50: Chapter 51 This hair is in the way

At four in the morning, Jack took off his helmet.

The room was dark, with only the blue light from the computer case faintly flickering.

He slumped onto his gaming chair, his neck stiff as a rusted bearing.

Ten consecutive hours of marksmanship training had swollen his right shoulder, and his fingers twitched involuntarily—muscle memory from pulling the trigger.

He didn't go to sleep; instead, he got up and walked into the bathroom.

The person in the mirror had sunken eyes and a patchy stubble. His meticulously dyed and permed Korean-style bangs were soaked with sweat, clinging limply to his forehead and obscuring half his eye.

Jack turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face.

Water droplets trickled from his hair tips into his eyes, stinging sharply.

He instinctively shook his head, and the wet, long hair swung across his cheek—sticky and bothersome.

Just moments ago in the simulation training, he was lying prone in a snow hollow, aiming at a moving target four hundred meters away.

Wind correction complete, breath held, just as he was about to fire, a strand of hair blew across the scope.

That shot went wide.

The system instructor’s voice was ice-cold: [Target escaped. You are KIA.]

Jack stared at his reflection, reaching out to grab that clump of bangs.

This thing cost him two thousand yuan. To make a living in this looks-obsessed streaming circle, he had to get a hair treatment every month, using setting spray, styling himself like a delicate porcelain doll.

“So damn cumbersome.”

He pulled open the drawer under the sink and pulled out a dusty electric trimmer. He had bought it previously to shave their Golden Retriever.

Jack propped his phone on the sink and started his live stream push.

No announcement, no title, not even using the beauty filter.

Only a few thousand night owls were in the stream. Seeing Jack’s disheveled appearance, comments drifted by sparsely.

“Is Jack coming straight from the front lines? He looks like a refugee.”

“What happened to his hairstyle? Tony must be crying.”

“Not sleeping in the middle of the night, is he planning some stunt?”

Jack didn't look at the comments. He plugged in the power, and the trimmer emitted a buzzing vibration.

He looked in the mirror, and his expression became slightly unfamiliar for a moment.

That wasn't the usual grinning streamer, but a survivor crawling out of a pile of corpses at the Iron Field.

“In those days,” Jack said to the mirror, his voice hoarse, “if your hair was too long, you’d get lice. If you sweated, it would freeze and damage your scalp. Lying in the snow, this thing was just a target for the enemy.”

He raised the trimmer, pressed it against his scalp, and pushed it straight down the center of his forehead.

Zzzzz—

Large swathes of black hair fell onto the white porcelain of the sink basin.

The comments instantly paused, then flooded the screen.

“Holy crap! He’s actually doing it?”

“That two-thousand-yuan hairstyle! Jack, are you crazy?”

“Don’t be impulsive, bro! Did something trigger you?”

Jack didn't stop.

The trimmer moved across his scalp.

The hair that obstructed his vision, required meticulous care, and represented impatience and vanity—all of it turned into trash on the floor.

Three minutes later.

A buzz cut appeared in the mirror.

The slightly effeminate contours of his face, now unobstructed by hair, revealed his original sharp angles.

In those eyes, bloodshot from staying up, shone a fierceness that had never been there before.

Jack touched his prickly scalp. That cool sensation brought him an unprecedented clarity.

“This hair gets in the way when aiming.”

He turned off the trimmer and gave the camera a salute that wasn't quite standard, but his back was ramrod straight.

“See you on the training ground tomorrow.”

The stream cut off.

The next morning, a high-end barbershop in Shanghai.

Tony, holding his fingers delicately, was about to recommend the latest 'Idol Group Style' perm and color package to a young customer.

“No need,”

The young man sitting in the chair waved his hand and brightened his phone screen for Tony to see.

On the screen was Jack’s buzz cut photo, accompanied by only two words: [Preparing for Battle].

“Give me the cut,” the young man pointed to his head, “Clipper, three millimeters.”

Tony was stunned: “Handsome, your hair is very soft. Shaving it off won’t look good; it’ll make your face look big…”

“Cut it,” the young man interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. “I need to get into the game to practice shooting. This hair blocks my eyes.”

