49: Chapter 50 The Silent Square and the Vanished Keyboard Warriors

The snow was still falling at Andong Train Station.

This was the login lobby for the ice and snow world, and also the respawn point for all players.

At this time of day in the past, the square was always filled with all sorts of noisy electronic sounds.

People selling cheats, people asking to team up, people reselling used firearms, and those wearing flashy costumes dancing in the snow to grab attention.

The noise could blow the roof off the train station.

The night after the defeat at Kapyong, Jack logged back in, but the place was eerily quiet.

Three million online players were crammed densely onto the square, a massive sea of heads, yet not even a single cough could be heard.

Only the wind blowing from the Yalu River, carrying snowflakes, slapped against the red brick walls with a pattering sound.

Jack stood in the middle of the crowd.

His character had been reset; the cotton coat stained with blood and gunpowder smell was gone.

In its place was a brand new set of recruit winter clothes, emitting the fresh scent of cotton.

The type 38 rifle in his hand was also new, heavy with gun oil, and the bolt action was so smooth it made him slightly uncomfortable.

No chilblains, no hunger, no pain that seeped into his very bones.

But he felt cold.

This cold wasn't physiological; it seeped out from his heart.

Just yesterday, over three thousand of them, like ducks driven into a slaughterhouse, were blasted into dust by American artillery fire before the defensive ring at Kapyong.

"Is this what it feels like to restart a max-level account?"

A nearby player with the ID 'Grumpy Bro' muttered under his breath.

No one replied.

If it were before, the world channel would have exploded.

They would flame the developers for being brain-dead, flame teammates for being trash, flame the system judgment for being unfair.

The keyboard warriors would greet each other's ancestors for eighteen generations with the most vicious language, and then arrange to PK (Player Kill) each other outside Andong Train Station.

Jack opened the world channel.

The chat box scrolled very slowly; it took several minutes for a single message to pop up.

"I'm sorry, I failed to hold the flank."

"It was my fault, I shouldn't have been greedy for that kill and exposed our firing position."

"The brother just now who took a bullet for me, are you there? I want to return this gun to you."

The entire screen was filled with apologies.

Jack closed the chat box and took off his VR headset.

It was deep into the night in the real world, and the neon lights outside the window illuminated the room in a kaleidoscope of colors.

The cup of Blue Mountain coffee on the desk had gone cold, emitting a cloyingly sweet aroma.

He picked it up and took a sip, his brow furrowed tightly.

Too sweet.

Sweet to the point of bitterness.

He poured the coffee into the trash can and went to the kitchen to get a glass of tap water.

The icy liquid flowed down his throat, reminding him of the snow he had scooped up and stuffed into his mouth in the game.

On the computer screen, the foreign news page still displayed the headlines.

The New York Times: The Slaughter at Kapyong—The Poor Performance of Chinese Players Against the Modern War Machine.

The Times: The End of Human Wave Tactics, the Victory of Science and Steel.

Twitter was even more lively.

The retired US Army Major who had mocked them before posted a picture:

An ant attempting to push over an M26 Pershing tank, captioned: "Courage is commendable, intelligence is touching."

Jack looked at the comments, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.

As a former 'King of Zu'an' (a term for aggressive online trash talkers), a hundred ways to retort instantly flooded his mind.

He wanted to curse back, wanted to say if the system hadn't restricted vision, if it weren't for that damned night blindness, if...

His fingers hung above the Enter key, hesitating to press down.

Losing is losing.

In the face of an absolute firepower disparity, in the face of a tightly structured tactical system, their proud 'fearlessness of death' had truly become a cheap consumable.

Jack closed the webpage.

He didn't go to the forums to argue; instead, he opened a group chat named 'Tactical Study Group'.

No one was chatting idly in the group.

Hand-drawn maps were being uploaded one after another.

"This is a screenshot I took before I died just now."

The professional player ID 'Xie Dabao' uploaded a blurry photo marking the distribution positions of the US tanks.

"They weren't parked randomly. Every three tanks formed a group, mutually supporting each other in a horn formation. The machine gun fire had no blind spots. This is textbook level circular defense."

"And the flares," another player added.

"They fired flares with a pattern, one every fifteen seconds, specifically illuminating our reverse slopes. We must calculate the time difference and advance during those few seconds of darkness."

"When we were playing before, we never noticed. We just followed the squad leader's command and rushed forward blindly. But once the squad leader sacrificed himself, we were lost."

"Regarding night blindness, I looked up the data."

A medical student posted a long block of text.

