Chapter 80: The Whistle!!

He was a young military officer, lean in build but exuding a fierce and imposing presence.

Is it him?

The young officer also noticed the two trucks of transport soldiers led by Wang Zhenglin. With a sweeping glance, his eyes landed on Du Huaishan.

Within his haunting violet pupils, surprise flickered first, then twisted into rage.

Yes.

This young officer was none other than Nie Renjie, who had exchanged harsh words with Du Huaishan and others beside Ren Zhu during the New Year’s Eve at the Military Academy.

At first, Du Huaishan was confused as to why this man would appear here. But then he recalled what Brigade Commander Zhang Yiming had said that day: all command cadets were to return to their units, and those without one were to support Shandong Pass.

He hadn’t expected this man’s assigned unit to be in Baitun.

The same thought crossed Nie Renjie’s mind. The humiliation he suffered in front of Ren Zhu and his colleagues that night still burned in his memory.

Kid.

What a coincidence—sent to carry out a field mission right under my nose. At the academy, I couldn’t touch you. But now, in my territory? Let’s see how I deal with you!

Nie Renjie narrowed his cold, gutter-like eyes, shooting a vicious glare at Du Huaishan before turning on his heel and striding away.

By this time, Wang Zhenglin had finished speaking with the logistics chief of the camp and found them a room in the barracks for temporary rest.

That evening, as they dined in the mess hall, Nie Renjie sat with his own squad at a neighboring table.

As a deputy platoon leader with the rank of Warrant Officer, Nie Renjie’s status matched Wang Zhenglin’s, and he too had his own trusted veterans like Pei Qingfeng.

Having given his men a heads-up, seven or eight pairs of unfriendly eyes swept over their group repeatedly.

Tan Hai noticed and muttered, “What a troublesome little brute.”

Du Huaishan didn’t spare a glance, picking up his chopsticks, “Ignore him.”

“Huaishan’s right. The more attention you pay someone like that, the more rabid he becomes—just like an old gossiping woman,” Wu Ming grumbled loudly.

His voice carried, and Nie Renjie’s face darkened instantly.

The veteran beside him was about to rise in anger when Wang Zhenglin cut in, “Once you’re done eating, everyone rest up. Assemble at seven sharp tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir!” came the chorus, and the men began to finish their meals and leave.

Du Huaishan and his group got up to wash their meal tins.

“Deputy Nie, you’re just going to let those kids get away?” the pockmarked veteran grunted.

“No hurry.” Nie Renjie gripped his chopsticks. “I reckon they’re here to investigate the recent Baiweng Mountain incident. That won’t be an easy case to crack.”

“Which means, they’ll be here for quite a while. We have plenty of time to play with them.”

He doubted Wang Zhenglin, who barely knew these new recruits, would stick his neck out for them. They were all from the 57th Brigade anyway, naturally more tight-knit.

Without Luo Zongwen and the instructors’ protection, Du Huaishan’s greenhorns were just like rootless dandelions—one puff from him and they’d tremble all day long.

...

After dinner, Du Huaishan didn’t return directly to the barracks but headed to the training ground.

Having spent the day marching and investigating in the wild, his body was well exercised, so he only did a bit of resistance training and sharpened some sword and firearms techniques—a warm-up to keep his muscles and skills from dulling.

Dragging his weary body back to the barracks, he wiped himself down with a hot towel, feeling oddly refreshed.

The next morning, after a night’s sleep using the Tiger Relaxation Technique, Du Huaishan’s fatigue was swept away.

Wang Zhenglin assembled the team, mounted his horse, and led everyone out.

Unfortunately, after two days, the investigation had made no progress at all.

In other words, the recruit training team’s arrival in Yanshun City had yielded nothing.

Gradually, dissatisfaction began to fester in the Seventh Training Team, with Cai Zhizhong making veiled jabs at Du Huaishan for choosing the wrong mission.

If only they’d picked a combat assignment, perhaps they’d already be holding a demon’s heart and claiming military merit.

