"Home of the Fearless has serious conflicts with the Black Blood Group, Lost Paradise, and the others. The people in Home of the Fearless are mostly former base-level military officers — junior officers, along with some jin people and iron people. The reason they didn't follow the Eastern Theater Command north was their leadership. Soldiers are direct people — they go where their leaders go."

Zhao Zilong spoke without particular emotion. "Their leaders made mistakes, so they made the same mistakes. But their fundamental nature isn't bad." A pause. "My father incited the death-eaters to purge the senior military command. Once that happened, those soldiers were freed from the confusion of misplaced loyalty. They formed Home of the Fearless. Started farming. Kept to themselves."

She continued after a moment. "I was conflicted for a long time. My father on one side, what I knew to be right on the other. Then I met Shao Yuanzheng — a death-eater in Home of the Fearless. We became close friends. Then my father had him killed." Her voice stayed level. "I understood then that if you don't act, you can't keep what you value."

She didn't say what came after. Shen Cong didn't need her to.

She'd joined Home of the Fearless. Started working against New Hope Laboratory and the death-eaters openly. Father and daughter became enemies.

He nodded once, picked up the welding torch, and went back to the bumper repair. He'd wanted to understand the death-eater relationships, not collect someone's personal history.

Watching the sparks from the welding arc, Zhao Zilong said: "What about you, Colonel Chen? A colonel leaving Anhui Provincial District alone — you must have been given a mission for the Command?"

"No."

"I think you're a person with a story."

"No."

She adjusted her sharkskin cloak, shook her head slightly, and walked back to the others.

Under the extended Wings of Light, Shen Cong kept working without any visible reaction.

He'd understood something a long time ago: you process your own pain privately. You don't tell your story to every person you meet. Almost nobody will understand…