"Eating more pine needles and animal liver can alleviate it. Although it's hard to get in the game, I found carotene in the American canned goods. Next time we ambush, prioritize capturing the supply trucks."

There was no emotional venting, only cold, hard data analysis.

These young people, who usually only pursued excitement and special effects for their skins, seemed as if their spines had been broken by that disastrous defeat overnight, only to forcibly put them back together themselves.

In the game, Andong Square.

A dull roar suddenly came from underground.

The snow on the central square cracked open.

A massive black stele slowly rose, like a black, sharp sword piercing the firmament.

All players looked up.

The stele bore no names, no eulogies, only two lines of glaring, scarlet numbers, huge enough to hurt the eyes.

[Kapyong Battle Casualty Ratio]

[30 : 1]

A stir rose among the crowd.

"Thirty to one..."

Someone read out the number, their voice trembling.

Thirty Volunteer Army soldiers died to take down one American soldier.

This was the 'reward' Su Yun gave them.

It wasn't comfort, nor encouragement, but tearing open a bloody scar, sprinkling salt on it, and finally carving it into a monument erected on the path every person took home.

Su Yun stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of the studio, looking at the backend data.

The emotion value was surging.

But this time it wasn't 'Anger,' nor was it 'Moved,' but a gray data point named 'Shame.'

Su Yun looked at the ID standing before the stele on the screen—Madman Jack.

"They won't retreat,"

Su Yun's voice was light, yet carried a cold hardness.

"Shame breeds courage. If they don't feel the pain, they will never grow true bone."

On the square.

Jack logged back in.

He pushed through the crowd and walked step by step to the Monument of Shame.

Thirty to one.

The number seared onto his retinas like a branding iron.

He recalled the last look in his company commander's eyes, the flour Dai Dai had fed him, and how he had foolishly pulled the pin on a grenade and charged a tank, yet hadn't even managed to damage its track marks.

He reached out and touched the cold stone stele.

"Screenshot," Jack typed two words in the public chat.

No one asked why.

Click. Click.

The sound of shutters rose and fell one after another.

Not a single person chose to log off. Not a single person cursed the developer for being a pervert.

The players who usually cared most about face were now lining up to take commemorative photos in front of the stele that recorded their greatest humiliation.

They wanted to engrave this number into their minds.

"Thirty to one,"

Jack looked at the stele and said softly.

"I remember it, damn it."

He turned around and looked at the three million silent players behind him.

"Brothers,"

Jack's voice echoed across the square.

"To the training grounds."

"Train what?"

Someone asked.

"Train how to crawl under barbed wire. Train how to use sound to locate enemies at night. Train how to use that crappy type 38 rifle to blow out an American's head from four hundred meters away."

Jack pulled the bolt, the crisp sound of 'clack' echoing.

"Next time we meet, I'm going to make this number flip."

The crowd began to move.

Not dispersing, but converging.

The previously deserted firing range instantly filled up.

The tactical instruction zones, previously ignored by players, now had long queues forming.

The grenade throwing drills and assassination training, which players once found tedious, were now packed with people.

The snow was still falling at Andong Train Station, but the wind direction on the square had changed.

That restless, noisy, entertainment-to-death atmosphere had vanished.

In its place was a silent, suppressed killing intent, scalding hot like molten iron.

Su Yun watched this scene and typed a line of code on the keyboard.

[Volume Three: Iron Field Defense Battle - Warm-up Activated]

[New Unit Unlocked: Elite Demolition Expert]

[New Item Unlocked: Anti-Tank Mine]

"Train well,"

Su Yun looked at the figures scrambling in the mud on the screen, picked up the teacup on his desk.

"The battles ahead will be ten times harder than Kapyong."

In a corner of the square, Dai Dai hugged her medical kit and looked at the Monument of Shame.

She didn't go to the training grounds; instead, she turned and walked toward the NPC recruitment station nearby.

An old military doctor in a white coat stood there.

"Sir,"

Dai Dai sniffled, wiping her perpetually tearful face clean.

"I want to learn how to stop bleeding. Not using the system's one-click bandage, but using my hands, using a needle and thread, real hemostasis."

The old military doctor lifted his eyelids and glanced at her: "Girl, that involves seeing flesh and blood. It's disgusting and painful."

"I'm not afraid."

Dai Dai's voice wasn't loud, but every word seemed squeezed out through her teeth.

"I don't want to watch them bleed anymore while I can only cry on the sidelines."

The snowstorm intensified, covering the footprints on the square, but it couldn't cover the magma churning beneath the ground.

That night, the keyboard warriors disappeared.

A true army was quietly taking shape beneath that monument of shame.