Things Look Very Bad for Xie Yuanxun

"Your judgment was right." The old man chuckled. "The strike at (440,817) seems to have landed well. It wiped out quite a few enemy troops."

"Actually, it was a bit worse than I expected." Song He pointed at the screen. "I thought the results could have been twice as good. That means the Red side's soldiers are very capable, far beyond the results of my previous computer simulations."

"There is always a gap between the battlefield and simulations. As long as the overall trend remains unchanged, it's a success." The old man said, "What do you expect to happen next?"

"The trend is obvious. The main battlefield will be around here." Song He poked the screen. "Sun Bin No. 7 has already repositioned troops for a pincer attack. They may swallow up an entire enemy brigade here!"

"The battle is about to enter a tug-of-war with fighting breaking out everywhere. Over the next few hours, the scattered enemy units will have a hard time. If things go badly, they'll have to wage guerrilla warfare like savages, hiding all over the mountains and forests."

"About how long will it take?" the old man asked.

"One possibility is that the enemy collapses and scatters. The other is that nearby enemy forces arrive as reinforcements. If it's the former, we can resolve this smoothly within five hours. If it's the latter, there will be variables, and it may turn into a large-scale decisive battle!" Song He analyzed.

"Alright, then I'll come back in five hours." The old man tossed his coat onto a corner of the sofa, got up, and left.

Song He was alone in the lounge again.

The first round of fighting had basically ended. Both sides were redeploying their forces. The next few hours would be quiet, with at most sporadic exchanges of fire, reconnaissance, and Electronic Warfare, until the next major battle erupted several hours later.

Modern warfare was actually rather dull. It was nothing like the grand scenes in movies, with hardly any impassioned charges amid seas of people. Instead, small units were scattered across uninhabited regions, spending long periods marching or lying concealed on standby. When the fighting actually began, it only lasted a few minutes.

His tense mood relaxed somewhat. Around two thousand enemy troops had been eliminated, while their own losses were minor. The results of the first exchange could be called a sure profit!

Song He stopped eating sunflower seeds. His stomach was bloated, and if he ate any more, he would throw up.

He turned to glance at the coat on the sofa. Curious, he pulled it aside and saw the shoulder insignia.

Golden branches and leaves, two gold stars.

Lieutenant General!

"Fuck!" Song He swore in shock, nearly jumping up.

The old man had looked so ordinary that Song He had assumed he was, at most, a senior colonel. Who would have thought he was a general?!

The door suddenly opened, and Xiang Xiaotong walked in, drenched in sweat. She went to the water dispenser in the corner and poured herself some water.

She had spent several hours watching over the command room, speaking constantly with frontline units with a dry throat to ensure that the information received by Sun Bin No. 7 was accurate. Only now did she finally have time to come out for a drink.

"How did your conversation with the general go?" Xiang Xiaotong asked.

"Is he really General Zhang, the person in charge of this exercise?" Song He was still shaken. "I was analyzing the battle situation for him, and he didn't say I was stupid. Does that mean my analysis was decent?"

"General Zhang is very easygoing. Even if he thinks you're stupid, he won't say it aloud." Xiang Xiaotong raised a brow. "He actually came over specifically to see you."

"Did he really come specifically to see me? He was just passing by, right?" Song He was flattered. "I'm just an ordinary college student!"

"Sure, sure, ordinary!" Xiang Xiaotong laughed.

A whole row of honeycombs sat on a power support vehicle, connected to cables and charging neatly. Xie Yuanxun lay sprawled on the roof of the vehicle with his ass in the air, checking the drones one by one for malfunctions.

"Are you eating up there, or are you getting your ass down here for food?" Black Glasses stood beside the vehicle, carrying a bag of self-heating rice.

Xie Yuanxun held out a hand, and a bag of rice was immediately tossed up to him. It was too hot to hold, so he could only set it on the vehicle and wolf it down, shoveling the scalding food into his mouth like a disaster victim.

At that moment, Xie Yuanxun looked no different from a savage.

His pants were caked in rotten mud from half an hour earlier, when he had marched through a swamp to stay concealed. Enemy reconnaissance planes had been whooshing overhead, so he could only lie as flat as possible in the mud and pretend to be a log.

Red worms like strands of noodles swam through the mud, burrowing into his crotch in swarms. His comrades had cruelly tricked him by saying that the venom of these worms had chemically castrating effects, leaving him worried the entire way.

