When Chen Junshan woke up, it was already eight o'clock in the evening.
Lin Qiu was sitting on a chair by the bedside, looking at his wristband. Seeing him wake up, he asked, "Awake? How do you feel?"
"Ugh," Chen Junshan shifted his body, let out a hiss of pain, and replied, "My right chest hurts. It feels like my ribs along with my shoulder and arm bones are all shattered... Am I still in the simulation?"
"No, you're in the school hospital. This is your first time using military-grade holographics, so occasional adverse reactions like this happen with severe injuries. Your body is fine; it's just the holographic system tricking your brain into sending you false pain signals. Rest a bit, and it will pass."
I see. Chen Junshan asked again, "Did we win?"
"We won." Lin Qiu turned off his wristband, looked back at him, and asked, "Do you know why military-grade holographics have 100% pain settings?"
Federation holographic usage regulations stipulated that to prevent users from becoming addicted to virtual worlds or suffering irreversible effects from holograms, all sensory inputs in civilian holographics must not exceed 50% of reality. Before coming to the Military Academy, Chen Junshan really hadn't looked into military holographics.
He shook his head, and Lin Qiu explained, "It's to make military cadets fearful of death. If pain were reduced, cadets might disregard their own lives for the sake of winning during holographic training. Over time, the combat instinct of 'avoiding danger' gradually disappears, and the fatality rate on actual battlefields becomes very high."
"Yeah..." Chen Junshan already understood what Lin Qiu was driving at. In the process of intercepting Number 5, he had simply thought of it as a hologram and truly hadn't considered his own survival.
"Painful?" Lin Qiu asked.
"Did you agree to it?" Chen Junshan asked.
"You figured it out?" Chen Junshan felt a bit embarrassed, thinking his cover had been blown a bit too early.
"No," Lin Qiu said. "I already reviewed your video logs earlier. It's better not to let this match footage get leaked. What do you think?"
Chen Junshan let out an "uh" and said, "Because I couldn't win against him in a head-on confrontation?"
Lin Qiu quietly watched him for a moment and suddenly said, "I'm sorry."
The playback continued, and soon the video from Chen Junshan's perspective ended.
Seeing that Lin Qiu's expression seemed normal, Chen Junshan couldn't quite tell what he meant, so he had to say, "I think you're right. I'll leave it to you."
The footage in question naturally referred to the video where he found the vulnerability in the cockpit door and used a neck collar to force it open.
Lin Qiu lit up his wristband, bringing up a light screen displaying the match video logs. It was currently playing Chen Junshan's activities from a third-person perspective, right at the moment when he crooked his finger at Number 5 and shouted, "Come on then!"
Lin Qiu paused the video and said, "That squad filed an appeal after losing, questioning a system bug because their Number 5 mecha's cockpit was inexplicably forced open."
"It hurts... At the time, I thought I was actually going to die." The pain had eased a lot now, but staying awake while feeling it was sheer torture.
Lin Qiu explained, "At the beginning of this match, I overlooked the fact that it was your first time using military holographics and put you in a dangerous situation. I wanted to give you more opportunities to shine so you could get a higher score. I was too impatient. Xiao Di was right—as a commander, I'm still not steady enough."
Chen Junshan had never heard anyone say something like "take care of yourself" to him before. Hearing it from Lin Qiu felt rather novel.
When Lin Qiu said these words, his tone wasn't as level as usual, and anyone listening could sense his sincere apology.
Lin Qiu dragged the video forward a bit to the scene where he shot at Number 5, and asked, "Do you know why I only had you lure him to the main road and let Xiao Di snipe him?"
"Huh?"
Enduring the pain, Chen Junshan stubbornly reached out to touch the light screen, dragging the video progress bar forward to skip over this socially mortifying footage.
Lin Qiu paused, then continued, "Besides, deceiving the commander is a major tabu in battle. Every lie you tell could cause the commander to misjudge the situation, potentially leading to the destruction of the entire squad. Don't lie to me again in the future."
"Pain is the point. Remember this feeling of being on the verge of death, and take good care of yourself from now on."
"That's one reason," Lin Qiu said. "Another reason is that without mental preparation, killing someone in a hologram can also cause psychological trauma. But looking at it now, you adapted well."
Lin Qiu didn't stop him and continued, "The system ruled the appeal failed—there was no bug. So the opposing team requested to view the match logs. But match logs can only be viewed by one's own team; viewing the opponent's team requires their consent."
"Y-you don't need to apologize either. The tasks you gave me were actually just things I was capable of accomplishing. It was me who wanted to intercept Number 5 alone, lied to you first, and then messed up at a critical moment, sending myself to the hospital."
Lin Qiu said, "No, understanding the personality traits of team members and predicting their performance in action is the commander's responsibility. I don't know you well enough yet; I share the blame for you ending up in the hospital."
Chen Junshan shrank back into the bed and asked, "What kind of person am I in your eyes now?"
"When you were younger, you had a sharp edge and a fierce drive about you—very striking. Now, you seem to deliberately blend in with the crowd, a bit lacking in self-confidence, but your heart is in the right place. And today I discovered that when you go crazy, you really push your limits. It seems that sharp edge hasn't vanished; you've just hidden it away."
As expected of a commander, he hit the nail right on the head.
Lin Qiu thought for a moment and asked again, "What happened after your father passed away to make you turn out like this?"
