Chapter 60

Wen Ran held the same pose for at least ten seconds before he shifted his gaze — checked the window behind Gu Yunchi, intact, then checked the door lock, intact.

Which meant that while he was asleep, Gu Yunchi had calmly let himself in, just like last night.

「Are you a thief?」 Wen Ran's head was still spinning. He frowned. 「Or a burglar?」

「You probably won't believe me if I tell you,」 Gu Yunchi said, lowering his hand and leaning back slightly against the chair. 「Lock-picking is one of the basic courses at military academy.」

「Didn't your military academy teach you that you can't just go picking ordinary people's locks?」

「It did,」 Gu Yunchi said. 「But you were sleeping. I didn't want to wait outside.」

「That's got nothing to do with whether I was sleeping. You did the exact same thing yesterday.」

「Because you weren't off work yet. I didn't want to wait outside.」

He looked like he was talking sense — anyway, better than that crazy marriage talk last night — but everything he actually did was a non-negotiable invasion. He didn't seem to plan on mentioning the past, having a conversation and then leaving. Instead he just sat there in Wen Ran's little apartment, one foot planted in his ordinary, peaceful life, purpose unknown, departure time unknown.

Knowing full well that the gap in their debating skills was hopeless, Wen Ran stayed silent a few seconds, then turned and walked into the bathroom.

Maybe it was the aftereffect of an all-nighter at work plus another bad night's sleep. He'd just washed his face and hung up the towel when his nose went hot, liquid running down fast. Wen Ran immediately grabbed a few tissues and pressed them over his nose, stopping the blood.

He looked at his face in the mirror. The thing is, when you see it every day — especially your own — it's hard to tell whether you've gotten thinner or heavier. He remembered Gu Yunchi saying 「you've lost weight」 last night, and couldn't be sure if it was fact or just small talk.

He tossed the reddened tissues into the toilet and flushed, then opened the door and stepped out, finding Gu Yunchi standing in front of the partition bookshelf, looking thoughtfully at something.

Wen Ran wiped the water off his chin, paused, then said, 「Please stop letting yourself into my place without asking.」

「No,」 Gu Yunchi said, turning his head to look at him, refusing with easy, decisive certainty.

「What exactly are you here for?」 Wen Ran asked, voice very low, confused and lost.

「Dropping off breakfast.」 Gu Yunchi didn't take up too much of Wen Ran's tight workday morning. He walked straight to the door and opened it. 「Throw it out if you don't want it.」 Before stepping out, he added, 「Wasting food is shameful.」

Wen Ran watched the door open, then close, the lock clicking shut. On the floor behind the door, that business card still lay there quietly, faint scuffed footprints on it — Gu Yunchi must have trodden on it by accident while pacing around the room last night, and seemed to have stepped on it once more on his way out just now.

Walking over to the dining table, Wen Ran looked at the four or five breakfast items in the glass containers. The logo on the boxes was Cloud Bay, and the inner walls were filmed with a pale white from the heat of the food.

The curtains were still drawn. Wen Ran went over and pulled them aside, then opened the window and, out of habit, glanced down — and his gaze froze on the spot.

In a Little Alley diagonally across, Gu Yunchi was standing in the shadow of a wall near the mouth of the alley, head lowered, taking a call while lighting a cigarette.

From this distance Wen Ran couldn't make out exactly what the smoke in his hand looked like, and didn't get the chance to — the smoke drifted apart, and amid the noise of the street, Gu Yunchi suddenly raised his eyes toward the fourth floor.

The instant their eyes met, Wen Ran stepped two paces to the side, out of Gu Yunchi's line of sight.

That evening, outside the Army Commander's office at League General Headquarters, Gu Yunchi knocked on the door. 「Commander Pei.」

Pei Yan had been in meetings all day. The moment his last evening meeting ended, he'd boarded a military jet straight to City S. Gu Yunchi had only learned three minutes ago that he'd arrived at General Headquarters — his thought was that Commander Pei really did have boundless energy and a rock-solid constitution.

「Come in.」

Used to combat gear, the everyday uniform felt overly constricting. Gu Yunchi did up the top two shirt buttons he'd left loose all day and straightened his tie before pushing the door open and going in.

Inside, he saluted first, then said, 「You're still at work this late.」

For some reason, every time Gu Yunchi said 'you' in that polite register, Pei Yan inexplicably felt a faint trace of sarcasm in it.

