When Jun An taught everyone to write, to put it bluntly, he was just taking advantage of the fact that he was older and had some education to trick the children in Cocolia's Orphanage, who barely recognized any words, into signing slave contracts.
He even holed himself up in his room for an entire afternoon just to write out a dozen or so of these slave contracts.
By the time Bronya discovered what had happened, almost all the children in the orphanage had signed one.
However, Sin Mal eventually found out. Jun An had forgotten at the time that Sin Mal was from a noble family before the Second Honkai Eruption and had read some books.
Later, Sin Mal secretly told Cocolia about it, earning herself a beating.
Clearly, Jun An didn't learn his lesson.
Afterwards, he turned around and, holding a grudge, started bullying Sin Mal, the tomboy who liked to tattle, bringing a short period of peace to Cocolia's Orphanage.
Bronya recounted many things about the Captain: deliberately manipulating scores to gain an advantage, tricking little girls into signing slave contracts, falsely accusing others in front of Cocolia, secretly dumping food he didn't like into Bronya's bowl, taking advantage of the girls...
Bronya rubbed her forehead wearily. She was supposed to be reminiscing, but recalling these things truly stirred up complex emotions.
"But in the end, he always knew his limits. Apart from people, he never hurt anything else. At most, he'd just get a beating."
Alexandra, seeing her daughter's frequently changing expressions, couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Although Bronya complained verbally, Alexandra knew there was no anger or other negative emotions in her daughter's eyes.
"And what happened after that?" Alexandra continued to ask, offering a glass of milky white liquid.
Undoubtedly, this was mother's own milk. When the Captain brought Alexandra back, she was at a point in the timeline where she had just given birth to Bronya. Her milk supply was abundant, even a bit excessive due to her constitution.
So, from time to time, Bronya had to help digest some of it.
Bronya glanced at it, a hint of reluctance in her eyes.
But looking at her mother's excellent, ample genes, she decided that being picky wasn't good, and mother's milk was quite nutritious. She should properly supplement the nutrients she missed during her childhood. So, she gulped it down in one go.
"—Later, he disappeared."
Bronya wiped her mouth, her eyes dimming somewhat. "Mama Cocolia, with Anti-Entropy's support, became a figurehead in Siberia. But at that time, the situation in Siberia was turbulent. Everyone was dissatisfied with Mama Cocolia, a woman, being in charge. So, they devised a plan to lure the tiger away from the mountain and attacked the orphanage."
After the Second Honkai Eruption, Siberia was almost completely destroyed. The government was weak and ineffective, its role almost nonexistent.
It was precisely because of such turmoil that child soldiers like Bronya appeared, forced to eke out a living with that uncle in a mercenary group at such a young age.
Thanks to Bronya's Honkai energy resistance, even though she didn't understand it back then, she could make preliminary use of it. Her physical strength was better than many adults, so she wasn't just a freeloader.
Later, the gang her uncle belonged to was wiped out due to gang warfare. Bronya escaped and became the "Silver Wolf of the Urals," taking on jobs whenever she was about to starve, in exchange for a few loaves of bread.
It wasn't until Bronya accepted the mission to assassinate that old fox of Siberia that her life took a new turn.
Even though Cocolia's Honkai resistance was inferior to Bronya's, her application of Honkai energy was far superior. Thus, after just a few moves, Bronya was brought back to Cocolia's Orphanage.
Later, Bronya learned from Jun An that the mission she had accepted to assassinate Cocolia was a commission issued by Cocolia's rival forces.
And then came life in Cocolia's Orphanage.
Besides Jun An constantly training her under the guise of bullying, enemy mercenaries would occasionally come to probe, but they would also be repelled by Jun An.
Until one time, Seele was accidentally captured. Although Jun An ultimately rescued Seele and informed Bronya of the reason for Seele's capture.
Because the children of the orphanage had all survived the baptism of the Second Honkai Eruption, most of them were individuals with extremely high Honkai energy resistance, making them highly suitable for being cultivated into Schicksal Valkyrie-like weapons.
In the surface world where Honkai energy was still almost entirely controlled by Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and World Serpent, controlling a Valkyrie or a mech was a major weapon, enough to significantly elevate the status of any gang.
And a Valkyrie's upkeep was just a bowl of rice a day, much cheaper than a mech's Honkai energy crystals.
It was at that time that Bronya first heard the keyword "Gray Serpent," but being young and inexperienced, she didn't understand its meaning.
