Chapter 57

League Northern Theater Command. One in the morning.

After a brutal training session, Gu Yunchi led his team off the field and back to Command. A stack of files still waiting for his eyes. He got out of the car alone and headed for the HQ building, tossing a casual "get some rest" over his shoulder before he left — same as always.

But the cars didn't move. Gu Yunchi turned back on the steps and saw everyone leaning out their windows — faces worn out, but smiling — all saying it at once: "Happy birthday, Commander Gu!"

Most of them were former White Lion assault squad who'd been transferred here with Gu Yunchi two and a half years ago. Years of going through hell together. Every single time, they remembered his birthday when he didn't.

The Northern Theater Command — vast, barely populated, high altitude, brutal living conditions. But the stars were unreal. Gu Yunchi stood under that silent sky, gave them a nod, eyes steady: "Thanks."

A wave of his hand. He turned and walked into the building.

He sat down at his desk and checked his comms. One message came from outside the Army's structure.

From Lu Heyang, Air Force Colonel, League Southern Theater Command Air Operations HQ: "Major Gu — happy birthday. Keep your spirits up. Come home victorious."

Polite, but something underneath it. Gu Yunchi replied: "I'll take that as a good omen, Colonel Lu."

He set the comms down and started on the reports. The minute hand on the wall clock crept silently through two full circles. Then a faint buzz. Gu Yunchi closed the last file, pulled open the drawer by his leg, and fished out his Mobile Phone from the corner. He Wei calling.

He barely used the thing. Picking up was basically luck. He answered: "What is it."

"So weird — I've called you a dozen times this year and never got through, but on this special day you actually picked up. Were you waiting for my call?" He Wei was laughing about something. "It's been forever since I heard our young Mr. Gu's voice. Missed it. Uh — happy birthday."

"Oh," Gu Yunchi said. "Anything else?"

"Hehe…"

Hard to imagine the alpha making that sound was a senior superintendent at the League's top police bureau. He Wei dropped his voice, jittery: "I heard — Wen Ran was found. He's not dead. Is it true?"

Gu Yunchi was already backing out of the call screen, opening some chat thread with nearly a hundred unread messages. The latest one — sent two hours ago — was a shot from behind of an omega riding a shared bike, plaid shirt, an old Yellow Backpack slung over his shoulder. Caption: "Took the long way home from work to grab some bread."

Doing the time difference in his head — over there it would've been a little after seven that evening.

Gu Yunchi looked at the photo for a few seconds. "Yeah. He's alive."

"That's great — I'm happy for Wen Ran! At least you didn't sink into a funk over him for nothing. He really was unlucky, poor thing." He Wei let out a long "Ayy." "But now it's fine, right? He's got a new life. You two don't have to be shoved together anymore. Live and let live. Ha!"

Gu Yunchi's voice went cold. "Dream on."

"Hm?" He Wei stalled for a second, baffled. "Who's dreaming? What do you mean — you're gonna go confront him? Don't. He had his reasons back then. He wasn't trying to trick you on purpose. Major Gu, speaking as League police — be a tolerant, kind citizen."

He stood up, grabbed a cigarette, walked to the window. Ten-some kilometers out, the desert rolled in waves under the moon. This place — it ground you down. Endless war. Day after day, killing, bleeding. Smoke soaked into you head to toe. It forged your heart into steel. A mountain could collapse in front of you and your face wouldn't change.

Three years of it. Hundreds of psych evaluations. He'd always scored top tier. A commander with no weak points.

No weak points at all. Because of a Permanent Mark.

That omega who'd suffered so much, who'd had his sex changed and been sent to him — hadn't asked for anything. Just wanted him healthy. So once Gu Yunchi was healed, he'd really left without looking back. Even though he'd survived by some miracle, he'd never thought to find him. Never thought to see him again.

He and He Wei were on the same page: live and let live.

Dream on.

"I am going to confront him." Gu Yunchi bit the cigarette, lit it. "And there's something else."

Felt like some kind of torture. He Wei sucked in a scared breath. "What is it?"

Gu Yunchi took a drag. Said it like it was nothing: "Getting married."

"Engineer Li, we're going out to eat — you're really just gonna stay at the hotel?" the project manager called out, phone in hand, urgent.

"Yeah, a friend's coming." Wen Ran, Computer slung over his shoulder, waved back at him — then vanished into the crowd.

The whole department had flown out to HQ for a meeting these past few days — happened to be Joyce and Zhu Nu's city. Too bad the couple was about to head off on another trip, so they'd squeezed in a meet-up with Wen Ran before the airport.

"Little Tree!" Joyce stood up from her chair, waving big. "Over here!"

Wen Ran jogged over. "Hi!"

