Andrey, as commander of the advance team, was the first to brief General Victor on the battle.
Before Li Yun and Natasha went in to see him, Walter suggested that the two of them get some rest at the camp first.
With the fighting so intense, neither Li Yun nor Natasha had noticed how much time had passed.
In reality, six hours had gone by between their arrival at Rex’s research facility and their eventual escape.
Six straight hours of high-intensity combat in that environment while carrying out a rescue operation…
even Walter had to admire the stamina and ability of these two young soldiers.
More than that, when they had passed Victor’s command tent a moment ago, Walter had heard Andrey say that Li Yun was the one who had gotten the entire advance team out alive.
[That kid is going places.]
Watching Li Yun wipe his face with a hot towel, Walter could not help thinking that Andrey had raised one hell of a prospect.
The higher-ups in the PLA Special Forces would probably be grinning from ear to ear in the future.
Li Yun had no time to think about any of that.
After being thoroughly decontaminated, he tore open a bag of bread and wolfed it down.
Natasha sat beside him filling her empty stomach with beef jerky.
Nearly twelve hours of travel, followed by six hours of fighting—they had spent almost an entire day under constant strain.
Now that they were finally somewhere safe, the tension drained out of them all at once and exhaustion hit like a truck.
If they had their way, both of them would sleep first and worry about everything else later.
“You two finally made it out!
Thank goodness!”
A pleasant, familiar voice came from behind them.
Natasha turned and saw Dr.
Soi.
Walter, seeing her approach, tactfully excused himself; he still needed to make arrangements for Soi’s evacuation and follow-up care.
Li Yun blinked.
Both he and Natasha had been wearing gas masks back then, and their combat gear was hardly different from everyone else’s.
How the hell had Soi recognized them?
“Dr.
Soi?
You’re still here?” What surprised him even more was that she had not left yet.
Had General Victor not arranged for her evacuation?
“I’m leaving very soon.
Once the initial operation wraps up and General Victor finishes making the follow-up arrangements, I’ll go.
But before I left, I wanted to see you two.”
Soi looked at them with gratitude and obvious reluctance to part.
If not for these two, she had no idea whether she would ever have made it out of Rex’s research facility.
Li Yun smiled and waved it off, telling her not to dwell on it.
Their mission had been to rescue researchers in the first place.
“You survived until help arrived because of your own ability, Dr.
Soi.
Even if you hadn’t run into us, I think you would’ve eventually found Dad’s team and withdrawn with them.”
Soi burst out laughing at that.
Catching herself, she quickly suppressed the laugh and said, “No, no.
If it weren’t for you two, I definitely would’ve died in that lightless underground lab.
I really am alive and standing here because of both of you.”
Someone arrived to tell Soi that the aircraft prepared for her could depart at any time.
She nodded, then turned to Li Yun to say goodbye.
“Goodbye, Captain.
Take care.
We have plenty of time ahead of us—I know we’ll meet again someday.”
“You too, Dr.
Soi.
Next time we meet, I hope it’s somewhere nicer, where we can sit down and have a cup of coffee in peace.” Li Yun nodded.
Satisfied with his answer, Soi finally turned and left.
Natasha watched Soi walk away, then glanced at Li Yun beside her.
For some reason she could not explain, she jabbed him with her elbow.
She had no idea why she suddenly felt like doing it.
She just did.
The unexpected elbow caught Li Yun completely off guard.
He turned to look at Natasha, but her perfectly unchanged expression gave away absolutely nothing.
Before he could say anything, Andrey arrived.
He clapped Li Yun on the shoulder and told him it was his turn to give Victor a detailed account of the mission.
Li Yun could only leave Natasha for the moment and head for Victor’s command tent.
Andrey, meanwhile, looked at Natasha with a deeply satisfied smile.
He had seen that little exchange just now.
Li Yun might have been too dense to notice, but Andrey certainly was not.
“I’ll leave my idiot son in your hands from now on.” Andrey laughed and ruffled Natasha’s hair as though she were one of his own juniors.
Natasha froze, completely unable to understand why he would say something like that.
“You’re still young yourself, Mr.
Andrey.
Why would you need to leave him to me?” Natasha deeply respected both Andrey’s character and his record.
If he had not stubbornly insisted on remaining on the front line, his rank might already have surpassed Victor’s.
“Hahahaha!
True enough.
I’m still young.” Andrey laughed and withdrew his hand. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Yet there were things only he and a very small number of others knew.
Perhaps those juniors would not learn that secret until the day he died.
By then, Li Yun had already launched into a rapid-fire report of everything he had seen and experienced inside Rex’s research facility.
He had personally rescued Dr.
Soi, encountered Irina of the T faction, killed a Light Zombie with his own hands, and finally brought the entire advance force out alive.
Those achievements were more than enough to warrant a prominent place in his service record.
“You’ve really been through hell this time.
If someone with your experience hadn’t been there, I’m afraid we would’ve kept feeding even more people into Rex’s facility.”
After hearing Li Yun’s oral report and comparing it with Andrey’s, Victor had no trouble understanding just how dangerous the operation had been.
The CT side had taken a brutal beating this time.
“It wasn’t too bad.
We made it back alive, and the mission went reasonably well.
Every survivor we found was brought out.”
Li Yun knew Victor had to be in a terrible mood.
The higher-ups had caused a disaster on this scale, and CT’s public image would inevitably take a massive hit.
The public-relations nightmare afterward would be enough to give every senior CT official a splitting headache.
And most importantly, they had failed to recover Dr.
Rex.
According to the surviving researchers, members of the T faction had abducted Rex before the CT forces could reach him.
If Rex was still alive and chose to expose the human experiments he and CT had conducted together, the coalition governments might be dissolving CT by tomorrow and sending everyone home to their mothers.
Fortunately, none of that was Li Yun’s problem to solve.
Seeing him fall silent, Victor simply assumed he was exhausted.
After that many hours of high-intensity combat, even a man made of iron would be tired.
Victor had therefore thoughtfully arranged somewhere for him to rest.
“Li Yun, head back for now.
My men have arranged a car that will take you straight to Raccoon City.
Rest there for a while, then come back.
I’m afraid we’ll be staying here for some time.”
Li Yun nodded.
He was exhausted, and a proper rest sounded good.
Mm…
Mm??
Wait.
Raccoon City?