Of course, even if Bronya couldn't see the whole picture, she knew Jun An genuinely treated everyone in the orphanage as family.
—For the first time, Bronya had a new, improved view of this brother who loved to bully her.
And later, after Mama Cocolia learned about this, she was restless for a day and a night, and then began to initiate the human experimentation plan.
Brother Jun An said that Mama Cocolia was worried similar incidents would happen again and hoped everyone could, like Brother Jun An, at least have the ability to protect themselves.
Jun An and Mama Cocolia had a fight in the laboratory; that fight was very intense.
Bronya only listened from outside the laboratory door. She didn't understand back then why Brother Jun An, so small, dared to challenge an adult.
And why did Mama Cocolia need to talk so much to a "child"?
It wasn't until Bronya understood the meaning of "human experimentation" that she realized Mama Cocolia and Brother Jun An both carried the weight of everyone in Cocolia's Orphanage on their shoulders.
This was Bronya's second revised view of her brother.
The plan to arm the children of Cocolia's Orphanage through human experimentation was thus dropped.
But no matter what, Brother Jun An ultimately won. Even though mother and son still had an unspoken understanding about that matter, Bronya no longer said much.
It was as if that fight had never happened.
And precisely because that experiment was gone, life in Cocolia's Orphanage could finally divert some funds to improve their impoverished living conditions.
Later, they also lived a period of peaceful days.
Then, Cocolia was summoned by several local gang leaders managing Siberia for a discussion.
Luring the tiger away from the mountain.
The night Cocolia left, a mech unit came to launch a surprise attack, either coveting the children of Cocolia's Orphanage or wanting to seize an opportunity to grab hold of Cocolia's weakness and kick her off Siberia's political stage.
Even though Cocolia had left several mechs for Sin Mal and Bronya, the two children, both under twelve, despite being exceptionally talented, lacked experience.
Bronya even broke both her legs because of this incident and couldn't help at all.
In the end, it was Brother Jun An who covered the retreat for the children of Cocolia's Orphanage. Although he wasn't the oldest child in the orphanage, he was the strongest.
"It's up to you from now on."
Brother Jun An left these words, calm yet helpless, and then threw everyone into a tunnel.
Then he had the children hide quickly and wait for Cocolia's rescue, while he took responsibility for luring those people away.
The next day, both the mechs and Jun An were gone.
Looking at the traces of Jun An's battle with the mech unit, Bronya, who had long been accustomed to death, understood the true meaning of death for the first time.
Later, Cocolia cleaned up all of Siberia. Because of this, she transformed from an ordinary Anti-Entropy member into Anti-Entropy's figurehead in Siberia and the leader of the radical faction.
And later, when she met her brother again, he appeared as Mei's little follower.
Upon meeting, he kept saying he wanted to live off Mei, this young lady of ME Corp, which completely stunned Bronya, his younger sister.
Bronya had only ever had some understanding of her brother's bottom line, but she had never once been able to keep up with his train of thought.
Yes, not even once.
That included after the battle with Kevin, when Bronya failed to grasp Jun An's hand as he resolutely went to his death.
"That foolish brother."
Bronya bit her lip again, but this time it wasn't due to previous humiliation, but purely out of regret.
If I had noticed earlier what Brother wanted to do, could I have taken his place, flown into the sky, and shielded him, shielded the Earth, from that world-ending blow?
The young girl's face was haggard, her light gray eyes slightly reddened. The way she bit her lip made one want to cherish her.
But the strong girl still didn't cry in front of her biological mother, yet Alexandra's heart couldn't help but twist.
Alexandra wanted to offer comfort but didn't know where to begin. She could only rise slightly to give her daughter a timely shoulder to lean on.
Just then, a notification sound chimed on Bronya's computer. It was the notification tone Bronya had set for important messages.
Bronya disliked work, so work notifications were usually on vibrate mode. A notification tone meant it was a message from someone very important.
Bronya composed herself. She didn't want Seele or Mei to worry, or Kiana to laugh at her.
However, after seeing clearly who the message was from, her large eyes instantly widened, her entire gaze filled with disbelief.
It was an avatar that hadn't lit up for a whole year: a stick-figure drawing of a little boy wearing a hat. The little boy wore an air force cap, and on the cap was a large character: "Ship."
————
Ten minutes ago.
Elsewhere.
Jun An was editing a text message on his phone. One hand supported Little Griseo's head, correcting her bad habit of mumbling when she spoke, while the other hand edited the message for Bronya.