At the same time, similar scenes were unfolding in barbershops across the country.

There were no more requests for 'just a little trim' or 'get some texture.'

The young men who usually cared most about their image walked into the shops and said only one thing: “Shave it off. The shorter the better.”

On the Weibo hot search list, the tag #JackBuzzCut# skyrocketed to the top like a rocket.

Following closely were #TheseHairsAreInTheWay# and #PreparingForIceAndSnowWorld#.

On short video platforms, those makeover videos featuring eyeliner and hip-swaying dances suddenly lost their appeal.

In their place were videos of young men shaving their heads in front of the camera. The background music was no longer sweet pop songs but the 'Song of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army.'

An aesthetic called 'toughness' was returning in a brutal manner.

Beijing, Babaoshan.

It was quiet here, only the rustling of pine and cypress trees moved by the wind.

At this hour, usually only a few elderly people came for a stroll. But today, the entrance to the cemetery was lined with shared bikes.

Groups of young people in hoodies and jeans held no bubble tea or selfie sticks in their hands.

What they held were all sorts of things.

Some carried two washed potatoes.

Some carried a bar of Dove chocolate.

Some carried a pack of Daqianmen cigarettes.

And some carried a bottle of Erguotou liquor.

They walked into the cemetery and found the tombstones engraved with five-pointed stars.

There was no clamor, no horseplay.

A boy wearing glasses walked up to an unknown martyr's grave.

He squatted down, wiped the dust off the tombstone with his sleeve, and then took an apple out of his backpack.

“Great-grandpa, I don’t know your name,” the boy said softly, placing the apple before the stone. “The company commander in the game said he wanted a bite of apple. I brought one for you.”

He stood up, took a step back, and gave an awkward salute.

Nearby, a youth with dyed yellow hair—now shaved into a buzz cut—placed a pack of chocolate in front of another tombstone.

“The Americans have them, and now we do too,” the youth sniffled. “Plenty of them.”

The cemetery gatekeeper stood far away with a broom, watching these kids who were usually labeled the 'Lost Generation.'

A glimmer of light flashed in his cloudy eyes—a spirit that hadn't been seen in a long time.

He didn't stop them, nor did he sweep away the offerings.

The wind blew, and the pines and cypresses stood tall.

The young spines, at this moment, seemed to overlap with the heroic souls underground.

Su Yun stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a cup of hot tea.

The large screen on the wall was playing the midday news.

In the footage, a reporter was interviewing a university student who had just come out of a barbershop.

“Why did you get a buzz cut?” the reporter asked.

The student touched his greenish scalp and smiled brightly:

“It’s cool and hassle-free. And... I want to try if I were sent back to that era, could I harden my bones like they did.”

Su Yun watched this scene, gently blowing the floating leaves off his tea.

The backend data monitoring showed that the game's online player count had not dropped due to the 'Tragic Defeat at Iron Field'; instead, it had welcomed a new peak.

Moreover, the average online duration for players had increased, but their time spent in the 'Entertainment Zone' had almost dropped to zero.

Everyone was flocking to the training grounds and tactical briefing rooms.

Even the publicity department and several official media outlets had named and praised it, calling 'ice and snow world' a 'new form of national defense education.'

Su Yun just looked out the window at the prosperous city.

Skyscrapers stood side by side; traffic flowed ceaselessly.

This was an era of prosperity bought with the lives of their ancestors.

And now, the children enjoying this prosperity were finally beginning to look back.

Su Yun took a sip of tea.

Su Yun turned around and placed the teacup on the desk with a light 'clack.'

“Since they shaved their heads, they are going to fight to the death.”

He walked to the map behind his desk and heavily tapped a spot named 'Iron Field.'

“Then we should give them a chance to fight to the death.”

“Tell them this time, there is no retreat. Either they stop the enemy north of the Iron Field, or these newly grown buzz cuts will be buried in foreign soil.”

Su Yun’s gaze swept over Jack’s buzz cut photo on the screen, his expression stern.

“Since their spines have straightened, we must press them down with a heavier burden so they can truly solidify.”