​​Monsanto’s Past

As Wyatt continued to grow, even Meng Shan’s deliberate attempts to overshadow him couldn’t prevent him from becoming a rising star in the military world.

Wyatt had it all: a family background with undeniable national influence, a record of distinguished service, the capability to join elite units, and a network of connections spanning every sector. For an average person, any one of these would be a lifelong dream; Wyatt possessed them all. Moreover, he had the ultimate advantage: youth. That year, Wyatt was only 22, with a vast future ahead of him. Even in his jealousy, Meng Shan had to admit that Wyatt’s future was destined to be brilliant.

But for every person who cheered for such a rising star, there were others who felt only unease.

In the seventh month of Wyatt’s tenure with the Warrior Squad, headquarters assigned Meng Shan their latest objective, just like any other day: infiltrate thirty kilometers behind enemy lines to hunt a superhuman operating within a forested belt.

Such missions were routine for the Warrior Squad. However, this time, the superiors issued a specific, private demand to Meng Shan: he was to station Wyatt alone in a designated sector and report the exact coordinates to headquarters in advance.

Previously, for reasons of operational security, Meng Shan had reached an agreement with his superiors: he could execute his plans without prior notification, provided he took full responsibility for the outcomes. Trusting his competence, the high command had never interfered. But now, their active demand for Wyatt’s location immediately triggered Meng Shan’s survival instincts.

After scrutinizing the target superhuman’s profile and the predicted AO (Area of Operations), Meng Shan reached a chilling conclusion. Someone in the high command of the New Common Federation wanted to use the Republic of Fudana’s hand to eliminate Wyatt.

The target possessed long-range psychic attacks, and the battlefield was a forest belt inaccessible to armored units. If the high command leaked Wyatt’s position, the superhuman would finish him in minutes. Meng Shan would then “clean up” the target afterward—a perfect case of murder by proxy.

Saving Wyatt would have been simple: Meng Shan could have lied about the coordinates or simply informed Wyatt’s father, the General.

But did he really want to stop it?

Meng Shan hesitated. The jealousy he had nurtured for months finally bore its bitter fruit. In that moment, his mind wasn’t filled with the brotherhood of the trenches they had shared; instead, he saw a vision of the future where a triumphant Wyatt replaced him, standing atop his shoulders. Even as his conscience warned him that he would regret this for the rest of his life, Meng Shan, after a grueling internal struggle, chose to obey the secret order and keep the General in the dark.

He told himself that only Wyatt would die. If things went sideways, he could just blame the superiors’ orders. Blinded by envy, Meng Shan’s judgment had decayed; he failed to realize how naive his reasoning truly was.

The final plan was meticulously arranged. Given Wyatt’s special status and Meng Shan’s history of “protecting” him, the squad members didn’t object. They assumed that because the enemy had unique psychic abilities, Meng Shan was moving Wyatt to a safe zone far from the main engagement. Only Wyatt requested to stay with the main group, but Meng Shan cited his “lack of experience,” and under pressure from the rest of the team, Wyatt eventually conceded.

Ran Jiu’yi spoke up: “Let me guess… Wyatt survived on his own?”

“In a way, but the reality was far more complex,” Meng Shan replied. “The foolish version of me back then failed to realize one thing: what if the target wasn’t just Wyatt, but the entire Warrior Squad?”

“What do you mean? You only gave them Wyatt’s location, right?”

“But do you think they’d go through all that trouble just to kill one boy? A human body is fragile; a bit of poison or a single bullet is enough.”

Regret washed over Meng Shan’s face. “Why go through the elaborate theater of a mission and collaborate with the enemy? The reason was simple: their goal wasn’t just one person. I should have seen it then—the government elites wanted to wipe out the Warrior Squad in its entirety. From the start, they never intended for us to survive the war.”

“Why?” Ran Jiu’yi asked. “Why wouldn’t they let you live?”

“Because if we survived, we would have claimed too large a slice of the pie. We might have expanded military influence to the point of a political reshuffle. To protect their own power, the high-ranking officials needed us dead.”

“But you survived, didn’t you?”

“We did. But the price was higher than I ever imagined.” Meng Shan sighed. “On the second day of the operation, while we were searching for the target, we lost contact with Wyatt.”

“The team spiraled into chaos. After months of fighting together, Wyatt was one of us. Because of his status, the squad split into two factions. Most wanted to move in for a rescue, or at least figure out what happened. A small minority argued it was a trap designed to lure us in.”

“When I first heard he was missing, I actually felt a secret surge of joy. I thought, finally, no one can replace me. But then I saw the genuine worry and anxiety on my teammates’ faces, and I felt sick. Absolutely revolted by myself.”

