Chapter 45 Again_1

Just as he kicked the door open, he saw the tobacco leaves strewn about in the courtyard, drying haphazardly, tools scattered in disarray, and dust flying everywhere. The color of loess seemed to cover everything.

But he saw no sign of any enemy.

He saw only a gaunt woman desperately trying to hide two girls behind her, eyes wide, staring blankly at Huai Shi.

Terror in her eyes.

"I-I apologize..." he swallowed hard, "got the wrong place."

He was about to turn around when a teammate kicked him aside, and immediately after, he heard the roar of automatic rifles, a series of loud bangs, and the faint sound of screams.

And the sound of blood spurting.

He didn't even have time to look back.

In the distance, it seemed someone was shouting something, something broke through the air, followed by another loud explosion.

In the end, there was no sound at all.

Total silence.

Only a sharp ringing in his ears.

From out of nowhere, an RPG turned everything into rubble.

Huai Shi instinctively lay flat on the ground, crawling forward until someone pulled him up and yelled something into his ear, which he couldn't make out. He just obeyed the squad leaders' commands, firing blindly ahead.

He didn't realize his magazine was empty.

Then he saw the bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies...

Women, children, the elderly, and more children... tall or short, fat or thin... some whole, others torn apart.

It all happened too quickly, so quickly he couldn't react.

He didn't even find the enemies the instructor was talking about before the fight seemed to be over, and then he was dragged by angry teammates to the square and beaten.

Amid intense dizziness and confusion, the instructor walked up, the middle-aged man with the mustache looked down at him and after a while, gestured to someone behind him.

Someone dragged two enemies who were still struggling to the front.

Then Huai Shi was helped up by the instructor who gently patted the dust off him. The instructor placed his sidearm in Huai Shi's hands and said something about the shrieking children on the ground.

Huai Shi didn't catch it, looking around blankly to see the cold faces of his squadmates.

He saw the mess of bodies dragged into the square, piled into a mountain.

The blood that gathered made a river.

The instructor said something, and he still couldn't make it out, so the barrels of his squadmates' guns slowly lifted, aimed at him, and he froze.

The instructor spoke to him one last time.

This time Huai Shi finally heard him clearly. He said, "Fire."

Subconsciously, Huai Shi pulled the trigger at the enemy.

Once, twice, three, four times...

Quickly, the magazine emptied, and the two enemies on the ground turned into a mess of flesh, motionless, with blood bubbles continually bubbling out from the bullet holes, blackening the pale earth.

In the last moment, Huai Shi finally saw his own face reflected off the corpses.

From the lifeless eyes of the two little girls.

.

Huai Shi opened his eyes in the room.

Huai Shi began to convulse violently, he yelled furiously at Raven, and then Huai Shi started to vomit.

Leaning over, crouched on the ground, he vomited until the tears almost started to flow.

The first thing he felt was fear, followed by pain, then regret, and finally only anger and disgust, a profound anger and disgust for himself.

He had actually opened fire.

On two little girls who had no ability to resist...

"Damn it..."

He covered his face exhaustedly, almost wanting to cry: "Damn it..."

Even when he burnt Red Gloves to death, he hadn't felt a twinge of anything. But it was in this meaningless record that he felt such profound fear of death and such deep aversion to the act of killing.

There were never any enemies there, only the elderly who lost their son in war, the woman who lost her husband, and the children who lost their father...

It was just a senseless slaughter.

He had actually opened fire.

Even though he knew it was just a record and being killed meant nothing, he had actually opened fire... at two children who could hardly be considered enemies.

Because of fear, terror, confusion, or perhaps... weakness.

What on earth had Red Gloves done!

And what had he done?

"It seems I was too eager for quick results, the choice of practical training wasn't quite right," Raven said, looking at him sympathetically, "This is my fault, not yours. Rest for tonight, I will adjust the new..."

"No, just give me a few minutes—"

Huai Shi interrupted her, "Just a few minutes."

Silence came.

Soon, he had calmed down, went to the washroom, cleaned the mucus and saliva off his face, and returned to the hall.

He said calmly, "Let's do it again."

"Are you sure?" Raven asked, skeptical.

"Again."

Huai Shi repeated, "Again."

After a long while, as if Raven understood something, she smiled.

She said, "Okay."

The Event Branch point fell, darkness swooped in.

Huai Shi opened his eyes, smelled the dry dust, and felt the scorching wind blow in from outside. The instructor was issuing orders from the passenger seat:

"Kill them all, leave none alive."

Huai Shi nodded and said, "Okay."

Then he raised the gun barrel, aimed at the driver's seat, and pulled the trigger.

In the roar, sparks erupted from the muzzle.

The driver was dead, a mess of guts smeared on the shattered window as the car suddenly twisted and rolled.

Huai Shi felt the rush of the wind beside him, and in the violent rolling, it seemed a group of people pounced on him, quickly pinned down by his teammates to the ground.