Clack — he flung the pen in his hand down, looked up, and sized Gu Yunchi up from head to toe a few times before saying, 「Came to see what's so good about City S — good enough that Lieutenant Colonel Gu flew straight over the moment he left the battlefield, and now won't budge.」

「I've listened to all the recordings and read all the documents from today's meetings. This is my report.」 Gu Yunchi set a folder on the desk. 「I already requested leave from the Military Affairs Department before coming to City S. You should be aware of that.」

「What good is being aware? By the time I was aware, you'd already vanished!」 Pei Yan flipped through a few pages of the report and gave a cold snort. 「Regulations say meeting reports are due within three days — quick work, I'll give you that. Just wonder if you'll be this efficient when it comes to writing your self-criticism.」

Gu Yunchi didn't answer.

Pei Yan closed the file, took a sip of water, and glanced at Gu Yunchi again. 「It's not that I actually want to chew you out. From the day you entered the academy until now, you've been nothing but training grounds and battlefields. This time you were supposed to come back to Capital City and show your face officially, accept your commendation in style. Right?」

Gu Yunchi didn't answer yes or no directly. Instead he said, 「I grew up in Capital City. I've shown my face plenty of times.」

「You won't be satisfied until you've worked me into the grave, will you?」 Pei Yan rapped on the desk, then suddenly caught sight of the photos beneath the glass desktop, and his temper vanished in an instant. After a long while, he waved a hand. 「Forget it. As long as you came back alive, that's enough. Seeing you in person puts my mind a little more at ease.」

Pressed beneath the glass desktop were quite a few photographs — group shots and decoration ceremonies Pei Yan had taken over his many years of service. His thumb stroked across one photo through the glass. 「By rights, after fighting this many years, I should be used to life and death by now. But maybe I'm just getting old — I always end up worrying.」

Gu Yunchi lowered his eyes to look. It was a photo of two people — a middle-aged Pei Yan on the left, a young officer on the right.

「Ning Jinqian. Over twenty years ago, the Army Special Operations Team of the Southern Theater Command — the first unit I personally trained up, and he was the commander I appointed.」 Pei Yan said slowly, 「He was about your age when he was killed in action, just about to make colonel too, and then he didn't come back from the battlefield. If he'd lived, he'd probably be a general by now.」

He pointed to a person in another group photo. 「And him — an excellent intelligence officer. Only twenty-three when he was killed. Sometimes when I look at you lot, I think of them, the way they were. The battlefield and military orders are merciless, casualties can't be avoided, but I still hope every single one of you comes home safe.」

Gu Yunchi nodded. 「Understood.」

「All right, go get some sleep early. So many years and you've never properly rested — suit yourself.」 Pei Yan's tone shifted. 「But the five-thousand-word handwritten self-criticism isn't getting waived. And tomorrow I'm scheduling you for post-combat psychological counseling. I keep feeling like something's off about you all over this time.」

「Is that so,」 Gu Yunchi said. 「Doesn't feel like it.」

Pei Yan pointed at the door. 「Out.」

He'd just stepped out and shut the door when someone patted his shoulder. Gu Yunchi turned to find Cheng Duó standing behind him, grinning gleefully, raising a finger to his lips with a 'shh,' then slinging an arm around Gu Yunchi to steer him toward the end of the corridor.

Once they reached the stairwell, Cheng Duó spoke up. 「Lieutenant Colonel Gu, not bad — you've actually got the nerve to skip a post-combat meeting. No wonder Commander Pei's so furious. The gossip's spread all the way to our Air Force Base.」

Gu Yunchi loosened his tie and undid the top two shirt buttons again. 「You Air Force lot are quite the gossips.」

Like how Lu Heyang, while drifting in and out of consciousness during his Susceptibility Period, had still sent a message lazily asking, 'Lieutenant Colonel Gu, going smoothly?'

「Stirring up inter-service rivalry again? Careful, or I'll go report you to Colonel Lu.」 Cheng Duó bumped Gu Yunchi's shoulder. 「Come on, tell me — what exactly are you in City S for? Can't be that you just love the working environment at General Headquarters, can it?」

They'd just reached the next floor down when the soldier on duty at the passage entrance saluted them. Gu Yunchi asked him straight out, 「You armed? Lend it to me.」

The soldier froze. Cheng Duó immediately waved a hand and dragged Gu Yunchi on down the stairs. 「Listen to me — whatever's bugging you, keep it bottled up. Don't take it out on your colleagues.」

But Gu Yunchi suddenly asked, out of nowhere, 「Back at the League Air Force Founding Anniversary a while ago — wasn't there a Fighter Jet Model?」

「Don't even bring it up, talk about stingy — only four sent to each Military Base, nowhere near enough to go around. I'm planning to set up a display case and let everybody just admire them together. Nobody gets to own one.」

「Give me one. The best-looking one.」

Cheng Duó was startled. 「What do you want a model for? I feel too guilty to even keep one for myself. Go up and check the Air Force Commander's office — he's bound to have one, go ask him for it.」

「Saw it. Ugly.」

「You're lucky there are any at all, and you're calling it ugly!」 Cheng Duó said. 「Why do you suddenly want one of these anyway? My suggestion is just come hang out at our Military Base. There's an aircraft due for testing soon, full-size model, seriously sharp-looking.」

Gu Yunchi refused flatly. 「Not interested.」

Cheng Duó rolled his eyes and snorted.

