Chapter Summaries

Zhang Ronghua’s Night Tiger Armored Regiment crossed the Gobi Desert with unusually efficient logistical support. After a tank’s track broke, a repair vehicle and helicopter arrived quickly, and logistics soldiers identified and fixed additional problems before they could cause breakdowns.

• The Night Tiger Armored Regiment arrived by train at a Gobi Desert station, where logistics vehicles were waiting to unload and transport the tanks.
• Zhang Ronghua found that the Kitchen Squad had prepared a meal at the first assembly point while logistics personnel refueled the tanks.
• Zhang Ronghua ordered the regiment to advance across unfamiliar desert terrain, with First Battalion leading and Third Battalion bringing up the rear.
• After a tank’s track broke in a dried-up riverbed, a repair vehicle and Transport Helicopter arrived, and the crew replaced the track.
• A messenger reported that logistics soldiers had found and fixed minor problems in several other tanks, impressing Zhang Ronghua with their efficiency.

Jiang Yan Hai established the new base and briefed the regimental commanders on joint training and an upgraded battlefield command system. He then gathered sixty-two elite special forces soldiers for the first exercise, where the Jiaolong Commando Unit arrived in Nanjing and met Red Cell.

• Zhang Ronghua and the others reached their new base, where logistics troops had prepared their facilities.
• Jiang Yan Hai reviewed the deployment, then instructed the regimental commanders to prepare for joint training and learn the upgraded battlefield command system.
• Six low-orbit communications satellites developed by Li Ruo Bai and her team began providing experimental coverage across parts of Northwest China.
• Jiang Yan Hai selected sixty-two soldiers from Red Cell, Wolf Warrior, the Lone Wolf Special Assault Team, and the Jiaolong Commando Unit for the first exercise.
• Jiang Yan Hai flew to Nanjing with Dark Blade’s aircraft to meet the selected special forces soldiers.
• Yang Rui brought the Jiaolong Commando Unit to meet Red Cell, and he and Chen Shan Ming exchanged salutes and introductions.

Jiang Yan Hai gathered the Jiaolong Commando Unit, the Lone Wolf Commando Unit, Battle Wolf, and Red Cell to form a new classified unit called Dark Blade. He told them they could leave if they failed his upcoming training, and He Chen Guang urged him to begin.

• Yang Rui asked Chen Shan Ming about the unit he and his team had been transferred into, but Chen Shan Ming said he could not reveal details.
• The Jiaolong Commando Unit, the Lone Wolf Commando Unit, and Battle Wolf assembled with Red Cell at a secluded airfield and introduced themselves.
• Jiang Yan Hai arrived in a transport plane with two fighter escorts, surprising Yang Rui and the other soldiers by appearing as a Lieutenant Colonel.
• Jiang Yan Hai announced that the soldiers would share the codename Dark Blade and that he had personally selected them to join the classified unit.
• Jiang Yan Hai explained that the soldiers could leave if they failed his training, and He Chen Guang urged him to get started.

Jiang Yan Hai outfitted Dark Blade’s Special Operations Regiment with new Type 19 rifles and ordered them to prepare for an airborne deployment. Before departure, He Chen Guang warned the team leaders that Jiang Yan Hai’s training would be extremely difficult, and they agreed to bring every useful supply.

• Jiang Yan Hai dismissed the assembled soldiers, ordered them to change, and had them collect their Dark Blade uniforms and equipment.
• The Jiaolong members tested the finalized Type 19 Assault Rifle, which was issued to Dark Blade for the first time.
• Jiang Yan Hai gave the regiment thirty minutes to gear up before an airborne departure.
• Chen Shan Ming asked He Chen Guang to explain Jiang Yan Hai’s approach, and He Chen Guang warned that the training would be difficult.
• Yang Rui and the other captains agreed to bring every usable supply, and the teams finished preparing their equipment.

On the flight to their destination, Wang Yan Bing told the other special operations teams about Jiang Yan Hai’s outrageous exploits during Red Cell’s training. The story left everyone anticipating that their new boss would put them through similarly harsh trials.

