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Long Zhan and Murphy's Bravo Team boarded a C-17 Globemaster III and took off overnight from Virginia's Bay Island Airport on the U.S. East Coast, making a refueling stop in Liberia en route.

They arrived in the Middle East, within Afghanistan's Kunar Province, at the Bagram Air Base—an airbase constructed by the U.S. military—on the morning of the third day.

Flying for more than 30 hours on a transport aircraft was nothing short of torturous for anyone aboard.

Fortunately, such a long journey also brought some conveniences.

It gave Long Zhan ample quiet time to think. Drawing on the few fragmented memories he had left, he came up with several potential ways to crack the disaster that was Operation Red Wing.

Whether these ideas would actually work, however, depended half on uncontrollable factors like timing and environment.

Long Zhan could not predict any of that.

After devising his countermeasures, he spent the remaining nearly 20 hours trying to improve the chances of success for his plan while killing time.

He relied on his natural social skills to connect with Murphy's Bravo Team.

He hosted lighthearted poker games, personally organized rifle and pistol disassembly competitions, and even staged games like throwing bullets into tin cans from three meters away.

These simple games, which were more fun with more players, quickly integrated him into Murphy's Bravo Team.

Male friendships were simpler than female ones. Among men in the military, camaraderie was even purer. If you could play together, you were brothers.

Long Zhan kept coming up with ways to liven things up, turning the boring time into fun.

Blending into a group was never that easy.

Thanks to Long Zhan's efforts, by the time they disembarked, he and Murphy's Bravo Team, strangers at the start of the flight, were already arm-in-arm.

Especially the rookie, Sean, who had lost to Long Zhan in bullet throwing, gun assembly, and hand-to-hand combat wrestling. Sean was now completely won over.

He didn't exactly become Long Zhan's little fanboy, but he was filled with respect and admiration.

Marcus, Murphy, and the other Navy SEAL veterans no longer doubted Long Zhan's abilities after seeing his impressive performances in various games.

They fully accepted Long Zhan as an ally—one of their own.

...

Long Zhan and Murphy's Bravo Team stepped off the plane and were immediately greeted and escorted to the Navy SEAL camp.

Every U.S. airport in Afghanistan was essentially a military base.

These airfields didn't just serve for aircraft takeoff and landing, but were global deployment hubs for the U.S. military, functioning as comprehensive military transit centers. Each airport covered tens of thousands of square meters of military barracks.

The Marine Corps, Navy SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) all lived together here, cooperating without interference.

The Navy SEALs had their own camp on site, but Long Zhan and Murphy's Bravo Team were not sent there. Instead, they were taken to an independent compound.

A temporary operational command center set up specifically for this special reconnaissance mission.

Though the name sounded prestigious, it was actually just a few large military tents and several single-story wooden buildings.

Purely utilitarian, with no flashy decorations.

One wooden cabin of about 30 square meters became the dormitory for Long Zhan and Murphy's Bravo Team.

Nine tough men crammed into this small space—hardly comfortable, even bordering on cramped.

Fortunately, each bed was separated by wooden partitions, creating small single rooms with doors.

It was very much like the private cubicles of a 10-year-old internet café.

Compared to the open sleeping quarters during Green Team training, Long Zhan was quite satisfied with these dorm conditions. At least he didn't have to worry about "man on man" situations at night.

Regarding when the mission would begin, Murphy, as the team leader, went to ask the person in charge.

The answer was frustrating—

Mission timing was undecided; they just had to wait for notice.

"Urgently called in personnel, yet the preliminary preparations were far from complete. The efficiency was worlds apart from DEVGRU's (United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group) standards. No wonder this mission ended in disaster, marking the darkest day in Navy SEAL history."

After hearing the indefinite timing, Long Zhan couldn't help but rant silently in his mind.

Operation Red Wing, though complicated by the appearance of three "Shepherds"—the unpredictable natural disasters that broke the plan—at its core, the failure was due to inadequate preliminary preparation.

At least in intelligence gathering, that was the biggest failure.

For example:

Murphy's Bravo Team arrived at their planned covert position, only to find the forest had been completely cleared, forcing a last-minute change of hiding place.

The replacement spot, as luck would have it, was exactly where the Shepherds were grazing.

If the preparatory work had been done properly, such as sending a drone or satellite over the intended hideout before the operation to take aerial photos,

and then employing an image analyst to run big data comparisons,

this tragedy might have been avoided.

Long Zhan could see all the problems and loopholes in the operation clearly thanks to his "God's Eye" ability, and he knew how to avoid them.

But only he knew.

He could not say anything.

If he spoke up, no one would believe him, dismissing him as crazy.

Or worse, they might suspect him and launch an investigation.

After all, no matter how skilled Long Zhan was, he was still a low-ranking soldier with no decision-making authority.

Aside from preparing crisis response plans ahead of time, the only other thing Long Zhan could do was to prepare as thoroughly as possible before the mission.

In the original plan, incidents like the plastic helmet fiasco absolutely could not happen to him.

Armor, equipment, weapons, communications...

Everything useful in combat, he would bring as much as possible, making his gear as fail-safe as he could.

But how to obtain all this equipment was a big problem.

Having come from the Navy SEALs, Long Zhan knew SEALs were nowhere near as well-resourced as DEVGRU. Getting what you wanted wasn't as simple as just asking.

Back when he wanted a pair of wide-angle binoculars, he had to buy them out of his own pocket.

You can imagine how frustrating that was.

...