Zhu Nu gave him a hug. "It's been so long. I swear you've grown again."

"Right — last time we saw you was your college graduation. Blink and you've been working over a year." Joyce patted his shoulder. "How's it going, Engineer Little Tree? Work treating you okay?"

"Really well. I've learned so much."

He'd landed an internship at a major air transport Company his senior year, got kept on after graduation, and had been there ever since. Aircraft design engineer in the mechanical R&D department.

"God bless you. May you stay lucky and happy." Zhu Nu smiled.

She and Joyce were childfree by choice, lived free and easy. But over the years they'd kept caring about Wen Ran, worrying after him — like picking up an injured fish, and once it swam back to the sea, feeling glad whenever some echo came back saying it was doing okay.

And that little fish had even sent them a model island for their twelfth wedding anniversary, with a recording of long, free ocean waves inside.

Blessings that beautiful were almost too much to carry. Wen Ran smiled. "Let's order. My treat today."

Quick meal. Joyce pulled out a Polaroid, asked the waiter to take two shots of the three of them — one for her and Zhu Nu, one for Wen Ran.

Wen Ran pulled out a pen and wrote the date and place on the photo with great ceremony. Joyce took it, looked it over. "Your handwriting looks like it's improved a little."

"I'm trying." Wen Ran scratched his cheek. "The results aren't that obvious yet."

What had lit a fire under him to practice was three years ago — he'd gotten into that Air Force Base training program he'd been dreaming of, and on the very first day of registration, a major named Cheng Duó had called him out.

"Which one of you is Li Shu? Step out."

When he'd said it, Cheng Duó had been staring at some hulking, unfortunate-looking alpha in the student line — until the slim, pale Wen Ran blankly raised his hand and stepped out: "Here."

Cheng Duó looked at him. After a long beat, let out a dry, absurd laugh.

"You… caught me off guard." Cheng Duó said. "I saw your ugly handwriting and thought… you know what, I have a colleague — top sniper — took one look at your writing and his heart rate spiked. Nearly didn't make it."

"Huh?" Wen Ran was shocked first, then flushed scarlet with shame. He'd always known his handwriting was ugly — admitted it freely — but this was the first time he'd heard of someone being so horrified by it they nearly had a cardiac event. That was basically a horror story.

"Sorry. I'll work on it." Head bowed so low it nearly hit his chest. Wen Ran made the decision then and there.

Near the end of that program, he and two other students had been called in for a chat — asked if they wanted to be Military Headquarters technical staff. The others had nodded eagerly. But Wen Ran knew his identity wouldn't survive a military background check. It would never pass. He stayed silent.

A big regret. But his current work was in the same general field, so it made up for it — a little.

After seeing Joyce and Zhu Nu off at the hotel, Wen Ran headed for the elevator. A few steps in, someone suddenly grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. He looked up, startled, and froze for a few seconds. "Tao Susu?"

He clamped a hand over Tao Susu's open mouth before she could scream, and dragged her into a corner.

"I just — I just—" Tao Susu was shaking all over, grabbing Wen Ran's collar, then throwing her arms around him hard. "You're too much. Way too much!"

Incoherent — "I'm so glad you're alive" and "you didn't tell me" tumbling out at once — then she started crying, snot bubbles popping one after another. Wen Ran scrambled for tissues to wipe her eyes.

"Do you know how sad I was? I got sick. Cried every day, all day." Tao Susu blew her nose into the tissue. "Just now I saw you and thought I was seeing things — how could someone look that much like him — but it really is you…"

After getting it all out, Tao Susu stared at Wen Ran with red eyes — and then they both burst out laughing at the same time.

Only now did Wen Ran really look at her. Seven years ago she'd been a delicate, slender omega. Now she had a simple high ponytail, no makeup, tanned skin, fit and even. If she hadn't stopped him, Li Shu probably wouldn't have recognized her at a glance.

"You've changed a lot," Wen Ran said.

"Heh. I'm with the League Wildlife Conservation Association now." Tao Susu pinched the badge on her chest and shook it. "A brave, righteous guardian of the Earth."

Surprising, but it suited her. Wen Ran asked: "What about your little kangaroo?"

"Released. In the reserve it picks fights with everyone. I'm done taking its crap." Like she'd just remembered something, Tao Susu pulled out her Mobile Phone. "Oh — look at this."

She scrolled to a photo. Wen Ran leaned in — an adult female White Lion, sitting majestic on a rock, three beautiful cubs around her.

Wen Ran stared at it for a long time, then looked up, dazed: "Dolu?"

"Yeah. A few years ago, after wilderness survival training, she was released into this reserve." Tao Susu paused. "Gu Yunchi came back from the front personally to see her off."