• The sixty-two soldiers boarded the transport plane while Jiang Yan Hai boarded the Early Warning Aircraft, and Chen Shan Ming worried aloud about what might happen.
• Gu Shun asked the Red Cell members what Jiang Yan Hai was like, and Wang Yan Bing began recounting his past stunts.
• Wang Yan Bing described how Jiang Yan Hai hacked his way into the Wolf Fang assessment, infiltrated an exercise in women’s clothing, and shocked the recruits by revealing himself.
• He Chen Guang and Wang Yan Bing recounted how Jiang Yan Hai designed a terrifying final training assessment with realistic injuries and corpses, making the recruits believe they were facing a real disaster.
• The other teams sympathized with Red Cell until Wang Yan Bing reminded them that they would all be trained by Jiang Yan Hai, leaving the captains apprehensive about what was ahead.

Jiang Yan Hai sent He Chen Guang and the other special forces soldiers on a joint training exercise in the Gobi Desert. After they parachuted in and set out for their objective, Night Tiger Armored Regiment tanks attacked them with live ammunition.

• Jiang Yan Hai ordered the welcoming force to follow the plan as sixty-two soldiers parachuted into the Gobi Desert.
• Yang Rui and the squad leaders discussed their route toward a city northwest of their landing site, while He Chen Guang doubted Sea Lion would use a simple ambush.
• He Chen Guang and the others felt the ground tremble and saw three Type 99A tanks charge over a ridge.
• Chen Shan Ming ordered the soldiers to run toward a slope as the tanks pursued them.
• The battalion commander ordered his gunner to fire, and a shell exploded beside the soldiers’ escape route.
• Wang Yan Bing saw the crater and shouted that the tanks were using live ammunition.

The special forces soldiers fled a tank battalion, laid mines behind a hill, and watched a drone destroy them before the tanks resumed their pursuit. After hours of running, they reached a city and took shelter in an abandoned building, where Yang Rui ordered four men to scout.

• He Chen Guang ordered the soldiers carrying mines to plant them beyond the hill and keep running.
• Jiang Yan Hai learned of the ambush and ordered a strike drone to destroy the mines.
• The drone bombed the minefield, and the tank battalion resumed chasing the fleeing soldiers.
• After several hours, the exhausted soldiers reached a city and entered an abandoned six-story building.
• Yang Rui sent Gu Shun, Li Dong, He Chen Guang, and Wang Yan Bing to the roof to watch the pursuers and the city.

Yang Rui and Chen Shan Ming’s team entered an eerily empty city to search for six hostages, but six self-propelled howitzers opened fire on them. The team took cover as artillery shells battered the buildings around them.

• Yang Rui and Chen Shan Ming concluded that the city was abandoned after He Chen Guang reported seeing no people, while Gu Shun reported that the enemy had stopped pursuing them.
• Yang Rui explained that the team needed to find six hostages and escort them to an evacuation point twelve kilometers away, but warned that enemies might be hiding in the city.
• Thirteen kilometers away, a commander ordered six self-propelled howitzers to fire precision-guided shells at the city.
• Yang Rui warned the team to take cover when they heard incoming artillery, and Chen Shan Ming ordered those on the rooftops to get down.
• The shells struck nearby roads and buildings, collapsing part of a high-rise as the team sheltered behind walls and ground-floor cover.

After an artillery bombardment, the special forces split into combat groups and began searching an abandoned city for hostages while Jiang Yan Hai continued using live fire for joint-combat training. The search was slow, and the chapter ended when another shell exploded nearby.

• Jiang Yan Hai confirmed that everyone had survived the bombardment, and the soldiers emerged to find the area transformed into a battlefield.
• Yang Rui and Gong Jian organized the units into combat groups, sent them into the city, and positioned snipers to monitor and support them.
• Jiang Yan Hai ordered the artillery to fire another shell every twenty to thirty minutes as the teams advanced through the city.
• He Chen Guang, Gong Jian, and the others discussed the dangers of the live-fire exercise and continued searching buildings for hostages.
• After the teams searched for twenty or thirty minutes, a shell exploded nearby, and Chen Shan Ming told them to check on the other groups.

Jiang Yan Hai put the Jiaolong unit through an urban search exercise, directing the teams to use hostage profiles and clues to locate their targets. He Chen Guang's team followed a clue to People's Hospital and found an eerily well-maintained part of the abandoned city.

• Jiang Yan Hai explained that the exercise was meant to build the Jiaolong unit's urban combat experience and test its ability to analyze intelligence.
• Yang Rui suggested using a hostage's tuberculosis diagnosis to narrow the search to a hospital, and Gong Jian assigned one hostage to each of six groups.
• After a night of artillery explosions, Jiang Yan Hai told the command center to prepare logistics support as the teams resumed their searches.
• He Chen Guang's group used a map hidden in a dusty bookstore volume to plan a search for the hostage posing as a patient.
• Gong Jian led the group toward the largest hospital, where they found streets and facilities that looked newly maintained and felt increasingly eerie.

