leaves and fish slices to the meat and melon... At least there was more variety this time.

The recruits remained uncomprehending of the purpose of such meals, and disgust was a prevalent emotion on some faces. Despite this, everyone stopped resisting. Be it because they were hungry after skipping breakfast or perhaps as a result of the morning’s brainwashing, most made an effort to eat something. Formal training commenced in the afternoon, after all.

By the time Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei got back to their dorm, the others from Dormitory 11 had already returned ahead of them. They were all standing and staring at the balcony.

On the dormitory balcony were three sinks. A woman stood in front of the middle one, back turned toward the group.

She wore a blue-gray short-sleeved shirt and loose long trousers. Her short blonde hair had a hint of brown to it, with a natural curl where it ended at her neck.

At the moment, she was bent over washing said hair in the sink—in a male soldiers’ dormitory.

The tap water splashed down her blonde hair, flowing along her cheeks before dripping down. Sunlight haloed the top of her head.

Head lowered like that, letting the tap water rinse over her, she turned her body slightly and twisted her head to smile brilliantly at the people of Dormitory 11.

Her teeth were exceptionally white and straight. She had a pair of blue-gray eyes, a high nose bridge, some freckles on her face, and two streaks of red from the scorching sun.

Everyone stood dumbstruck for a while. Then, quiet murmurs started to surface.

Wen Jifei muttered, “A love story...”

“A foreigner, huh?” Yang Qingbai commented.

“What does that matter?” Wen Jifei asked. “She’s pretty.”

“She’s at least one meter seventy-seven standing straight,” Liu Shiheng observed. “And she’s probably got more muscle than any of us. Probably the result of long-term conditioning.”

“Meaning what?” Wen Jifei asked.

“A veteran,” Han Qingyu said quietly.

Everyone fell silent. At this time, veteran was a very frightening word to them.

After a pause, Wen Jifei asked cautiously, “So, can she understand Mandarin?”

“I can understand it. In fact, I might speak it better than many of you,” answered the blonde veteran on the balcony.

Finished washing her hair, she stood up straight and tossed her head back. Droplets flew in the sunlight as her short hair swung. The glow of the sun only seemed to highlight her profile, the tip of her nose, and her freckles.

“Just had a full day on the road. Dust everywhere,” she continued, gathering her short hair into a handful and gripping it at the back of her head.

Droplets slid down her neck into her collar, dripping steadily onto her blue-gray short sleeves, on her chest, and back.

Turning around, still looking perfectly at ease, she asked, “Do any of you have a towel that doesn’t stink?”

“Uh... we do.”

At once, at least half of them went to dig out their own towels and hold them out, or to put it plainly, serve them up to her.

The blonde veteran walked over, hand still gripping her hair, and lowered her head for a careful look. Upon finding that every one of them was used, she raised her head, gave everyone a somewhat troubled look, and then smiled.

She suddenly released the hand gripping her hair, and with both hands, cleanly and briskly, took her shirt off.

Then, minding no one, she started drying her hair with the inside of the shirt.

Dormitory 11 was dead silent. Their brains had exploded.

The black thing she wore underneath was similar to the cropped tank tops athletes competed in, probably the combat vest the army issued to female soldiers.

Still, a large stretch of her stomach was bare.

The impact this had on these young men was just too great.

After drying her hair, her shirt clutched in her hand, the blonde veteran glanced at the recruits standing dumbly frozen before her and gave a sly smile.

“Want to see more?” She winked. “You can. Take first place overall in the recruit team competition, and you can see more.”

With that, she pointed at the competition chart stuck to the back of the door with a hearty laugh.

Everyone just stood there, frozen, faces blank.

It took a while for them to come around. The recruit period did indeed have a competition where they were grouped by dormitories, covering assessments in many subjects. There were daily deductions, though merits or good performance could earn points too.

That thing? It’s probably hopeless, Dormitory 11 collectively thought.

In the short time they had been assigned to this dorm, they were already ranked dead last in discipline and housekeeping alone. Worse still, this bunch fundamentally didn’t care. They had no sense of honor whatsoever.

“All right. It was very nice to meet you all, but I have to get going.”

Despite her words, the woman didn’t immediately head out. Instead, she first returned to the balcony, picked something up from the concrete washing stand out of view to the side, then came back and strode past everyone with natural, easy grace.

Liu Shiheng had been right in his earlier assessment. The blonde woman really did have more muscle than everyone present. At the very least, the thing gripped in her right hand was visibly heavy.

It was something that, at first glance, would make you think your eyes were playing tricks. A jet-black, gleaming metal apparatus, with a handle to carry it by, a slot for ammunition belts to clip into, a trigger, and five barrels, each large, thick, very long.

“That’s... a machine gun?” Wen Jifei asked.

Yang Qingbai said, “A machine gun? More like an autocannon! Damn.”

“That’s right,” the blonde veteran answered as she walked past. “This is my custom machine gun, the Mira 11, though they all prefer to call it an autocannon.”

“Didn’t they say bullets can’t kill Sharpies?”

“They can’t, but in my hands, it can still accomplish a great deal.” She turned back to glance at them when she reached the door. “Right, I’m Mira Jo, your direct instructor. You may address me as Platoon Leader or Mira. Preferably Platoon Leader.”

With that, Mira left to go downstairs.

Dormitory 11 was left in a daze.

Downstairs, a veteran spotted her from afar and remarked, “Isn’t that Mira? Why did a grand deputy platoon leader lower herself to be an instructor?”

The veterans next to him all laughed. The term “deputy platoon leader,” when applied to Mira, was a joke in itself. She had served as the deputy platoon leader of four platoons, forever awaiting her long-overdue promotion to platoon leader. This earned her the teasing title of “the Ninth Army’s eternal deputy platoon leader.”

The woman herself dreamed day and night of becoming a platoon leader.

“Haven’t you heard? Word this year is that she’s finally getting promoted to platoon leader,” a man in the cluster of veterans said. “She’s probably down here to pick recruits.”

“Oh, so she’s snatching up seedlings. Got it.”

The Azure Coalition’s platoon formation and replenishment system was a two-way street. Recruits could choose platoons, and platoon leaders could refuse. Likewise, when platoon leaders wanted someone, recruits could also refuse and choose a platoon they aspired to more.

Elsewhere, Mira had met up with a female comrade who had been waiting downstairs for her. As they walked together, Mira described Dormitory 11’s reaction to raucous laughter from her friend.

“You’re trying way too hard, Mira,” her friend teased. “This goes way beyond picking people; it’s outright courting. You’re basically seducing them, okay?”

Mira held back her smugness and shot her a glare. “Shh.”

“If they really do take first place, will you actually...” her friend trailed off suggestively.

“How could that happen?! That bunch? At most, they might produce two or three good soldiers who end up with me later, but winning the competition? Forget it,” Mira said breezily. “To use that old saying of yours, I was just drawing them a flatbread[1].”

1. (画个饼)To draw a flatbread is a Chinese saying that means to talk of grand plans with no action, i.e., drawing a picture of a flatbread without actually serving it. ☜