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

The next morning, Lu Xiao kicked open the door to Group A's dormitory.

He rarely greeted people with a smile; he was carrying a bag of iodine and gauze he had taken from the infirmary, and his expression was much more serious than usual as he strode in.

He was on night shift last night when he received a call from the military doctor at 3 a.m. saying that two people from Group A had been admitted to the infirmary at the same time; one needed nearly forty stitches, and the other had four knife wounds. After hanging up the phone, he tossed and turned until dawn, unable to fall asleep for a single second.

"Get up, all of you!" Lu Xiao patted Xie Ran's upper bunk railing and kicked Shen Zhuo's bed leg. "Don't fucking sleep! Something terrible happened last night, do you know—Old Li and Little White Cabbage were attacked!"

This statement had the effect of dropping a bombshell in the dormitory.

Xie Ran sprang out of bed with the speed of an ejection seat, his head slamming into the ceiling and shaking the metal bunk bed. He landed barefoot on the floor, eyes wide, hair bristling as if ravaged by artillery fire, his voice booming loud enough to knock the tactical map off the wall: "What?! Who?! Who the hell dares to touch our Little Cabbage?!"

Shen Zhuo flipped down from the upper bunk so fast it was almost invisible. By the time he landed, he had already slipped on one training boot, still holding the other in his hand. He unusually refrained from arguing with Xie Ran, his expression unusually cold and stern, even the usual playful smirk on his lips was gone.

Xie Huai'an stood up from the long table. He had already gotten up and was organizing last night's communications log when he heard Lu Xiao's words. He drew a long line on the paper with his pencil and then snapped it in two.

He didn't roar like Xie Ran, nor did he press for details like Shen Zhuo. He simply walked up to Lu Xiao and spoke almost twice as fast as usual: "Injuries. Location. Who did it?"

Xuanxiao flipped down from the top bunk.

He nearly stepped on the towel he'd thrown on the floor yesterday when he landed, staggering half a step but not paying any attention. He rushed to Bai Ye's bedside, where Bai Ye was just sitting up, not yet having had time to pull back the covers.

Xuanxiao grabbed his shoulder and looked him over from head to toe several times—there was gauze below his collarbone, bandages wrapped around the outside of his left arm, and dressings on two sides of his waist. He hadn't had time to put on his training uniform yet, and the thin boy's body was wrapped in bandages from four wounds, which looked particularly shocking in the morning light.

Xuanxiao's fingers tightened involuntarily, stopping at the edge of the gauze on his shoulder, not daring to actually touch it, just hovering there.

His fingertips trembled slightly—not from the cold, but because he remembered that last night he was still on the training field competing in a sprint with Bai Ye, and that before the race he had given him a blueberry candy, and then they went back to their respective beds, one sleeping on the top bunk and the other on the bottom bunk. But he slept so soundly that he didn't even know when Bai Ye had left.

If that dagger had been a little off-target, a little deeper, a little faster last night—

"Who did it?" Xuanxiao's voice was very low, completely different from his usual chattering self. "You were stabbed in the alley while we were sleeping last night? I was sleeping in the bunk above you, I was fucking sleeping in the bunk above you—I didn't hear a thing—"

Bai Ye felt uncomfortable under his gaze and tried to pull his shoulder away from his grasp, but Xuan Xiao held it too tightly and he couldn't budge it.

He could only sit on the bed, helplessly watching the group of men who had caused such a commotion early in the morning. His expression remained indifferent, but his tone carried a hint of extremely restrained helplessness: "I'm fine."

"You call this nothing? You have four bandages on your body and you're telling me nothing?" Xuan Xiao released his shoulder, then grabbed his left wrist to examine the bandages on his left arm. He then bent down to look at the dressing on his side. "Was the cut slanted or vertical? How deep? Did you get stitches? What did the medic say? Will it leave a scar? Why didn't you call me when you came back last night? If you had called me, I definitely would have—"

"The captain is injured," Bai Ye interrupted him.

Xie Ran was searching the dormitory for his training uniform jacket, preparing to rush out and catch the culprit, when he suddenly stopped. Shen Zhuo was bending down to tie his boot laces, and looked up halfway through. Xuan Xiao was still holding his wrist, his movements stiffened for a moment, and then he slowly turned his head.

Li Mo stood near the door, his right arm wrapped in a thick bandage, from wrist to elbow, but the sleeve of his training uniform was down, so from the outside, his right arm just looked a little bulging than usual.

His face remained expressionless as always, but the curve of his lips was flat, even flatter than usual. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the door frame, and scanned the people in the dormitory who were circling around Bai Ye with an extremely calm gaze.

Lu Xiao leaned against the long table, watching the group go from being in an uproar to fawning over Bai Ye, and then to this moment, and his lips twitched.

He placed the bag of iodine and gauze on the table, then clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention: "Hey, I'm telling you—why don't you guys take a look at Old Li? He has nearly forty stitches in his arm, and since last night, has anyone asked him even once?"

The entire dormitory fell silent.

Xie Ran shrank back, Shen Zhuo looked away and pretended to check his bootlaces, Xie Huai'an showed a rare look of guilt - as the information officer of Group A, he hadn't even noticed the captain's injury, which was a major mistake on his part.

Li Mo didn't speak, but simply straightened up from leaning against the doorframe, his arms still crossed in front of his chest. His gaze swept from left to right—Xie Ran, Shen Zhuo, Xie Huai'an, Xuan Xiao, one by one. Each person felt a chill run down their spine when that gaze swept over them.

"Everyone," he began, his voice as deep and steady as ever, but today there was a chilling undertone that left no room for argument. "Except for Bai Ye. Go to the track. No distance limit, no time limit. I won't tell you to stop, and you're not allowed to stop."

Then he fixed his gaze on Xuan Xiao, lingering for a longer time than the others, so long that Xuan Xiao's back teeth started to ache.

"His injuries haven't healed yet, so you can speak up now if you have any objections."

Xuan Xiao's mouth opened and closed repeatedly, finally he said in an extremely sincere tone, "No objections. I will obey orders completely. I'll go run right now." Then he rushed out of the dormitory at the fastest speed he had ever seen, almost creating a gust of wind as he passed Li Mo.

Xie Ran and Shen Zhuo followed closely behind, while Lu Xiao shrugged, patted Li Mo's uninjured left shoulder, and also went out. Xie Huai'an was the last to leave, gently closing the door behind him.

Bai Ye sat on the edge of the bed, watching as the group of people who had been surrounding him like a flock of hens just a minute ago vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving only him and Li Mo in the dormitory.