Chen Shan Ming's teams gathered at the People's Hospital after finding signs that part of the city had been inhabited until recently. Tong Li explained that the city may have been cleared for their training, and the teams found nothing in the hospital before considering where to search next.

• Chen Shan Ming called the other teams after his group found intact windows and signs of recent activity at the People's Hospital.
• Wang Yan Bing showed Chen Shan Ming and Gong Jian a newspaper dated twenty-three days earlier.
• Yang Rui and the other teams reported signs that the newer half of the city had been in use recently.
• Tong Li explained that Yumen's residents had largely moved away and suggested the city had been cleared for urban combat training.
• Chen Shan Ming ordered the teams to search the hospital, but they found nothing.
• Old Gao suggested searching the other hospitals in the city.

Gong Jian’s team found a trail to their assigned mannequin targets by searching hospital records and local police files, then evacuated all six targets to a temporary camp. The chapter ended as six Z-8B Helicopters arrived to pick up the teams.

• Gong Jian ordered a thorough search of the pulmonary medicine department, where He Chen Guang found a crumpled registration paper listing their target’s name and home address.
• Gong Jian’s group searched the local police station and found resident registration records showing that the target had moved to another unit in the same residential complex.
• Gong Jian’s team found a mannequin at the new address, and Li Er Niu carried it downstairs while the team arranged to move it more easily.
• Gong Jian reported the discovery, and all six groups found their targets and retreated to a temporary camp more than ten kilometers from the city.
• The teams ate the camp’s canned food, then formed up as six Z-8B Helicopters landed nearby.

Jiang Yan Hai deducted sixty points from the team after revealing they had rescued a tuberculosis patient without using protective masks, then assigned them 180 kilometers of extreme survival training. The chapter ended with the team preparing supplies, especially water, for the trek.

• Jiang Yan Hai told the team they had failed the urban rescue exercise and would face extreme survival training, with deductions increasing their distance.
• Jiang Yan Hai explained that the team lost sixty points because they brought back a tuberculosis patient without protecting themselves or the patient with masks.
• Wang Yan Bing accepted the deduction, and Jiang Yan Hai warned the team to take infectious diseases seriously during future missions.
• Jiang Yan Hai assigned the team a 180-kilometer trek through remote terrain and gave them half an hour to prepare.
• Gong Jian, Old Gao, and Chen Shan Ming discussed the route and decided to plan for four days of supplies, with water as their priority.

Jiang Yan Hai led the soldiers on a three-day wilderness survival exercise, while they packed food and water without realizing the weather and terrain would make their choices unsuitable. As the helicopters crossed ALS’s snow-covered Gobi Desert, the soldiers recognized they had overlooked both the cold and the chance to bring tents.

• He Chen Guang and Yang Rui decided to take more canned goods and less compressed rations, and the soldiers packed food and water for the exercise.
• Jiang Yan Hai warned the soldiers that they had to account for every bottle of water and ordered them to board the helicopters.
• Jiang Yan Hai learned that nighttime temperatures would fall to minus twenty-seven degrees Celsius and ordered the helicopters to set off for ALS.
• After roughly two hours in flight, He Chen Guang spotted snowfields below and realized the soldiers had misjudged the terrain and their water needs.
• Gong Jian pointed out that they could probably have dismantled the camp tents and brought them along.

Yang Rui and the others crossed the snow-covered Gobi Desert on foot, gathering fuel and conserving strength as the wind and cold intensified. After covering about sixty kilometers, they found a sheltered hollow and built a fire, but their canned beef had frozen solid.

• Yang Rui and the others began their 180-kilometer trek and realized the wind and snow made traveling without tents dangerous.
• Yang Rui urged the group to collect anything burnable, and Gong Jian organized them into rotating rows to shield each other from the wind.
• Jiang Yan Hai monitored the group and ordered the command team to keep a close watch on their safety.
• After walking about sixty kilometers, Yang Rui called for a stop as the falling temperature and exhaustion threatened to injure the men.
• Gong Jian spotted a sheltered area, and the group gathered their fuel and lit a fire for the night.
• The men took out their canned beef and found it had frozen in the subzero cold.

