28: Chapter 28 As long as there is one person

It wasn't a natural stillness, but the ringing, dead silence left after being shattered by excessive clamor.

Jack leaned against a rock blackened by fire. The rifle in his hand had become a fire poker; the bolt had melted from the high temperature and welded itself to the barrel.

He tried to pull the trigger, but the iron lump didn't budge.

He threw the gun away.

Nearby, Brother Bao was rummaging through the corpse of an American soldier.

The corpse was burned down to half its body. Brother Bao fumbled in the charcoal-like pockets for a long time, finally pulling out only a deformed chocolate bar and half a pack of damp cigarettes.

"No bullets," Brother Bao threw the empty magazine on the ground, making a crisp clatter.

He pushed up the eyeglass frame on his nose, which only had one lens left, stuffed the half-pack of cigarettes into his pocket, "Not even a toothpick."

Dai Dai sat in a shell crater not far away.

Her giant first-aid kit had been empty for a long time; it now contained a few stones.

She had picked them up from the position just now; they were sharp-shaped and handy to hold.

Her hands were wrapped in dirty bandages—burns sustained earlier while moving scorching hot rocks. Blood was now seeping out, dyeing the bandages black-red.

Only the three of them were alive on the position.

Besides them, there were only dead people.

Black dead people, gray dead people, and those who still maintained strange postures, like sculptures.

The air was filled with that familiar smell—sulfur, roasted meat, and the stale stench of blood.

Rumble—

The vibration of the earth broke the dead silence.

Down the mountain, the giant steel python moved again.

This time, the American army did not send Infantrymen to charge.

A dozen Sherman tanks lined up in a single file, their tracks crushing bodies and rubble along the way, slowly closing in on the mountaintop.

The pitch-black muzzles lifted uniformly, like a group of indifferent judges watching the three ragged survivors.

Simultaneously, a piercing static sound echoed through the valley.

"Chinese soldiers on the top, you have done your best."

It was the American surrender broadcast, standard Chinese, even carrying a hint of Beijing accent, which sounded particularly ironic.

"You are surrounded. For humanitarian reasons, please lay down your weapons and come out.

We will grant you prisoner-of-war treatment, with hot coffee, bread, and doctors."

The broadcast echoed in the empty valley, again and again.

Jack listened to the sound and suddenly felt like laughing.

Hot coffee? Bread?

He looked down at the empty trouser leg of his right leg.

That leg was lost on Feihu Mountain, lost defending the position.

Now they wanted to buy it back with a cup of coffee?

Just then, a light blue pop-up window appeared simultaneously on the retinas of the three people.

It was a system prompt designed by Su Yun.

In this gray world full of gunpowder smoke and fresh blood, this high-tech blue box looked completely out of place.

[System Prompt: Current battle win rate assessment: 0.00%]

[Detected that the player is in a certain-death situation.]

[Special option triggered: Select Surrender?]

[Description: Selecting Surrender will count as achieving a "Survival" ending. Retain current character level, all equipment data, and S-rank clear evaluation. No death penalty, no experience points deducted.]

Jack stared at the blue [Surrender] button.

With just one click, he could exit gracefully. No need to endure the phantom pain of his severed leg, no need to be blasted into dust by tank shells, and he could return to the real world with his god-tier gear to boast.

This was a game, right?

Data was the most important thing; equipment was the most valuable. To ruin a painstakingly leveled account for a guaranteed losing ending—only a fool would do that.

If it were the old Jack, the "Madman Jack" sitting in an e-sports chair drinking cola, he would have pressed it without hesitation.

But he didn't move now.

"What is this?" Brother Bao's voice came from the side.

The technical streamer who always calculated every penny, haggling with passersby over a few gold coins, was now looking down at the pop-up window.

He clenched the sharp stone in his hand, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"Retain data?" Brother Bao sneered, his voice dry as if grinding sandpaper.

"I almost burned to death just now and didn't retreat. Now you want me to be a deserter for this little bit of data?"

He raised his head, his one good eye bloodshot.

"Go to hell with your data!"

