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

All the new recruits training on the sand stopped simultaneously. Lu Xiao was the first to react—he pushed Bai Ye behind him and turned to run towards the dormitory building. Li Mo was even faster, having already dashed off the moment Lu Xiao started, his training boots leaving a trail of deep dents in the sand.

Bai Ye followed.

Seven or eight people had already gathered in front of the dormitory building, all craning their necks to look up at the roof. When Bai Ye ran to the front of the building, he heard someone shouting, "Don't jump!" "Go find the platoon leader!" The voices were urgent and fragmented, and it was impossible to make out who was saying what. He looked up.

A person was standing outside the railing on the third-floor roof.

He was a new recruit in the third squad.

Bai Ye remembered this face—he'd been scolded by the squad leader for his improper shooting form during rifle training, consistently ranked near the bottom in physical fitness tests, and always sat alone in a corner during meals. No one knew his name, because no one had ever asked.

The crowd downstairs was shouting. Some shouted, "Don't be impulsive!" Others shouted, "Quickly call the class monitor!" Still others shouted, "Someone go up and pull him out!" But no one moved. All the voices echoed downstairs, not a single one reaching the ears of the person on the third floor.

The recruit looked down and rubbed his heel against the edge of the narrow platform, knocking off a small piece of cement. The piece fell down with a soft rustling sound and bounced a few times on the ground.

Bai Ye could tell from his eyes that he was about to jump.

Bai Ye ran forward through the crowd. Someone reached out and tugged at his sleeve, but he shook them off.

He ran directly below the recruit as the recruit leaned forward.

Li Mo was rushing up the building a dozen meters to the side when he caught a glimpse of Bai Ye's running direction and instantly realized what he was about to do. He opened his mouth to call Bai Ye's name, but before the sound could even escape his throat, the person on the roof had already fallen.

The person who jumped from the third floor only stayed in the air for less than two seconds.

Bai Ye tilted his head back, his feet apart, his knees slightly bent, and his arms outstretched.

When the recruit's body slammed into his arms, Bai Ye heard the sound of his right arm bone breaking.

Click.

The impact passed through his arm, slammed into his chest, and knocked him backward.

His back slammed heavily onto the concrete ground, and the back of his head hit the ground as well. A burst of white light flashed before his eyes.

He felt as if he had been struck by a hammer from the front, the force penetrating directly into the bones of his right arm without any buffering, traveling from the radius to the ulna, from the ulna to the scapula, and finally erupting into a heart-wrenching pain at the end of his clavicle.

Then came everyone screaming.

Bai Ye couldn't hear what they were saying because the tinnitus masked all other sounds.

Bai Ye looked down at his right arm.

The sleeves of the training uniform were soaked in blood, and the fabric from the wrist to the elbow had turned a deep black, clinging to the skin. In the middle of the forearm, a section of white bone protruded from under the skin, tearing through the fabric of the training uniform and exposing it to the sunlight.

The cross-section of the broken bone wasn't flat; it was an irregular, slanted cut, the edges stained with bits of flesh and droplets of blood, gleaming unnaturally in the light. The surrounding skin was stretched out by the bone, bulging into a shape it shouldn't have. Blood trickled down the bone, across the wrist, dripping onto the concrete floor, forming a small, dark red puddle.

Bai Ye looked at his bones and frowned.

pain.

It really hurts.

Lu Xiao pointed at the two new recruits who were standing there dumbfounded and shouted at them to carry the recruit from the third squad onto a stretcher and send him to the infirmary first. Then he bent down to help Bai Ye up, but stopped halfway through his hand—he saw the piece of bone sticking out of Bai Ye's right arm, his Adam's apple bobbed, and the smile that never left his face disappeared.

Li Mo rushed out of the dormitory building's stairwell, his face bearing an expression Bai Ye had never seen before.

Li Mo squatted down quickly, but the force was extremely light when he touched Bai Ye's shoulder.

"stretcher!"

The medics had already run over with a stretcher. Li Mo didn't let the medics do anything; he personally lifted Bai Ye up from the ground, supporting Bai Ye's back with his left hand and carefully avoiding Bai Ye's right arm with his right. When he placed Bai Ye on the stretcher, his movements were as slow as if he were handling a grenade with the pin pulled.

The medic was already waiting in the infirmary. When the medic cut open Bai Ye's right arm sleeve, revealing the entire wound, there was a moment of silence under the operating light. The medic's expression changed, but he said nothing and turned to get the surgical instruments.

Bai Ye sat on the examination bed, watching the needle in the military doctor's hand pierce his arm.

Local anesthesia.

He didn't even flinch when the needle pierced his skin. Then he watched as the medic used a scalpel to cut open the skin around the wound, reset the broken bone, and pieced the shattered bone back into place with steel nails and internal fixation plates. Throughout the entire process, his pupils remained completely still, as if he were sitting in the stands watching a surgery that had nothing to do with him.

The surgery lasted for more than an hour.

After the military doctor left, only three people remained in the infirmary.

Bai Ye sat on the bed with his right arm in a cast, stitched with more than a dozen stitches. Steel pins from the external fixation brace pierced through the skin, firmly fixing the broken bone in place.

Lu Xiao leaned against the door, crossed his arms, glanced between Li Mo and Bai Ye, and then quietly left the infirmary, closing the door behind him.

Li Mo stood there. He looked down at Bai Ye's right arm, which was in a cast, and remained silent for a long time.

"Are you crazy?"

Li Mo's voice was trembling.

"Are you out of your mind?! The third floor! You dare catch someone jumping from the third floor?! Do you want to lose your arm?! You—"

Bai Ye looked up at Li Mo and saw that his hand, hanging by his side, was clenched into a fist, with river sand still stuck to his knuckles from previous combat training, and veins bulging from the back of his hand all the way to his forearm.

"Speak." Li Mo's voice was very low, as if afraid that a loud voice would break something.

Bai Ye tilted his head. He didn't understand what was so upsetting about it.

He was directly below the recruit when he jumped. He calculated the distance and impact force, knowing there was a high probability of a broken right arm, but no one would die. The sergeant wouldn't die, the recruit wouldn't die, and he wouldn't die either. This outcome was acceptable.

"You took a bullet for me last time," Bai Ye said, his tone flat, as if repeating an objective fact that had already been recorded.

Li Mo was taken aback.

"so what?"

"If that recruit dies, all the squad leaders will be in trouble. I don't want the squad leaders to be in trouble."

Li Mo fell silent.

He remained silent for a long time. Then he reached out and ruffled Bai Ye's hair.

"Don't be so impulsive in the future," he said.

Bai Ye didn't answer. He simply sat on the examination bed, his right arm in a cast, a tuft of hair sticking up from being ruffled. The morning light from outside shone through the gap in the curtains, drawing a thin golden line on the back of Li Mo's hand.

He neither agreed nor disagreed. Li Mo withdrew his hand, not pressing the matter. He knew Bai Ye wouldn't agree, and he knew he would continue to shield him from everything he could.