The two of them walked outside, and he suddenly said, 「Oh right, speaking of fighter jets — you remember that college kid three years ago whose handwriting was so ugly it gave you an arrhythmia? Li Shu.」

Gu Yunchi, just about to light a cigarette, paused. 「I remember.」

「I ran into him later. Guess what he looks like? All I can say is, by the end of one event, ninety-nine percent of the unit's Alpha members had gone over to hit on him. But all he had eyes for was aircraft — he kept chasing after our Engineering Department colleagues, firing off questions, dead serious about it.」

Gu Yunchi flicked the lighter on and off, idly. 「He's always been like that.」

Cheng Duó didn't quite catch that, and went on, 「Earlier this year we bought out a transport company's design plan. That project was Li Shu's work. Shame he doesn't seem to have any interest in joining the Military Headquarters. But I checked the lab schedule — their Company's coming over to do testing in a few days too. If Li Shu's there, I'm planning to put the question to him again on behalf of the Engineering Department.」

「No need to ask. He won't agree.」 Gu Yunchi lit the cigarette. 「Asking will only make him miserable.」

「What are you talking about?」 Cheng Duó looked at him strangely. 「You know him? How can you be so sure?」

「Mind your own business.」 Gu Yunchi took a drag. 「Let me know when their Company comes in for testing.」

After Cheng Duó left, Gu Yunchi stood under the tree and finished his cigarette. Summer in City S was long, but the late-night breeze already carried a faint hint of early autumn. After too long on the battlefield, his nerves were still permanently taut, unable to fully relax. Gu Yunchi took out his Mobile Phone and checked the unread messages, then found a number in his contacts and dialed it.

It connected after five seconds. A very clean voice came from the other end, polite as a little customer-service rep. 「Hello, who's this, please?」

Gu Yunchi asked, 「Still working late?」

The breathing on the other end stopped at once. One second of silence — then the call cut off.

Clearly spooked. Felt like it could go into the textbook of 'what happens when you answer a strange call late at night.'

Gu Yunchi tossed the cigarette butt into the trash can and headed for the shooting range.

Over the past three years, for a long stretch — probably ever since he'd learned Wen Ran was still alive — the bloody, dreary life on the battlefield had gone from something he was used to into days that dragged like years. Now and then, when he found a moment to open his phone and saw the messages his bodyguard sent, knowing Wen Ran was doing all right, beyond the relief there gradually grew a kind of displeasure.

Wen Ran was living perfectly fine. Living perfectly fine without Gu Yunchi, and with not the slightest intention of contacting Gu Yunchi, taking it as a given that they'd each lead separate, unrelated lives.

Every time the thought struck, he had the urge to haul Wen Ran in front of him and tell him, word by word, to quit dreaming — but all that met his eyes was the desolate desert of the North Theater Command. So on many a pre-dawn morning, Gu Yunchi turned up at the shooting range, pulling the trigger to land round after round of bullseyes.

He'd assumed these feelings would be smoothed out completely once he reached City S. Who'd have guessed that in the span of a single day, Wen Ran's attitude would bring them surging right back.

But how could he blame him.

Gu Yunchi thought of the models he'd seen on Wen Ran's bookshelf that morning, several of them, big and small — souvenirs stamped with the Company logo, and cheap finds Wen Ran had dug up himself, mediocre craftsmanship but all very solemnly arranged.

And one more, with an exquisite model photo set beside it — yet the actual model looked like a crude bootleg, something Wen Ran must have built by hand off the official site's version, scavenging scrap from the Company and piecing together a similar shell to match the picture. Because he couldn't afford the real thing, all he could do was amuse himself.

But that was Wen Ran — for him, amusing himself was already an immense happiness. All those models, blueprints, technical books — never again would they have to be tucked away in the wardrobe with such care and dread, frantically buried under clothes. Now they were set out openly, in every corner of his home.

Wen Ran was living a life that plenty of people would sneer at, but that to him was like a beautiful dream — one he'd worked so hard to build, just like that handmade model. So he didn't want it disturbed, didn't want it broken, and resisted any change or interference.

Gu Yunchi understood all this perfectly well, but it didn't stop him from feeling displeased.

Because right now, he himself was the biggest change and interference in Wen Ran's eyes.

The night wind set the leaves rustling. Gu Yunchi pulled out his Mobile Phone again and sent a message to the owner of the number that had hung up on him a few minutes ago.

: This rude, huh?