30

When Shuai first walked away with his head down, he was several meters away from the group. After he threw the grenade he ran another several meters. By this time he was over ten meters away. They could only watch as he pulled the ring. Even Zero couldn’t do anything with his gun as he was knocked to the ground by the shock wave.

“All of you go to hell! I…”

He pulled the ring while laughing crazily. Just as he was going to throw the grenade at them, it suddenly exploded. It only took a second from the time he pulled the ring til the grenade exploded. He didn’t even have time to throw it. The fire and shockwave quickly reached the group.

“No!”

Zheng watched in daze as the fire closed up on him. Thankfully Lan brought him down to the ground. He just watched as the fire flew past him. For a moment, he could still smell the scent of burnt flesh.

‘No! How can life be so fragile? Why is life so fragile!’

Zheng suddenly jumped up from the ground and ran toward the smoke. Going inside the smoke, he found Shuai lying on the ground. His whole body burned black. His hands and chest were gone. Other than pieces of flesh on the ground, there was black colored blood that gushed out from his chest. ‘So human blood wasn’t always red, after going through an explosion, it… can become burned black.’

“Why? Why did the grenade explode immediately after pulling the ring?”

Zheng came out from the smoke. He walked over to Xuan silently and asked.

Xuan was the one nearest to the center of explosion this time. Blood gushed out from his nose and mouth. He wiped the blood and said, “Yes, the grenades I had Kampa modify, one of them explodes after a few seconds, the other one will explode immediately. When I handed him the grenades, I put the one that will explode later on the outside, so he could only use that one first…”

Zheng punched him on the face and knocked him away. Zero immediately pointed his gun at Zheng and Kampa stood in between Zheng and Xuan.

Xuan slowly sat up from the ground. He spat out a tooth and said calmly, “This is the true intention of the bait plan. Do you really think just a little blood can lure the Aliens? No, even though their sense of smell is sensitive, but during the period that the Queen is laying eggs, they will guard their nest. You saw from the monitor before that they were moving toward the nest. Therefore it needs to be a large amount of fresh flesh and blood, in addition to the scent of Alien blood on your skin, to lure them over. If I am not mistaken, the Aliens should be coming this way currently. If you want to die, you can continue to stay outside the wall.” Then he silently walked back to the control room.

Zheng felt more enraged after hearing his words, but he could only yell under the threat of Zero’s gun. “Then he was right? You intended to give up on him from the beginning? Why are you two helping him? You won’t even know when he will give you up! How can you call this comradery?”

Xuan turned around and said in a cold voice, “I didn’t intend to give him up in the beginning. I originally planned that everyone could contribute some blood, then he and you only have to… Whatever, I don’t have to explain this to you. You just have to understand that everything I do is for the sake of everyone in this group to survive this movie. I am certainly not wrong!”

Zheng’s voice sounded cold also. “Giving up on comrades, letting him get killed by explosions, then use his flesh and blood to lure the Aliens. And this is not wrong? Then what do you think is right! Is this how the two of you think also? Is life really so worthless?”

Xuan replied as he walked without turning his around, “I gave him one last chance. If he didn’t try to use the second grenade on us and followed my plan, as long as he could injure one Alien the others were very likely to come over. He could also hide in between two walls. Unfortunately, a mortal’s wisdom… only filled with resentment.”

Zero kept silent the whole time, he walked backward while pointing the gun at Zheng. After ten meters, he turned around and went away. Kampa said to him in a serious tone, “We value unity, it’s the mercenary’s credo. During battle, you put your back to your comrades. This is the basic trust and rule. But in order to achieve these two points, the other party must be someone you acknowledged and not a burden. I think Zero is thinking the same thing. We live in a different environment than you normal people. We are more suited to survive in this dimension. To me, these movies are just mercenary missions. Xuan did the right thing. He chose to have the majority of us live and successfully completed the mission. Shuai didn’t make me feel that I could trust my back to him. He also failed the last trial and chose self-destruction.”

Zheng stood there in a daze until the wall was slowly coming down. Jie and Lan then pulled him back in. He raised his head and asked, “Does it really have to be this cruel? To give up on other people so you can live? Or just a little resentment and you want everyone to die together? Then what are we? Chess pieces that he used and threw away?”

Jie said, “I don’t give a f*ck what they think. I don’t feel safe being with these three. I thought Xuan was smart and maybe could think of a way to save us. But it seems smart people are all devious. No, I feel less safe being with them! Zheng, I will go get my gun back. Even if I can’t get it back, we will go our own way after they’ve trapped the Aliens! Otherwise we won’t even know if they used us.”

Lan sighed. “But… do we really have to go by ourselves? It would be better if we just endure it through this movie and stay away from them on the next one.”

Zheng looked at Lan silently then said, “No, we will go our own way! I don’t want to see them again… If you can’t trust your comrades, then how can they trust you! I won’t give up on anyone on my side. I can save my comrade’s life, in return when I am in danger he will definitely save me! So I won’t fight alongside them again!”