Chapter 1021

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Chapter 1021: Questioning the Heart at the Cliff

Fang Mo stared blankly at the falling figure, sinking into silence. In his mind, only Lu Baoyou’s resolute and proud expression remained when breaking free from his arm.

He stood silently for a moment, took a deep breath, and continued slowly climbing toward the mountain peak.

Lu Baoyou’s figure fell rapidly down the cliff.

Just as he was about to crash into the valley bottom and shatter, Lin Qiye on the cliff opened his mouth and whispered something, causing a whirlwind to emerge from nowhere, catching Lu Baoyou and gently lowering him to the ground.

Lu Baoyou had completely exhausted his physical strength. He lay powerlessly in the snow, looking up at the endless cliff, and closed his eyes.

“…I won’t make the same mistake twice,” he muttered.

The wind and snow howled. The surrounding recruits came forward, wanting to help Lu Baoyou up, but he just lay quietly in the snow, motionless, as if dead.

At the top of the cliff, Lin Qiye, who was resting with his eyes closed, showed a slight smile.

At the bottom of the cliff, Su Yuan and Ding Chongfeng passed by Lu Baoyou as they were about to climb. The latter, seeing the figure gradually being buried by snow, was about to pull him up when Su Yuan stopped him.

“Leave him be, he’s focusing on recovering his strength.”

Ding Chongfeng remained silent for a moment, then sighed and walked past Lu Baoyou to begin climbing the cliff.

Time passed, and by now, nearly half of the recruits had reached the bottom of the cliff and started climbing up one after another.

Su Zhe bent over, hands on his knees, panting as he looked up at the cliff that reached into the clouds, bitterness appearing on his pale face.

“This is killing me…”

After briefly resting in place, he began climbing with the main group.

During training camp, the instructors had taught survival skills for extreme environments, including free climbing, but due to terrain limitations, they had never actually practiced it.

After climbing nearly one-fifth of the way, Su Zhe truly realized how difficult this task was.

He was stiffly wedged between two protruding rocks, his arm muscles trembling from fatigue, and the increasingly thin air forced him to breathe faster, but even so, his consciousness was gradually becoming fuzzy.

He took a deep breath, forcefully gathered his spirits, and continued climbing step by step toward the cliff top.

By now, recruits were constantly falling from beside Su Zhe, unable to hold on. However, only a small portion of them, like Lu Baoyou, fell because they had exhausted all their strength. Most jumped down voluntarily when they felt they had reached their limit.

Whenever they landed, a whirlwind would steadily catch their bodies, preventing injury.

They lay powerlessly on the ground, panting heavily, despair appearing in their eyes.

Impossible…

For them, this was an impossible task to complete.

Su Zhe tried hard to distract himself from his fatigue, gritting his teeth and moving his stiff body bit by bit.

Just then, a voice suddenly came clearly from above the cliff, echoing in the ears of every climbing recruit:

“If you can’t hold on, why not give up.”

Instructor Lin?

Su Zhe was startled. He looked up in confusion toward the barely visible cliff top.

Other recruits, whether climbing, preparing to climb, or having failed to climb, similarly looked up in confusion. They all recognized Instructor Lin’s voice.

“If you can’t climb over this mountain, it shows your strength and willpower aren’t outstanding. If so, why insist on joining the Night Watchmen?” Lin Qiye’s voice rang out again, echoing in the dead silent valley:

“Do you know the annual death rate of Daxia’s Night Watchmen?”

“On average, one out of every seven Night Watchmen dies in battle each year, a sacrifice rate that even exceeds the number of new recruits added annually. Among these fallen Night Watchmen, 95% died while eliminating ‘Mysteries’.”

“When war begins, you new recruits will have to shoulder the responsibility of protecting the city. Are you truly ready to stake your lives to protect civilians in danger?”

“If you’re not ready, it’s not too late to turn back now.”

“You don’t need to persist. If you’re eliminated in this training, you can withdraw halfway and return to the ordinary world, far from killing, sacrifice, and endless pain. You don’t need to become Night Watchmen standing before millions; instead, you can peacefully become one of those millions being protected.”

“This is your last chance to choose before stepping onto this thorny path of no return as Night Watchmen.”

As Lin Qiye’s words fell, the recruits below fell silent.

On the cliff, among those recruits who had climbed until exhausted, some showed struggle in their eyes, some continued climbing with unwavering determination, and others painfully shouted and closed their eyes, surrendering to inner weakness, jumping down from the cliff.

Su Zhe’s fingers gripped the cliff’s protrusions tightly, his face extremely pale. Lin Qiye’s words echoed in his mind as his expression became conflicted.

Was he… really ready to become a Night Watchman?

These months of training had indeed changed him greatly, making him completely different from the former otaku Su Zhe.

But just as Lin Qiye had said, was he really prepared to sacrifice himself to protect civilians in danger? Was he really ready to walk this thorny path of no return?

…Not necessarily.

After all, he came to participate in the new recruit training only because of his sister Su Yuan.

He clearly remembered that in that car accident, both he and his sister Su Yuan awakened their Forbidden Domains. Afterward, the Night Watchmen actively approached them, and his instinctive reaction upon receiving the recruitment was to refuse, after all, Su Zhe was just an invisible sister complex otaku, without such lofty aspirations to protect the world.

If he hadn’t gotten up to use the bathroom at midnight and happened to see Su Yuan secretly packing her bags, preparing to go to Beijing alone to join the Night Watchmen, he might never have left that small county town in his life.

He had to admit, he couldn’t rest easy with Su Yuan going to the Night Watchmen alone.

Now, on the snow-howling cliff, Su Zhe re-examined his original intention, questioning his heart again and again about whether he was ready to become a Night Watchman.

The answer was… he wasn’t.

The moment this answer emerged in Su Zhe’s mind, whether intentionally or because his body had reached its limit, his hands released the cliff’s protrusions, and his entire body, like a broken-winged bird, fell powerlessly from the clouds.