I accidentally joined a group of charlatans, so I immediately called the police and handed it over t

Base 001, inside the command center.

When the jet-black "Vermilion Bird" fighter jet, seemingly from deep space, landed smoothly at the end of the runway amidst a low, energetic hum, the entire hall froze for a second.

The next second, the cheers that had been suppressed for so long erupted like a volcano.

"We won!"

"Damn it! We won!!"

An elderly academician with a full head of white hair suddenly slammed the thermos cup in his hand to the ground and jumped up like a child.

He embraced his companion tightly. The two elderly men, whose combined age was over 150, wept together, tears streaming down their faces.

"Thirty years! I've waited thirty years!"

They pounded the table and beat their chests, releasing decades of pent-up frustration and pride into deafening roars.

Li Guobang stood in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window.

He looked at the fighter jet bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, which seemed like a god descending to earth, and his eyes filled with tears.

This iron-blooded general, who hadn't even blinked amidst a hail of bullets, was now experiencing a slight, uncontrollable tremor in his shoulders.

Won.

This time, they won cleanly, leaving the entire Western world speechless.

He turned around abruptly and grabbed the military medal, which had been prepared beforehand and symbolized the highest honor, from the table.

The golden medal was burning hot in his palm, almost as if it were being branded into his flesh.

"Welcome the heroes!"

Li Guobang strode out, his voice filled with unprecedented excitement and trembling.

"Bring the best doctors and the best nutritionists over here, you fucking bastards!"

"Today, we won't leave until we're completely drunk!"

His eyes were red, like a raging tiger.

He wanted to personally place this medal, which had been earned at the cost of the entire Western world's reputation, on the pilot who had made history and rewritten the nation's destiny.

The tarmac was bustling with people.

Countless fervent, reverent, and fanatical gazes were fixed on the slowly opening cockpit door.

"Click—"

The hatch opened.

Pilot Wang Yi, the top ace selected from hundreds of thousands of air force pilots across the country, stumbled his way out.

He was still wearing that black anti-G suit, his posture still as upright as a pine tree, but his face was frighteningly pale.

Amidst thunderous cheers, he walked step by step toward Li Guobang, who was already waiting there.

His steps were somewhat unsteady, the ground beneath his feet seemed to sway, but every step he took was incredibly firm.

Li Guobang strode forward, excitedly opening his arms, wanting to give this young man, this soldier he had watched grow up, the strongest hug he could muster.

"Well done, Wang Yi! You are a national hero! Well done!"

Wang Yi looked at the general before him, his eyes glistening with tears, and at the faces around him contorted with emotion, and smiled.

That young face, framed by the helmet, looked as pale as a sheet of paper.

But his smile was bright and clean.

He did not respond to Li Guobang's hug.

Instead, he mustered all his strength, brought his feet together, and gave the general and all those who had fought for him a perfectly standard military salute.

Beneath the helmet visor, a striking strand of white hair, so out of place with his age, quietly slipped down.

"Reporting, sir!"

"Hongyan 01, you have successfully completed your mission!"

His voice was hoarse, yet resonant as iron, striking the hearts of everyone present.

Just as Li Guobang raised his hand, preparing to return the gift...

A sudden change occurred.

"puff--"

A dull, ominous sound.

Wang Yi suddenly bent forward, and a mouthful of dark red, scalding hot blood clots, mixed with visible, tiny fragments of internal organs, gushed out of his mouth and nose.

Under the sunlight, that scarlet patch was shocking to behold.

The thunderous cheers abruptly ceased.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment.

His once upright and sturdy body seemed to have all its bones removed in an instant, and it went limp.

Amidst the horrified screams of the crowd, he fell straight backward.

The smile on his face was still frozen in its last moment of brilliance.

The triumphant feast of heroes instantly turned into a bloody battlefield.

The red light in the emergency room stayed on all night.

The corridor was so silent that you could hear each other's heavy heartbeats.

The cheers and joy of the past were replaced by a thick, suffocating solemnity.

The air was filled with the smell of disinfectant, but it couldn't mask the faint stench of blood.

Su Qingge walked out of the emergency room with the newly printed medical examination report in her hand.

She took off her white coat, and her eyes, which always shone with intelligence and confidence, were now filled with spiderweb-like blood vessels, looking frighteningly empty.

"How is it?!"

Li Guobang suddenly jumped up from his chair like a desperate trapped beast, grabbed her arm, and his voice was trembling uncontrollably.

"He's still alive, isn't he?!"

Su Qingge did not answer.

She simply handed the thin, yet incredibly weighty report to Li Guobang.

"At the moment of acceleration to Mach 20, he experienced an overload of more than 50 Gs."

Su Qingge's voice was hoarse, like a rusty piece of iron rubbing against a wall.

"No known physiological limit of human beings can withstand this level of overload."

"His heart, liver, spleen... almost all his internal organs were forcibly squeezed, displaced, and then... torn apart by the terrifying inertial force within those few seconds."

Li Guobang's hands were trembling violently. Every word on the report felt like a red-hot knife, stabbing cruelly into his heart.

"Even more terrifying..."

Su Qingge took a deep breath, suddenly raised her head, and for the first time, her empty eyes revealed an emotion called "fear," an emotion that was almost devastating.

"It's his cells."

"We discovered that the telomeres in his cell nucleus are shortening at an incredible rate, and cell activity is plummeting."

"Do you know what this means?!"

Su Qingge's voice suddenly became shrill.

"To put it simply..."

Every word she uttered seemed to be squeezed out from between her teeth, filled with the stench of blood.

He is 'getting old'.

"That's not fire at all, Chen Xi!"

Su Qingge suddenly turned to Chen Xi, who had been silent all along, her eyes filled with a bloodthirsty madness.

"That damned Wind and Fire Wheel's spiritual energy, while driving the engine, is also frantically accelerating his entire body's metabolism; it's burning away his life force!"

"He's not flying!"

"He's using his own life as fuel for that 'Vermilion Bird'!!"

"Bang!"

A loud bang.

Li Guobang slammed his fist hard against the cold alloy wall.

The solid wall dented instantly, leaving a shocking fist-shaped dent, and blood gushed out from between his fingers.

He felt no pain at all.

All the pain converged in my heart.

"hero……"

Li Guobang leaned against the wall, his tall body slowly sliding down to the ground.

This once towering man now resembled a helpless child, letting out a suppressed sob.

"We have the technology...we've won..."

"But our own people...our own children, have become the most vulnerable link."

"We defeated the enemy, but we have to pay with the lives of our own children?!"

Chen Xi stared at the glaring red light in the emergency room and at the dark red bloodstain on the floor that was not yet completely dry.

He remained silent throughout.

That face, which always wore a knowing smile, was now eerily calm.

He finally understood.

The toys of the gods, if mortals come to play with them, they have to pay a bill.

And this bill.

It's a human life.