271: Chapter 271 The Reason Why Hong Ying Recognizes Lei Poshan as Her Godfather

Two years ago, the Dragon Kingdom's Sharp Sword Commando Unit went deep abroad to execute a special operations mission.

Due to an intelligence error, the squad commanded by Hong Ying exposed its whereabouts prematurely and was ambushed by the enemy.

After an intense firefight, of the six soldiers, only Hong Ying narrowly survived; the other five were all killed in action.

Although Hong Ying survived by luck, she paid a tragic price.

Her right leg was injured by an artillery shell, and her right foot was a mangled mess of flesh and blood. The intense pain nearly caused her to faint. However, she still mustered her last bit of strength to shoot the enemy in front of her before finally falling into a coma due to excessive blood loss.

As her life hung by a thread, the team led by Ye Qingcheng arrived just in time and eventually rescued her from the battlefield.

By the time Hong Ying regained consciousness, she was already in a Dragon Kingdom military hospital.

She was alive, which should have been something to celebrate. However, the doctor's words made her feel as if she had fallen into an ice cellar. Because her injuries were too severe, the doctors had no choice but to perform an amputation to save her life.

This news was like a bolt from the blue for Hong Ying. Her face instantly turned ashen, and her heart was filled with despair.

Without a foot, it meant she could never return to the battlefield, never fight side-by-side with her former comrades, and never personally avenge her fallen brothers-in-arms.

Every time she thought of the scene where those five comrades died before her eyes, her heart felt as if it were being sliced by a knife. She would have even preferred to die on the battlefield back then rather than live out the rest of her life like a useless cripple.

In the days after waking up, although many military leaders came to visit her, bringing condolences and encouragement, Hong Ying's mood remained difficult to settle. She learned from the leaders that while she was lying in her hospital bed, Ye Qingcheng was still leading the team on missions abroad. This made her feel both relieved and melancholy.

The leaders also told her that the revenge for her fallen teammates had been taken; the entire hostile organization had been completely wiped out by the Sharp Sword Commando Unit. While this news brought a sliver of solace, it could not make up for the guilt and regret in her heart.

Furthermore, the military leaders promised Hong Ying that after she was discharged, if she was willing, they could arrange for her to transfer to the logistics department. However, Hong Ying firmly refused.

She could not accept returning to the army with a broken body, sitting in an office doing work that anyone could do. If her future days were to be like that, she would rather choose to die.

Hong Ying had been orphaned since childhood and was raised by her grandmother. She chose to join the army because after her only relative passed away, she had no more attachments in this world. Now in this state, she lost even the desire to keep living.

However, before dying, she decided to finish a few things so that her life would leave no regrets.

After enduring over a month in the hospital, Hong Ying never saw Ye Qingcheng return.

She stopped waiting and resolutely chose to retire. She withdrew the money she had saved over the years from her card, visited the families of the five fallen comrades, and left all her savings to them.

After completing the visits to her comrades' families, Hong Ying returned to Miaojiang and came to her grandmother's grave.

She lit incense and burned paper money, sitting quietly before the grave. She had a thousand words she wanted to tell her grandmother, but she couldn't bring herself to speak.

She sat by the grave all night. The tear tracks on her face had long since dried, but the grief in her heart was hard to quell. Waiting until dawn began to break, she slowly stood up and left the land where she grew up.

From then on, Hong Ying was like a walking corpse, wandering aimlessly southward.

She didn't remember how long she had been walking. In her eyes, the entire world had become gray and meaningless.

Until one day, she came to the edge of a steep cliff and stopped her weary footsteps.

From sunrise to sunset, and from sunset to sunrise, she just sat there quietly, staring blankly into the distance. The waves crashing against the cliff seemed to be pounding against her heart; that rhythmic sound of the waves felt like the accusations of her dead teammates!

Why wasn't it her who died?!

Why did she have to live alone in this world?!

She couldn't understand it!

Finally, as dawn was about to arrive, she took a deep breath and jumped, disappearing into the vast waves.

She felt like a bird that had finally broken free of its shackles and flown into the free sky.

She thought her life would end just like that, but unexpectedly, it seemed Fate had played another joke on her.

That day, Lei Poshan had a sudden whim and decided to take a boat out for sea fishing, where he accidentally rescued Hong Ying, who had jumped into the sea to end her life.

When Hong Ying was rescued onto the boat, her face was pale and her eyes were hollow. Lei Poshan asked her many things, such as: who she was, where she came from, why she sought death, what happened to the injuries on her body...

Hong Ying remained silent for a long time, but her gaze shifted from hollow to complex.

She hadn't communicated with anyone like this for a long time. Perhaps, meeting someone to confide in before dying wasn't a bad thing.

