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

Bai Ye started to feel something was wrong while eating dinner.

The cafeteria was nicely heated. Old Zhou had made beef stew with potatoes for dinner, and Xie Ran devoured three large bowls by himself, while Shen Zhuo was playfully fighting with him using chopsticks. As usual, Xuan Xiao was putting meat from his bowl onto Bai Ye's plate, muttering, "You fired so many shots this afternoon, your shoulders must be sore. Eat more protein."

Everything was as lively and noisy as usual.

But Baiye's chopsticks moved very slowly.

His forehead felt heavy, and his temples throbbed with pain. After taking a couple of sips of soup, he felt a strange, inexplicable nausea rising in his stomach, so he put the soup bowl down again.

He thought he was just tired—he had fought Lu Xiao in the combat room that afternoon and fired dozens of sniper bullets at the shooting range; his physical reserves were indeed far from sufficient. He calmly put down his chopsticks, took his plate to the recycling area, and then went back to his dormitory alone.

After returning to his dormitory, he took off his coat and wrapped himself in the blanket.

In the Gobi Desert in December, the temperature drops sharply after nightfall, the wind howls outside the window, and the radiator seems to be much colder than usual.

He huddled under the covers, eyes closed, feeling some parts of his body growing uncontrollably cold, while others were burning hot, as if something was burning beneath his skin.

Then he knew nothing more.

Xuanxiao was the first to notice something was wrong.

After finishing his meal, he returned to his dorm and habitually glanced at Bai Ye's bed. He found Bai Ye curled up in the lower bunk, wrapped in a blanket, a tiny ball of flesh. He assumed Bai Ye was just asleep, so he tiptoed over to tuck him in. But when he bent down by the bed, he was so shocked he almost spat out the cola he had just drunk.

Bai Ye's face was abnormally flushed, his forehead was covered with a fine layer of cold sweat, and his wet hair clung to his skin. His breathing was rapid and shallow, his lips were dry and white, but his cheeks were burning as if he had just been pulled out of a furnace.

Xuanxiao reached out and touched his forehead, but withdrew his hand as soon as his fingers touched the skin—it was frighteningly hot.

"Dr. Wen! Wen Yan! Captain! Someone—come on! Bai Ye has a fever! A very high fever!" Xuan Xiao's shouts echoed down the entire corridor from the Group A dormitory.

What happened next was a blur to Bai Ye.

He felt himself being helped up from the bed. Someone pinched his chin and put a fever reducer in his mouth. Someone applied a cold towel to his forehead. Someone was taking off his training uniform jacket. Someone pricked his hand with a needle—probably a fever reducer.

He could hear many people talking around him, but the voices seemed to be muffled by a thick layer of glass. He struggled to open his eyes and saw Xuan Xiao squatting beside his bed, holding a steaming cup of water, his face looking as if someone was choking him.

"Get out of the way—you're all surrounding him, the air isn't circulating! Xie Ran, don't stand so close, your gunpowder smell is suffocating him!" Wen Yan's voice rarely carried a hint of genuine anxiety.

He injected the last dose of fever reducer into Bai Ye's vein, pulled out the needle, pressed a cotton ball against the injection site, and reached out to check Bai Ye's temperature on her forehead again.

Thirty-nine degrees two, a drop of 0.3 degrees from before, but still high enough to make one uneasy.

Bai Ye finally broke free from those indistinct sounds.

He opened his eyes, his vision clearing from blurry to sharp. The entire group was crammed around his bed, filling the already small space to the brim.

He blinked and said in a slightly hoarse but still calm tone, "What's the rush? It's just a fever, it's not like I'm going to die."

Everyone in the dormitory stopped what they were doing.

Lu Xiao placed the towel in his hand on the bedside table, bent down, and pressed the back of his hand against Bai Ye's burning forehead.

"What do you mean 'as long as I won't die'? A fever of over 39 degrees Celsius, you think that's 'not dying'? Is your standard that low? Not dying is considered healthy?" He withdrew his hand, put his hands on his hips, and looked at Bai Ye's puzzled face. "You're a kid, only sixteen years old, you know? A sixteen-year-old kid needs to be taken care of when he's sick. You're not an adult yet, your body is still growing, when you're sick you need to take medicine, drink water, and sweat it out wrapped in a blanket. It's not something that can be dismissed as 'not dying'. This afternoon you told me at the shooting range 'I'm a human being,' and humans get sick, and when they're sick they need to be taken care of. When your brother got a fever at your age, the whole team was thrown into chaos because of him, you're his brother, you have to enjoy the same treatment."

Bai Ye opened his mouth, wanting to refute.

He wanted to say that in his past life, he still went on missions even with a fever of 40 degrees Celsius, lay prone in the snow for six hours, blew up the target with one shot, and then walked back to the base by himself.

He wanted to say that he was not a child, that his mental age was older than everyone else present, that he could take care of himself, and that he didn't need anyone to run around for him.

But before he could speak, Xuan Xiao shoved a thermometer into his mouth, silencing him. He could only stare at the group with his feverish, watery eyes, utterly bewildered.

"Keep it in your mouth and don't talk," Xuan Xiao carefully shoved the thermometer into his mouth again, as if handling something fragile. "The vice-captain is right, you've gone mad from the fever. A normal person's first reaction to a high fever is to cry out in pain, but your first reaction is to tell us 'I won't die.' What do you mean 'I won't die'? You think you're going to die from a fever? From now on, the first thing you should do when you're sick is call someone. Call me, call the captain, call Dr. Wen, anything goes. You can't just lie here wrapped in a blanket and burn yourself out, understand?"

"Xiao Zai is right," Xie Ran withdrew his hand, his voice half as soft as usual, "Kids should act like kids. You train harder than any of us, you almost strangled the vice-captain in a fight, and you tied your brother's sniping record—those are all impressive, we all acknowledge your skill. But it's different when you're sick. When you're sick, no matter how good you are, you have to lie down obediently. Even your brother, who was so skilled back then, had to be held down on the bed and forced to take medicine by Yuan Ge when he had a fever, and you can't be an exception."

Bai Ye listened to their cacophony of reasoning as they held a thermometer in their mouth.

His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and his consciousness began to blur again. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was Xuan Xiao squatting by the bed, holding a cup of hot water that had already been changed three times.

"Go to sleep, go to sleep, I'm here." Xuanxiao's voice was very low. "I won't leave even if you fall asleep, I'll just stay here and keep an eye on things. I'll get you blueberry yogurt tomorrow morning once your fever breaks."

Bai Ye wanted to say he didn't need blueberry yogurt, but his mouth wouldn't obey him. He closed his eyes, and his breathing gradually became even and long.