A deathly silence filled the ambulance.
Yue Xiaofei sat in a corner, motionless, like a statue turned to stone.
The truth.
This was the truth he had fought so desperately to uncover.
The scenes Han Xiao had described replayed in his mind, over and over.
Those resolute gunshots, those ringing vows, that father kneeling in a pool of blood, shedding bloody tears as he mourned in silence...
At that moment, he finally understood the crushing weight of the past hidden behind his father's SSS+ top-secret file.
How could suffering alone begin to describe it?
Watching comrades as close as brothers die, one after another, to make his mission possible.
Taking upon himself the eternal infamy of slaughtering his comrades and betraying his country to join the enemy.
Walking alone through the deepest darkness, surrounded by the world's most vicious enemies, without a single person he could trust.
If that path was not hell, what was?
Five years.
Five whole years.
Yue Xiaofei could not imagine what his father had felt as he endured those eighteen hundred long days and nights.
Had he seen his comrades falling every time he closed his eyes?
Had those gunshots jolted him awake every time he dreamed in the dead of night?
He had borne the world's condemnation and his family's misunderstanding, all while continuing the unfinished [Operation Underworld] amid predators waiting to strike.
How much had his heart hurt?
How unbreakable must his will have been?
Yue Xiaofei clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
Grief, rage, and reverence surged wildly through his chest, threatening to burst it open.
His father was no traitor. He was a hero!
A hero lonelier and greater than his grandfather Yue Qinhu, greater than any hero in history.
He was a hero who carried the weight of