A gruffy, bearded older man opened the front door and walked in. After closing the door, he took off his shoes, hung his coat on the rack, put on his slippers, and headed to the living room.
As he neared the living room, he heard a girl and a boy laughing, along with some electronic blips.
Walking into the room, he saw Qingfeng and Baixue sitting on the living room floor, fiddling with game controllers. The holo-screen showed a fighting game. It looked like they were currently on even footing.
Hearing someone walking into the living room, Qingfeng turned his head and saw the man with the beard.
"Uncle Fei!" Qingfeng exclaimed with a smile.
Immediately after, a series of consecutive sounds came from the holo-screen. Qingfeng whipped his head back to the screen and saw his character getting beaten.
"Aw, c'mon. Your dad is back; shouldn't that mean a truce?" Qingfeng complained while he frantically mashed the buttons on his controller.
Baixue, with a light chuckle, said,
"What truce, I'm not pausing just because YOU got distracted."
"Damn you."
As the two focused on the screen, their fingers rapidly twitching on the controller, Uncle Fei walked over to the couch behind them and sat down.
Watching the kids mess around, Uncle Fei found a slight grin slowly growing on his face.
After a while, despite Qingfeng's efforts, the lead Baixue had on Qingfeng due to his being distracted by Uncle Fei coming home had cost him the game.
Staring at the [Game Over] on his side of the screen in contrast to the [Victory] on her side, Qingfeng let out a sigh and placed his controller on the coffee table behind them.
"Good game."
At that, Baixue giggled, then she turned around to address Uncle Fei.
"Welcome home, Dad. How was work?"
Uncle Fei smiled at Baixue as he said,
"Good, Good. You kids wanted me to sign something, right? Let me see it."
Baixue and Qingfeng quickly handed the permission slip over to him.
Uncle Fei took the documents and slowly read it over. After a couple of minutes, he grabbed a pen from his breast pocket and signed both documents.
"Ok, that should be it. Qing zi, since you are going on the trip, make sure to inform little Hong of it.
"She will be coming over to our home for dinner for those few days."
At that, Tian Qingfeng replied,
"Got it, Uncle Fei."
Uncle Fei then added,
"Oh, and to make it easier for you guys to come over, I will reopen the connecting passage between our houses. That should make it easier for you guys to come and go."
"Speaking of the passage, why is there a passage connecting our houses?" Qingfeng asked
Uncle Fei, with a surprised expression, said,
"Did your parents not tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
Uncle Fei seemed slightly surprised, but then he seemed as if he understood.
"It's not that big of a secret; maybe they thought it wasn't worth explaining.
"The passage between our houses was built because of your parents' jobs."
Qingfeng became even more confused.
"Their jobs? Didn't they only have office jobs in the government?"
"They did have office jobs. They were researchers. Specifically, they were Spirit Rune researchers in the technology division."
Uncle Fei continued, "Because they were doing such important research, and because we were right next to you guys, I was assigned to protect them.
"That was two years after they were hired. Unfortunately, I was reassigned to the border walls 6 years later, right before the incident."
Saying that, Uncle Fei had a sad expression on his face.
Sensing the somber mood, Baixue skipped ahead towards the door. Reaching the door, she called out to the two of them as she struggled to turn the door mechanism.
"Hey, are you two going to mope around all day, or are you going to help me?"
At that, both of them snapped out of their depressive episode and hurried over to help.
Turning the mechanism, they slid the metal door into the wall and locked it in place. Walking to the other end of the tunnel, they unlocked the other door and did the same.
"Alright, now that the tunnel is open, you guys can travel back and forth without leaving the house," said Uncle Fei. "You guys should join us for dinner today."
Qingfeng agreed to the offer.
When Tian Hongxian got home, Qingfeng told her about the trip and tonight's dinner plans.
Hongxian nodded in acknowledgement and then proceeded to head over to Baixue's house excitedly. Qingfeng assumed that she was heading over to play with Fei Lanhua, Baixue's younger sister.
…
A week later, Tian Qingfeng, Fei Baixue, Chen Zhiyu, Lu Tai, Su Ling, Yu Ling, Fu Lihua, Wu Haoran, and the rest of the class were lined up near the city gates with Class 2.
Teacher Su and the class 2 Teacher, along with four other teachers, stood in front. Teacher Su started speaking.
"Alright, standard federation-issued combat armor will be distributed in a moment. Our hunting grounds this time will be the plains to the west of the city. Stick together, and do not stray from the group. Do you understand!"
"Yes," Both classes proclaimed in unison.
"Alright, go grab your gear."
Both classes headed behind where the teachers stood to the tables that were set up. The people there started to distribute a metal briefcase.
Walking up, Tian Qingfeng received a briefcase. As he picked up the briefcase, the weight of the metal briefcase and how nonchalantly the soldier handed it over to him caused him to stumble a bit as the briefcase's heavy weight made him lose his balance.
Looking at the briefcase, it had a silver metallic sheen with cyan blue lines on the edges. On one side of the briefcase was a screen.
Tian Qingfeng brought the briefcase over to where his classmates stood. Following the training they had over this past week, he dropped his backpack on the floor, placed the briefcase on the ground, and deftly planted both palms on the screen.