“Huaishan, when do you think we’ll finally see results?” Li Mingcheng panted, his mouth curled in frustration.

After three fruitless days, Wang Zhenglin had switched to a new route up Baiweng Mountain that day; the terrain was even rougher and harder to traverse.

“It’s hard to say. Baiweng Mountain is huge. If we want to comb it thoroughly, it’ll take a lot of work. But our deadline is half a month—we have enough time.”

That was what he said, but Li Mingcheng dreaded that, after all this searching, they’d come up empty-handed and waste half a month.

Back at the camp that night, during dinner, Nie Renjie patted the slumped veterans of the Second Recon Platoon on the shoulder, feigning sympathy, “I really feel for you, stuck with such a tough assignment and saddled with a bunch of recruits—ambitions sky-high, but skills abysmally low. Tsk, tsk…”

He deliberately glanced toward Du Huaishan and his group.

Following his gaze, several veterans looked over at Du Huaishan.

He wore a mocking smile, convinced his ploy would provoke the veterans’ resentment toward Du Huaishan.

But to his surprise, the next moment a veteran replied, “You’ve got it wrong. This batch of recruits is quite good—especially that Du Huaishan, his skills are impressive.”

“Huh?”

Nie Renjie was momentarily at a loss for words. He didn’t know that these recon veterans had witnessed Du Huaishan flooring their deputy platoon leader. Even if it had been three against one, it was proof enough of his ability.

“Hahaha…” Li Anqi, who’d been eavesdropping, couldn’t hold back her laughter at Nie Renjie’s discomfiture.

“What are you laughing at!?” Being mocked by a female soldier, Nie Renjie finally lost his temper and stormed over.

At once, Du Huaishan and his group stood up, ready to respond if Nie Renjie made a move.

“Really, sir? Not even allowed to laugh? Is our 573rd Regiment’s 1st Infantry Battalion always this domineering?” Li Anqi, fearless as ever, had disliked Nie Renjie since that New Year’s Eve.

“You…”

Nie Renjie’s eyes were bloodshot, his fists clenching and unclenching, brows blazing with anger.

“That’s enough, just eat,” Wang Zhenglin stepped between them. “Deputy Nie, don’t take it so hard—they’re just kids.”

It sounded reasonable enough. If Nie Renjie kept pushing, he’d only come off as petty, picking on recruits.

He made a mental note of Wang Zhenglin as well, snorted coldly, and left in a huff.

On the fifth day, the Second Recon Platoon continued along the previous day’s unfinished route.

Baiweng Mountain’s trees soared skyward, the vegetation dense enough that a moment’s inattention could get one lost.

The location given by the surviving prisoner from the First Recon Platoon was vague at best.

At noon, during a break, Wang Zhenglin gathered the team. “It’s been five days without progress. To speed things up, we’ll spread our formation wider this afternoon to cover more ground.”

“To avoid losing contact, all communication between groups will now rely solely on whistle signals!”

“Yes, sir!” the team responded.

It was a method reminiscent of forest bandits, but practical nonetheless.

Whistle calls were sharp, carried well, and required less effort than shouting. Their concise codes made for efficient communication.

After five days, Du Huaishan was thoroughly familiar with the meaning of every whistle used by the Second Recon Platoon, thanks to the brown-haired veteran’s guidance.

At one o’clock, after the break, the team dispersed per Wang Zhenglin’s new orders, nearly doubling their search area.

But this came at a cost—Du Huaishan could no longer see any team members to his left, right, front, or back.

Fortunately, after days of working together, everyone had a sense of each group’s pace, so chaos was avoided.

Rumble.

“There it is again,” Li Mingcheng muttered, hearing the strange sound that had been a constant in the mountains these days—the only sign that kept them going.

Du Huaishan had tried listening through the ground a few times, but couldn’t tell if the noise came from below or elsewhere. The only thing he could distinguish was its volume.

That, at least, was their sole “discovery” so far.