Brother Bao suddenly waved his hand and smashed fiercely towards the [Surrender] button in the void.

[Player 'Brother Bao' refused to surrender.]

The blue box shattered, dissolving into countless light spots.

Brother Bao turned around, raised the stone above his head, and roared at the tank cluster down the mountain: "Come on, you sons of bitches! Grandpa still has stones here! Enough to knock out two of your teeth!"

Dai Dai slowly stood up.

She was a timid girl; she used to cry when playing horror games.

During the previous artillery barrage, she had huddled in the trench, trembling all over.

But now, she wasn't trembling.

She glanced at the pop-up window, then glanced at the scorched corpses around her.

That was Company Commander Three, that was Little Shandong, that was countless NPCs whose names she didn't know but who had given her the last of their fried noodles.

If she surrendered, what would they become?

If she left to preserve her level, how could she face the souls of the heroes scattered across the mountain if she logged into this game again in the future?

Dai Dai didn't speak; she just silently raised the empty first-aid kit.

She stood at the very front, like a mother hen protecting her chicks, shielding Jack and Brother Bao.

[Player 'Dai Dai' refused to surrender.]

Jack watched this scene.

Leaning on the half-burned branch, he staggered to stand upright.

The wound on his severed leg had long gone numb, but he could still feel that piercing coldness.

He turned to look behind him.

Behind him was the main peak of Pine Bone Peak, bare, with nothing there.

Further back was the northern snowfield, the Yalu River, the small village called Andong, and the place where Second Girl gave him malt candy.

"Surrender?"

Jack murmured the two words softly.

He remembered the Company Commander Three who embraced an American machine gunner in the raging fire.

He remembered the squad leader who froze into an ice sculpture so as not to expose their position.

He remembered Little Shandong, who was only sixteen and whose heels had shattered like biscuits from the frostbite.

"Then wasn't this leg of mine broken for nothing?"

Jack let out a small laugh.

The smile pulled at the burns on his face, causing his mouth to twitch in pain, but his eyes were clearer than ever before.

He raised his hand and tapped lightly into the void.

[Player 'Jack' refused to surrender.]

"Never!"

Three voices overlapped.

They were three young people from a peaceful era, letting out the most genuine roar in this virtual 1950.

The sound wasn't loud; it was quickly scattered by the wind.

But it was louder than any broadcast.

The American commander down the mountain seemed to have lost his last bit of patience.

The surrender broadcast abruptly stopped, replaced by the roar of tank engines.

The dozen Sherman tanks stopped moving.

The turrets slowly rotated, emitting a grating sound of metal friction.

A dozen thick gun barrels adjusted their angles, finally all locking onto the three tiny black dots on the mountaintop.

The distance was less than two hundred meters.

At this range, tank cannons didn't need to aim; they could blast them into powder with their eyes closed.

"Scared?" Brother Bao asked, gripping the stone even tighter.

"Scared my ass," Jack shifted his center of gravity onto the branch and straightened his back.

"Just a little regret that we couldn't kill a few more."

"I'm not scared," Dai Dai's voice was soft, but steady.

"If I die, I'll go accompany Second Girl."

The setting sun was like blood.

Orange-red light spilled over the scorched position, pulling the shadows of the three people long, long.

They stood back to back: one with a missing leg, one blind, and one with hands mangled and bloody.

They had no chance of winning.

They didn't even have decent weapons.

But at this moment, standing there, they looked like an insurmountable monument.

A flash of fire erupted from the muzzles of the American tanks.

It was the signal of death.

Jack closed his eyes.

He could feel the heatwave generated by the air being squeezed by the shells, could hear the sound of the wind as Death swung his scythe.

It was over.

At that very instant.

The ground suddenly began to tremble violently.

This vibration did not come from the front, did not come from the roar of the dozen tanks, nor was it the shockwave of exploding shells.

It came from beneath their feet.

It came from behind them.

It came from the depths of the long-silent mountains.

What... was that sound?

Like an avalanche, like a tsunami, like thousands of troops trampling through a frozen river.

Jack abruptly opened his eyes.