His hair was green, plastered with a layer of something like green flour. Xie Yuanxun had run into a small wave of enemy biochemical attacks. Hundreds of fist-sized Poison Gas Bombs had been thrown nearby, hissing as they sprayed green smoke everywhere. Within half a minute, the green fog had become so thick it looked like Cthulhu was about to appear. Fortunately, he had brought a Gas Mask, so he had not been taken out.

His face and ears had been smoked black. Enemy Flame Dogs had fiercely set the forest ablaze, and he and his comrades had frantically shot more than a dozen Flame Dogs dead. The smoke had made him shed at least a couple ounces of tears, and his eyelids were so red and swollen that they would not recover for a day or two.

"Black Glasses, this exercise is fucking brutal!" Xie Yuanxun finished the rice and let out a full belch. "The situation is a complete mess! I feel like we're not far from dying gloriously!"

"If you keep spreading defeatism, I'll shoot you!" Black Glasses was also covered in green powder, cradling a bag of Potato Beef as he ate furiously. "Get the honeycombs ready. In five minutes, we're attacking (435,810)! If we fight this battle well, we still have a chance!"

The lounge door opened again.

Song He was bent over the coffee table eating a boxed meal. He hurriedly put down his chopsticks and stood up. "Hello, General!"

"Why be so formal? We met just a few hours ago. Sit down and eat." The general sat on the sofa with a chuckle. "Your estimate was accurate. Sun Bin No. 7 really did complete the pincer attack. What do you think will happen next?"

"The enemy's attitude is unclear. They aren't sending major reinforcements, but they aren't abandoning the area either. Now they've turned it into a piecemeal tactic, probably because Electronic Warfare has cut off communications for many frontline units." Song He sat down and pointed at the screen as he analyzed. "Let this student show off a little. The next point of engagement should be near (435,810)!"

"If I'm not mistaken, this location is a trap, isn't it?" the general asked.

"That's right. Sun Bin No. 7 likes this style of combat, using the overall situation of the battlefield to lure enemies into traps. The trap at (435,810) is very well hidden. It took me quite a while to spot it," Song He said.

The moment he finished speaking, the screen changed. Fighting broke out at (435,810)!

Numerous circles representing enemy troops appeared, like a shotgun firing into a pond and kicking up dense ripples!

"The trap has worked." The general smiled.

"The overall situation is decided!" Song He was instantly delighted. "Within an hour, they should be able to swallow up one and a half enemy brigades! There won't be many survivors nearby!"

The fierce battle had been underway for half an hour.

Smoke and dust rolled across the hilltop. Dozens of artillery units were busy relocating, while distant positions howled as they launched Rocket Munitions. A large group of soldiers hit by enemy fire sat on the ground, thick red smoke pouring from their helmets, making the battlefield look littered with corpses!

The air defense laser net fired brilliantly into the sky, like bright white needles stabbing upward.

Overwhelming swarms of enemy drones buzzed overhead, as dense as midsummer mosquitoes. Some were shot down from time to time, making strange noises as they crashed into the forest. A few caught on branches and burst into flames, and the fire quickly spread, making the entire forest crackle!

At the edge of the slope, inside a hastily dug temporary bunker, Xie Yuanxun hammered madly at a keyboard, directing Honeycomb Drones to track enemy forces. His expression was utterly crazed!

More than a dozen honeycombs had been placed in nearby foxholes. Large swarms of drones returned rapidly from time to time, then launched again with loud bangs once fully charged, repeating the cycle over and over!

"Retreat! Retreat! Stop working, it's all fallen apart!" Black Glasses rushed past, roaring like thunder. "Rally at (430,800)!"

"Fallen apart?!" Xie Yuanxun shouted in terror. "I just found the enemy's movements!"

"Report the coordinates to Second Platoon! Second Platoon will cover the rear!" Black Glasses hoisted a box of honeycombs and vanished into the thick smoke at a run.

A world-shaking boom erupted as massive white clouds burst across the sky. Soldiers from Second Platoon carried individual Rocket Launchers and fired smoke rounds into the air. Those smoke rounds were like insecticide, and huge numbers of flying drones fell wherever they passed. The battlefield was a complete wreck!

A small drone crashed right in front of him, crackling with electricity. Xie Yuanxun persisted long enough to enter the last few recovery commands, then snapped the laptop shut and stood up.

"Fuck, things are looking very bad!" Xie Yuanxun cursed.