Rebirth of a Mercenary: The Ace Mercenary Forced to Be the Beloved of the Group

The helicopter cabin was filled with a mixture of smells of blood, sweat, and disinfectant.

Shen Zhuo lifted his head from the bulkhead and looked at Bai Ye across from him.

Bai Ye was looking down at the introductory book on tactical topography.

"Xiao Bai," Shen Zhuo spoke, his voice a little hoarse from exhaustion, but with an irrepressible curiosity in his tone, "I have something to ask you."

Bai Ye looked up from the pages of the book and glanced at him.

"How do you know so much? The French's file labeling habits, the location of the supply warehouse, and the shooting parameters you reported to Brother Huai'an before—don't tell me you just guessed on the spot." Shen Zhuo held up a finger and twirled it near his temple. "I've seen plenty of raw recruits, and I've never seen one more useful than you in their first combat observation mission. Honestly, did you secretly take extra classes?"

Bai Ye remained silent for two seconds.

"My brother taught me."

There was a moment of silence in the cabin. The answer was both unexpected and perfectly logical.

Bai Chen—the man who once utterly crushed everyone in Group A—if he was the one who taught them, then everything makes sense.

"There are some more," Bai Ye turned to the next page of the book, "They're written in the book."

Xuan Xiao snapped out of his daze. When he heard Bai Ye being praised, an extremely proud expression immediately appeared on his face, a stark contrast to the aggrieved look on his face when he was being punished by running.

He sat up straight in the chair, patted Bai Ye's shoulder with one hand, raised his chin slightly, and spoke with a tone that said, "This is a kind of boast that you can't even dream of: 'I've told you before, my partner has a photographic memory. He can remember something after seeing it only once. He reads any book and can memorize anything. Before this mission, he even managed to find patterns in Xie Huai'an's communication log. You didn't see it—Brother Huai'an, you tell me, isn't that right?'"

Xie Huai'an looked up from his communication log, adjusted his glasses, and said calmly, "Yes. Last time he went through my log, he found three formatting errors that I hadn't even noticed myself."

Xie Ran spat out the bandage he was biting, his voice trembling slightly from the pain of the stitches, but still full of energy: "The Bai family really are all monsters. Brother Chen took down an entire base by himself back then, and his brother, at sixteen, could become a semi-tactical advisor just by reading a few books—are they even human?"

"Not human." Lu Xiao chimed in from the side, using his dagger to pick out another piece of shrapnel, which he then tossed into the magazine with a clink. "The Bai family's genes are problematic. I suspect that Brother Chen's parents might be super soldiers who escaped from some secret laboratory."

"You can ask Brother Chen in person," Xie Huai'an said without looking up.

"Never mind then. I want to live a few more years."

Xie Ran looked down at himself—his training uniform was torn in seven or eight places by shrapnel, his newly stitched wound on his left arm was still oozing tissue fluid, his face was covered in mud and blood, and his fingernails were full of black gunpowder residue.

He grinned, then suddenly remembered something and turned to look at Xuan Xiao.

"Xiao Zai." He called out, stood up, and staggered over to Xuan Xiao's side, leaning on the bulkhead. He plopped down on the floor. The complex smell of blood mixed with gunpowder and sweat emanating from him instantly enveloped Xuan Xiao.

Xuanxiao's expression changed.

"Xiao Zai," Xie Ran placed a hand on Xuan Xiao's shoulder, his palm still damp with black gunpowder residue, "How was your first time watching a real battle?"

Xuanxiao's Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

"It's...it's pretty exciting."

"Exciting?" Xie Ran grinned. "Which part was the most exciting? Was it the part where Shen Zhuo kicked someone into the conveyor belt and turned them into mincemeat, or the part where the captain almost got his head blown off? Or was it watching your partner—this self-taught tactical genius—send Huai'an's firing parameters and blow the sergeant's head off with a single shot?"

Shen Zhuo kicked the man into the conveyor belt. He was ground into mincemeat. The sergeant was blown to the head. These images played in Xuan Xiao's mind, each frame crystal clear.

He looked down and saw the splattered dark red stain on Xie Ran's training uniform, and finally could no longer suppress the acid gushing up in his throat.

"I—vomit—"

He bent over abruptly, bracing himself against the bottom of the cabin, his stomach churning violently. Lu Xiao, prepared, pulled a vomit bag from under his seat and deftly handed it to him, his movements so practiced that one wondered if he did this often.

Xuan Xiao vomited for almost half a minute before he could catch his breath. He straightened up, took the tissue Lu Xiao handed him, wiped his mouth, and his face was burning as if he had just run thirty kilometers.

"I'm sorry... I... I didn't mean to..."

"It's okay, it's okay," Lu Xiao said with a smile, patting him on the back. "It's always like this the first time."

"I..." Xuan Xiao's voice was still trembling, but he tried to straighten his back. "I won't throw up next time."

Shen Zhuo shifted his gaze from Xuan Xiao and looked back at Bai Ye.

Bai Ye didn't participate in the chaos from beginning to end. He sat in the corner, holding a carton of yogurt in his hand—something Li Mo had somehow found in his equipment box and handed to him.

He sipped slowly, the straw between his lips, his cheeks slightly puffed out, his gaze still fixed on the pages of the book on his lap, as if no one in the helicopter had vomited or discussed minced meat and headshots.

"Xiao Bai," Shen Zhu tilted his head to look at him, his tone carrying a hint of curiosity and probing, "you're quite calm. Not afraid at all, watching a real battle for the first time?"

Bai Ye pulled the straw out of his mouth and looked up at Shen Zhuo. His gaze was calm and indifferent, as if he were looking at a junior who had asked a stupid question.

“Just insignificant people,” he said, his voice low but clear enough to be heard by everyone amidst the roar of the helicopter engines. “Not worth my time.”

The cabin fell silent.

Then Lu Xiao broke the silence first.

He chuckled softly, placed the dagger and shrapnel together on his knee, reached out, and placed his large palm on Bai Ye's head, giving it a firm rub. Bai Ye's hair, which already had a few stray strands sticking up, stood up completely after being rubbed.

"That mentality," Lu Xiao withdrew his hand, a genuine appreciation in his smile, "Not bad, Little Cabbage. Sixteen years old, first time on the battlefield, watched the whole thing, drank yogurt and read a book, and then said, 'It's not worth wasting your emotions.'"

"Monsters." Xie Ran pointed a finger at Bai Ye, his other hand still clutching the wound on his left arm. "I'm serious, the Bai family is full of monsters. Brother Chen is a monster, and Xiao Baicai is a monster too. If anyone ever tells me again that the Bai family's genes are normal, I'll tell them everything that happened today."

Bai Ye finished his yogurt, put the empty carton in the trash bag next to his seat, and then lowered his head again to continue flipping through his book.