Chen Junshan didn't know how to describe it. He thought for a while before speaking: "Because my father was a very abusive alpha, he always beat us. Both my family and I despised alphas, but after entering middle school, I secondary-sex-differentiated into an alpha. Because I hate violence, I decided to become a peaceful and harmless alpha."
Chen Junshan's childhood was a pitch-black hell of violence. Not just him, but his mother and older sister were also shrouded in that darkness.
The most vivid image in his memory was the heavy, overcast sky outside, while he lay powerlessly on the ground, his wounds stinging as he tried to shift his body. On the floor before him were shattered glass utensils, stained with blood. The surroundings were a mess; the family clearly had no energy left to clean the house.
From other parts of the house came the sounds of roaring and screaming, along with the sound of objects striking flesh.
Chen Junshan looked out the gloomy window at the sky, thinking, would the pain end if he died? When would he finally be able to die?
Actually, he wasn't all that willing to die, because his mother and sister still loved him. The three of them were like small animals huddled together in the dead of winter, drawing warmth from one another.
He and Lin Qiu had attended the same elementary school. On the surface, everyone was a shining, energetic future of the Federation, but in reality, he was merely scraping by in blood and gloom, acting as a tool to earn face for his father.
After his father died in the line of duty due to circumstances, they were all overcome with an almost dreamlike joy. Because his mother's mental state was already very poor, they fled like refugees to his mother's hometown, Rare Earth Star.
They hadn't escaped the sea of bitterness for long when Chen Junshan went through secondary sex differentiation, turning into the very thing they detested most: an alpha. At the same time, as he grew older, he came to look more and more like his father.
Chen Junshan's mother developed psychological issues, frequently mistaking her teenage son for her husband, which would trigger her and cause her to break down.
At the same time, Chen Junshan was diagnosed with Gene Divergence Syndrome. During adolescence, when hormone levels fluctuate wildly, compounded by Gene Divergence Syndrome, he lost control of his emotions after an argument with his older sister one day and accidentally shoved her to the ground, breaking her wrist.
He still remembered the look of hatred and terror in his sister's eyes at that time.
Gradually, a wall seemed to form between him and them. Of the three who originally huddled together for warmth, he was the one cast out.
Chen Junshan had no one to blame. His sister hated their father the most, and since he was the one who lost control and hurt her—fearing he would turn into a hateful alpha—her alienation of him was entirely understandable.
His mother probably loved him, but Chen Junshan's striking resemblance to his father was in itself a torture to her. Chen Junshan didn't dare get close to her.
Chen Junshan locked away all of his alpha aggressiveness, striving to become like a beta—obedient and peaceable. Only by doing so could he avoid feeling that wall grow thicker when facing his family.
His differentiation into an alpha felt like a mistake that caused pain to everyone, including himself, yet he had no control over his own gender.
They were all still living in the gloom of the past; the trauma caused by violence had never healed, and no one had any spare strength to accommodate or guide him.
Chen Junshan thought that once he left home for school, he would never return. It would be better for everyone.
Of course, he wouldn't go into detail about these things with Lin Qiu. Lin Qiu possessed a bright future and was destined to shine. His own life was a complete mess; he didn't want to see a look of pity or disgust in Lin Qiu's eyes.
A young female doctor knocked on the door, walked up to Chen Junshan's hospital bed, and stopped, asking, "Are you Chen Junshan? I am Jiang Xuewen, on duty at the school hospital from the Military Medicine Department. I heard from Doctor Li that you suffer from Gene Divergence Syndrome?"
Doctor Li was the very doctor who had punished Lin Qiu to write a self-reflection.
Jiang Xuewen appeared to be a female beta, looking much more slender than Xiao Di. She wore a white lab coat, her hair tied in a bun at the nape of her neck, and wore rimless glasses. There was a gentle temperament about her that was rare among military cadets.
Chen Junshan nodded. Jiang Xuewen said, "It's like this: to avoid disrupting training and combat, military cadets or soldiers with Gene Divergence Syndrome are guaranteed a baseline of 4 boxes of medication per year. If you haven't drawn enough 4 boxes of medication this year, the military will make up the remainder."
Such a good thing existed? Chen Junshan was dumbfounded.
"I just checked, and you've already drawn two boxes of medication this year? If you finish your medication and still haven't drawn any more, you can apply to pick up medicine here at the school hospital."
Chen Junshan was shocked. Had he known, he wouldn't have hacked the drawing system; coming straight to the military academy to slack off and collect medicine would have been so much simpler.
He nodded to show he understood. Jiang Xuewen took out a tube of nutrient fluid and said, "Doctor Li asked me to bring this for you. Drink this tonight; you can't have solid food."
A single tube of nutrient fluid could supply the body's metabolic needs for a day, commonly used in forced marches, battlefields, mining shafts, and other scenarios where food storage space needs to be minimized. In daily life, most people preferred eating real food.
After handing over the nutrient fluid and saying goodbye, Jiang Xuewen left.
As Chen Junshan drank the nutrient fluid, Lin Qiu pointed and tapped at the light screen on the side, and the room fell silent for a time.
Before he knew it, it was nine o'clock in the evening. Lin Qiu closed the light screen and prepared to leave. Before heading out, he said, "You stay in the hospital tonight. You don't need to go to freshman training tomorrow; I've asked for leave for you. Get some rest."
"Ah?" Chen Junshan asked, confused, "How long before I can be discharged?"
"You can leave once it stops hurting."
Remembering something suddenly, Lin Qiu asked, "Do you have any course selections or training plans in mind right now? I have some suggestions."