So, she told Lei Poshan everything from her childhood, to joining the army, to losing her comrades, to the amputation and her desperate leap into the sea.

Perhaps due to her status as a special forces soldier, Lei Poshan showed great interest. He even boasted that he had a way to make her lost foot grow back, but in return, she would have to work for him in the future and must not have any divided loyalty.

Hong Ying didn't believe him at first, assuming Lei Poshan was just being kind and talking nonsense to try and save her life.

Regenerating a severed limb? How could that be possible?!

However, as time passed, Hong Ying witnessed the miracle happen with her own eyes.

Lei Poshan reopened her amputated wound and applied medicine and acupuncture every single day without fail. After more than half a year, the foot she had originally lost actually grew back!

However, this divine technique of Limb Regeneration also had some side effects.

Every six months, Hong Ying had to re-experience a heart-piercing and bone-eroding pain, a kind of pain that an ordinary person could not endure. She had to rely on pills given by Lei Poshan to stop it; otherwise, the pain would never end.

But even so, she was still grateful to Lei Poshan. At least she could continue to live like a normal person now.

In return, Hong Ying told Lei Poshan the secret of her Disguise Technique.

Lei Poshan was greatly shocked upon hearing it, and he also valued Hong Ying even more. From then on, Lei Poshan took Hong Ying in as his adopted daughter.

Later, she had asked Lei Poshan why he had saved her back then.

Lei Poshan only shook his head and said, "Perhaps it was just fate. Heaven let me meet you, so you had a chance at Rebirth. And I obtained your near-miraculous Disguise Technique."

From then on, Hong Ying began to serve Lei Poshan. It wasn't until Lei Poshan began laying out his plans for the Dragon Kingdom that she was placed in the Magic Capital as a hidden piece.

Just as Hong Ying was deep in her memories, a sudden "thud, thud, thud" of knocking on the door rang out, breaking her train of thought.

"Wait a moment, I'm coming." Hong Ying's thoughts were pulled back to reality by the sudden knocking.

Her heart stirred, thinking it was her godfather coming to find her. So she quickly put on her underwear, wrapped a bathrobe around herself, and pulled open the door.

Outside the door, Bai Ruoxue stood with her arms crossed. Her eyes flickered with a cold light as she sized Hong Ying up provocatively. With a cold sneer on her lips, she said, "Hmph, it seems you really are obedient. Godfather told you to take a bath, and you really just went and did it~"

Seeing that the visitor was Bai Ruoxue, Hong Ying's face instantly darkened. She looked directly at Bai Ruoxue and said in a heavy voice, "If you have something to say, say it. If not, get lost. I'm not interested in listening to your nonsense!"

Bai Ruoxue didn't expect Hong Ying, who had failed her mission, to still be so tough. The fire of anger in her heart flared up: "Hong Ying! Don't think just because Godfather is protecting you that I don't dare touch you! You'd better confess—was this failed mission just a play staged by you and your old comrade Ye Qingcheng?"

Hong Ying's brow furrowed, a flash of displeasure in her eyes. She asked back, "Did Godfather send you here to question me?"

"Godfather has already gone back into seclusion; he doesn't have time for your trivial matters!" Bai Ruoxue took a step closer and pressed, "Just say it, yes or no?"

Hong Ying looked straight at Bai Ruoxue and said coldly, "Bai Ruoxue! Don't think that just because you joined earlier you can boss me around! Even Godfather doesn't doubt me, so what right do you have to question me here?!" With that, she slammed the door shut with a loud "bang" that even made Bai Ruoxue outside tremble.

Locked outside, Bai Ruoxue's face instantly turned livid. She gritted her teeth and cursed viciously, "Bitch! You just wait! One day, I'll make you wish you were dead!" Having said that, she turned and left in a huff.

Inside the room, Hong Ying leaned against the door, trying to adjust her breathing and calm her emotions. Only when she heard Bai Ruoxue's footsteps fade into the distance did she slowly smooth her messy hair and walk into the inner studio.

Since she was back and Godfather hadn't punished her for the failed mission, she naturally needed to do what she could for him, considering it a return for his trust.

...

Meanwhile, in a secret room beneath the castle, Lei Poshan sat quietly in a high-backed chair, his eyes fixed on the surveillance screen in front of him.

On the screen, Hong Ying was fully focused on making a disguise mask. Every minute movement was captured by Lei Poshan's eyes.

Lei Poshan nodded in satisfaction, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly as he murmured to himself, "Hong Ying, I hope you don't let me down."

With those words, he slowly turned around, stopped looking at the surveillance screen, and walked straight into another room.