Chapter 12: The Weary Veteran

“What are you doing!!!”

“Don’t be so agitated, I just slipped, just slipped~ I’ll pick it up right now, sorry, I slipped again.”

Using such an excuse, Yao Bingling added a few more pieces of firewood to the fire, making the flames burn even stronger.

“I told you to stop, missy!”

Kiana shouted, then suddenly lunged at the fire pit. Along the way, her hand, as precise and fast as an arrow shot by an experienced marksman, grabbed the file folder in the fire that hadn’t fully caught fire yet. Then, with an elegant and swift aerial somersault, she landed smoothly.

Watching the entire process, Yao Bingling’s heart was pounding.

What about those severely injured legs? What about the wounded arms? What about being unable to move properly? Damn, even a special forces veteran wouldn’t be able to pull off that move.

After landing, Kiana patted the injured spot on her leg, showing she could still feel the pain but was enduring it with sheer willpower.

Yao Bingling noticed this and made his first analysis and guess.

Looking at the scorched edges of the file folder, well, this is definitely a product of “Tianming” (Destiny) technology. The envelope was obviously made of some high-temperature resistant material. Except for some burnt edges, the envelope was almost untouched by the fire, and naturally, the documents inside were perfectly preserved.

“Good, good, it didn’t burn.”

“Tch~”

“Hey! You just smacked your lips, didn’t you? You definitely threw the appointment letter into the fire on purpose!”

“No, I’m just relieved. See? I really just slipped, (。??)ノ.”

“Who are you trying to fool! (ノ?益?)ノ彡┻━┻”

Kiana, quite annoyed, tried to stand up from the ground. However, the tension in her thigh muscles was nothing like the moment she exerted herself for the flip. Less than two seconds after standing, her face turned pale from the pain, and tiny beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.

Within three seconds, her body began to tilt and immediately fell toward the ground.

But she didn’t fall all the way down—one hand caught her waist from underneath, holding her up.

“You’re overexcited, injured one.”

Yao Bingling said, then naturally ignored Kiana’s gradually reddening face and her resisting expression. His other hand slipped under her legs, just below the knees, and picked her up in a bridal carry.

“Hey, hey! What are you doing? Put me down!”

“Don’t make trouble. Can your leg let you stand?”

As expected—this kind of dialogue was predictable without thinking.

“Then I don’t want you to carry me!”

“Don’t want me to carry you, huh? Fine.”

With that, Yao Bingling suddenly tightened his left hand with great force.

Considering his physique, his strength was considerable. Although Kiana’s weight wasn’t excessive, she certainly wasn’t light, but in his hands, she felt like a slightly larger pillow. Effortlessly, he shifted her from a bridal carry to… a sandbag-like hold.

“You old creep, are you sick? I’m not a sandbag!”

“Funny, I didn’t treat you like a sandbag. You’re more like a creature caught in a trap.”

“You see me as prey?!”

“No, I see you as a pig.”

“Waaah! I won’t forgive you! Put me down! I want to duel you!”

“Hahaha~” Yao Bingling arrogantly replied, “Denied.”

Because of Kiana’s injured legs, she couldn’t lift them to resist. So Yao Bingling felt very relaxed. Though her arms and little fists kept pounding his back, oddly, she didn’t use much force; it felt more like someone gently tapping your back—a rather comfortable sensation.

This made Yao Bingling realize that despite the kid’s sharp tongue and strange temper, fundamentally she was still a sensible child who knew right from wrong.

“Put me down! Hurry, I just ate, you’re going to make me throw up!”

“Alright.”

In the next moment, Kiana suddenly felt her body lose balance, then felt a painful impact on her butt.

Yao Bingling had directly thrown her onto the stone slab bed—almost breaking her butt into eight pieces.

“Ugh!!! So painful.”

Kiana tilted her head back, covering her butt with both hands, pursing her lips and tearfully whimpering.

“Yeah, that must hurt.”

The culprit answered calmly, with no sign of apology, then turned and walked to about ten meters away to gather a pile of sticks, banana leaves, and tree bark fibers to start working.

“Don’t you feel like apologizing?”

“No.”

Yao Bingling answered without turning his head, seriously focused on his task.

After carving 2cm deep and 5cm long notches into sturdy branches with a tactical knife, he laid a second branch across the first in a cross shape and tied them with ropes. Repeating this process, he formed a nine-grid shaped roof frame.

Four long tree trunks prepared as supports were forcefully driven into the ground. Yao Bingling’s strength was immense, which Kiana already knew from how easily he carried her like a pillow. Yet, this wasn’t even his limit.

Yao Bingling pressed down hard, forcing a 2.5-meter tree trunk half a meter into the ground, despite only roughly sharpening the bottom.

After fixing the other three trunks the same way, he neatly laid banana leaves over the nine-grid frame as a roof and hung it on the four support points. A simple but practical canopy extended from the small cabin’s roof, fully shielding them from the rain outside.

“This is really abnormal.”

Wiping rainwater from his face, Yao Bingling moved all the firewood to the smaller campfire and worked on stoking the fire, drying the wood, and moving the fire simultaneously.

“What’s abnormal?”

Kiana peeked out from inside the cabin.

“The weather.” Moving the fire to the cabin’s door, Yao Bingling sat against the wooden wall, took off his damp outerwear, and warmed it by the fire. “It’s June now. The ecology here is primitive, and temperature drops and nighttime rain are normal. But fog is not. It’s warm now, so the air can’t cool enough for fog. Even with nighttime cooling, humidity can’t hit 100%, so fog won’t form unless something raises the mountain’s humidity within an hour… You don’t understand, do you?”