Meng Shan looked down at his hands. “What was I doing? Why was I happy? I had sold out a comrade who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me for months—not for a fortune, not for a bribe, but for pathetic jealousy and a thirst for status.”

“Amidst the arguing, it felt like waking from a nightmare. I began to reflect on what I had become over those few days. I realized I had turned into the very thing I hated most: a villain who betrays anything for personal gain. So, I made the only right decision I made during that entire period.”

Meng Shan looked at Ran Jiu’yi. “I declared the mission aborted. I ordered my second-in-command to lead the majority of the squad in a retreat. I took the two best specialists for emergency response and went to find Wyatt.”

Ran Jiu’yi was stunned. “You were serious? Three men against a superhuman backed by an army? That’s a suicide mission!”

“The squad said the same thing.” Meng Shan let out a bitter smile. “So I changed the plan on the spot: I would go find Wyatt alone. Everyone else was to retreat immediately.”

“…You really are reckless. You’re almost as crazy as I am.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t one.” Ran Jiu’yi rubbed her forehead. “What were you thinking? Did you have to go alone to die?”

“Yes. I wanted to die alone,” Meng Shan said seriously. “Wyatt’s situation was my responsibility. I had to fix the mistake, even if it cost me my life. And as it turned out, my choice was the right one.”

Using the prestige he had built over years, Meng Shan convinced his team to follow orders. He headed toward Wyatt’s last known coordinates alone.

Half a day later, arriving with the mindset of a dead man, he found not a corpse or a swarm of enemies, but Wyatt—alive, stripped of his gear, and tied up in an abandoned trench.

Meng Shan’s experience gave him the answer before the question could fully form. The enemy’s goal from the start hadn’t been to kill Wyatt; it was to use him to lure the rest of the squad.

He didn’t dare linger. He hoisted the unconscious Wyatt onto his back and sprinted toward the retreat path. He was profoundly grateful he had ordered the team away; if the enemy had extracted the full operational plan from Wyatt, they would have ambushed the Warrior Squad’s intended zone. There was still a chance to save everyone.

“Wait, why did the enemy leave Wyatt alive?”

“Because Wyatt was clearly sent there to die. By keeping him alive and sending him back in one piece, unarmed, he was useless to the war effort. But more importantly, if he returned alive, he could cause even more political chaos within the New Common Federation. It was a psychological play.”

“What a twisted way of thinking,” Ran Jiu’yi remarked. “You say you made the right decision, but looking at you now, the ending couldn’t have been good.”

“It was catastrophic. None of us expected Fudana to secretly mass six superhumans and their elite support units just to hunt us. Even worse, our comms were mysteriously jammed. We couldn’t call for air support or contact nearby allies.”

“We found out later that our ‘allied’ units in the area had retreated five kilometers, specifically to let the enemy seize the chokepoints and encircle us in the forest. The only stroke of luck was that the noble children weren’t on that mission. Though, I doubt they were ever the targets.”

Meng Shan sighed. “By the time I reunited with the squad, we were surrounded. After days of bloody fighting, we broke out. But by then, my twelve-man squad was reduced to four—including myself and Wyatt.”

“Can you imagine it? Comrades you’ve fought beside for years, people you shared the deepest bonds with, dead—all because of your own unspoken, pathetic jealousy. You have to live with that.”

Ran Jiu’yi reached out and patted his shoulder. “I understand. I’ve been in that terrible place too. When your own mistake is paid for with the lives of your friends.”

“Heh, true. It seems we’ve both committed irredeemable sins.” Meng Shan gave a pained smile. “But unfortunately, the nightmare didn’t end there.”

“The day after we made it back, Wyatt was found dead in his hospital room. There was a suicide note next to him. It claimed he killed himself out of the guilt of causing his teammates’ deaths. The investigators closed the case as a suicide. But we—the survivors—didn’t believe it for a second.”

“He wasn’t that fragile. He would never have killed himself. The only possibility was that someone assassinated him. But before we could even investigate, military police detained the three of us on charges of ‘unauthorized retreat’ during the operation.”

“By the time we fought our way through the red tape and got out, the tide had turned. Wyatt’s father, the powerful General, was dead. The Warrior Squad was dissolved and reformed into the ‘Warrior Battalion,’ led by a bunch of useless bureaucrats.”

“The official cause of Wyatt’s death was changed: it was framed as a suicide caused by my excessive pressure leading to his mental breakdown. My two remaining men and I were branded as incompetent failures and, just before the war ended, we were heartlessly tossed into the shadows.”