The early summer air in West Mountain was thick with a stifling, humid heat.
At five in the afternoon, the sun was already hanging at a slant along the ridgeline on the western side.
The orange-red fireball was slowly sinking behind the mountains.
Sunlight hit the outer rings of barbed wire, casting long and short twisted shadows.
The sun might have shifted west, but all the heat baked up through the afternoon was still firmly locked onto the uneven concrete drill ground of the B3 Defense Zone.
A few rows of dark green military trucks were parked along the edge of the field.
Fang Cheng bent his legs and sat on a concrete bollard beside one of the trucks.
He leaned his back against a twenty-kilo army-green field tactical rucksack, his hands resting casually on his knees.
His gaze passed over the crowd surging in front and fell on the deep mountains in the distance, sealed off by an iron curtain.
