NOVEL NEXT 25
Chapter 25: Battlefield 2
The fighting continued, with the same daily sounds of bullets exploding, planes buzzing overhead, and the anguished cries of the wounded, tormenting Ellis’s already fragile nerves.
Their always strict and harsh superior did not impose any substantial punishment on Owen for his impulsive actions, only issuing a verbal warning. His cold, icy face was unchanged, just like when he had stood before them during training three years ago.
Angie’s death had carried Ellis’s thoughts to another world. The people he had observed with numb eyes, labeling them as friends or foes, suddenly became vivid. Their screams, their squalor, their hunched figures resembling wild dogs, all stepped into his vision, active before his eyes.
When Owen walked into his rest room, Ellis didn’t even notice.
Owen came over and sat down beside him.
“Did you sleep today?”
“No, it’s too noisy at night.”
Owen took out a scratched metal cigarette case from his wrinkled shirt pocket, pressed the tab, popped out a cigarette, and held it in his mouth before lighting it.
“Want one?” Owen took a deep drag, squinting and exhaling the smoke.
“No, thanks.” Ellis instinctively refused.
“Have one. You haven’t slept for days, and your spirits are too low.” Owen pinched the cigarette between two fingers and put it into Ellis’s mouth.
“Thanks.” Ellis took the lighter from Owen, his pale fingers trembling slightly as he lit the cigarette.
The burning sensation of nicotine spread through his mouth.
Ellis exhaled heavily, as if expelling the frustration of the past days.
“…Angie, did you find him?” Ellis half-closed his eyes, peering at Owen’s expression through the slits.
Looking at Owen,
“Yes, we found him a long time ago.” Owen looked indifferent, but his back instantly stiffened, and the pressure of his fingers on the cigarette bent it into an oval. “About a hundred meters northeast of the crater you mentioned, we found only half of the mech and a disfigured corpse.”
“That, that’s really awful.” Ellis shuddered, averting his gaze. He felt that Owen’s seemingly calm expression was actually full of mockery and questioning toward him.
“By the way, how come his body was blown so far away, yet the dog tag ended up in your hand?” Owen said lightly, “And it’s really strange that you found his dog tag but not his body, then hurried back to tell me he was dead.”
“I, I really don’t know. My mind was blank at that time. I couldn’t find him no matter how hard I looked, so I thought he was dead.”
“Then he really died,” Owen sneered, patting Ellis’s hair.
Ellis was the same age as them, but both he and Angie agreed that Ellis’s mental age was only three years old. His thoughts were simple, his actions impulsive, and he would do whatever came to mind. He was passionate about what he liked and equally wholehearted in his hatred.
“I know you’re only three years old, but when I heard the news, I was just as young,” Owen’s gaze drifted into the distance. “I also wish he weren’t dead, but things didn’t turn out that way.”
“Owen, on the night you had a fever, I heard what you said in your delirium.”
“Hmm?” Owen exhaled a puff of smoke.
“You recited Angie’s favorite poem. You said, ‘You are the snow in my palm.'”
“Yes.” Owen smiled, extinguishing the cigarette and crushing the butt under his shoe. “Back in college, he wrote it to mock me. At first, we didn’t get along. Although we both unexpectedly became friends with you, we never stopped secretly jabbing at each other.”
Initially, he and Angie couldn’t stand each other. Angie called him a brute with nothing but muscles, and he thought Angie was full of useless ideas. They traded barbs openly and secretly, and everyone knew they didn’t get along, except Ellis, who was oblivious.
“He wrote me a poem on pink envelope paper. He wasn’t short of money or paper, but he used a crumpled piece of toilet paper torn off with ragged edges, even with a footprint on it, and wrote the poem on it.”
Owen recited slowly:
“Gentle winds drift,
Clouds swiftly fly.
Heaven carries the frost and snow,
Entrusting you to me.
You are the snow in my palm,
Falling through my fingers,
Landing on the ground,
Stained with dirt,
Your pure white body, innocently
Trampled underfoot by me.
Just like this paper!!”
Owen couldn’t help but laugh.
“I don’t know when he rewrote the poem on a bookmark and carried it in his textbook everywhere.”
“I know this might be an inappropriate time to ask, but when did you two get together?” Ellis asked softly.
“It’s no big deal. We got together a bit over two months ago. The relationship had just been confirmed, and we wanted to wait until it was more stable before telling you.”
When Owen and Angie got together, their first concern was Ellis’s feelings. They feared Ellis wouldn’t be able to accept that his two same-sex friends were together. Both Owen and Angie had families, while Ellis was an orphan. They worried he would feel abandoned, so they didn’t tell him.
But that was something Owen could never say now.
“Sigh,” Ellis sighed. “You two were so obvious, yet I didn’t see that you were together. That day, Angie was clearly with you, but I asked him to accompany me to the battlefield, and in the end, it cost him his life…”
Owen had heard Ellis recount this scenario many times. Emotionally, Owen couldn’t help but harbor some resentment towards Ellis. However, putting himself in Ellis’s shoes, even if it were him and Angie, he knew he would instinctively push the person beside him away when the bomb fell.
Owen understood the kind of person Angie was and knew the choices he would make.
Angie was an idealist. At first, he was sharp and unreserved, but later learned to mask it with a carefree exterior.
When he confessed, Angie tilted his head and said:
“I will most likely die on the battlefield, so be prepared for that.
But as long as I live, I will belong to you until my death.”
That bastard!
Owen hadn’t even had time to prepare before Angie hurriedly sacrificed himself for his beliefs.
The time Angie belonged to him was so short.
Owen was immersed in an indescribable sorrow.
Ellis looked at Owen and quietly left, giving him some space.
Leaving the camp, Ellis covered his eyes with his hand, tears flowing down.
His thoughts seemed never to have left the day Owen died. He believed Angie would at any moment pull back the curtain and greet him with a gentle and tired voice. He loathed himself for all the small things he hadn’t done for Angie: waking him roughly when he lay on Owen’s bed, or not properly thanking him for sharing things.
Angie’s face, his voice, twisted Ellis’s thoughts.
All the dirtiest, most despicable words could be applied to him, Ellis.
What a vile person he was.
Then, unexpectedly, they received a notice to return, much like the sudden draft at the start of this battle.
The superior’s notice demanded that all remaining Siming soldiers return to the airship the next day, as reinforcements from other military districts were coming.
But the battle was still raging, with plenty of Siming reinforcements. How could they be asked to return so simply?
Ellis got the answer from Delov, who had some family background.
Apparently, a young male from a noble family had disguised himself as a female and joined the new recruits from Siming this year. Recently, the family discovered their precious male had run off to the perilous battlefield. Unable to identify his alias, the anxious elders used their influence to demand all Siming soldiers return to Zerg Star.
The conscription process on Zerg Star, still in its expansion phase, was not very stringent, with a high demand for female soldiers.
However, Ellis felt the world spinning.
In the end, their return wasn’t due to victory or defeat, but because a noble’s son had sneaked into the army.
The battlefield needed them, so they were rushed over.
The nobles needed their son, so they were rushed back.
The lives of female soldiers were reduced to a series of numbers, a report. No one cared about their struggles on the battlefield, walking the line between life and death. No one paid attention to their blood, tears, or pain.
All for a single noble’s son.
Just for one noble’s son.
Ellis chuckled.