"I remembered Old Bei suddenly charging in, dragging me out of the dragon's pool and tiger's den, then being gunned down in a hail of bullets."
"I didn't even remember how I captured the targets, or how I brought them to the designated location."
"I only remembered that when we finally reached the designated location, only Jian Guo, Rui Zhi, Hao Zi, and I were left. Everyone else had sacrificed themselves, fallen along the way."
"But not a single target was missing."
"The Wasteland Project's program was disabled. We shot all the targets dead, preventing them from activating the program again."
"The mission succeeded. America's nuclear arsenal was not deployed."
"But then the enemy troops came again and surrounded us on all sides."
"We were already spent arrows at the end of their flight. Everyone was wounded; we truly had no strength left. Rui Zhi and Hao Zi did not even get the chance to fire more than a few shots before bullets tore them apart."
"Jian Guo tore off his armband and slapped it into my hand."
"Then he detonated the explosives and perished together with the enemy."
"And I fell into the water, drifting with the current like a corpse."
Drip, drip. Stars fell like rain, and bloody rain poured down.
The old photograph was nearly dyed completely red with blood. Its four corners had curled and blackened from the flames. The sword-like constellation in the heavens had now been reduced to a single lone star, adrift and solitary.
"My ears were deafened by the blast, my throat was burned mute, and what flowed from the corners of my eyes was not tears, but blood. But at the time, none of that mattered. I just clutched East Wind Company's armband tightly and kept moving forward, forward again."
"I