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

Xuanxiao was dozing off when the helicopter crossed the last ridgeline of the Gobi Desert.

His head was tilted against the back of the seat, his mouth was half open, and there was still a trace of drool on the corner of his mouth that he hadn't wiped clean earlier.

Xie Ran, sitting next to him, poked his arm idly with a rolled-up bandage. He would whimper every time he was poked, and whimper again every time he was poked, like a large dog that was being harassed but didn't want to wake up.

"Stop poking him," Shen Zhuo kicked Xie Ran from the opposite seat. "Let him sleep. He threw up like that earlier, his stomach is probably still churning."

"I was just worried about him." Xie Ran stuffed the bandage roll back into the medical kit, stretched, and his newly stitched wounds were pulled, making him wince in pain. "When we get back, I'll have Old Zhou stew a pot of pig's trotters to help him recover. He's been vomiting so much stomach acid, he needs to rest and recover properly."

"Are you sure you want to nourish him, and not that you want to eat it yourself?" Lu Xiao leaned lazily against the cabin door, twirling the dagger between his fingers before sheathing it again.

"Both are fine. I'll supplement it, and he'll supplement it too; it's a win-win situation."

Just then, the helicopter began to descend.

Xuan Xiao was jolted awake by the change in altitude. He groggily opened his eyes, glanced out the porthole instinctively, and then froze.

The outside of the porthole is white.

Xuan Xiao sat bolt upright, his forehead nearly hitting the porthole. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, then turned his head, his expression as if he had seen a UFO.

"It's snowing?!"

"Snow falls in the desert?!"

There was a moment of silence in the cabin.

Then Xie Ran burst out laughing, laughing so hard he almost slipped off his chair. Shen Zhu buried his head in his knees, his shoulders shaking.

"No—don't laugh!" Xuanxiao turned around, pointing out the porthole, his voice still split in a lisp, "Desert! This is a desert! Shouldn't deserts be scorching hot all year round? We've only been gone a few days—just a few days—and it's like this already?!"

"What do you think the Gobi Desert is?" Lu Xiao leaned against the cabin door, his hands in his pockets, a kind smile on his face like that of someone who's been there looking at a newbie. "When you first arrived, it was late summer, so it's normal to find it hot. Now it's winter. That's how the Gobi Desert's climate is—it's so hot in summer you could fry an egg on the ground, and so cold in winter that water freezes instantly when you splash it. The temperature difference is fifty degrees Celsius a year, and twenty degrees Celsius a day. That's the normal Gobi Desert."

"Normal?!" Xuan Xiao's voice rose another half-tone, his hand slapping against the porthole with a loud crack. "I spent eighteen years in military school, and I even learned about the Gobi Desert climate in geography class. The textbook said it's a 'temperate continental climate, with cold and dry winters'—but it didn't say it snows! It didn't say you can build snowmen in the desert!"

"Your military academy's geography textbook is probably an abridged version," Xie Huai'an commented casually.

"Brother Huai'an, you—"

"We've arrived." Li Mo's voice came from the window seat, brief and effective.

The helicopter landed on the base's helipad. The moment the cabin door slid open, a gust of cold wind carrying snowflakes rushed in, colliding with the warm air inside the cabin, which was mixed with the smell of blood and disinfectant, causing everyone to shiver simultaneously.

Xuanxiao was the first to jump down.

"It really is snow," he murmured, his tone carrying a sense of disorientation, as if his worldview had been rebuilt. "It really is snow... It's snowing in the desert... I ate snowflakes in the desert..."

Bai Ye stepped out of the helicopter. Snowflakes fell on his black hair, a few clinging to a tuft of hair that stuck up like some kind of decoration.

Then he sneezed.

It was a tiny sneeze, as soft as a cat snorting. He hugged the book to his chest, hunched his shoulders, and his nose was slightly red from the cold.

As Xuanxiao watched him sneeze, a thought suddenly popped into his head that had nothing to do with the current scene: He looks so cute when he sneezes.

Then he shook his head to dismiss the thought, strode up to Bai Ye, pulled a scarf from his bag, and wrapped it around Bai Ye's neck. The movement was extremely fluid, like performing a tactical bandage.

"You're dressed too lightly. The snow looks beautiful, but the temperature is several degrees below zero. You've only just recovered from low blood sugar a few days ago. If you catch a cold again, Dr. Wen will have to keep you in the infirmary giving you injections." He muttered as he wrapped the scarf around Bai Ye's neck. After finishing, he stepped back to look at it and realized the scarf was too long. It was already wrapped around Bai Ye's neck twice and was still dragging. So he pulled the dragging part up a bit to cover the back of Bai Ye's neck. "Okay. Come on, let's go back to the dorm. I'll turn the heat on full blast for you."

Bai Ye looked down at the gray scarf around her neck, which was obviously a size too big, and then looked up at Xuan Xiao's bare neck and the tips of his ears, which were red from the cold.

Aren't you cold?

"Me? I'm perfectly healthy, I don't even shiver when I take a cold shower. What's a little snow?—Achoo!" Xuan Xiao's words were interrupted by a loud sneeze. He rubbed his nose, pretending nothing had happened, but Bai Ye's gaze towards him already carried a hint of looking at an idiot.

Bai Ye didn't return the scarf to him. He simply tucked the book under his arm, tugged at Xuan Xiao's sleeve, and headed towards the dormitory building.

Li Mo stood by the tarmac, watching Bai Ye lead Xuan Xiao by the sleeve toward the dormitory building, then looked at Xie Huai'an following behind, and finally his gaze fell on Lu Xiao.

Xie Huai'an paused as he walked past Li Mo. He looked up at the gray sky and the swirling snowflakes above, and said in a very calm tone, "The snow came early this year."

Li Mo hummed in agreement.

The two stood side by side on the tarmac, watching the snow for a while.

Xie Ran ran past them from behind, already holding a snowball in his hand, and aimed it clearly at the back of Shen Zhuo's head.

Shen Zhuo staggered forward from the impact, and his expression shifted from shock to rage in a split second as he turned. He bent down, scooped up a handful of snow, and chased after Xie Ran, yelling, "You're injured and you still hit me?! When you're stitching up Dr. Wen's wound, whatever you do, don't use anesthesia!"

Wen Yan stood not far away, her hands in the pockets of her white coat, watching the two injured people chasing each other in the snow. She sighed, "Should I give them each a sedative injection?"

Lu Xiao walked over to him carrying the equipment box and said with a smile, "It's no use opening it. Xie Ran's constitution is resistant to sedatives. Before the last surgery, we gave him twice the normal dose before he fell asleep. Even the vet said he'd never seen anyone like him before."

"You also took him to see a vet?"

"The vet was joking. But the drug resistance is real."

Wen Yan sighed again, pushed up her glasses, and watched Bai Ye and Xuan Xiao's figures disappear at the dormitory building entrance, watched Xie Ran and Shen Zhuo attack each other with snowballs on the training ground, and watched the vast white silence of the Gobi Desert.

The snow was still falling, and it was falling heavier and heavier, blurring the outline of the distant mountains into a gray-white expanse.