6: Which part are you from?

"Don't move!"

That explosive shout was like a thunderclap detonating right beside Chen Xi's ear.

His body, still weak from the violent dry heaving, instantly tensed like a fully drawn bow. He jerked his head up, his gaze leaping over the broken wall, locking firmly on the window on the second floor.

A ZB-26 light machine gun, its dark muzzle pointed directly at the center of his forehead.

Behind the muzzle were a pair of eyes, sharp as an eagle's even amidst the smoke of gunpowder.

Those eyes held not a trace of jest or testing, only a cold, resolute readiness to pull the trigger at any moment.

Chen Xi's heart sank like a stone.

He had just escaped with his life from being surrounded and hunted by three Japanese Soldiers, only to find himself in another, even more perilous situation in the blink of an eye.

Because this time, the one pointing a gun at him was a fellow countryman.

"Rustle-clatter—"

A chaotic yet rapid sound of footsteps came from inside the warehouse.

Soon, seven or eight Soldiers wearing uniforms different from the corpses at his feet rushed out from a broken hole in the wall. Their movements were swift, coordinated, and they quickly fanned out, forming a semicircular encirclement that blocked all of Chen Xi's escape routes.

Leading them was the officer who had just aimed the machine gun at him from the window.

He looked to be in his early thirties, not tall in stature but exceptionally solidly built. His square-jawed face was smeared with patches of black and yellow from smoke and grime. The gaze beneath his military cap carried a seasoned fierceness and wariness. He wasn't holding a gun, just had his hands clasped behind his back as he walked step by step towards Chen Xi.

His boots crunched on the gravel, making a "creak, creak" sound with each step, each one seeming to land on the rhythm of Chen Xi's heartbeat.

The viewers in the live stream also snapped out of their earlier bloodthirsty revelry, bewildered by this sudden turn of events.

【Holy shit! Our own guys?】

【What's going on? Friendly fire? Is the streamer about to get his kill stolen?】

【These NPCs are so professional! Look at their dispersal formation, it's a standard combat envelopment formation! The game's attention to detail is insane!】

【Something's off. Look at that leading officer's eyes. That's not the look you give an ally. That's the look you give a spy!】

Chen Xi slowly raised his hands, indicating he meant no harm.

The sickle in his hand was still dripping blood, appearing particularly eerie under the gloomy daylight.

The officer's gaze swept over Chen Xi's casual T-shirt, which stood out jarringly against the surroundings, then fell on the three corpses sliced to pieces at his feet, and finally, fixed itself firmly on that sickle.

His pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

"Weapon. Drop it."

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an indisputable tone of command.

Chen Xi hesitated.

This sickle was his only talisman now.

"I'll say it again." The officer's eyes grew even colder. "Drop it."

The Soldiers behind him lowered their gun muzzles another fraction in unison. The "click-clack" sounds of safeties being released linked together.

Chen Xi knew he had no choice.

He slowly opened his hand.

"Clang."

The sickle fell to the ground with a clear, sharp sound.

A young Soldier instinctively moved forward to pick it up but was stopped by a sharp bark from the officer.

"Don't touch it!"

The Soldier flinched, jerking his hand back.

The officer's gaze was like steel needles quenched in fire, piercing straight into Chen Xi's eyes.

"Which unit are you from?"

Here it comes.

Chen Xi's heart skipped a beat. He knew the most critical question had arrived.

He steadied himself and, following the story he had prepared earlier, tried to make his expression appear as sincere as possible.

"Sir, I'm an overseas Chinese who returned from abroad, wanting to contribute to the country. I just arrived in Shanghai and got separated from the main force."

This excuse might have sufficed in any anti-Japanese war drama.

But here, it clearly wouldn't work.

After hearing it, the officer's face showed not a flicker of emotion. Instead, he sneered coldly.

"Overseas Chinese?"

He looked Chen Xi up and down, the suspicion in his eyes practically overflowing.

"An overseas Chinese wearing such strange clothes, not even a pair of proper shoes?"

"An overseas Chinese with weird, medium-length hair, speaking in a half-literary, half-vernacular style, without any trace of an accent?"

"And..." He gestured with his chin towards the sickle on the ground. "An overseas Chinese who uses *this thing* to chop up three well-trained Imperial soldiers like they were melons and vegetables?"

With each sentence, he took a step closer.

An immense sense of pressure, mixed with the pungent smells of blood and gunpowder, washed over Chen Xi.

Chen Xi was left speechless by his questioning, cold sweat trickling down his temple.

Damn it.

He had forgotten. The man before him was not a game NPC.

This was a professional Soldier who had crawled out of piles of corpses, surviving on instinct and experience.

Any single point of illogic would be infinitely magnified by him.