He turned to see Kiana’s expression that said, “I don’t get it, but sounds impressive.”

“Yeah, I totally don’t understand.”

“…It’s just middle school physics. Don’t you ever read books?”

“That stuff makes me sleepy.”

“Anyway, you just need to know this weather can rain and cool to single-digit Celsius at night, but fog won’t form.”

“Oh, I get it now.”

After realizing this guy was a total academic dunce, Yao Bingling gave up explaining the mountain’s strange weather with technical terms. He reached out and gently pushed Kiana’s head back inside like stuffing cotton into a quilt.

“Go to sleep. Tomorrow I’ll take you to find your team and have them bring you back.”

“Okay…” Kiana obediently prepared to lie down but suddenly poked her head out and shouted, “Wait! You haven’t looked at the appointment letter yet!”

“Huh??” Yao Bingling looked at her in surprise.

“You’re coming back with us, to the Tianming Organization, to be our captain!”

“You’re not asleep yet? What nonsense? Go to sleep. When you sleep, you’ll see I won’t be going back, not even in dreams.”

“Why? You’re weird! Why won’t you go back? You haven’t even looked at the letter. It’s to make you captain of the fleet fighting the Honkai battleship Hyperion! And there’s me, an excellent Valkyrie, working under you! It’s the highest honor and mission!”

“If I had an idiot Valkyrie like you under me, I’d worry. Wait, you’re a Valkyrie?!”

More than the appointment letter, Yao Bingling looked at Kiana like a ghost was staring back at him.

“What? Got a problem with me being a Valkyrie?”

Kiana’s tone was very confident, which worried Yao Bingling.

“…A Valkyrie who’s so badly trapped by a hunting trap?”

After staring at Kiana for a moment, Yao Bingling suddenly covered his face in grief and said, “What has Tianming fallen to after more than a decade? What’s that idiot Otto thinking? Was Theresa’s oath just a joke?”

“Hey! That sounds like you seriously dislike me!”

“No, not dislike. Look into my eyes, do you see dislike or despair?”

“You wanna fight?”

Suddenly flaring up.

“Come on, you moving around at all is a problem.”

Waving his hand, Yao Bingling tried to push Kiana’s head back again, but just before touching her forehead, he abruptly withdrew his hand.

Clang!

Cold sweat poured down Yao Bingling’s face as he heard that sound—not teeth grinding, but two pieces of iron hitting.

Kiana was grinding her teeth fiercely, eyes glaring at his failed hand like a ferocious, furious tomcat.

“I do bite! No joke, no lies! Touch my head again and I’ll bite you for sure!”

[You already started biting!]

The grinding sound made Yao Bingling’s scalp tingle. He’d never be stupid enough to try and see if her biting speed and force could catch his hand.

“Got it.”

“Hmph~ Good. Now answer me honestly—why won’t you go back?”

Kiana’s question made Yao Bingling, who was carefully drying his clothes, even more silent. He stared quietly at the damp spots, watching the firelight through the fabric.

“Why suddenly mute? Answer me.”

“You don’t understand.”

Like an old man pondering, or someone regretful at turning back from a point of no return, Yao Bingling’s expression was complex.

“This is a very complicated matter.”

“What complicated? Just say it simply like the fog thing and I’ll get it.”

“…Why do I feel like your dumb words make perfect sense?”

“Of course, because I’m a genius!”

“You win.”

In a short time, Yao Bingling learned from Kiana to give up probing, simplify problems, and not argue with fools—because fools will drag your thinking down and beat you with their own years of stupidity.

So, learning to give up and give simple answers is very important.

Yao Bingling hung his half-dried clothes on a branch sticking out from the wooden wall, then moved to sit on the other side of the fire, facing Kiana. Without his outerwear, he wore only a relatively loose army-green athletic T-shirt.

“Watch closely.”

Saying this, he took off his shirt in front of Kiana.

“Whoa!!! What are you doing! I don’t want to see your naked substitute! What are those things?!”

What she saw was a strong, muscular body.

Yao Bingling’s figure was much slimmer compared to other adults his age, but on this slender frame were blocky, armor-like muscles.

His musculature was beyond sharp or bodybuilding champion level. Having lived with her jerk father for years, Kiana knew what such a physique meant. Her father, Siegfried Kaslana, had a similar build—a living weapon!

But like a weapon, this body was severely damaged.

Healed scars from gunshots, knife wounds, bullet hits, burns, bite marks, claw scratches—a full range of imaginable injuries covered his body. Kiana even saw hideous scars covering vital, potentially fatal areas.

“How… how… how are you still alive?!”

Kiana was right. There were five or six potentially lethal wounds on Yao Bingling’s body—places where a normal person would have died instantly, and even a Valkyrie would perish. Yet… he was still alive.

“That’s a question I ask myself every day. But as you can see, I’m still alive, though half dead. What can a half-dead man do if he goes back? Change the tide of war? Sorry to disappoint, but I no longer have the strength I once had.”

Yao Bingling pushed his hair back and tied it with a tree fiber rope.

His fully exposed face, though bearded, looked surprisingly young—no, he seemed not to have aged at all, exactly like the photo Kiana held from eleven years ago.

The only difference was his eyes.

They were truly weary.

“Kiana Kaslana. Thank you for traveling all this way into the deep mountains to find me. Perhaps things are really urgent. But I’m truly tired.”