The battle had fallen into a stalemate.
Tension and fear had not passed, just turned from wildness to composure, like a wisp of smoke coiling at the heart, leaving one unable to find peace.
"Brother, I'm really thirsty," Li Qianxia said.
"The urine you just peed out is sterile," Li Changzhou kept a close watch on the direction of the sniper, preventing the enemy from quietly moving to another spot.
"I heard that 90% of blood is water," his sister said weakly.
Li Changzhou raised his voice, shouting loudly at the sniper, "Sweetie, you can't stay there forever! When people hear the gunfire, they'll come looking for you, so hurry up and leave!"
"That person is dead for sure," Li Changzhou pulled back, adjusting to a comfortable prone position, "I have many fine qualities, but holding a grudge is certainly not one of them."
"It's also dangerous for us to stay in the same place this whole time, I have an idea," Yang Qinglan pondered.
"What idea?" the siblings turned to her.
Yang Qinglan lifted her head to meet their gazes, "If I can attract the sniper's attention for just two, maybe three seconds, I can make him lose his balance."
"Are you going to use that move?" Li Qianxia asked subconsciously.
"Wait," Li Changzhou raised his hand, "which move is that?"
Li Qianxia looked towards Yang Qinglan, it was Yang Qinglan's secret, and she didn't feel it was her place to speak.
"My instinct, 'Attract And Repel,'" Yang Qinglan spoke softly, "It can change gravity horizontally, simply put, turning one of the directions—front, back, left, right, or center—into the ground."
Li Changzhou imagined the ground turning behind him and himself free-falling onto it.
"Is there a distance limit?" he asked.
"There's no limit to the release, as long as I can see the target, I can act, but the 'ground' I create can only extend up to three meters from the target."
Three meters, about the height of one floor.
"If there's nothing on the 'ground' you create, what happens to the person? Could they get hurt from a fall?"
"No, but they'll struggle to stand steadily, and those with poor constitution might even feel dizzy."
Li Changzhou thought for a moment and said, "Is there another way? If not, I'll give it a go, their aim isn't accurate..."
"Brother!" Li Qianxia interrupted him.
Two seconds of silence passed between the three, then Yang Qinglan suddenly laughed, "Let's wait a little longer."
"Why are you laughing?" Li Changzhou was puzzled.
"You passed my test," Yang Qinglan's tone was light.
"Test? What gives you the right to test me? I hate it when people act all high and mighty."
"Because I'm a beautiful girl with a good figure, I have to be careful of men, and you're a man yourself, do you think your sister should trust a man she just met?"
"..." Li Changzhou, being a man, had no reply.
Using her breezy, girlish voice, Yang Qinglan continued,
"You care a lot about your sister, so you probably wouldn't bully her friends; you're decisive and brave, reliable as a teammate, and almost faultless except maybe for a bit of kidney deficiency, which doesn't affect me anyway."
"You really are pretty," Li Changzhou said.
"Don't think I don't know you're insulting me," Yang Qinglan rolled her eyes at him—her dismissal was charming, reminiscent of Lin Daiyu giving Jia Baoyu the side-eye.
"It's better than you cursing me outright."
"Telling the truth counts as cursing? I think you should take criticism constructively."
"Sorry, I have many fine qualities, but accepting criticism isn't one of them, I only like hearing good things," he replied.
"So not only do you not repay evil with kindness, but you also don't take criticism—I suppose you know what 'only' means, being a university student and all?"
"If we get out of this alive, you two should get married," Li Qianxia teased the bickering pair.
"Shut up!" Li Changzhou couldn't afford to jinx things.
Suddenly, all three of them gulped, not because of the jinx, but because a series of explosions sounded not far away.
Boom, boom, boom, like giants running through the forest.
Flames and smoke erupted violently, flooding this way like a tide through the gaps between the trees.
"Get down!" Li Changzhou shouted.
The three of them threw themselves into the trench, and for a moment, dirt, pebbles, and branches rained down on their backs.
As the rumbling subsided, the three had just lifted their heads when they saw a person in a rough, homemade ghillie suit, holding a sniper rifle as they jumped into the trench.
The person entered the trench in a jumping position, using a crouch to cushion the force of landing, then aimed at the three with the rifle, still crouched.
Yang Qinglan's clear eyes instantly turned blue and also aimed at this person.
The ghillie-suited body was suddenly pulled to the left, then flailed about, unconsciously dropping the gun and reaching out to grab the ground, as if they had slipped off a cliff.
"Babe, love you!" Li Changzhou didn't care if the person was male or female, he flung dirt toward the person's eyes while rising to his feet, delivering a kick straight to the groin.
"Argh!" The person in the ghillie suit let out a man's pained howl.
A man's words, this kick almost certainly incapacitated him, but just to be sure, Li Changzhou still pounced on top, pressing down with his body weight and pinning the other's hands.
At that moment, Li Qianxia sprang to her feet, her "Mosquito Style Blood-sucking Gun" stabbing toward the shoulder of the ghillie suit like a stick.
The pain of being stabbed by the gun was obviously less overwhelming than the agony of being kicked below, and the ghillie suit's spirit and will were still engulfed in crashing waves of pain.
A red line traced up the body of the Blood-sucking Gun to the antennae and then flowed into Li Qianxia's body.
Li Qianxia licked her dry lips, feeling still thirsty, but her spirit was invigorated.
Yang Qinglan's eyes returned to black as she picked up the ghillie suit's sniper rifle. The gun was heavy; she held it with both hands and handed it to Li Changzhou.
"Qian Xia and I have both killed people." She said quietly, her eyes fixed on Li Changzhou.
"Don't... don't kill me..." the man in the ghillie suit pleaded miserably under Li Changzhou's knee, begging through the severe pain, "We can... work together..."
[Name: M95 Sniper Rifle]
[Special Effect: None]
[Minimum Use Conditions: Strength 5, Agility 4]
[Introduction: A bolt-action sniper rifle; Caliber: 12.7mm; Magazine capacity: 5 rounds; Muzzle velocity: 854 m/s, Effective range: 1800 meters]
[Note: Though civilian, whether military or civilian, it won't make you more valuable]
"Brother." Li Qianxia called out softly.
The siblings understood each other with just that one word 'brother', Li Changzhou knew what she meant—support mixed with concern.
"If it weren't for the sudden explosion, without my instinct, we would already be dead." Yang Qinglan said in her quiet voice, "Here, surviving is the top priority; killing is the natural order."
"Please... I beg you..." the man in the ghillie suit continued to plead intermittently, with a sobbing tone.
Li Changzhou accepted the rifle. Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩·𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢·𝔫𝔢𝔱
The acrid smell of gunpowder, blood staining the earth red.
After the man was stripped of his ghillie suit, two bullet-filled magazines were found on his waist.
The corpse was tossed aside, and the three of them, utterly exhausted, huddled in the trench as if they'd been crushed.
The explosions had ceased, but other sounds were heard from time to time; they even saw an octopus-like strange tree swinging its whips, chasing a wolf.
Li Changzhou looked down at the black 'Identity Card' in his hand, which had appeared after the man in the ghillie suit died.