“This time it’s louder than before. We must be getting close…”

Just as Du Huaishan noted the difference in the latest rumble, two long whistle blasts sounded from the left flank.

That signal meant—

“Demon attack! One of them!”

The brown-haired veteran immediately raised his chest whistle and blew two sharp warning notes.

In an instant, the alarm spread through the entire team.

Moments later, Wang Zhenglin’s command rang out from the front: “All three wings, rotate right!”

A command to avoid combat.

The advantage of the triangular formation showed here—each corner could shift direction at will. By rotating the formation clockwise, the left wing would evade first, the center move right, and the right wing would end up behind the demon. Even if they couldn’t avoid it, the left and right wings would form a pincer, trapping the demon in the middle for an attack from all sides.

“You two, stay close!” shouted the brown-haired veteran as he led them running diagonally backward to the right.

The trio darted through the woods. Wang Zhenglin’s foresight was clear—each group had at least one veteran, so the recruits didn’t panic.

In less than five minutes, the whole formation had shifted.

Thump, thump.

Now on the left wing, Du Huaishan heard the tremors straight ahead and lifted his binoculars.

But the vegetation was so dense, he could barely make out a flash of blue-green light through the undergrowth.

Huff—! Huff—!

Before he could identify the demon’s type or disaster level, two more long whistles came from behind.

“What’s going on? How come some teams are only now reacting?” Li Mingcheng grumbled.

“No!” The brown-haired veteran’s eyes widened in horror. “It’s not that—they’re warning us! Another demon attack! Huff! Huff!”

He quickly blew two more warning notes.

Du Huaishan’s expression grew grim.

The warning came from directly behind them—a spot they’d just passed during the formation’s rotation, and there’d been no sign of demons. How had one appeared so suddenly?

Could it be… another mutant?

He instinctively thought of the mutated Black Pillar that had hidden on a tree and killed Sun Tian.

But beyond that, he couldn’t fathom why a demon would appear so abruptly.

Zing!

Suddenly, a steel cable shot through the air, anchoring itself in a tree behind Du Huaishan, accompanied by a burst of blinding light.

A demonized training soldier swung toward them, shouting, “Hurry—!”

Before he could finish, a massive water-blue figure crashed toward them like a cannonball.

“Look out!!” Du Huaishan shoved Li Mingcheng aside, instantly summoning his guardian spirit and entering the demonized state.

Boom, boom, boom, crash!

The gigantic demon barreled through several tree trunks before coming to a halt in the underbrush, kicking up clouds of dust.

As the haze settled, the three of them saw a demon with blue skin, crouched like a macaque, its back lined with black bristles.

Its face was eerily human, with long white ears, huge black-and-white eyes rolling wildly, and in its mouth—clamped tight—was a man.

It was the elite training soldier who’d just swung in—likely from Wu Ming’s team.

“Help me! I don’t want to die—help…”

The young soldier struggled desperately, but unlike Lin Sizhi before, his lower body was already clamped in the demon’s jaws—its human-like teeth slicing into his waist, crushing inch by inch.

“Gah… urgh…”

The immense force made the soldier cough blood, “Help—”

Crunch!

With a jerk of its macaque-like head, the demon bit him fully in half, swallowing him whole.

Then, rising slowly—

Three meters, six meters, nine!

Disaster level: Monster, twenty-seven!

Li Mingcheng slumped to the ground in terror, watching as the soldier’s intestines slid from the demon’s jaws and plopped onto the grass.

In that instant, his ears rang as if deafened—his mind went blank.

If Du Huaishan hadn’t pushed him just then, he’d have been killed instantly.

Danger—extreme danger…

Humans could never defeat demons. This was heaven’s punishment, a decree from above!

Clang!

The brown-haired veteran’s back flared with a spirit in the shape of a brown antlered stag—he entered the demonized state.

Shing!

He drew his saber, yanked something from his chest, and flung it over, shouting, “Run!!”

Then, with a flash, he charged the macaque-faced demon.

Du Huaishan looked down.

There in the grass lay the recon platoon’s whistle.