20: Is the streamer going to pilot a tank Gundam?

It was... a water gun.

A huge, brightly colored, and outrageously funny-looking children's toy water gun.

Its entire body was made of high-saturation red, yellow, and blue plastic. The gun body was bloated with rounded lines, and it even had a sticker of a cartoon smiling duck on it. Now, amidst the smoke of gunpowder, it seemed to be silently mocking this cruel world.

A massive, transparent plastic water tank was mounted on top of the gun like a hump, but it was completely empty.

From the muzzle to the stock, the entire gun emitted a strong smell of cheap industrial plastic that was completely out of place with this era.

At this moment, the air seemed to have been sucked dry.

Time also seemed to have been put on pause.

Downstairs, that Type 89 medium tank was still arrogantly crushing the final line of defense. The "crunching" sound of its tracks rolling over corpses was clearly audible.

But on the rooftop, a deathly, eerie silence had fallen.

Shangguan Zhibiao, a hardened man who wouldn't even blink in a hail of bullets, had a frozen expression on his face.

His mouth hung open, his eyes were wide as copper bells, and he stared fixedly at the colorful "murder weapon" in Chen Xi's hand. His Adam's apple bobbed, but he couldn't make a sound.

He felt like his brain was a pot of boiling paste.

He had imagined that Chen Xi might pull out an even more strangely shaped blade, an unheard-of cannon, or even a talisman that could summon heavenly thunder.

But he never dreamed in his wildest fantasies...

...that it would be this thing.

Xie Jinyuan, the Confucian general who had remained unfazed regardless of the desperate situation since the start of the war, also found his hand holding the binoculars frozen in mid-air.

Through the lenses, he could clearly see the rivets on the turret of that bean tank and the hideous smiles on the faces of the Japanese Army infantry beside it.

He could also clearly see this young man, whom he regarded as a "miracle worker from heaven," holding a... toy that would make even a three-year-old laugh out loud.

For the first time, his brain went blank for several seconds.

Meanwhile, in Chen Xi's livestream room...

After a brief, roughly half-second stagnation...

The bullet chat instantly erupted in an unprecedented, almost hysterical manner!

[??????????????????]

[Holy shit!!!! What the hell am I seeing?!]

[A... a water gun? Am I seeing this right? He pulled out a water gun on the battlefield???]

[It's over, Master Xi has lost it. The pressure was too much, he's completely snapped.]

[I have a question. What does he plan to do with that thing? Give the tank a bath? Or squirt water into the barrel to make it rust?]

[The person above has no vision! Master Xi is going to use the water gun to blind the devils!]

[Hahahaha, I'm sorry, I really can't help it. This is the funniest war movie I've seen this year, bar none!]

[Streamer, I beg you, stop your "magic"! So many brothers are watching downstairs; you're going to make them lose their faith!]

"Nonsense!"

A roar of suppressed, extreme anger finally broke the silence on the rooftop.

It was Shangguan Zhibiao.

His face, blackened by smoke, had turned the color of pig liver from anger and disappointment. He rushed to Chen Xi in a few steps, pointing at the water gun in his hand, his voice trembling.

"Mr. Chen! You... what are you doing?!"

"What time is it! How many brothers are down there waiting for us to save their lives! You pull out a child's toy... are you playing with us?!"

He was so angry he could hardly speak.

It was a massive sense of despair, like hope falling from the clouds to the bottom of an abyss.

He would rather Chen Xi tell him there was no way than to have him play such a cruel joke in this manner at such a critical moment.

Chen Xi did not look at him.

He didn't even pay attention to the deafening roar in his ear.

He just knelt halfway behind the parapet and propped the massive water gun on the embrasure.

His gaze was as cold as a block of ice.

His movements were as steady as if he were operating the most precise instrument.

He gripped a handle beneath the gun body, similar to a bicycle pump, and began to slowly pull it, one stroke at a time.

"Thump, thump, thump."

Each pull produced a dull sound, like a hydraulic device starting up.

And inside that transparent water tank, wisps of pale blue mist, like liquid nitrogen, began to appear out of thin air following his movements.

The mist continued to gather and churn, eventually condensing into a deep blue, incredibly viscous liquid that slowly filled the entire tank.

The gun body began to emit a slight humming sound.

A cold chill with a metallic scent radiated from the gun.

"You..."

Seeing this eerie scene, Shangguan Zhibiao's remaining words were stuck in his throat.

He didn't understand.

He didn't understand at all.

But he could feel that this seemingly ridiculous toy was undergoing some kind of terrifying transformation that he could not comprehend.

The bullet chat in the livestream room also began to shift from pure mockery to a hint of shock and suspicion.

[Wait... what is that? Liquid nitrogen?]

[Is this gun... glowing? And there's a sound?]

[Holy crap, the sound and light effects of this toy are way too realistic!]

[I have a bad feeling about this... the streamer doesn't seem to be joking.]

[Could this... could this be the legendary... water-cooled plasma railgun?]

[Stop acting cool, you guys. This is clearly just an outrageously large water gun! But... it really seems to be charging?]

Chen Xi did not stop.

He continued to repeat those ridiculous-looking movements, as if he were pumping air into a toy.

One, two, three... by the time he pulled it for the tenth time.

The deep blue liquid in the tank had filled the entire container and began to boil violently, emitting a heart-palpitating blue glow.

The humming of the gun body also became higher and sharper.

An invisible pressure spread out in all directions, centered on the water gun.

Shangguan Zhibiao even felt his hair stand up slightly, drawn by the static electricity.

He subconsciously took half a step back.

Meanwhile, Xie Jinyuan had, at some point, raised his binoculars again.

His hands were as steady as a rock.

His gaze was fixed firmly on the bean tank firing downstairs and the... toy in Chen Xi's hand that was emitting an eerie blue light.

Two completely different styles appeared in his field of vision simultaneously, in an incredibly bizarre way.

He did not speak.

He was just waiting.

Waiting to see if this young man was about to create an unprecedented legend or... a laughingstock for the ages.

Finally.

Chen Xi stopped his movements.

He slowly aimed that huge, ridiculous, yet terrifyingly aura-emitting muzzle at the area below.

At that rampaging steel beast.