Chapter 261: Do You Want to Join Us?

Chapter 261: Will You Join Us?

A carefully laid ambush and a completely unprepared counter‑ambush cannot be said to be unrelated; they are worlds apart.

After pinpointing the position of Jin Zhong’s Guard Brigade, Chen Jian first selected the ambush site, then ordered drones to scatter a multitude of small lime‑based heat sources around it as bait.

He then pre‑installed 14.5‑mm anti‑aircraft machine guns, paired with two 12.7‑mm heavy machine guns mounted on the cat‑car, several 201 rifles, and the shielded close‑defense cannon on the Mengshi vehicle, forging an airtight circular defensive line.

When Jin Zhong’s Guard Brigade arrived at the designated ambush point, he immediately instructed his accompanying troops to fire deliberately, exposing their positions and drawing every nearby mantis monster toward the trap.

At that moment, the mantises—no longer under the command of higher‑ranked monsters—still possessed a modicum of intelligence, even exploiting night and jungle cover to execute remarkably precise small‑scale attacks; yet the moment a single foot stepped into the snare, the battle was already lost.

Chen Jian carefully modulated the tempo of the fight, using the ever‑vanishing baiting heat sources to create the illusion that the enemy numbers were steadily dwindling.

The beleaguered monsters misread the nature of the conflict entirely; they were like fish that had swallowed a hook, believing that a little more effort would drag the fisherman on the riverbank beneath the water.

But clearly, all that struggle was nothing more than a game of winding and unwinding the line.

When the amassed monsters finally exhausted the kinetic energy they had gathered, the moment of counter‑offensive arrived.

Nearly a hundred Guard soldiers, together with a dozen or so Hua‑Xia troops, surged forward to meet the monsters still pressing ahead.

At that point, Chen Jian no longer deliberately suppressed his own side’s fire density.

When the close‑defense cannon and the muzzle flashes of the heavy machine guns illuminated the night sky over the southwest side of Jingkou City, the monsters’ angry roars turned into cries of terror.

The gunfire ceased entirely in less than ten minutes, and the slope before Chen Jian was littered with the corpses of no fewer than two hundred monsters.

Jin Zhong stared numbly at the Hua‑Xia soldiers clearing the battlefield, methodically picking off the monsters one by one; his eyes were filled with a bewilderment deeper than any shock.

He could not fathom how these people had accomplished such a feat.

The Hua‑Xia army faced hundreds of monsters, while they numbered only a dozen men.

Yet they acted with such unhurried composure, as if they were not there to fight but merely to go target practice or on a leisurely outing.

Was it a matter of firepower?

Perhaps not.

The Hua‑Xia forces truly revealed their fangs and unrivaled firepower only in the final ten minutes of the battle.

Before that, they deliberately avoided excessive heavy fire, opting instead for point‑shots and precise fire to intercept the monsters.

Such firepower, compared to the might of the nearly hundred Guard soldiers at his disposal, seemed no different.

So why could they hold back the monsters while his own troops could not?

Jin Zhong’s mind was a tangled mess.

Instinctively, he walked toward Chen Jian, removed his helmet, and said:

“Sir, thank you for stepping in to help.”

“It was nothing.”

Chen Jian waved his hand and then asked:

“What are your casualty figures? Do you need to retreat to the new city for rest and aid?”

“If possible, that would be best.”

Jin Zhong was not pretentious; he bowed gratefully to Chen Jian and said:

“My brothers and I will remember the kindness of the Hua‑Xia army.”

“There’s no need for that—just allies helping each other.”

Chen Jian replied offhand, while Jin Zhong declared resolutely:

“We will repay you.”

“How will you repay us?”

Chen Jian chuckled, shook his head, and continued:

“Do you possess anything we need? Or perhaps you intend to bring your men over to defect and join the Hua‑Xia army?”

His words left Jin Zhong momentarily stunned; he gave an awkward smile and clumsily changed the subject:

“Sir, your jest is noted, but fighting side by side again today truly showed us the unrivaled strength of the Hua‑Xia army.”

“A mere handful of ten‑something men managing to annihilate a horde of monsters left a deep impression.”

“It was no great feat.”

Chen Jian shrugged and answered:

“As I said, we have already discerned the monsters’ habits and tactics.”

“They possess intelligence, but their cleverness is limited.”

“We merely exploited their sensitivity to heat, setting a modest trap.”

“Of course, I do not deny that your Guard Brigade was also part of the bait.”

“Had you not been there, even if we drove the monsters away, we could not have achieved such a massive result.”

