Volume 1: Sudden Battlefield Chapter 5

  Mosquitoes fly everywhere, ants and stink bugs crawl all over the ground, and sometimes you can even see one or two snakes...

  This is the first night I've arrived in this time and space. Although the battle during the day has made me extremely tired, I still can't fall asleep in such an environment.

  Can't even let people live?! I waved my hand around the empty space in frustration, but the mosquitoes in the darkness seemed to not care at all, still making that terrifying and helpless buzzing sound next to my eardrums. At this point, I'd rather be facing enemy bayonets and bullets than these unstoppable mosquitoes.

  "Here!" I don't know when, a handsome warrior crawled beside me and handed me a bottle of something.

  "What's this?" I was a bit surprised, mainly because these soldiers didn't usually pay much attention to me.

  " Mosquito oil!" The warrior waved his hand at me.

  " Mosquito oil?" I took over this bottle with some confusion, I have to admit that I had never heard of mosquito oil before, let alone used it...

  Under the insistence of young warriors, I hesitated to open the bottle cap and applied the smelly stuff all over my face and hands... If it were in the past, I would rather die than apply such a stinky thing on my face. But now, after experiencing the killing fields and tasting life and death, what else can't be done?

  It's not bad, this strange stuff actually has some use, and the mosquitoes really did decrease in number. Of course, if you say it can completely drive away mosquitoes, that's a lie - at least, the mosquito repellent that can drive away Vietnam's thumb-sized mosquitoes hasn't been produced yet.

  "Thanks!" I nodded at the warrior.

  "What's with the politeness?" The warrior smiled and stretched out his hand to introduce himself, "My name is Xu Guoliang, comrades call me 'The Bookworm'!"

  "A bookworm?" I was taken aback by his words, who introduces themselves like that?

  "Bookworm is a high school student!" A lively little stone chimed in, "Our squad's highest educational background belongs to him! In the whole regiment, there are only two or three..."

  "Alas! What's that worth?" The bookworm looked a bit embarrassed, and if it weren't for the darkness, I think he would have been so excited his face would have turned red.

  I scratched my head and thought to myself, "If I tell them I'm an undergraduate, wouldn't that be impressive?" Although the only thing I seemed to have learned in college was how to pick up girls.

  It wasn't until later that I found out the family conditions of this bookworm were very good, his father was a factory director and his mother was a town government official. He could have originally relied on his parents to get an iron rice bowl at home, but he insisted on going to the battlefield to make contributions to the country, even if it meant having a falling out with his parents.

  "Comrade!" The bookworm handed me a cigarette: "We were all somewhat mistaken about you..."

  "Wrongly accusing me?" I took over the cigarette with some confusion.

  "Really!" The bookworm nodded: "Originally we all thought you were a coward, didn't expect... your performance on the battlefield was so brave!"

  The bookworm said as he rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a pack of matches, striking several but failing to light any.

  "Damn it!" The scholar cursed and muttered softly: "It must have gotten wet during the battle today..."

  "Comrade, lend me a light!" someone shouted from a nearby soldier.

  That warrior climbed up with a smile, pulled out a pack of matches in front of us and waved it: "Comrade, lend me a cigarette..."

  The bookworm cursed and handed him a cigarette. He took it with a pleased smile, lit the match with a hiss, and puffed on the cigarette.

  Just as I and the reader were putting our heads together, we suddenly felt something exploding in front of us. A hot thing splashed onto our faces, followed by a gunshot...

  I soon realized that what had burst open before us was the warrior's head, and what splashed onto our faces was his blood.

  That's right, I saw his head explode first, then heard the gunshot. I once heard an old man say that bullets fly out very fast, especially those Japanese sniper rifles... The speed of the bullet is two or three times the speed of sound, so when the Japanese are shooting at you, often by the time you hear the gunshot, the bullet has already hit your head.

  From this point of view, all those scenes in movies and TV shows where people hear the sound of gunfire and then roll around to dodge bullets are nonsense.

  I couldn't describe the shock and astonishment of both me and the bookworm at that moment, we were both standing there in a daze. I don't know what the bookworm was thinking, but I only knew that my mind went completely blank, without any fear or panic, I just couldn't understand or accept this reality. Now that I think about it, I must have been stunned by the huge contrast at that time. This feeling is different from facing enemies and artillery fire on the battlefield, it's a kind of situation where you're not psychologically prepared at all.

  "Get down!"

  "Something's going on!"

