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

After returning to his small room, Bai Ye sat on the edge of the bed for a long time.

It was completely dark outside, and only the faint light reflected from the searchlights on the courtyard wall shone through the narrow window, casting a long, grayish-white stripe on the ceiling. He took the cell phone out of his pocket.

The phone is an old Android device with a few cracks in the screen, but it still works. There's no lock screen password, and the contacts are almost empty—only two unsaved numbers, and the call logs have already been cleared.

He looked through his call history and then scrolled to the text message interface. The most recent message was sent three days ago, which read "Goods received, payment settled," and the sender was a number without any notes.

Bai Ye didn't touch the information. He silenced his phone, scrolled to the dial pad, and entered a number he had memorized. It was Li Mo's private encrypted line, known only to a handful of people in the Breaking Void Base. He pressed the dial button, held the phone to his ear, maintaining a posture that, from the side, looked like he was resting with his head down.

The phone was answered after ringing twice.

"Bai Ye?" Li Mo's voice came through the receiver, low but with a lingering urgency that had been suppressed for a long time. "How are you? You haven't contacted me for two weeks—"

"I'm fine." Bai Ye's voice was also very low, just low enough to be picked up by the microphone but not heard outside the door. "I've been observing, but haven't found a suitable communication window."

Li Mo paused for two seconds, as if checking if his voice and tone were normal. "How are you? Are you injured? Are you being suspected?"

"No. My identity here is Lin Mo, a poor kid who ran away after being trafficked. Viper gave me a job as an errand runner, and today is my first time going out to collect goods. Everything is going according to plan."

There was a moment of silence on Li Mo's end. Then Bai Ye heard him let out a long sigh, as if he had been holding it in for two weeks: "Okay. Continue with the plan. If you encounter any danger, retreat immediately. The data is optional; you must come back alive."

"Know."

Bai Ye waited a few seconds, just as he was about to say, "Okay, I'll hang up now, my phone battery is low," when a series of noisy noises suddenly came from the receiver.

He recognized those sounds all too well—someone was pushing open a door, someone was pulling, someone was using body language to express extreme anger and impatience. Then Xuanxiao's curses exploded through the microphone, clear and sharp, as if he had finally found an outlet after holding it in for two weeks.

"Li Mo, you bastard! You beast! Are you even human?! You sent my partner to be an undercover agent without even telling me?! If I hadn't forced Xie Huai'an to find out, were you planning to keep it from me until I died?!"

Bai Ye moved the phone a little further away, but Xuan Xiao's voice still entered her ears clearly.

"I fucking thought he was just doing routine training in some corner of the base! I asked you so many times where he went, and every time you said 'on a mission,' 'secret'—your mouth is tighter than a safe! Do you know how I've survived these past two weeks? You're telling me it was a mission?! It was sending him to his death! To his death!"

"You sent him to a place like Viper, and he's a minor! You, as the captain, you fucking pushed him into a fire pit, and you're still doing your job like nothing happened, shooting targets on the training field?! You cold-blooded beast, do you even have a heart—"

"Xuanxiao." Li Mo's voice came from afar, carrying a cold hardness after being disturbed to the extreme.

"Don't give me that crap! Don't think I won't yell at you just because you're the captain! You sent my partner away, and now you're telling me to shut up?!"

"Xuanxiao." Li Mo's voice deepened once more.

"Don't give me that captain's airs! If anything happens to my partner, I'll burn your office down, you believe me! I'll take apart your precious assault rifle and use it as firewood! You'll never see him again—"

"Xuanxiao".

This time it wasn't Li Mo's voice.

Bai Ye's voice came through the receiver, not loud or high-pitched, but each word carried a weight that could instantly silence all the noise. Xuan Xiao's voice, halfway through his rant, seemed to be paused, leaving only a few rapid breaths in the receiver.

"Give him the phone," Bai Ye said.

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone. Then came a series of footsteps and rustling sounds, as if the phone was being passed from one person to another.

"Bai Ye?" Xuan Xiao's voice came through the receiver. The rage from before was still there, but beneath it was a deeper, long-suppressed emotion that made his voice sound muffled. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"If there was nothing wrong, why wouldn't you contact me for two weeks? If there was nothing wrong, why would you run off to Southeast Asia without a word? If there was nothing wrong, why would it take me three days to pry out from Xie Huai'an where you went?" Xuan Xiao's voice rose again, but he tried to keep it down. "Are you even human? Would it kill you to tell me before you left?"

"If I told you, you wouldn't let me leave."

"Of course I won't let you leave! I'll tie you up and keep you in this base!" Xuan Xiao's voice rose half an octave. "Do you even know what kind of place that is? It's a drug lord's lair. You going in alone—you're only sixteen! You going in alone—"

His voice paused at a certain point, as if something was stuck in his throat, unable to go up or down.

Bai Ye heard his breathing through the receiver, a little heavier than before: "When are you coming back?"

"It'll be a few more months. I'll come back as soon as I get the stuff."

"How many months is a few months? Three months? Five months? Give me a number. You can't—you can't just disappear without a word and tell me to see you in a few months."

Bai Ye remained silent for a moment.

"I don't know exactly how long it will take. But I will do it as soon as possible."

"How sooner is 'as soon as possible'?"

"...Xuan Xiao".

Xuan Xiao's lips moved slightly, as if there were more words stuck in his throat, but in the face of those two words, all his prepared accusations were scattered, leaving only a dry, much softer voice: "...Then you have to promise me that you will definitely come back safely."

I promise you.

Xuanxiao took a deep breath on the other end of the phone, as if trying to force something down: "Okay. I believe you. If you're lying to me—I'll be on your bed every day when you come back, and I'll annoy you to death."

Bai Ye simply hummed in agreement: "I'm hanging up. My phone's low on battery. Be a good girl."

The call ended. Only a short busy tone remained on the receiver.

Bai Ye took the phone away from her ear, glanced at the call log on the screen, then went into settings and deleted the call log.