Chapter Thirty-Five

  "Empty-handed..." The soldiers shouted unfamiliar Vietnamese phrases, holding guns and escorting groups of Vietnamese civilians out of the tunnels. These Vietnamese civilians very consciously placed their guns on one side of the tunnel, and piles of hand grenades were stacked in the ammunition boxes we had prepared. This made me and the soldiers realize that so-called ordinary Vietnamese people are not ordinary at all. Their military literacy, grown up in war, is no worse than ours, dressed in military uniforms.

  At first, I didn't think there was anything wrong, but as more and more ordinary Vietnamese people gathered... I couldn't help but furrow my brow: As far as I know, there are very few men among the Vietnamese people, mainly because of the long-term war that has caused a serious imbalance in the sex ratio, to the point where women also participate in battles. Therefore, the men who can be seen among the ordinary people are often old men or children. However, there seemed to be more young people among these surrendered Vietnamese ordinary people...

  The only explanation is that the enemy soldiers are disguised as civilians and mixed in with them... Since they have already surrendered, why do they still need to disguise themselves? Thinking of this, I couldn't help but feel a shock in my heart, and I reached out to touch the pistol holstered at my waist. At the same time, my eyes quickly scanned over several young people among the "civilians", and indeed found that they were intentionally or unintentionally sizing up our personnel's distribution.

  I was just about to inform my soldiers that it was a trap, but it was already too late. Dozens of "Vietnamese civilians" almost simultaneously launched an attack, some drew out handguns, others pulled out grenades, and still others even produced AK-47s from under their clothes as if by magic...

  "Bang, bang..." My handgun was the first to fire, and two Vietnamese soldiers holding AK-47s were immediately shot down. However, these Vietnamese devils reacted too quickly, and every single one of them was reckless with their lives. Just a moment ago, they were exhausted, gentle, and kind civilians, but in an instant, they all turned into ferocious wolves with murderous glints in their eyes. I didn't have time to stop their subsequent actions, nor did the soldiers anticipate this. As a result, with each gunshot... one soldier after another fell into a pool of blood.

  I soon discovered that our danger did not come only from the Viet Minh in front of us, but also from those in the tunnels who almost simultaneously launched an attack against us.

  "Bang, bang..." I raised my pistol and one by one, the "Vietnamese civilians" rushing towards me fell to the ground, but until I ran out of bullets, those "Vietnamese civilians" still surged towards me like a tide. The firing speed of the sniper rifle in my hand was completely insufficient to withstand this human tide.

  "It's all over!" I couldn't help but cry out in grief. In vain, I had been wise and brilliant my whole life, yet I never thought that today I would still die in the trap of the Vietnamese devils. I am not resigned to it!

  Just as the leading Vietnamese soldier was about to split my head in two with an axe, a bayonet suddenly stabbed through his neck from the side...

  It was Chen Yiy... When I saw the person who saved me, I couldn't help but feel a little surprised. Then, looking at her skillfully holding the submachine gun and sweeping away the "Vietnamese civilians" rushing towards me, I was even more shocked, my mouth wide open for half a day.

  Wow... I thought she was just a weak and gentle nurse, but unexpectedly she's so fierce, killing people without even batting an eyelid...

  But at this time I couldn't afford to indulge in sentiment, for I was well aware that this was a battlefield where victory and defeat often hung in the balance of a single moment.

  So I quickly analyzed the situation around me and knew that the Vietnamese devils had planned to break through from inside and outside... I couldn't help but secretly hate in my heart: I should have thought of it earlier, the Vietnamese devils would not surrender so easily, in previous wars, even if they were about to be captured, they would rather pull the trigger of their pistol to kill themselves than choose to surrender, ordinary people also mostly did so, so now choosing to break through like this is their combat style.

  But it's too late for regrets now, and I know that regret is useless at this point. The most important thing is to resolve the current crisis. I quickly analyzed the situation in front of me: the dozens of "Vietnamese civilians" outside the tunnel are still easy to deal with, after all, they have to pretend to be ordinary people, and in order to avoid revealing their flaws, they don't have many guns in their hands, only two AK-47s that I had locked onto and eliminated, the rest were just some easily concealed and carried handguns and grenades, these weapons can at most cause some harassment or catch us off guard, they are not capable of defeating us who hold AK-47s.

  The main thing is... now these "Vietnamese commoners" are still being suppressed by Chen Yiyang, so I don't need to worry about them for the time being.

  However, if those Vietnamese devils in the tunnel were to rush out, it would be a different story. Those are well-trained and well-equipped Vietnamese soldiers. As soon as they come out, the first ones to bear the brunt would be my brothers who have been through thick and thin with me, and I might not even be able to save my own life.

  What will happen next? These Viet Cong who burst out of the tunnel will cover other Vietnamese soldiers escaping from various skylights, and their breakout plan has already succeeded halfway. Although it is daytime now, for the Vietnamese army familiar with the terrain, drilling into the jungle and escaping again may not be a difficult task.

  So the key is... to block those North Vietnamese soldiers who are crawling out of the tunnels!

  But how to block it? At this time, I was in a dilemma again. If I had an AK-47 in my hand, it might be possible to seal the entrance of the cave with firepower, but what I had in my hand was a pistol and a sniper rifle.