The soldiers warmed canned beef over a fire and rested in the freezing wilderness while discussing the hardships and purpose of their march. Meanwhile, Jiang Yan Hai argued with the Old Commander over changes to the elite personnel he wanted for the new Special Forces regiment.

• Song Kai Fei and Xu Tian Long discussed their rations as the soldiers heated canned beef over the fire and ate in batches.
• Yang Rui, Gong Jian, Old Gao, and Shao Bing discussed the next day's route, the brutal conditions, and the training they expected from Jiang Yan Hai.
• The soldiers took turns sleeping in a huddle around the fire, aware that they still had 120 kilometers to travel.
• Jiang Yan Hai called the Old Commander to complain that the agreed transfers of elite soldiers from units across the country had been changed.
• The Old Commander asked Jiang Yan Hai what transferring all the requested soldiers would mean, and Jiang Yan Hai admitted it would remove nearly all the elites.

Jiang Yan Hai negotiated with the Old Commander over staffing for his new special forces regiment and secured permission to select volunteers across the military, including students from the National University of Defense Technology. He planned to combine elite recruits with a second group he would train himself, using Er Dan’s scans to improve selection and training.

• The Old Commander said he could provide only half of the requested elite special forces soldiers immediately, or Jiang Yan Hai could train recruits himself.
• Jiang Yan Hai rejected recruits and waiting for more elite soldiers, then asked to select people from across the military.
• The Old Commander allowed Jiang Yan Hai to choose from the whole military and the National University of Defense Technology, provided the candidates agreed voluntarily.
• Jiang Yan Hai secured approval for the additional logistical support his training methods would require.
• After the call, Jiang Yan Hai reflected that only 932 people met Er Dan’s elite selection criteria and decided to train a second batch using scans to identify and develop their potential.

Jiang Yan Hai chose 378 first-tier Special Forces soldiers for his training program and began planning how to recruit and train the next batch. Meanwhile, Yang Rui, He Chen Guang, and the others struggled through worsening weather before spotting a settlement where they could seek shelter.

• Jiang Yan Hai informed Fan Tian Lei and Master Kang that the training plan would change, then told Er Dan to keep the 378 first-tier candidates and reject the rest.
• Old Commander praised Jiang Yan Hai’s selection and ordered officials to preserve the rejected candidates’ files and keep the evaluation process confidential.
• Jiang Yan Hai planned stricter screening for the next batch and decided he might visit units in person, while limiting the first new training group to 300 or 400 people.
• Yang Rui, He Chen Guang, and the other sixty-one men battled strong winds, cold, and difficult terrain as their march slowed over the next two days.
• After nightfall on the third day, He Chen Guang spotted five yurts and a large sheepfold, and Gong Jian told the group to approach the locals carefully.

Gong Jian and his soldiers reached a group of yurts and were welcomed by local herdsmen after confirming they were friendly. The herdsmen offered food and shelter, and Gong Jian accepted a place to rest while politely refusing their food because of military discipline.

• Gong Jian approached the yurts alone after a herdsman warned that they had guns, while Yang Rui and the other soldiers stayed alert.
• The herdsmen recognized Gong Jian as a People's Liberation Army soldier and invited the rest of his group to come over.
• Gong Jian learned that Baolige, a reservist, carried an authorized Type 56 rifle to defend against poachers.
• The old herdsman offered to slaughter sheep and serve dried beef, but Gong Jian refused the food because of military rules.
• The old herdsman agreed to let the soldiers stay and build fires for them, and Gong Jian offered to have his men help.

Gong Jian's soldiers took shelter in yurts offered by an old herdsman, unaware that the hospitality was part of Jiang Yan Hai's training exercise. After the soldiers drank the drugged milk tea and fell asleep, helicopters arrived to carry them away.

• Gong Jian's soldiers warmed the yurts with coal stoves and prepared hot water, while Gong Jian borrowed five hundred yuan from Song Kai Fei to pay the locals.
• The old herdsman and his son Baolige brought the soldiers milk tea, and Yang Rui accepted it and arranged to share it among the men.
• After eating and drinking, Gong Jian's soldiers went to sleep without setting sentries because dogs guarded the area.
• The old herdsman asked two men whether the setup was alright, and one explained that the soldiers had fallen for a training exercise arranged with Jiang Yan Hai.
• Six helicopters landed nearby, and more than a dozen soldiers began carrying the sleeping men out of the yurts.