Chapter 2: Where is this place?
"Cough...cough..."
A wave of scorching pain on his hands woke up Li Han, who was in a daze. He shook his dizzy brain and tried to open his eyes, but found that his whole body felt numb, as if he had just been electrocuted. Except for the slight soreness in his right hand's index and middle fingers, which were originally holding a cigarette, he couldn't feel anything else on his body. This terrible situation lasted for a long time, until about half an hour later, when he finally felt the soreness all over his body. He took a few deep breaths, then pulled out a dark yellow pill from his tactical waist pack and swallowed it with saliva. After adjusting the car seat slightly lower, he lay down to rest for a while before feeling the soreness in his body slowly subside.
"Not bad, this special forces' strong painkiller is pretty good, but unfortunately the side effects are also quite obvious..."
He rubbed his somewhat sore and sleepy eyes, Li Han let out a yawn. It's said that this strong painkiller used by special soldiers who have suffered severe injuries has side effects no weaker than fast-acting anesthetics. Fortunately, he had a few pills in his tactical waist pack, otherwise he would have been tortured to death by the pain!
With difficulty, he picked up the satellite communicator beside him. Unfortunately, there was still no signal on it. He looked out of the car window again and found that the rain had stopped, but the sky was completely dark! He knew that the most taboo thing in this mountain forest was to travel at night, not only because the road was steep and dangerous, but also because it was hard to see clearly. So, he simply locked the car from the inside. He was driving a medium-sized armored transport truck with a load capacity of one to two tons, which should be safe enough!
After all this, with a grudge in his heart that next week's holiday was gone, and yawning, Li Han fell onto his own driver's seat, and soon fell fast asleep...
In the early morning, the bright sunlight shone on his face through the bulletproof windshield of the car in front, and a strange rumbling sound arose from within the city. Li Han waved his hand vaguely, as if trying to drive away the dazzling sunlight in front of him.
He suddenly seemed to remember something, sat up abruptly, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the sun outside the window which was already high in the sky. He cursed and quickly picked up the satellite communicator that he had placed beside him. To his disappointment, there was still no signal on it. Helplessly, he got off the vehicle to check the surrounding roads and terrain before considering returning to the team.
"Hmm~~~"
Taking a deep breath, it has to be said that the air in the mountains is much fresher than in the city. Li Han took a deep breath and his previously somewhat depressed mood improved a lot. He narrowed his eyes and looked around, but suddenly his eyebrows furrowed and his head slightly lowered, as if he was thinking about something, hesitating, with a hint of incredulity flashing in his eyes.
"This can't be right, this isn't where I was before. I clearly remember parking my car in an empty lot, and there should be two large trees nearby that were struck by lightning... how is this..."
A hint of incredulity flashed in his eyes, Li Han looked around at the surroundings, where were the woods and hills? Not far away was a not-so-high mountain peak, but looking at his current location, wasn't it clearly near a paddy field?
Without mentioning the familiar asphalt road, even the original muddy and bumpy gravel road has turned into this soft earth road in front of him. Not far away, there is a winding and narrow stream that stretches all the way to a small village about one kilometer away. Where is this place?
After taking out the GPS locator from the car, I found that it couldn't receive any information about his current latitude and longitude or even coordinates, as if...as if...
"Never mind, I guess I was a bit dizzy from driving in the rain. Anyway, there's still a village over there, let's go ask for directions..."
With some uncertainty in his heart, Li Han put down the right hand that was resting on his forehead, estimated the distance between here and that village, got back in the car, refueled, and quickly started the engine, heading towards that village!
All the way, Li Han's mood got worse and worse, because in this area, he didn't see even a single utility pole, which means that there are still places in this country where electricity is not available. Although he had seen many photos of poor areas in the countryside online before, he had never seen it with his own eyes. This time, seeing a village that probably couldn't even use water and electricity made his mood suddenly turn bad!
"Alas, the country is still too poor!"
A sigh, a sentence with countless meanings. Isn't it true that in recent years, along with the hot wave of real estate development, the country's economy seems to have improved significantly? However, this beautiful economic myth built on bubbles still has so much water in it - even fools know that. But what can a small soldier like him say? Nothing at all. All he can do is sigh, sigh for the hardships of the Chinese people, sigh for the calamities of the country, and even more so, if this country hadn't experienced nearly half a century of war and turmoil in modern times, if it could have maintained its integrity as a nation after the Xinhai Revolution, no matter how weak its foundation was at the time, after nearly a hundred years of construction, the country would absolutely be able to stand proudly among the world's strong nations once again!
Not like the foam being blown out now!
Shaking his head, he continued to drive the car on the bumpy and soft muddy road. Fortunately, the cars he drove were all specially ordered by the military, with tires that not only supported off-road driving but also allowed for mud, sand, and stone roads, so he wasn't worried about accidentally getting stuck in a pit!
"Hmm~~~"
A gunshot rang out.
"What's going on?"
Li Hanyi was stunned, and before that he was a bit dazed, so he didn't hear clearly, where did the gunshot come from!
"Hmm~~~"
"Honk honk~~"
It was another series of gunshots, and this time he finally reacted, frowning as he looked towards the village not far away. At that moment, he had already arrived at the entrance of the village, and the gunfire was coming from inside the village!
"Are there gunshots? It's a rifle... live ammunition..."
His face turned gloomy, Li Han quickly stopped the car and grabbed a domestically-made 05-style 5.8mm lightweight silenced submachine gun fixed on the inner wall of the car. He put on a spare set of bulletproof clothing, wore a bulletproof helmet, and took out a special crosshair sight from his tactical waist pack, pressing it onto the QCW05's barrel. Then he quickly started the car again, parking it behind a hidden haystack at the village entrance. Only then did he grab two ammunition clips and put them in the small pockets on his waist. Using the surrounding terrain for cover, he stealthily crept into the village.
To be honest, when Li Han first saw the building materials of the entire village, he felt ashamed and wanted to commit suicide. Looking at the houses in front of him, which were obviously made of straw and mud with stones stuck together, all he could see were two words - poverty, and even if he changed his perspective, it was still backwardness. He only felt a lump in his throat, and previously, he had merely lamented that there were still places in the country where water and electricity had not been connected. Now, he wanted to shoot the leaders of this region directly! What era is this? Such houses can still be seen in the mountainous areas around Chongqing, a city known for its prosperity!
What if it goes further west and into the central region? It's even more unimaginable!
The gloomy color has almost turned completely black, able to endure loneliness and long-term separation from family for the sake of the motherland's struggle on the hidden front line. Li Han has proven his patriotic heart with his character. However, when he saw that there were still such backward places in the country, this is still in the 21st century, loudly building a happy and harmonious society of the Republic, as a hot-blooded young man, can't he be angry?
