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

Lu Xiao's heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst out of his chest.

Part of it was because he had just fallen from 3,000 meters—anyone would experience an adrenaline rush after falling from that height—but another part, he himself was reluctant to admit, was that he had just fallen from a height.

He felt Li Mo's thumb, which was cupping his face, twitch slightly, as if confirming that he was still alive, still breathing, and still trembling. When their foreheads touched, he instinctively wanted to pull back, but Li Mo's hand firmly supported his chin, giving him no way out.

Lu Xiao's heart started racing.

He wanted to say something. He wanted to say, "Are you crazy? You just jump from 3,000 meters like that?" He wanted to say, "Do you know what the survival rate is for a single parachute with a double load exceeding the limit?" He wanted to say, "What do you mean by 'no one can replace you'? You're never this serious in meetings."

He opened his mouth, his voice still hoarse, but before he could speak, he heard a series of rapid footsteps in the distance—Shen Zhuo was running all the way from the landing point after the helicopter crash landing, with Bai Ye and Xuan Xiao following closely behind.

Li Mo released his hands from his face and helped him up from the ground.

Their eyes met briefly before Lu Xiao looked away.

"Captain! Vice-captain!" Shen Zhuo's voice came from down the hillside, panting.

He was the first to rush forward. Seeing that both Li Mo and Lu Xiao were alive, he stumbled and almost tripped over the dry grass. Then he took a deep breath, turned around, and kicked a person behind him with their hands tied behind their back to the snow. It was the teammate whose face still had a band-aid on it.

His parachuting skills were among the best of the twelve. He pulled people out of the hatch with precision and efficiency from 3,000 meters high, and even managed to glide the parachute to the edge of an open area after landing. But he forgot the rule of aerial combat—calculate the consequences before touching them.

Shen Zhuo pressed him down on the snow, face down, his knees pressing against his spine, and with one hand he grabbed his hair and pulled his face up from the snow.

Bai Ye and Xuan Xiao arrived shortly afterward.

Li Mo stood up from the ground. His black short-sleeved shirt was torn in several places by the gravel, and there were abrasions and bruises on the exposed skin on his back. Small beads of blood were still seeping from the scratches on his face caused by the dry grass.

He looked like a survivor who had just crawled out of the crashed plane, but his movements showed no signs of sluggishness from his injuries. He walked up to the team member who was being held down by Shen Zhuo and looked down at him.

"Look up," he said.

Shen Zhu grabbed the person's hair and pulled their face up.

The man's lips trembled, and his eyes were red, not from regret, but because he knew he couldn't escape. He looked up at the person standing in front of him, whose masked face was expressionless—only a chilling indifference.

"You can't kill me—I'm from the special forces—this is a military court matter—you have no right—" His voice was sharp and broken, as if it were being squeezed out while someone was choking him.

Li Mo drew the dagger from his waist. The blade gleamed coldly in the December air, and the edge reflected a chilling arc in the morning sunlight.

He didn't speak, didn't question, didn't pronounce judgment. He bent down, grabbed the man's hair with his left hand and lifted his head off the snow, then gripped the dagger in his right hand and plunged it into his right shoulder.

The man let out a muffled scream. Blood gushed from the cut, soaking the shoulder of his training uniform and spreading a glaring red stain on the snow.

His body twisted violently, his bound hands struggling desperately behind him, while Shen Zhuo pressed down even tighter with his knees, expressionless.

Li Mo drew his dagger. The blade was covered in blood, and drops of blood dripped down the tip, falling onto the snow and creating small red craters on the white surface.

He didn't wipe the knife, switched to the other shoulder, and delivered another clean, decisive cut. This time, he twisted it half a turn after stabbing it in. The dull thud of muscle fibers being severed by the blade came from beneath the snow, muffled, damp, and making one's teeth ache.

The man's screams were shattered, his body convulsed a few times, and his legs kicked out two deep furrows in the snow.

Lu Xiao stood a few steps behind Li Mo, watching his back. His right hand unconsciously rose and touched his left shoulder—it was from this spot that Li Mo had grabbed him in mid-air and pulled him into his arms.

He recalled what Li Mo had said when they were forehead to forehead—"No one can replace me." Lu Xiao's fingers, hanging by his side, curled slightly. He didn't step forward to stop him, nor did he say anything.

Bai Ye stood at the edge of the crowd, quietly watching everything.

In his past life, he had witnessed far more brutal executions—the organization treated traitors with far greater cruelty, and he was mentally prepared. But now, as a sixteen-year-old recruit, he should have some reaction. So he frowned slightly.

Xuan Xiao stood beside him, his face pale, but he did not look away.

Li Mo pulled out the dagger and flicked it across the snow, leaving an arc of blood.

He didn't stop. One stab after another, each time avoiding vital organs, each stab deeper and slower than the last. Arms, sides, thighs, calves—blood splattered onto his black short-sleeved shirt, soaking it and clinging to his body, indistinguishable between the other person's blood and his own wounds.

The white snow was no longer visible on the ground; only a patch of dark red, which was expanding and emitting faint warmth under the winter sun.

The man could no longer make a sound; only gurgling bubbles came from his throat. With each breath, blood and foam gushed from the corner of his mouth, pooling into a small puddle of pink foam on the snow. His body no longer struggled violently, only twitching occasionally with each fall of the knife, like a fish that had been thrown ashore and was nearly dead.

After an unknown amount of time, Li Mo stopped.

He straightened up and looked down at the thing on the ground that was still twitching weakly.

He rubbed the dagger back and forth in the snow a couple of times, removing the thickest layer of blood from the blade, then squatted down, grabbed the man's hair with one hand, lifted his head up, and made him look at him.

The man was on his last breath. His eyes were still open, his pupils dilated, his mouth was filled with blood and snow, and his lips were moving silently, whether he was begging for mercy or cursing was unknown.

Li Mo held the dagger horizontally and slit his throat in one stroke. Clean and swift, without further torment. Blood gushed from the severed carotid artery, splashing onto the snow and melting the last clean flake.

After releasing his grip, the person's face was buried directly in the pool of blood. His body twitched a few times before going completely still.

Shen Zhuo stood up from the corpse, his training trousers at the knees soaked with blood. He glanced down at the mangled body on the ground, then at Li Mo, and untied the paracord used to bind the corpse's wrists and put it away.

He didn't say anything.