On the first day Hu Liena and the others returned from Cold Pine Pass, Bai Jin hauled Yan into the Training Grounds.
The patrol map was not all the three of them had brought back. The new Armaments Tower had been locked again under a two-person verification procedure, and the signed receipt for Blue Lightning's compensation had reached Spirit City with the Military Tribunal's documents. Luo Jun remained in custody pending trial. No one could brush aside the casualties on the ledger just because they had distinguished themselves on the drill ground that night.
Bai Jin only glanced through the case-closure receipt. He did not make them recount how they had caught Luo Jun. What he wanted to see was whether, the next time he was absent, the three of them could bring their comrades out intact from under an overwhelmingly powerful enemy's nose.
"Elder Bai, I only just got back. You could at least let me have a hot meal first." Yan looked at the other two. "What are you laughing at?"
Xie Yue put away the Northern Front patrol map. "He didn't call in just you. All three of us are here."
Hu Liena saw three wooden posts already standing at the edge of the grounds, each hung with a piece of damaged mechanism brought back from the Northern Front. Bai Jin had arranged no celebratory drinks. First, he wanted them to explain which part of the defense had nearly failed the night of the twelve heavy crossbows.
"I missed the fourth fuse," Xie Yue said first.
"My Rock Embankment stopped the fire, but it blocked off the whole area in front of the tower," Yan admitted. "If Elder Bai hadn't sent the explosion into the sky, my own men couldn't have gotten out."
Hu Liena added, "I