When Xu Chengfeng woke up the next day, he felt refreshed and invigorated, as if a weight had been lifted from his soul. But when he tried to savor the details of his conversation with He Rui from the previous evening, he found his memory fragmented and incomplete. Even the parts he could recall, he found impossible to string together into the same natural, inexorable train of logic that He Rui had demonstrated.

Xu Chengfeng hurriedly found Zhong Yifu, and the two tried to reconstruct the conversation together. Some parts they could piece together by sharing their respective recollections, but other parts had simply vanished from their minds. There were even sections where, despite both having listened to He Rui at the same time, their memories were mutually contradictory. Each was convinced the other had remembered it wrong.

After a period of heated debate, Xu Chengfeng was the first to back down. "Let's stop arguing."

Seeing the usually earnest Xu Chengfeng yield first, Zhong Yifu was surprised. Feeling he had been a bit too pedantic himself, he laughed. "You're right. There's no need for us to quarrel over an outsider."

As he spoke, Zhong Yifu felt his stomach rumble. Seeing the sun climbing toward noon, they realized they had been debating for quite a long time. Zhong Yifu stood up. "Come on, let's go eat. This afternoon we can check if there are any recruitment letters from the capital. Chengfeng, do you think we can get into the units of the old 6th Division?"

Xu Chengfeng shook his head. "I want to follow Regimental Commander He to the Northeast."

"What?" Zhong Yifu stared blankly for a moment before the words processed. "You... you actually want to go to *Guanwai*?"

Xu Chengfeng nodded, his delicate features set in a mask of calm. Zhong Yifu was his close friend and knew that this expression meant Xu Chengfeng had well and truly made up his mind.

***

Meanwhile, He Rui had finished interviewing the last cadet. Beside him, Instructor Zhou Guodong stretched lazily. "Commander He, it's noon. Shall we grab lunch together?"

"I'll be a bit later. I need to finalize the personnel list first."

"Don't be too late, Commander He. The cafeteria is only open for a short window."

He Rui couldn't afford to worry about lunch. He took out his prepared calculation sheets and began substituting the variables. Infantry, Engineering, Cavalry, Artillery—he ran the numbers for each branch. He factored in their exam scores and their interview ratings in various categories, applying weighted values for specific specializations...

After the initial calculation and two rounds of verification, he finally ranked the candidates by their final scores. Checking his pocket watch, he saw it was already 3:00 PM. Lunch was out of the question, but he still had time to find Zhou Yinshan.

Infantry: Cheng Ruofan. Engineering: Xu Jia. Cavalry: Zheng Silang. Artillery: Hu Xiushan. These four were his primary selections.

He would talk to them one more time. As long as these four made a firm commitment to go to the Northeast with him, he would submit the list and prepare for departure.

He hurried to the Personnel Section. Zhou Yinshan glanced at the four names on the list. "Brother He, have you been poaching students behind my back?"

"What do you mean by 'behind your back'?"

Zhou Yinshan had witnessed He Rui's performance in Japan. Whenever Japanese classmates asked for his views, He Rui never hid his opinions. Although He Rui always answered calmly and unhurriedly, his Japanese peers often became emotional—even flustered and exasperated—due to the intense clash of their fundamental ideas.

They say it's easier to change a river's course than a man's nature. Although four years had passed, He Rui likely hadn't changed a bit. But precisely because of this, Zhou Yinshan felt He Rui probably didn't even realize what "poaching students" implied, so he asked directly, "Brother He, what exactly did you say to Xu Chengfeng and Zhong Yifu?"

These two names weren't on his list, yet He Rui felt he should have recognized them. He thought for a moment, then pulled out his notebook and flipped through the pages. "Oh. I met them. The two of them came to find me, and we chatted for a while. Brother Zhou, please process these four first. As soon as the Personnel Section clears them, I need to see them for a final confirmation."

Hearing that He Rui was in such a rush to complete the recruitment, Zhou Yinshan set aside the matter of the two top cadets for a moment and asked about the task at hand. "You've already put them through three rounds of testing. Why the need to confirm again?"

"Brother Zhou, young people are impulsive; it's easy for them to make a decision in the heat of the moment. I welcome their enthusiasm, which is exactly why I must ensure they understand the difficulties that lie ahead. Before leaving the pass, they will inevitably have concerns. I want to clear up any lingering doubts with everyone together."

Compared to two Grade-A honor students, Zhou Yinshan didn't particularly care about four Grade-C students. Having worked in the Personnel Section for two years, he had seen plenty of bureaucratic messes. The army was a place where subordinates followed their superior's lead. Given how sharp and efficient He Rui was, and the potential Xu Chengfeng and Zhong Yifu had already displayed, their future was truly promising.

However, cadets from the Baoding Military Academy were usually in high demand. Other units were always begging the Personnel Section to help persuade students to join them. Since when did the Personnel Section have to beg a unit to take the academy's top graduates?

But thinking of those two excellent cadets, and having seen He Rui's diligence with his own eyes, Zhou Yinshan still said, "Brother He, those two cadets came to see me earlier. They want to follow you."

"Is Brother Zhou trying to force extra personnel on me?"

Zhou Yinshan was so exasperated he laughed, letting out a cold snort. "Heh. Brother He, your temper has certainly grown since Japan."

He Rui shook his head. "Brother Zhou misunderstands. These four students were selected through an rigorous process; I cannot simply abandon them. The students you recommend are surely excellent in character and learning, and I am willing to assess them. If they pass the interview, I'll have to ask you to add two more slots to my quota."

Before Zhou Yinshan could reply, Xu Chengfeng and Zhong Yifu, who had been in the adjacent room, couldn't help but walk out. Xu Chengfeng pleaded, "Instructor Zhou, we still have six months of our internship remaining. Please, give us a chance."

Zhou Yinshan remained silent. Between units recruiting and cadets graduating, the routine work was full of such twists and turns. Giving He Rui two extra slots wasn't an especially difficult matter.

After thinking it over, Zhou Yinshan led He Rui into a quiet room and asked in a low voice, "Brother He, we spent years in Japan and we both understand Japan's national strategy. You are so meticulously prepared; I assume you intend to do something significant in the Northeast. If these children follow you, they will certainly be walking into mortal danger. I only ask you one thing: Why must you go to the Northeast to contend with the Japanese?"

He Rui answered frankly, "Brother Zhou, Japan’s ambition toward China will never extinguish itself. Given the current state of the Beiyang government, no one else can stand in their way. But if I can establish even the most rudimentary industrial base in the Northeast, I can dismantle their ambitions the moment they stir. I will let them know that their designs on Manchuria and Mongolia are nothing but a fool’s errand, sparing China immeasurable grief. If I do not go to the Northeast, I may achieve much elsewhere, but when the invasion comes, I would be powerless to stop it."

Zhou Yinshan's thoughts were a chaotic mix. He remained silent for a long while before finally speaking. "Your exam papers are here. There are two copies left. Test them."

Since they were honor students, He Rui didn't bother proctoring them. He let Xu Chengfeng and Zhong Yifu take the exam on their own while he went to interview the previously selected candidates.

Everyone wanted top-tier talent, but in He Rui's definition of excellence, "political reliability" was the primary factor. A lack of knowledge could be remedied through study, but if one was politically unreliable, it would take a vast amount of brutal reality to even potentially shift their stance—and the odds of that were never high.

In a core team, having people from powerful backgrounds—or even those who merely sympathized with the landlord gentry—would create catastrophic problems for future work. He Rui had painstakingly designed so many seemingly biased questions and conducted these one-on-one interviews precisely to ensure his selected personnel were as politically reliable as possible.