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

All of this happened in less than two seconds.

Then a figure swept past him, too fast to tell who it was.

The man braced himself against the edge of the hatch with one hand, and then shot out of the hatch like an arrow. Shen Zhuo only saw the hem of a thick coat flash across the edge of his vision before being swallowed up by the high-altitude airflow.

It's Li Mo.

Lu Xiao tumbled through the air. The air currents at an altitude of three thousand meters felt like an invisible giant hand, tearing his body apart and over. The sound of the wind filled his ears, so sharp it felt like it could rip his eardrums.

With his eyes open, he saw the sky and the ground flipping back and forth in his field of vision—a gray-blue sky, a gray-brown ground, white snow on the distant mountains, and buildings on the base's playground shrunken to the size of ants. All the images were mixed together, creating a slowness and clarity unique to a near-death state.

There were no parachutes.

Oh.

That was the only word in his mind.

He didn't feel fear, just a bit surprised—he, Lu Xiao, the vice-captain of Team A, who had killed people on the battlefield for over a decade, was actually dragged out of the hatch and slammed to his death by a student with a band-aid on his face. This way of dying was just too damn shameful.

If Bai Chen knew, he would probably laugh out loud in the underworld.

No, Bai Chen isn't dead yet. He's probably laughing out loud in some stronghold deep in the Gobi Desert.

The wind whistled past his ears. He began to count the seconds. It would take about forty seconds to fall from three thousand meters to the ground; how much time had passed? He wasn't sure. Time became very unreliable at such high altitudes.

Just then, he saw a black dot above him swooping down at a faster speed than he was.

With his parachute strapped to his back, Li Mo dove almost vertically, his arms pressed tightly against his sides, turning himself into a bullet. He minimized air resistance, and his dive speed was so fast that he caught up with the tumbling Lu Xiao in just a few seconds.

The distance is rapidly decreasing. One hundred meters. Fifty meters. Twenty meters. Ten meters.

As Li Mo approached Lu Xiao, he opened his arms wide. He grabbed Lu Xiao's belt with one hand and his shoulder with the other, pulling him into his arms with all his might.

The two bodies collided violently in mid-air, the force of the impact causing Li Mo to groan, but he did not let go. He pressed Lu Xiao tightly against his chest, one hand protecting the back of his head, and the other hand tightly gripping his waist.

Lu Xiao's face was pressed against Li Mo's chest, and he could smell the familiar, faint scent of soap on him, exactly the same scent he smelled when they passed each other in the dormitory.

His brain completely shut down for a moment.

Lu Xiao was used to standing in front of others his whole life—he was the vice-captain of Group A, the team's tactical planner, the one who always smiled and protected everyone behind him while taking on the trouble himself. He was used to taking care of others, used to protecting others, used to reaching out to save others when they fell.

He never imagined that one day someone would jump from 3,000 meters in the air with a parachute for him. And that person was Li Mo. Li Mo who never said a word of nonsense, Li Mo who was nicknamed "the walking air conditioner" by the whole team because of his cold face, Li Mo who had known him for many years, partnered with him for many years, and followed behind him to cover up his mistakes countless times.

Li Mo didn't look down at him. His chin was pressed tightly against the top of Lu Xiao's head, his gaze fixed on the ground below, getting closer and closer, over Lu Xiao's shoulder. He reached for the parachute pull tab on his back with his right hand and opened the main parachute.

The parachute unfurled with a whoosh above their heads, abruptly slowing their descent. However, the combined weight of the two far exceeded the design load of a single parachute, and the parachute emitted a teeth-grinding tearing sound under the impact of the airflow, the seams on the canopy gradually coming undone. Although the descent speed was decreasing, it was still abnormally fast.

"Hold on tight." Li Mo's voice came from above, just two short words, almost inaudible in the wind, but Lu Xiao felt the vibration in his chest. He subconsciously tightened his grip on Li Mo's clothes.

The ground was rapidly approaching. In the instant before landing, Li Mo adjusted his posture—he turned himself downwards, letting Lu Xiao press down on him, using his body as a cushion.

The two men crashed heavily onto a gentle slope at the edge of an open area behind the mountain, a mixture of snow and withered grass. The muffled impact echoed through the empty valley. Snow was sent flying, and their tumbling bodies carved a long furrow into the withered grass and frozen ground.

Li Mo's back hit the ground first, then his shoulders, then the back of his head—although the snow cushioned the impact, the force was still great enough to knock an ordinary person unconscious on the spot. He clenched his teeth, blood seeping from his gums, but he didn't let go.

Lu Xiao pressed down on him, held firmly by his arms, and most of the impact was absorbed by Li Mo's body.

The parachute deflated, lying limply over the two of them like a thin white blanket.

The world is quiet.

The roar of a helicopter rotor could be heard in the distance as it descended rapidly. Snow was blown off the mountain behind it by the wind, making a soft, rustling sound.

Lu Xiao lay on Li Mo's chest, panting heavily. Every part of his body ached; his ribs were throbbing from the impact, and his shoulders were sore from being pulled. But he could move; all four limbs were intact; he had no broken bones; he had survived.

He was pulled out of the air at a height of 3,000 meters without a parachute, fell for nearly 40 seconds, and then survived.

He propped himself up from Li Mo and looked down at the person he was pinning down.

Li Mo was in much worse shape than him. His black short-sleeved shirt was torn in several places by the gravel and frozen ground when he landed, and his back was covered with a large patch of hideous abrasions and bruises. There were several bloody scratches on his face from the withered grass.

"You fucking—" Lu Xiao's voice was hoarse as if it had been sanded, and his usually smiling eyes were now completely red.

Li Mo didn't give him a chance to finish speaking. He propped himself up on the ground and sat up. The movement aggravated the abrasions on his back, causing him to frown slightly, but he didn't stop.

He reached out and cupped Lu Xiao's face in his hands, placing his palms on either side of Lu Xiao's mask and his thumbs on his cheekbones, holding Lu Xiao's face firmly in front of him. Then he pressed his forehead against Lu Xiao's. The two of them, forehead to forehead, were so close that they could feel each other's breath through the mask onto their faces, so close that they could hear each other's heartbeats.

"You are my vice-captain." Li Mo's voice remained deep and steady, without any grand pronouncements or sentimental declarations. Every word was like a hammer blow to a chopping board, simple, resolute, and leaving no room for doubt. "No one can replace you."