The campfire's glow finally dimmed, its dancing flames shrinking into scattered sparks that flickered in the cold ashes, stripped of last night's warmth and light. Thick, impenetrable darkness still hung over the horizon, and the entire mountain forest lay deathly silent. Only the biting night wind swept through the overlapping branches and leaves, stirring dried grass and debris from the ground. It cut through them with a piercing chill, sending waves of cold through their hearts.
Shiheng and Kelin Xiaoman sat quietly in a corner of the camp, their auras withdrawn, like two silent stone statues. They made not a sound, deliberately suppressing the presence of their strength for fear of disturbing this rare moment of ease for these lowly mercenaries. They simply listened in silence-to their struggles to afford daily necessities, their concerns for their families, wives, and children, the sorrows hidden beneath their exhaustion, and the tiny, insignificant joys they found amid hardship.
Kelin Xiaoman leaned gently against Shiheng, her pale fingertips lightly clutching his sleeve, her clear, gentle eyes filled with emotion and compassion. Born into a powerful family, she had grown up in luxury, free from care. Everything she saw had been splendid and respectable; everything she heard had been smooth and secure. She had never truly witnessed the lives of ordinary people at the bottom-crushed beneath mortgages, livelihoods, and family burdens, struggling on the edge of hunger and death, yet still gritting their teeth, clinging to hope, and refusing to bow to fate. As she looked at those two young mercenaries with their careworn faces, there was not a trace of contempt in her eyes, only heartfelt empathy and pity, both for their hardship and for their perseverance.
Shiheng gazed quietly at the campfire's embers, faint reflection and emotion stirring in the depths of his