56: Chapter 56 Second Lieutenant

The night in the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist was even thicker than Shen Ye had anticipated.

It wasn't a pure darkness, but rather a murky deep gray where the off-white mist turned in the night, like gauze soaked in diluted ink wrapped over the outpost.

The light of the Laws from the Light Curtain Defense Line flickered in the mist, casting an extremely faint golden halo over this gray zone.

Shen Ye sat in a corner of the outpost canteen, a bowl of already cold meat soup placed before him.

There weren't many people left in the canteen; a few sentries who had just finished their shift were chatting in low voices at another table, discussing when the next batch of supplies would arrive.

The canteen auntie was wiping the stove, her movements leisurely as she hummed a tuneless melody.

Holding his soup bowl, his gaze passed through the dense mist and landed on the second lieutenant who was clearing trays by the counter.

His military uniform was crisp, the lines of his profile were hard, with thick eyebrows and deep-set eyes.

His movements were very efficient; the trays, bowls, and chopsticks were placed into the recycling slot in sequence, and then he picked up a nearby cloth to wipe the counter once.

Shen Ye had observed this set of movements several times already.

From entering the canteen to order, to finishing and clearing up, this second lieutenant repeated the exact same process every single meal—when getting food, he placed the bowl first and then the tray, with the chopsticks set on the far right; when eating, he cycled through one bite of meat, one bite of vegetables, and one sip of soup, never changing the order; when clearing up, the bowl went on the tray, and the chopsticks were laid horizontally, the sequence never reversed.

It wasn't intentional; it was muscle memory.

It was a residual instinct left by some kind of long-term training, exactly like Qin Shu's habit of checking the projection equipment's power supply before entering the training room every time.

He set down the soup bowl, stood up, and walked toward the second lieutenant.

The second lieutenant was turning on the faucet at the sink.

The sound of flowing water splashed, and the sound of the canteen auntie wiping the stove came from behind.

Shen Ye stopped at the sink next to him and turned on another faucet.

"You used to be a Pioneer."

Shen Ye said, his voice kept very low, just barely covered by the sound of the water.

The second lieutenant's movement of turning the faucet paused.

It was an extremely brief pause, less than a heartbeat, and then he continued to tighten the faucet.

He straightened his back, pulled out a paper towel from the side to wipe his hands, and turned around to look at Shen Ye.

His gaze was no longer the routine indifference from when he was clearing the trays, but a calm that had retracted all expression after being recognized.

"How did you tell?"

"The way you clear your tray. Bowl on the tray, chopsticks laid horizontally. It's not a military regulation, but a personal habit. But I've seen another person with the exact same habit."

"Who?"

The second lieutenant's voice was very steady, as steady as a well-trained warrior's first reaction when gripping a weapon to face an unknown enemy.

"Qin Shu. Independent Pioneer Sequence, Number 0047."

The second lieutenant was silent for a long time.

The canteen auntie finished wiping the stove and began to mop the floor.

The mop made a uniform rubbing sound against the stone floor.

He lowered his eyes, crumpled the paper towel in his hand into a ball, and threw it into the trash can.

"Meng Yan. Number 0059."

He said, "You were taught by Qin Shu. He invested a lot in you."

Shen Ye looked at him.

Qin Shu had said that his followers would not respawn; if they died, they were truly dead.

Thirty-one years, and not a single one of the original followers who followed him had survived.

Yet Meng Yan—this second lieutenant hunkered down in a border outpost canteen, eating in a cycle of meat, vegetables, and soup—would instinctively maintain the storage order Qin Shu had taught.

The two of them were people of the same era, Independent Pioneers who had crawled out of the same gray zone.

This kind of physical brand passed down between veterans could verify their identities better than any file.

"Did he tell you about the Independent Pioneers?"

Meng Yan asked.

"Part of it."

"He didn't tell you everything."

Meng Yan walked to the canteen door, flipped the "Open" sign to "Closed," and then left the door slightly ajar.

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his gaze falling on the dark gold badge on Shen Ye's collar—the Wanxiang University Alumni Recommendation Badge.

The one Principal Zhou Wenyin had given him.

"The Independent Pioneer Sequence, numbers from 0001 to 0100. One hundred people, thirty years. Less than twenty percent lived to retirement. Qin Shu was number 0047, Gu Yan was 0031, and I am 0059."

He paused for a moment, "You're carrying Gu Yan's sword. Qin Shu told me about the broken sword."

Shen Ye didn't speak.

"He had a very good eye. Back then, among our batch, his judgment of people was the keenest."

Meng Yan walked over from the doorframe and sat down across from him, hands folded over his knees. "Before Qin Shu retired, he took his military projection training equipment with him, saying it was for the next student. I waited for many years but didn't see him return. Today, he has brought you."

Shen Ye took out the broken sword wrapped in Spiritual Power Silk from his backpack's side pocket and placed it on the table.

The crack on the surface of the broken sword that extended from the hilt to the tip shimmered with an extremely faint dark gold light under the Law lamps; it was the mark left by Gu Yan's full-power strike when he broke through to become a True God, sealed within.

Meng Yan didn't reach out to touch it, but simply looked at the sword for a long time.

Then he stood up, walked to a dusty locker in the corner of the canteen, fished a key out of his shirt, and opened the locker door.