The rear doors opened.

An expressionless instructor walked in and looked down at him.

"Unqualified."

He said and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Huai Shi's head exploded.

He opened his eyes, breathing heavily, drenched in sweat.

Quickly, he picked up the warm water from the table and downed it in one go: "Again!"

"Okay," Raven nodded, and darkness enveloped them once more.

"Kill them, all of them, leave no one alive."

He heard the instructor's voice and immediately laughed, pulling a dagger from his boot and nimbly slicing across his teammate's throat to the right, as fresh blood burst out, staining the floating dust in the air a crimson red.

Time seemed to freeze.

In that instant, Huai Shi drew his gun, fired the pistol rapidly, aiming at teammates in front, back, left, and right, continuously pulling the trigger, and more brains burst into pieces.

But soon, he was swept away and killed again.

"You need some strategy," Raven said. "Theoretically, you could annihilate them unscathed, but I need to remind you, you're reading Red Gloves' record, which means what happens and what each person will do are all from his subjective judgment, understand?"

"Not really."

"No matter, you will understand soon enough," Raven averted her gaze. "Again?"

"Yes!"

Huai Shi opened his eyes again, shifting slightly in the vehicle by the instructor's command, slowly rotating his neck, checking the equipment on his body.

A military knife, a pistol, an automatic rifle, a bulletproof vest and a walkie-talkie, and a few magazines tucked into the quick response vest.

And an Iron Grenade.

Weighing the hefty object in his hand, Huai Shi met the gaze of his teammates with a smile and quietly pulled off the ring with his little finger.

A silent countdown.

Three, two, one.

In that instant, he leapt forward, crashing into the rear door of the vehicle, tumbling embarrassingly out of the speeding car and onto the ground, where he was pricked by thorns and bushes along the roadside, hands throbbing with pain.

But soon, he heard the boom behind him.

The transport vehicle on the road shook violently, leapt dozens of centimeters into the air out of nowhere, and then, like a blown-up box, it swelled and exploded with blood-red fire from the shattered aperture.

It quickly twisted and deformed in the burning flames and rolled to a halt.

Huai Shi got up from the ground, panting heavily under the scorching sun, but soon he saw in the burning wreckage, the twisted iron doors suddenly made a sharp noise.

Kicked open by a foot.

From the co-driver's seat, the icy-faced instructor walked out slowly, his cold gaze lingering on Huai Shi's astonished expression. Despite looking like an ordinary person and showing no traces of Source Fluctuation or Stigma, he had survived the violent explosion, not even a hair out of place.

"So that's what it means, everything that happens and what each person will do is just Red Gloves' subjective judgment, right?"

Huai Shi couldn't help but laugh, mocking the guy named Red Gloves, "What kind of psychological trauma do you have regarding your instructor?"

Otherwise, how could that clearly normal instructor survive unscathed from a grenade explosion?

Did this guy really think that his instructor was some invincible steel giant?

"I didn't expect it, 7794."

The instructor looked at him indifferently, slowly rotating his neck, his fingers lightly tapping on the whip handle strapped at his waist, making a sound that caused Huai Shi to tense up suddenly.

Tap, tap, tap...

That sound of fingers tapping on the whip was a symbol of punishment and torture.

One torture, two severe injuries, and then there was no third time.

Having seen countless companions whipped to death on the field, Huai Shi could actually feel Red Gloves' residual despair and fear, and his will to resist began to crumble quickly.

The instructor stepped forward, looking down at his trembling opponent, reached out, and pressed on his head.

Twist.

Crack!

Huai Shi's neck broke.

Bang!

Huai Shi opened his eyes in anger and slammed his fist on the table, "Coward!"

Unsure if he was cursing Red Gloves or himself, for in countless training memories, he had deeply understood the instructor's cruelty and ruthlessness.

"It seems you've come to realize the limitations of a subjective recorder, haven't you?"

Raven smiled enigmatically, "People who can't extricate their perspective from their own fear and confusion can't act as absolute objective recorders of everything.

But that's the beauty of recorded experiences, it gives you the potential to surpass the person being recorded."

"How do I do that?" asked Huai Shi.

"It's simple," said Raven. "Just blow everything up. No matter what happens, no matter what's in your way, just take care of them all in your own way, and that's OK.

Even the hardest arcade game can be bruteforced, one-credit clearance is but the very basics. On the contrary, speedrunning and flawless victories are the real pursuit—"

She paused for a moment, her smile sly: "How about it, if it feels too hard, do you need a cheat code? With the 'Book of Fate,' you could easily make yourself as omnipotent as a god."

"No, thanks."

After resting a while and feeling his energy has nearly recovered, Huai Shi massaged his slightly aching forehead, ready to begin again, but saw Raven offering him a cigarette.

"Since you're so spirited, I'll gift you a blue bottle for free."