  "The devils are coming!"

  ……

  The gunfire quickly became a cacophony, and I didn't know who had knocked me down in the darkness. All I knew was that from start to finish, I hadn't seen a single enemy... It wasn't until later that I found out the other soldiers hadn't seen any enemies either; they were just firing wildly.

  "Cease fire! Cease fire!" The shout was from Scar, who hastily pressed down on several guns that were still firing, and then crawled to the front of the corpse in front of me, took a glance, shook his head and sighed.

  Before I could even react, he snatched the cigarette from my hand and slammed it to the ground: "Listen up everyone! No one is allowed to light a fire or smoke, no one is allowed to shoot randomly. Do you understand?"

  "I understand!"

  "I understand!"

  ……

  A faint response came from the darkness. And I, only now realized that just because I wanted to smoke a cigarette earlier, a soldier died under the sniper's gun of the Viet Cong.

  I couldn't help but recall what the old man had once told me: "The Japanese devils' sharpshooters were really accurate, they used sniper rifles with small mirrors on them. At night, as long as there was a spark of fire the size of a cigarette butt... Bang! One shot and you're done for!"

  At that time, when I heard this, I was still skeptical in my heart and snorted: "What a godly shooter, others call it a sniper! Rural and unsophisticated!"

  Now that I think about it, how good would it have been if I had remembered what the old man said earlier? How good would it have been if I had taken his words to heart back then...

  "Wah" sound, the reader beside him burst into tears, he almost knelt down on the body of the warrior and blamed himself: "Comrade, sorry! It's all my fault, you wake up..."

  "Damn it!" Before the scholar could finish, Knife Scar suddenly rushed up and kicked the scholar to the ground, cursing: "Cry? What's the use of crying? Look at you, you're such a mess!"

  "Line up!" The reader seemed to be struck down by the guilt in his heart, and he knelt forward, hugging the scarred foot of the squad leader, saying: "Squad leader, punish me! It was all my fault, I was the one who borrowed fire from him... Punish me!"

  "What can you do to punish me?" Knife Scar kicked the scholar away without any courtesy: "Can punishing you bring Xu Jian back to life? You coward, tomorrow on the battlefield, just kill a few more devils to avenge Xu Jian!"

  The scar on the knife was mentioned, and the scholars had no voice.

  When the surroundings became quiet again, I felt that the atmosphere was a bit different. It's hard to describe what it was like, but the warriors all seemed to be hanging their heads in defeat, like defeated roosters.

  I can understand this point, although our side only lost one person in that battle, which is nothing compared to the casualties on the battlefield during the day. But the problem is... the Viet Cong could see us and successfully killed one of our soldiers, while we couldn't even catch a glimpse of them, and were frantically firing wildly... I'm afraid the Viet Cong are laughing at us in secret!

  This is roughly what the old man said about morale, as a sniper, his role on the battlefield is often not how many enemies he can kill, but whether he can hit the enemy's morale at the right time. From this point of view, the Vietnamese sniper did very well.

  If it were someone else, enduring it a bit might be enough to get through, or as Knife Scar said, going onto the battlefield tomorrow and killing more of those Vietnamese devils would be revenge.

  But that's not me. My temper is that if anyone offends me, I must get it back. Moreover, Xu Jian's death also made me responsible for a part of it.

  Thinking of this, I didn't say much more, loaded a row of bullets into the rifle and aimed at the void in front of me.

  It was only then that I realized that sometimes there is a huge gap between ideals and reality, because at this time the sky was densely covered with dark clouds without even half a point of moonlight. In front of me, it could be said to be pitch black, and trees over ten meters high were invisible, let alone finding someone in the midst of all this.

  "Comrade!" Xiaoshi perhaps sensed my intention and whispered beside me: "Don't worry! Look..."

  "That's Third Squad Leader Liang Lianbing, also known as Rifle. He's our company's famous sharpshooter and won the shooting championship in the martial arts competition. The platoon leader must have arranged for him to take on the Viet Cong's sharpshooter!"

  As expected, not long after, Liang Lianbing picked up his rifle and left. As he passed by me, he seemed to realize what I was going to do, and smiled slightly at the corner of his mouth, shaking his head at me, as if saying that I was overestimating myself.

  He smiled at me like that, and I was even more furious: Son of a bitch! You're holding a 56 semi, and I'm also holding a 56 semi. I don't believe you can hit it but I can't? I'd like to compete with you to see who can shoot down those damn devils first!