84: Chapter 85 Thank you! The most adorable people!

The platform at Pyongyang Railway Station was more dilapidated than Jack had imagined.

The rails were rusted, half the sleepers were cracked, and the concrete ground of the platform was pitted, covered in traces of shell crater repairs.

There was a mixed smell in the air—disinfectant, machine oil, and an indescribable burnt scent.

Three hundred million players poured in from all directions.

Jack was squeezed in the middle of the crowd, with Dai Dai on his left and Brother Bao on his right.

Behind him, countless player IDs flickered densely on the system panel.

"There should be some kind of ceremony, right?" a player nearby muttered.

"After clearing the game, they should at least give us a trophy."

"At the very least, set off some fireworks," another chimed in.

Jack didn't say anything.

He saw the train.

It slowly pulled in from the curve at the end of the platform.

Green carriages, an old steam locomotive, the sound of iron wheels grinding against the rails was heavy and slow.

It wasn't just one train.

It was one train after another.

The first train came to a stop. The doors opened.

There were no ribbons. No flowers. No military band.

What came out of the carriages were stretchers.

One, two, three... countless stretchers were carried out of the carriages, held by medics and Nurses, lined up along the platform.

The people lying on the stretchers—some were missing legs, some had no arms, some had their entire faces wrapped in bandages with only a slit showing.

Jack's feet felt nailed to the ground.

The second train arrived.

The doors opened. What was carried down were not stretchers.

They were coffins.

Coffins of extreme simplicity—some were just a few wooden boards nailed together, some were even just a shape wrapped in white cloth.

One by one, they were handed out of the carriages and lined up on the platform.

The entire railway station fell silent.

Among three hundred million IDs, not a single bullet comment appeared. Not a single person made a sound.

Dai Dai's hand grabbed Jack's sleeve. Her knuckles were white.

"Where's Little Shandong?" she suddenly spoke, her voice trembling.

"Where's the Platoon Leader? ...Tie Niu? Second Pillar?"

She let go of Jack's sleeve and squeezed into the crowd.

"Little Shandong!" she began to shout, her voice growing louder.

"Little Shandong—!"

No one answered.

She wove through the stretchers, bending down to check the face of every wounded soldier. Not him. Not him. None of them were him.

She ran to the front of the coffins, her legs gave way, and she knelt on the ground.

A red flag was nailed to a concrete pillar on the platform.

Half of the flag was burned, the edges charred and curled, riddled with bullet holes.

The visible red of the flag had darkened, like dried blood. Below the flag, someone had written a string of names in charcoal.

It was very long.

Very, very long.

Dai Dai knelt there, reading line by line.

Jack walked over and stood behind her, also seeing those names. His gaze swept from top to bottom—

Third Company Commander.

Platoon Leader.

Little Shandong.

Tie Niu.

Second Pillar.

Squad Leader.

Xiao Guang.

...

The names he recognized. All of them were there.

Dai Dai didn't cry out loud.

Her mouth was open, her shoulders were shaking, but no sound came out.

Her finger pressed against the three characters for "Little Shandong" on the flag, her fingertip pressing so hard her nail turned white.

Brother Bao stood three steps behind her.

His lips were pressed into a thin line, and the veins at his temples were throbbing.

He clenched his right fist, his knuckles cracking.

He said nothing.

The third train arrived.

The doors opened.

This time, those who walked down were the living.

One person.

Company Commander.

Jack recognized him at a glance.

But he almost didn't recognize him.

The Company Commander had grown thin.

The man who was in his thirties,

With a voice louder than a military bugle,

Was now so thin his cheekbones protruded, and the skin on his face hung loosely.

His military uniform hung empty on his body, his left sleeve was hollow,

Severed at the shoulder, tucked into his belt.

His right hand leaned on a wooden stick, walking very slowly, stopping with every step.

But his back was straight.

The gazes of all the players on the platform were focused on this one person.

The Company Commander walked to the front of the crowd and stopped.

He didn't smile. Nor did he cry.

He just stood there, using his right hand to move his crutch under his armpit,

Then he raised that hand—his only remaining right hand—slowly to the side of his brow.

He was forming up the troops.

"All units—"

His voice was hoarse, not as resonant as before, but every word slammed onto the concrete ground of the platform.

"Eyes—right!"

Among the three hundred million IDs, no one moved. No one dared to move.

Because they saw the Company Commander's eyes.

In those eyes, there was no pride, no joy. Only something very, very heavy.

Jack couldn't say what it was called.

The Company Commander lowered his hand and gripped his crutch. He turned to look at the green train with its doors still open.

"Take them home."

His voice was very soft.

So soft that the four hundred million viewers in the livestream had to turn their volume to the maximum to hear clearly.

The train's whistle blew.

A long, drawn-out blast.

At the carriage door, someone was waving.

It was a railway worker, wearing a dirty work uniform, shouting at the people on the platform:

"Boarding! Boarding!"

The players began to move.