  The pistol's power is too small, if it doesn't hit the vital point, several bullets are needed to take down a person. The sniper rifle has great power and accuracy, but its shortcomings are that it's single-shot and has limited ammo capacity. It's clear that neither of these guns can meet today's requirements... So now I seem to have no choice but to wait for death here or be used as a human shield by the devils.

  But there is a saying "when the water is exhausted and the road is hopeless, the willows are dark and the flowers are bright again in another village". Just when I had no hope for this... suddenly a "Vietnamese civilian" with an explosive package tied to his body rushed towards me... This is a very common tactic used by the Vietcong, especially during the siege warfare. The Vietcong would often organize such suicide squads to rush towards our military's firepower points under the cover of their own firepower.

  It is clear that the Vietnamese army also hoped to assist their comrades in the tunnel with this suicidal attack, but it had the opposite effect.

  I didn't think much and quickly stabbed him twice in the abdomen. It needs to be explained that I didn't stab his vital organs, for a very simple reason: our location was still some distance from the "sky window" of the tunnel, dead people can't walk, and I had no way of moving such a heavy corpse along with the explosives to the "sky window" in a short amount of time.

  So I didn't intend to kill him with these two knives, but rather to make him half-dead and unable to resist. Then, before he fell to the ground, I quickly ran behind him and gave his butt a vicious kick... What happened next is not hard to imagine. This half-dead "bomb man" stumbled forward under the force of habit... Although the devils in the "sky window" shouted loudly at him, he was already injured and in pain, and had no consciousness to distinguish between friend and foe. He still charged forward without surrendering, all the way until he fell down in front of the "sky window".

  A loud explosion, the "sky window" where the Vietcong were crawling out was blown up into the sky without exception. The tunnel section also collapsed under the power of the explosive package. It can be imagined that... the Vietnamese army who were preparing to rush out and break through inside either got blown to pieces by the explosives or were buried alive by the collapsing tunnel.

  The Vietnamese troops outside the tunnel were still fighting vigorously, but when they saw that their comrades at the "sky window" had been blown to death or wounded, and many more buried, they suddenly became limp like a spineless person, no longer having any courage to resist.

  It should be said that their choice was correct, and their purpose was to cover up the crack troops in the pit and deploy their forces. Since those crack troops have already been wiped out, what is the point of their resistance? At this time, the bullets in their hands are probably not enough for them to commit suicide!

  The warriors walked up with a stern face, one by one, and took away the weapons from those "Vietnamese civilians" and controlled them under their own guns. I knew what the warriors were thinking at this time, they would rather these Vietcong not surrender! This way they could also avenge their comrades who had just sacrificed!

  "Are you okay?!" Chen Yiy asked as she rushed three steps at a time to stand before me.

  "It's nothing!" Seeing this, I was taken aback for a moment. Although I often rolled around in the flower cluster, I still couldn't understand the expression on Chen Yiyang's face.

  What is it?

  Is it worry? Fear? Or flustered?

  Or some of both?

  My ex-girlfriends were nothing like her...

  The team leader also came up, and he had obviously seen everything just now. He brought the guards to take down the wounded and sacrificed soldiers, then walked to my side with a gloomy face and said a few words: "Those in the tunnel, no surrender is accepted!"

  "Yes!" I stood up straight and responded, my heart skipping a beat involuntarily.

  No surrender is accepted. This sentence may mean nothing to ordinary people, but for us who are on the battlefield, it means death and blood!

  "Comrades... PLA comrades..." The voice of Vietnamese people came from the tunnel again.

  The warriors all showed a look of disdain on their faces, I know what the warriors are thinking: these Vietnamese devils have already cheated us once, now they want to cheat us again for the second time, do they think we're all fools? ... However, this time I believe that the Vietnamese devils are not cheating us, as we thought, it's impossible for them to take us for fools, and the Vietnamese people in the tunnels right now have really lost hope in this war, even if those Vietnamese soldiers can hold on until the end, the Vietnamese civilians cannot hold on until the end.

  So I raised my head and looked at the captain behind me, hoping that he would change his mind at the last moment. However, the captain still didn't show any sign of relaxation, his face gloomy as he slightly shook his head, and then I knew what his attitude was.

  It should be said that the captain is right, even if the possibility of surrendering to the devils this time is very high, but we are all soldiers, after being cheated once, we should not have any hope for them again. More importantly, we can never use our own lives as a price to exchange for the enemy's life, that's what war is!

  "Fire!" With the company commander's order, the chemical soldiers stood up and pulled the trigger towards the "sky window", and a dragon of fire poured into those tunnels like a hellish flame, followed by a series of mournful cries and desperate wails...

  Of course, the flames from the flamethrower cannot completely burn all the Vietnamese devils inside to death, but... the flames will burn away the air in the tunnel.

  Some people may ask why flame throwers were not used to deal with them earlier. It's because the Viet Cong had good fireproof and waterproof facilities at the entrance of the tunnel, so the flamethrower was useless. But now it's different, we are opening a "window" in the middle of the tunnel, the Viet Cong inside have been beaten by us and have lost their morale, so now they can only sit inside and wait to die... either being burned to death or suffocated due to lack of air.

  No matter what kind of death it is, I believe that for them, none will be comfortable, this is the price of deceiving us!