The Phoenix Sings, the Phoenix Awakens

When Chen Xiao woke, he heard artillery fire and saw his comrades lying in pools of blood.

Something called the System had bound itself to his soul.

Its task was simple: gather heroic spirits and help them reincarnate.

In his dreams, the System let him hear the "echoes" of fallen soldiers.

When he was desperate, it used the power of those "heroic spirits" to show him a glimmer of hope.

Chen Xiao thought he was just a chosen "keeper of the graves."

He traveled from the snowy plains of the Northeast to the plains of North China, then to the waterside towns of Jiangnan.

He watched familiar faces turn into cold serial numbers, one after another, as the System chimed: Rescuer No. 1, No. 2, No. 3... all the way to No. 3,000.

Only when the war ended did he understand that the System wasn't collecting data, but the most unyielding souls on this land.

Those souls had long since become one with him, waiting for peace to arrive so they could complete their final act of "martyrdom": dissolving themselves into this land.