No one spoke. No one typed. Three hundred million people lined up, boarding the train one by one.

Jack helped Dai Dai stand up.

Dai Dai's knees were numb from kneeling; she stumbled, and Jack caught her by the arm.

"Let's go," Jack said.

Dai Dai nodded. She wiped her face.

Brother Bao walked ahead, his footsteps heavy.

He paused for a moment as he boarded, looking back one last time at that charred red flag.

The doors closed.

The train started.

There were no seats in the carriage, only long wooden benches.

Jack sat by the window; the window was an old-fashioned type that would clatter when pushed up.

He pushed open the window.

The wind from outside poured in, carrying the smell of rust and coal smoke.

The train moved very slowly. The scenes outside the window receded frame by frame—

Villages reduced to ruins.

Shell craters in the snow that hadn't completely melted.

A section of a railway bridge that had been repaired and bombed, bombed and repaired.

Jack saw Chosin Lake.

The ice had already cracked, revealing the black Water beneath.

There was a mound on the hillside by the lake—he knew what it was. It was what he had seen when he first entered the game.

The Ice Sculpture Company.

The snow had melted, but the poses of those people remained.

Aiming rifles, huddling, maintaining a charging posture... they hadn't moved an inch.

Dai Dai saw it too.

She didn't cry.

She just turned her face away, not looking anymore.

But her hands were shaking.

Brother Bao sat opposite, eyes closed.

It was unclear if he was sleeping. But his breathing was uneven.

The carriage was so quiet that only the sound of wheels grinding over the rail joints remained.

Clack-clack. Clack-clack. Clack-clack.

Su Yun cut all background sounds in the backend.

No music, no system prompts, no extra sound effect design.

Just that sound.

One beat, then another.

Like a heartbeat.

Twenty minutes later.

The system panel lit up.

A line of text floated in the center of every player's vision.

【Final Clearance Settlement】

Winner: Chinese People's Volunteer Army

War Duration: 2 years and 9 months

Total Enemies Eliminated: 710,000

Total Casualties of Own Side—

Jack looked at that number.

His mouth fell open.

Suppressed sobs came from Dai Dai beside him.

The panel continued to scroll.

【Total Fallen Player IDs: 287,431,006】

【Total Permanently Fallen NPC Characters: 197,653】

【Number of Sacrificed Transporters (including front-line transport): 14,267】

【Number of Transporters Sacrificed to Deliver One Apple: 1,785】

As each line of numbers jumped out, someone in the carriage would gasp.

Then came the final line.

【Original Assessment of Overall Battle Win Rate: 0.0041%】

【Actual Result: Victory】

The panel disappeared.

In its place was a line of small text—very small, gray, embedded at the very bottom of the screen like an epitaph.

【This is not called victory. This is called the cost.】

The data for the livestream reached its peak at this second.

Four hundred million viewers.

Zero bullet comments.

It lasted for exactly forty-seven seconds.

Jack took off his VR helmet.

His movements were very slow.

The moment the helmet left his face, the cold fluorescent light hit him, and he squinted slightly.

The bedroom air conditioner was humming.

The coffee on the table had gone cold.

There were over thirty unread messages on his phone screen.

Outside the window was the city night view, neon lights flashing, traffic flowing continuously.

Everything was very normal.

Everything was very safe.

Everything was very warm.

He sat in his swivel chair and placed the helmet on the table.

With both hands propping up his knees and his head down, he stared at his own Shadow on the floor.

Dai Dai's livestream had already gone black.

Brother Bao's livestream had also gone dark.

Related livestreams across the web—whichever were still broadcasting "ice and snow world"—went dark one after another.

No one said closing remarks. No one said "thanks for watching." When the screen went black, it stayed black.

Jack sat for a long time.

Then he stood up and walked to the window.

The city night was very bright.

On the giant LED screen of the office building opposite, an advertisement was playing.

The image was of a man in a skintight suit,

Wearing a cape, standing at the top of a skyscraper,

Overlooking the city, his chin held high,

His gaze full of the meaning "I am the most badass."

The slogan was displayed in large gold characters on the screen—

"BE YOUR OWN HERO."

Be your own hero.

Jack stared at that screen.

His eyes narrowed.

Not because of the lights.

He thought of a person.

A nineteen-year-old young man wearing a tattered padded jacket, with hemp rope tied around his feet, whose most valuable possession was a cracked fountain pen.

That person had never said "I am a hero."

He only said one sentence: "I'm worried."

Jack reached out and pulled the curtains shut.

He turned on his phone.

He scrolled to the bottom of his contact list. Dai Dai's avatar was grayed out, and so was Brother Bao's.

He sent a message to each of them.

The same three words.

"See you tomorrow."

After sending the messages, he threw his phone onto the bed and sat back in front of the computer.

The last line of the system text still remained on the screen.

【Thank you! Most beloved people!】

Jack stared at this sentence for a long time.

Then he slowly opened a search engine and typed four characters into the search bar—

"War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea."

He pressed enter.