"Password!" the officer suddenly barked another question.

"What?" Chen Xi was stunned.

"I said password!" the officer's voice suddenly rose sharply. His hand moved to the pistol at his waist. "What's the password from dawn till dusk today! Answer!"

Chen Xi was completely dumbfounded.

How would he know the password from this era?

Seeing the utter confusion on Chen Xi's face, the last shred of hope vanished from the officer's eyes.

He drew the Browning from his waist, its dark muzzle pressing directly against Chen Xi's forehead.

The cold touch of metal made Chen Xi's blood feel like it was freezing solid.

"Speak!"

The officer's voice seemed squeezed from between his teeth.

"What the hell are you? Man or ghost? A Japanese spy, or some monster sent by Chongqing?!"

The barrage in the live stream exploded at this moment.

【It's over, it's over! Master Xi's identity is exposed!】

【This NPC's IQ is way too high! He even uses logical reasoning?】

【Streamer, make something up quick! Just say the password is 'The Heavenly King covers the Earth Tiger'!】

【You idiot upstairs, you think this is a movie? Bet you the streamer gets shot first if he says that!】

【Where's that top donor called 'Descendant of the Dragon'? Come out and think of something! Aren't you from the national team!】

At this moment of extreme tension, on the verge of eruption.

"Company Commander! Company Commander Shangguan!"

A Soldier scrambled out of the warehouse, his voice choked with tears.

"Nickname... Nickname, he's not going to make it!"

The officer addressed as Company Commander Shangguan paused, whipping his head around.

"What did you say?!"

"That last wave of shelling from the Japs... a piece of shrapnel flew in from behind and ripped Nickname's belly open! His guts are spilling out! The Medic says... says there's no hope, to prepare for the aftermath..."

Shangguan Zhibiao's body trembled violently.

The hand holding his gun was taut with bulging veins.

He turned back, staring fixedly at Chen Xi, the struggle between killing intent and hesitation raging fiercely in his eyes.

Finally, gritting his teeth, he holstered his gun.

"Tie him up for me! Post two men to watch him!"

He threw out this order, then turned and rushed towards the warehouse.

Two Soldiers immediately stepped forward, using coarse hemp rope to bind Chen Xi's hands tightly behind his back.

Another Soldier, cautiously, wrapped that sickle layer by layer in a piece of tattered cloth, holding it at a distance as if it were some ominous object.

Chen Xi did not resist.

He was flanked by two Soldiers, one on each side, and for the first time, stepped into this later-famous, thunderously renowned, Sihang Warehouse.

An indescribably complex odor instantly flooded his nostrils.

The smell of blood, sweat, disinfectant, and the choking mix of gunpowder smoke and dust.

The interior of the warehouse was dimly lit, with only a few beams of daylight shooting in through bullet holes and windows in the walls, forming visible pillars of light in the air. Countless dust motes danced within these pillars.

It was larger than he had imagined, but also packed to the brim.

Against the walls were piled sandbags and ammunition crates.

On the open floor lay rows upon rows of wounded Soldiers.

Most of them simply lay on pallets made of straw, covered with dirty, color-indiscernible blankets.

Groans rose and fell in succession.

A middle-aged man who looked like a Military Doctor was sweating profusely as he bandaged a Soldier with a severed arm. His medical kit contained only a few rolls of yellowed gauze and a nearly empty bottle of iodine.

Several underage Boy Scouts were carrying basins of water, moving back and forth among the wounded, wiping their faces with damp cloths or giving them sips of water.

-

Everyone was busy, yet the entire space was pervaded by a kind of desperate quiet.

Chen Xi was escorted past these wounded Soldiers.

He saw a Soldier whose legs had been blown off, lying with his eyes open, staring expressionlessly at the ceiling.

He saw a Soldier whose chest was tightly wrapped in bandages, blood still seeping out. His lips moved silently, as if calling someone's name.

He also saw a boy Soldier who looked only fifteen or sixteen, his face still bearing a childlike innocence, now curled into a ball from the intense pain, biting his own fist hard to keep from letting out a single moan.

These images struck Chen Xi's heart like heavy hammer blows.

As a former special forces Soldier, he had seen corpses, blood, and death.

But he had never seen suffering so... primitive, so desperate, so densely concentrated.

This was not a game.

This was not a movie.

This was a real, bleeding, hell on earth.

He was escorted to a corner of the warehouse and made to sit against the cold wall.

A Soldier placed the cloth-wrapped sickle not far in front of him. Then, he and another Soldier stood guard on either side, their gun muzzles never leaving Chen Xi's vital spots.

Chen Xi remained silent, watching everything before him.

He felt that his world of 2026, filled with neon lights, virtual idols, and internet memes, was fading away from him.

Fading away, like an unreal dream.