68: Chapter 68 With my flesh and blood, I forged a thoroughfare!

"Prepare to receive the Main Cable."

Chen Xi's voice was calm and clear.

Like a red-hot steel needle, it pierced through the roar of the hailstorm of bullets and into the "Great Wall" Command Center twenty thousand kilometers away.

Inside the Command Center, there was a deathly silence.

Everyone thought they had misheard.

A young staff officer, looking at the red dot on the screen that was completely covered by firepower, cried out in shock.

"He's crazy!"

"In this situation, he's telling us to receive the Main Cable?"

"What is he trying to do!"

Indeed.

What was he trying to do?

He was already pinned down ruthlessly on that cliff face.

Unable to move.

Receiving the Main Cable meant that the Soldiers at the warehouse had to start turning the winch.

Pulled by the Guide Rope, the heavy Main Cable would begin moving toward the opposite bank.

That massive commotion would only make him an even more conspicuous target!

It was suicide!

Elder Long stared intently at the screen.

In those bloodshot eyes, there was no hesitation, no wavering.

There was only a kind of near-manic, absolute trust.

He grabbed the microphone and issued the command with a voice so raspy it nearly cracked.

"Listen to him!"

"Everyone! Follow his orders!"

"Notify the warehouse! Receive the Main Cable immediately!"

The order was transmitted back to the Sihang Warehouse of 1937.

On the roof of the warehouse.

The Soldiers responsible for turning the winch were stunned.

They could clearly see the firelight on the opposite bank, which seemed ready to set the entire night sky ablaze.

Mr. Chen was right there in that firelight.

Facing certain death.

And now, he wants us to hand him an even heavier burden?

"Execute the order!"

Xie Jinyuan's voice was resolute.

The Soldiers no longer hesitated.

With bloodshot eyes and using every ounce of their strength, they began to turn the heavy winch, composed of countless gears and levers.

"Creak—"

The tooth-gritting sound of metal friction rang out.

Connecting two worlds, that Main Cable, heavy as destiny, began to move slowly, inch by inch, toward the darkness known as the "Death Zone"... on the opposite bank, upon the cliff.

Chen Xi was still pinned down behind the rock.

Bullets, like raindrops, frantically hammered against his only cover.

Rock fragments mixed with scalding shrapnel carved tiny bloody gashes onto his face and body.

He remained unmoved.

He was waiting.

He could feel the vibration from the Guide Rope becoming heavier and heavier.

The Main Cable was approaching.

He knew he had gambled correctly.

The Japanese Army's heavy machine guns were meant to suppress him, not to destroy the rock beneath him.

They were waiting.

Waiting for him to show his head, then using a single bullet to end this game of cat and mouse.

But Chen Xi would not give them that chance.

In the Japanese Army's position.

An officer lost his patience as he watched the Chinese Soldier who had been suppressed into total silence.

He issued an order to the mortarman beside him.

"Finish him!"

The mortarman grinned cruelly as he stuffed a grenade into the tube.

"Whew—"

A sharp whistle.

The grenade, trailing a lethal arc, descended from the sky.

Its landing point was not Chen Xi.

But rather the flat rock surface in front of him, the only place where the Main Cable could be fixed.

And the nearly completed anchor point upon it.

A grenade!

Whistling toward him!

Dodge?

No time.

Don't dodge?

The mission would fail.

The anchor point would be destroyed, and all previous efforts would be in vain.

Over four hundred lives would be lost here.

Little Chen's sacrifice would become meaningless.

Chen Xi's mind went blank.

His body made the choice before his thoughts did.

He lunged forward.

Like an enraged lion seeing its cub threatened.

Using his back.

Using his back, which wasn't broad but at this moment carried the hopes of two worlds.

He tightly shielded that cold rock that was about to carry life.

Embracing death... [!!!!!!!]

[NO!!!!!!!]

[STREAMER!!!!!!!]

The Livestream room.

In that instant, it fell into an absolute, eerie, deathly silence.

All bullet chat froze.

All sound vanished.

Hundreds of millions of viewers, in every corner of the world, were like they had been hit by a freezing spell.

They stood with mouths agape and eyes wide.

Staring fixedly at the figure on the screen lunging toward death.

Unable to breathe.

Unable to think... Boom—

A dull, extreme explosion erupted.

At this moment, the world lost all sound and color.

Chen Xi felt no pain.

He only felt an irresistible force, like a landslide or a tsunami, slamming violently into his back.

His body felt as if it had been struck head-on by an invisible battering ram.

The sound of bones shattering came from his spine.

He wanted to scream.

But he couldn't make a sound.

Only a mouthful of scalding blood sprayed wildly from his throat.

[Beep—]

After violent, frantic shaking, the livestream image...

...turned completely into a blinding, blood-red.

The only background noise was that long, piercing beep representing the end of a life... Silence.

After ten long seconds of deathly silence.

The Livestream room completely broke down.

[Waaaaahhhhh—]

[Streamer!!! Streamer, answer me!!!]

[No! Don't! I beg you! Don't die!]

[Why... why did it have to be like this...]

[Fuck you, Japs!!! Fuck you!!!]

Countless incoherent bullet chats, filled with cries and curses, flooded the blood-red screen like a burst dam.

Some people wept uncontrollably in front of their screens.

Some people angrily smashed their phones against the wall.

Some people knelt on the ground like helpless children, refreshing that desperate red over and over again... 2026, "Great Wall" Command Center.

Elder Long looked at the blood-red screen, his body suddenly swaying.

The guard beside him immediately supported him.

He slowly pushed the guard's hand away.

He remained standing.

Standing straight.

Like a javelin in the wind and snow that would never fall.

He didn't cry.

There was no expression on his face.

Only in those bloodshot eyes flowed a sorrow and anger like magma, enough to incinerate everything... Pain.

Pain that reached the marrow of his bones.

Chen Xi's consciousness drifted in a chaotic, bloody haze.

He couldn't hear any sound.

In his world, there was only the endless, high-frequency beep in his ears.

Was he dead?

Perhaps.

He felt his life rapidly ebbing away like a receding tide.

But his hands still gripped the rock tightly.

His body still shielded that anchor point with everything it had.

He could feel it.

A heavy vibration with a metallic quality coming from the rock beneath him.

Getting closer and closer.

It was the Main Cable.

It was coming.

It had finally arrived.

The smoke and dust slowly dissipated.

The night remained deep.

On that cliff face locked down by crossfire.

A mangled back, like an ancient statue, was firmly welded to the cold rock wall.

He was motionless.

His fate unknown.

Beneath him, the anchor point forged from future technology reflected cold light under the moon.

Perfectly intact.

The heavy Main Cable was already close at hand.