Hearing that name out of nowhere, Wen Ran lowered his eyes.

"Does he know you're alive?" Tao Susu asked.

That embrace from three years ago seemed to press down on his back again. It had come so suddenly, lasted so briefly — every time he remembered it, it felt like a dream, a hallucination. Wen Ran was quiet for a moment. "I don't know."

"Probably doesn't. I heard he's been on the front lines nonstop — four years at the military academy running special ops, then transferred to the Northern Theater Command. Harshest conditions, main combat zone. If I had to fight every day in a place like that, I'd lose my mind in a week."

And it was true — from three years ago on, Gu Yunchi's name kept popping up in military news. A young officer leading troops to liberate dozens of cities, millions of people, from years of war. In just a few years, the Army at the Northern Theater Command had risen to first among the four theaters in both strength and combat record.

Despite all that, this decorated Army major had never given an interview. Not once shown his face.

But Wen Ran had seen him. A little over a year ago. In a video.

That thirty-something-second warzone clip had exploded online — seemed like a reporter had forgotten to turn off the camera and caught it by accident. The angle was a little crooked.

The unit was resting in an abandoned restaurant in an empty city. Sunset light came through the windows, dust thick in the air, a few startled birds flapped past. An alpha in Army combat gear stood at a piano half-buried in dust. The camera swept past his profile — just barely catching his lashes and the high bridge of his nose under the tactical mask.

The alpha lifted the lid. Dust poured out. He brushed the keys clean, then played something — under ten seconds.

The piano was badly out of tune, but Wen Ran still recognized the piece.

He looked at the alpha's fingertips poking out from the half-finger Gloves — covered in grit — but he knew them.

Afterward, lots of people tried to track down the piece. Some tried to reconstruct the full piano score from the melody. Nobody succeeded.

Only Wen Ran knew the piece was called Nineteen Days of Polar Night — and the alpha playing it was Gu Yunchi.

"So Gu Yunchi really is something. The military originally estimated the Northern Theater campaign would take at least five years — but it's only been three and they're already launching the joint three-service offensive for the final push. If they win, the League'll probably be at peace for a long time." Tao Susu said. "All these years, seems like the only time he came back to the Capital City was to release Dolu. Even Chairman Gu can't reach him otherwise. A soldier that committed — he's gonna win."

"Of course." Wen Ran's heart — lately strung up by all the military news — was beating fast. He repeated it absently: "He's going to win."

Back in S City for half a month now, Wen Ran and his colleagues had been burning the midnight oil on an aerodynamic upgrade for one of the Company's all-cargo planes. Today was the final test. The whole department's engineers had pulled an all-nighter. Workbenches covered in coffee.

A little past eight in the morning, Wen Ran saved and uploaded the calculation report. His head was pounding. He went to the bathroom to wash his face.

Eyes half-shut, splashing water on his face — suddenly a hot rush in his nose. He opened his eyes. The white sink was streaked with blood, little bright-red dots splattered across it. Wen Ran shut off the tap, grabbed some paper, pressed it to his nose, slowly tilted his head level.

He looked at the mirror, thought back. These past two years, his nosebleeds had been getting more frequent — and always with a headache. Next checkup he really had to get his head looked at — though he'd already decided that plenty of times.

"Whoa!"

"Holy shit, yes!"

The workroom suddenly erupted. The test crew hadn't even arrived yet — couldn't be the project passing. Wen Ran cleaned up the blood, wiped his nose, walked out. "What's going on?"

"We won! North Theater Command ceasefire!" A colleague squeezed in front of a workbench Computer, waving him over. "Come watch the livestream!"

Wen Ran froze for a second, then ran over. A colleague grabbed him and pushed him in front of the screen.

On screen — the North Theater Command in the dead of night. Full moon hanging high, stars everywhere. Drones and fighters screaming past nonstop. The reporter's voice was shaking, on the edge of tears, shouting out the situation.

"We're here at the entrance to the Northern Theater Command Army HQ. You can see the fighters returning from the battlefield — the first wave of Army soldiers is about to arrive…"

The camera tilted down. Hundreds of military vehicles rolling back from the distance, blazing with light.

Some pulled into HQ. Others parked along the main road. Soldiers and officers climbed out.

"Commander Gu!" The reporter called to the tall, straight-backed alpha at the center of the crowd. "Would you say a few words?"

Apparently given the nod, the camera rose from shoulder height up to the face — masked, goggles on.

The young major — dust-covered, returning victorious under the moon — pulled off his goggles. White light hit the upper half of his face. Those eyes, black and deep — almost powerful enough to look through the screen and into you.

He looked straight into the camera. Chin slightly raised. Calm voice cutting through the noise.

"I'm coming for you."