Beyond the Zenith

Mira was 177 centimeters tall, and as she had shown off before, she had a flat stomach and long legs that were impossible to miss, even beneath her military trousers.

There was also her short blonde hair, usually messily tied back, her exotic-looking eyes, snow-white skin, and delicate features. Even the slight sun damage on her face from years of combat and training under harsh sunlight, the faint roughness of her skin, and the ever-present traces of sweat only added to her appeal, giving her a wild charm.

The only regrettable thing was probably her level of reasoning and logic.

Foreign faces were not actually uncommon within the Oriental Republic Army Group, mainly because of the Azure Coalition’s international nature. Mira came from a small Eastern European country, but both of her parents had followed an Azure Coalition liaison officer stationed with the Oriental Republic Army Group.

As a result, she spoke fluent Mandarin and had served in the Oriental Republic for nine years. During that time, she had rotated through four different platoons and spent four years as a deputy platoon leader.

“I want to become the first female platoon leader in the history of the Oriental Republic Army Group who isn’t from the Republic.” That had been eighteen-year-old Mira’s dream when she enlisted nine years ago.

She had worked tirelessly toward this goal, suffering through setback after setback, until this year, when the higher-ups finally seemed unable to bear watching her struggle any longer.

However, the Azure Coalition’s district platoon formation system was brutally practical. The highest priority was finding people one could trust, respect, and be willing to bleed with.

This was important for teams that walked the line between life and death every day. That was why the principles of voluntary participation and mutual selection had always been upheld.

So, aside from the common situation where a deputy simply inherited command of an existing platoon, newly promoted platoon leaders usually faced tremendous difficulty in building a completely new unit from scratch.

The higher-ups would recommend several deputy platoon leaders for the prospective leader to approach on their own. One could also contact and recruit up to ten experienced soldiers from their former comrades. Beyond that, almost everyone else would be recruits or old veterans nobody wanted.

These were undoubtedly difficult circumstances, unless the new platoon leader already had sufficient seniority, strength, reputation, or a well-known core team.

After all, fresh recruits did not have to join newly established platoons. They could also choose to fill vacancies in veteran units. This was a matter involving life and death, and most people naturally preferred platoons with long histories and extensive combat experience.

Some of the famous district platoons turned away large numbers of applicants every year, selecting only the very best.

As both a foreigner and a woman, the problem was even greater for Mira. She also lacked overwhelming achievements and renown, so distrust seemed almost instinctive.

“There are only shelves for clean clothes in there. Where do you put the clothes you take off?” Mira asked, poking her head out of the bathroom.

Dormitory 11 lay silent as a graveyard, though the violent pounding heartbeats stubbornly proved that everyone was very much alive.

“We... throw them on the floor.”

“Sometimes we scrub them while we bathe.”

“Most of the time we just go in naked.”

The replies were calm, almost flat. They feared their voices would crack otherwise.

“Alright, that won’t do,” Mira muttered, retreating inside and closing the door.

The door shut with a click.

The group exhaled and tried to maintain their breathing.

No sound of running water came even after some time.

Then, the wooden bathroom door moved again. This time, Mira did not come out. Only her fingers and wrist appeared briefly.

Something landed in the washbasin rack across from the bathroom entrance with a splat.

Mira had tossed her clothes out and onto it.

One piece. Then another.

Her underwear was probably wrapped inside the pile of clothes.

Although Mira herself was initially nervous enough to blush as she listened to the deathly silence outside, she couldn’t help but suddenly find the whole thing incredibly amusing.

Finally, the sound of water began.

The metal showerhead in the recruit dormitory bathroom was crude, like something a village blacksmith would make. It had never been polished, and the water sprayed out with tremendous force. If it were spraying into empty air, it would have sounded like shhhhhh.

But someone was standing beneath it.

The gentle patter, splash, drip of water flowing over skin, running along it, then falling away in droplets stirred imagination. The sounds were vague, yet all the more irresistible for it.

There was no difference between Han Qingyu and the others in this regard. After all, he was only a nineteen-year-old boy from an isolated little village with not much exposure to the wider world.

Dormitory 11 took deep breaths.

After quite some time, Wen Jifei finally asked in a strangled voice, “Are you guys all right?”

“Quiet.” Liu Shiheng closed his eyes. “I’m imagining that I’m the water.”

Everyone instinctively suppressed their laughter.

“Little Qing, what about you?”

“I-I’m thinking about food,” Han Qingyu admitted honestly, though with a trace of self-mockery in his tone as he lay there, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. “Plain rice is enough. With this water sound as a side dish, I could eat three bowls.”

“Eight bowls for me,” Grave Robber said.

Then silence returned, broken only by the shower.

Nobody knew how much time passed before the water finally stopped.

A moment later, the wooden door moved once more.

Mira emerged, toweling her short hair dry and wearing an oversized white T-shirt, long enough that only the white trim on her red athletic shorts was visible.

Shuffling toward the balcony in her slippers, she muttered, “No idea when they’ll fix the faucet in our room. I’ll probably have to keep showering here for a few more days...”

No one responded.

“What’s wrong? Are you all okay?” Mira asked, turning around, secretly delighting in her newly discovered talent for causing trouble.

“We’re fine, we’re fine.”

Everyone seized the opportunity to sit up and casually admire her—her and those dazzlingly pale, impossibly long legs...

After staring for a moment, Wen Jifei whispered to Han Qingyu in dialect, “My eyes have gone deaf, Little Qing.”

At that moment, Han Qingyu spotted something colorful.

There was a tattoo on the outer side of Mira’s left thigh.

The tattoo had both an image and words. At the top was a cross, but not the smooth, decorative kind worn by believers. It looked rough and wooden, embedded with nails, but with no one nailed to it.

Perhaps it expressed that Mira herself was willingly suffering for the world, as those nails were “driven” into her skin via the tattoo.

The text beneath was not English. None of them recognized it.

Mira seemed to notice their attention. Lowering her head and lifting her left leg slightly to peer at it herself, she asked with a smile, “You can’t read this, can you? Let me think about how to translate it... ‘Fight at the zenith and die among the stars.’”

Everyone silently savored the words.

Mira made a considering sound, her short hair swaying as she declared cheerfully, “From now on, that’ll be our platoon motto!”

The group still could not parse the meaning of the phrase, but answered stiffly all the same, “Okay.”

“So then, extra training, okay?” A sly glimmer flashed in Mira’s blue-gray eyes, and the corners of her lips curled upward. “You’ll still be live targets tomorrow, and there’ll even be instructor demonstrations. Do you understand what I’m saying? So I think I should probably teach you a few more things first.”

A pause, then more reluctantly than before, they repeated, “Okay.”