There was only one thing in the locker—a flat Meteoric Iron Box with sealing runes embedded around the lid.

He placed the box on the table and opened it.

Inside the box was half a broken bone blade, a forearm bone blade of a Void Clan Warrior, the break as smooth as if it had been sliced through with a single cut.

Near the back of the bone blade, four words were faintly carved: Sea of Thousand Realms Mist.

The handwriting was scrawled, carved with the tip of a sword, and the edges of the carvings still held traces of long-dried dark red Devouring Abyss.

"Gu Yan's handwriting. He was accustomed to carving with his left hand."

Meng Yan said, "We brought this back from the Ash King's Divine Kingdom Core. That mission was codenamed 'Long Night,' and the goal was to penetrate deep into the Void Race occupied territory to find the Ash King's weakness. Gu Yan and I were on the same team then, while Qin Shu remained in the rear due to injury."

His fingers brushed over the break in the bone blade, "The Ash King's Devouring Abyss domain can devour all Law enhancements. Qin Shu's Array Breaking could neutralize its domain, allowing us to counterattack with the most primitive bone blades. After that mission, Qin Shu retired, and Gu Yan continued to lead the team deeper in, never to return."

Shen Ye took out the Void Tribe Scout bone armor sample he had cut on the rift battlefield from his backpack and lightly touched the surface of the bone armor with the sword intent stone.

During this time, he had been studying the Law runes inside these bone armors; Tie Chui had said that if they could find the energy flow patterns of the Devouring Abyss Laws, they could reverse-engineer the logic for refining purification pills.

But the bone armor sample was only Scout-level, the Law runes were too shallow, and many key nodes couldn't be seen clearly.

Meng Yan watched his movements for a while and suddenly spoke: "You're studying the Devouring Abyss Law runes of the Void Race."

"I was thinking,"

Shen Ye placed the bone armor sample on the table and also placed Gu Yan's broken sword next to the bone blade.

Two weapons, separated by so many years, were placed side-by-side on the same table in the same canteen. "If I had been there during Operation Long Night, perhaps he could have come back. But the fact is I am late. So all I can do is take those who come after even further."

Meng Yan was silent for a long time.

Outside the canteen, the mist flowed slowly, and the Law light of the curtain flickered in the fog.

He pressed his hand onto that broken bone blade.

"I'll give this bone blade to you. It has the residual Law aura of a high-ranking Void Clan King, which is more intact than any Scout bone armor you've collected on the periphery. I hope it can help you refine that purification pill logic."

"Why?"

"Gu Yan used this sword to entrust Qin Shu, and Qin Shu left his best projection equipment for you. It's not for you to continue the fight for him, but so that you can fight for a larger piece of the sky yourself. Take this sword and this bone blade to see the old men at the top and tell them—Independent Pioneer Sequence 0059 has waited in the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist for so many years, not for the teammates who went missing back then, but for the day he could see someone continuing to move forward along this path."

Shen Ye carefully put the half bone blade into a Spiritual Power Silk bag and fixed it in the backpack's interlayer with a binding spell.

Then he re-wrapped Gu Yan's broken sword and put it back in the side pocket of the backpack.

After confirming the sealing runes were intact, he pulled the zipper shut.

"I will."

He said.

Footsteps came from outside the canteen; it was time for the night sentry shift change.

Meng Yan stood up and pushed open the door he had just closed.

The "Open" sign swayed gently on the doorframe.

He walked back to the counter, picked up the cloth, and continued to wipe the stove he had already wiped once, his movements exactly the same as before—bowl on the tray, chopsticks laid horizontally on the far right.

Shen Ye picked up that bowl of completely cold meat soup and slowly finished it.

The Ash King's bone blade fragment lay quietly dormant in his backpack, while Gu Yan's broken sword seemed slightly warmer than before.

Those four scrawled words—Sea of Thousand Realms Mist—repeatedly surfaced in Shen Ye's mind.

He remembered Qin Shu's words: "Gu Yan was my captain."

The secrets within the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist, the Ash King's Divine Kingdom Core, the missing numbers in the Independent Pioneer Sequence—none of these were questions a Provincial Tournament champion could answer.

But he was the fourth S-rank of Nanjiang No. 7 High School.

He didn't need to answer them now.

He placed the empty bowl into the recycling slot.

Tomorrow would be the second day of the border observation; Qin Shu said he would take them deep into the mist to find the abnormal energy fluctuation coordinates marked by Gu Qinghan.

The energy fluctuation characteristics of those coordinates didn't completely match the Devouring Abyss power of the Void Race; they contained trace mixed fluctuations of Holy Light and Abyss, suspected to be remnants of an ancient ruin.

Jiang Yue's progress in deciphering the twilight script had reached nearly thirty percent; once this bone blade fragment provided by Meng Yan was successfully reverse-engineered for its Law runes by Tie Chui and the others, the development of the Spiral Purification Foundation Establishment Pill would take a giant leap forward.

All the clues were converging in the same direction—the Twilight Civilization, the Ash King, and the purification of the Devouring Abyss Laws.

Shen Ye slung his backpack over his shoulder and pushed open the canteen door.

The night wind of the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist rushed toward him, its chill seeping into the fibers of his school uniform.

The guide has been found; as for the rest of the path, he would walk it step by step.