With those words spoken, Jin Zhong felt as if a thorn had been driven into his heart.

He understood perfectly what Chen Jian meant.

It was not that the Guard Brigade was so weak it became bait for the Hua‑Xia army on the spot.

Rather, even in the monsters’ eyes, the Guard Brigade was so feeble that it had to serve as bait.

That realization cut deeper than the faint hint of “disdain” in Chen Jian’s words, for it was an undeniable fact.

—

But if it is a fact, what is there to argue about?

Jin Zhong inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and, with a hint of relief in his expression, said:

“We are indeed not on par with the Hua‑Xia army.”

“To be precise, the gap is vast.”

“That disparity is so great that I cannot even fathom how you accomplish it.”

“With limited firepower and manpower, you have produced results we could not even dare to imagine.”

“This is no longer a matter of ‘equipment disparity’; you—”

“It is certainly not an equipment issue.”

Chen Jian cut Jin Zhong off and said:

“It is not even a tactical gap; it is a systemic one.”

At that point, Chen Jian casually took a 191 rifle from the hands of Huang Meng nearby, handed it to Jin Zhong, and asked:

“If you were to use this gun, how many rounds would you need to kill a single mantis monster?”

Jin Zhong blinked, probing, “Perhaps ten, maybe twenty?”

“Wrong.”

Chen Jian shook his head and replied:

Chen Jian shook his head and replied:

“One shot frightens and halts, three shots cripple, five shots guarantee death—no matter where they strike.”

“When struck by a single bullet, the creature is terrified by the wound that pierces its flesh, its composure shatters; it loses its target, forgets the strategies prearranged with its kin, and panics, exposing a vast swath of vulnerability.”

“Hit by three shots, the monster inevitably becomes disabled; it may still move, may still attack, but its motions grow sluggish and its aim falters.”

“Struck by five shots, it will surely die within ten seconds, regardless of whether it was still moving at the moment of impact.”

“Thus, we limit the bullets we project onto a single monster to five.”

“If more, perhaps ten may be fired, but it will never exceed fifteen.”

“Now the question arises: with the weapons you wield, with your so‑called ‘Conqueror’ volley gun, how many rounds must be spent to slay a monster?”

At that point, Jin Zhong felt a vague comprehension dawning of what Chen Jian was trying to convey.

He pondered briefly, furrowed his brow, and replied:

“Fifty rounds, perhaps sixty?”

“So, is this still a matter of equipment disparity?”

“No.”

A mischievous smile curled at Chen Jian’s mouth.

He spoke:

“It is still five.”

“Moreover, because your ammunition is of larger caliber and its trajectory less stable, at close range your weapons’ stopping power exceeds ours, and their lethality is greater.”

“But why did you arrive at the judgment of fifty or sixty rounds?”

“Because you lack confidence.”

“Because you all lack confidence.”

“You do not trust the weapons already so vastly different in your hands, nor do you truly trust your comrades.”

“Thus, as long as you see the monster still moving, you recklessly keep pouring bullets into the same target.”

“It is an enormous waste.”

“On the surface, it appears to be a battlefield resource‑management issue.”

“Yet at its core it is a systemic problem that can never be resolved.”

“Without a system, you cannot forge standardized tactics.”

“That is the difference between you and us—understood?”

When the words fell, Jin Zhong instinctively widened his eyes.

Chen Jian’s words struck him like a revelation, causing the hair on his body to stand on end in an instant.

Systematization, standardization.

Those two words echoed endlessly in his mind, and in a daze he realized that all his prior efforts to boost combat effectiveness were nothing but castles in the air.

And at that moment Chen Jian had not yet closed the mouth that spat out knives.

He continued:

“So do you understand why, in some regions, the Guard of the Faith still retains line infantry?”

“Because at your level, that truly is the best solution to the battlefield resource‑management problem.”

“In a sense, your elite guard regiment may even be inferior to those line infantry units.”

“When the sentence ended, Jin Zhong was left utterly stunned.”

He stared into Chen Jian’s eyes, yearning to speak, yet he could not find the words.

After a long, heavy silence, he finally opened his mouth, trembling.

“So… can this problem be solved?”

“Cannot.”

Chen Jian laughed heartily and replied:

“You have no backing; how can you have confidence?”

“Our training program is scientific, our gear standardized, we have close‑range cannons, we have 14.5 mm high‑rate machine guns as a safety net—do you?”

“Stop kidding.”

“To solve this problem, there is only one way.”

“Join us.”

“What do you say—will you join?”

(End of Chapter)