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

When Bai Ye said "I am," his expression was as serious as if he had just answered a math problem.

After an unknown amount of time, the silence was broken by a laugh.

Xuan Xiao laughed so hard he bent over. He propped himself up on his knee with one hand and pointed at Bai Ye with the other, his whole body shaking with laughter. His laughter bounced back and forth between the rock walls of the shooting range, startling a few birds that had just flown back to roost.

"Bai Ye—you—" He laughed so hard he could hardly breathe, his words slurred, "How can you be so adorable?"

Bai Ye frowned. He looked at Xuan Xiao, who was laughing so hard he was doubled over, and then at Lu Xiao, whose expression was complicated, and the wrinkles between his brows deepened.

He genuinely doesn't understand.

Lu Xiao asked him if he was human, and he answered. What's so funny?

In his previous life, he lived for over twenty years, spending his entire life on missions and killing. No one ever taught him what a joke, what a吐槽 (tu cao, a form of sarcastic commentary), or what teasing meant.

What he learned was to obey orders, complete tasks, and distinguish friend from foe and make optimal tactical decisions in the shortest amount of time. He didn't learn how to tell whether someone's words were literal or sarcastic.

Even if he were in a different body, in a different time and space, and with a different identity, those things etched into his very bones wouldn't disappear automatically. He stood amidst a group of men laughing uproariously, his face still bearing that faint, puzzled expression, like a cat that had wandered into a lively party.

Lu Xiao finally let out the breath he had been holding for so long.

He reached up and wiped his face, a gesture that contained a multitude of emotions—the crushing defeat, the bittersweet feeling after being earnestly told "I am," and a hint of bitterness that only he could discern.

He walked up to Bai Ye, opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end he just sighed, reached out and ruffled Bai Ye's hair hard: "No, you're not human, you're a monster. Produced by the Bai family, quality guaranteed."

Xie Ran leaned in from behind him, hooked his arm around Lu Xiao's neck, and said in a loud voice that could be heard throughout the shooting range: "Vice Captain, don't be sad! So what if you got crushed by a sixteen-year-old kid in sniping! So what if you almost got your neck broken in hand-to-hand combat! So what if you got humiliated in two consecutive matches! It's no big deal—you're still the second-best sniper in the entire shooting range in my heart! Really!"

"You call this comforting?" Lu Xiao glanced at him sideways.

"This is sincere consolation." Shen Zhuo leaned over from the other side, patting Lu Xiao's other shoulder with that sly smile. "Think about it, Vice Captain, you're the number one sniper in Group A—you can keep that title until Bai Ye officially joins the team. Once Bai Ye passes all the tests, you'll be number two. And number two is amazing too! Think about it, who in the entire Pokong team can beat you besides Bai Ye? Nobody! So you're the number one human sniper! We'll help you patent that title!"

"You two—you're both so mean." Lu Xiao laughed and cursed back, then slapped Xie Ran and Shen Zhuo on the back of the head each.

"But seriously," Shen Zhuo rubbed the back of his head, looking at Bai Ye, "Little Bai Cai, how did you train your sniping skills? Even if your brother taught you—what was Chen Ge's best score back then?"

"1800 meters full lap." Xie Huai'an turned a page of his communications log and casually interjected.

Shen Zhuo gasped, then sighed with relief: "As expected. No one has been able to break Brother Chen's record yet, and Xiao Baicai hit a 10 in the 1800 meters today, which means she's tied it. The Bai family's genes—"

"It's not a tie," Xie Huai'an said, twirling his pencil between his fingers without looking up. "Back then, Brother Chen used a custom-made gun, which had an effective range two hundred meters longer than the standard version. Bai Ye used the standard version. In that sense, Bai Ye's shot today was more difficult than his brother's back then."

The firing range fell silent for a moment.

"What will happen if Brother Chen finds out?"

"Of course I'm happy." Lu Xiao answered without hesitation this time. "When have you ever seen Brother Chen stern with his younger brother? When Bai Ye was nine, he got into a fight at school and made someone's nose bleed. The other parent came to the base to complain. Brother Chen came out to greet them, nodding and saying 'Yes, yes, it was our child's fault' the whole time. His attitude was so good that the other parent thought he was a reasonable person. But then he turned around and peeled an apple for Bai Ye, saying, 'Don't hit someone's nose next time, it's hard to wash blood off. Hit their stomach, no one can tell.' Later, the parent somehow found out who Brother Chen was, and the next day they came with gifts to apologize."

Xie Ran clicked his tongue, as if recalling some unbearable past: "Brother Chen is so lenient with Bai Ye. If we make a mistake during training, he can hang us up and beat us—but no matter what Bai Ye does, he won't lay a finger on him. Once, Bai Ye accidentally broke the base's communication equipment, and Brother Chen stared at the smoking machine for a long time before finally saying, 'It's broken, it's broken, as long as it didn't hurt you.' As long as it didn't hurt you! That equipment is worth millions! If we break a walkie-talkie, he'll make us run fifty laps as punishment!"

"And another time," Shen Zhuo continued, getting more and more excited, "Bai Ye got sick and had a fever of 37.8 degrees Celsius, and Brother Chen directly turned down a task with a commission of over ten million yuan."

Bai Ye stood quietly to the side, listening to them talk about Bai Chen.

These were things he "should" know. He rummaged through those remaining fragments of memory, finding only a few blurry images—but these fragments were too fragmented to piece together a complete person.

He knew that Bai Chen was this body's older brother, and that Bai Chen loved him very much, but that "knowing" was like reading the outline of a book; he had never truly felt the warmth of those memories.

Li Mo propped himself up from the rock face and walked to Bai Ye. He reached out and placed his large palm on Bai Ye's head, giving it a firm ruffle. Bai Ye's hair was disheveled, but he didn't flinch.

"You're very strong." Li Mo's voice wasn't loud, but everyone around heard it clearly. "Just like your brother. When your brother was your age, he was just as surprising. He could do things that everyone thought were impossible, and then he would put on a matter-of-fact expression. You're exactly like him. If he were still here, seeing what you did today, he would definitely say on the communication channel, 'That's my brother.'"

Bai Ye remained silent.

He looked at the extremely faint smile on Li Mo's face, and listened to the matter-of-fact tone with which everyone mentioned Bai Chen—as if Bai Chen was still there, as if Bai Chen was waiting for him somewhere, as if Bai Chen had only left temporarily.

Those fragmented memories slowly pieced together in his mind, overlapping with the words of the people in front of him, outlining a profile that was both familiar and unfamiliar to him.

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally spoke: "Hmm."