Chapter 63
At this moment, he suddenly found that just in the place where he had just swept, a black stick was raised by someone, and one end of the stick was clearly pointing at him. Oh no, it's a gun! The Eighth Route Army is going to shoot me, run quickly! The devil pilot reacted quickly enough, and as soon as he pulled up the plane, he saw a burst of flames coming out of the stick below, followed by a "bang" sound, and the plane shook violently. A bullet had hit the wing, creating a hole the size of a fist on it. He hastily flew the plane away from the battlefield. If I don't run now, I'll be finished off by the Eighth Route Army, and I've also run out of ammunition, so let's go back to repair the plane, and leave the rest to the pursuit troops.
The members of the Fox team, who had been subjected to the plane's strafing, could no longer bear it and finally saw that the guy seemed to have run out of bullets. Li Tie ordered Zhang Honglei to give the plane a burst.
Li Tie never expected to actually shoot down the plane, just scaring it off would be enough. Without planes, he and the devils are on an equal footing. With planes, it's like having a knife hanging over his head, not knowing when it will fall and get him killed or injured.
After seeing the plane leave, Li Tie and his teammates from the Fox Team continued their super marathon competition with the devils to see who would give up first.
At this moment, Li Tie has forgotten about time, forgotten about the journey, and doesn't know how many mountains they've passed or how many rivers they've crossed. Since last night, no one has had a proper meal, and now everyone's stomach is stuck to their back. But there's no choice, behind them are the devils, if caught by the devils, chili pepper soup and tiger benches won't be lacking, and there might even be roasted meat to eat, but this roasted meat could very possibly be from one's own chest. As soon as they think of this, everyone's legs, which were originally unable to run anymore, suddenly have strength again, and even their stomachs feel not hungry anymore.
Finally, we climbed over another mountain. Looking back, the devils didn't follow us, and everyone let out a slight sigh of relief. We grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it into our mouths. After running such a long distance, we were really a bit parched.
Everyone ate snow while grabbing some food from their bags to fill their stomachs.
Li Tie walked over to the side while eating, wanting to see if the devils were following. At this time, a team member came over: "Report to the company commander, devils have been found ahead."
Another comrade came over to report: "Report to the company commander, the devils are coming from behind."
Hearing that there were devils on both sides, Li Tie's first thought was that they had been surrounded by the devils.
With just these twenty or so people, if they were surrounded by the devils, it would be a terrible fate. The five heroes of Wolf Tooth Mountain at least had a cliff to jump off, and didn't fall into the devils' hands, but where could they jump? There are plenty of mountains, but no cliffs, just slopes everywhere. If they jumped down, there would only be one outcome: no need for the devils to come up and capture them, just tie them up and take them away, how convenient.
These mountains are all very small, the tops of which can be straddled with one foot on the south side and the other on the north. If it weren't for the trees everywhere, the devils could set up machine guns at the foot of the mountain and sweep the top directly, so there wouldn't even be a hiding place on the top.
Li Tie turned his head to look around, the south side was a yellowish patch of devils, and looking further north, oh, there were fewer people in the north, but still one or two hundred. However, it didn't seem like they were together, as the devils' clothing in the north was clearly not as neat as those in the south, probably transferred from elsewhere to block the way, not following behind him that group.
Li Tie really wanted to try again, but after taking a look at the terrain beside him, he wisely gave up. The devils would discover each other as soon as they came up, and he couldn't run away. Taking advantage of the devils still being on the mountain slope, Li Tie led everyone along the ridge to slip away eastward.
Just after crossing a small ridge, the devils converged at the top of the mountain.
The snow on the mountain peak faithfully recorded Li Tie's footprints.
Sometimes their silhouettes appear among the branches at the top of the mountain.
The devils' machine gun bullets quickly caught up, hitting the branches flying everywhere.
"Kill him!" The Japanese Lieutenant's samurai sword swung down, and the devils and puppet troops followed the footprints to continue their pursuit.
"Bang!" Zhang Honglei turned around and fired a shot, originally intending to take out the lieutenant colonel. Who knew that at this moment he raised his gun, and the bullet hit the blade of the knife, instantly breaking in two what was likely a treasured family heirloom, the Wu Tian Knife! Incidentally, it also brought down the young man into the snow.
Because Li Tie had fired very few shots along the way, and just that one shot earlier, the devils thought it was a blind cat bumping into a dead rat, so the devils and puppet troops thought the Eighth Route Army didn't have any weapons, and they boldly ran forward.
From this mountain to the one where Li Tie was just now, it's only a few hundred meters in a straight line, but because of the mountains, it seems very far. However, the devils quickly followed the footprints and rushed over.
Beyond the mountain ridge, there is a vast expanse of open land. The open land has no trees at all, only a piece of snow that looks relatively flat. There are footprints everywhere on the snowy ground, and there are also large pits, which seem to be where people fell down. Further ahead is the forest, and at the top of the mountain, there is still a small patch of forest, like a big mountain wearing a hat.
The devils rushed onto the open field without hesitation.
This land is absolutely not flat!
At least six devils in the front row fell down, four of whom started wailing as soon as they fell - one had a sprained ankle, and the other three also started wailing. The place where they fell was full of acid jujube trees and locust trees, which were intertwined with each other, growing to a height of several tens of centimeters. It seemed that this place was really too barren, so it couldn't grow tall, but the thorns were absolutely enough. As soon as the devils fell down, the dense acid jujube thorns and locust thorns, which were about one centimeter long and two centimeters long respectively, directly pierced through their cotton clothes and into their flesh, just like a thousand arrows piercing the flesh. Anyway, the places where they were stabbed were absolutely not just one or two, but at least ten or twenty. Although it wasn't deep, the wound was extremely painful and itchy!
Seeing the miserable state of their companions, the devils and puppet troops behind them involuntarily slowed down their pace, advancing cautiously into the open area.
Having learned from the lessons of their companions, the devils and puppet troops were particularly careful with their footsteps. Gradually, more and more enemies gathered in the open area, the devils at the front were approaching the forest, while there were still many devils behind who had not yet entered the open area.
The devils and puppet soldiers walking in front looked at each other and let out a long sigh of relief as they were about to leave this "devil's zone".
Just as they had not finished speaking, five or six people suddenly stood up in the snow under the forest, each holding a submachine gun, and opened fire on the devils and puppet troops in the open space.
The devils in front were stunned, with so many of our Imperial Army and puppet troops chasing after them, how could the Eighth Route Army still not retreat, but instead wait to ambush us? Haven't they seen that we have so many men? It's as if they're playing with fire, don't they want their lives anymore?
Just as they were stunned, the five or six submachine guns spat out tongues of fire, mowing down the devils in front like cutting grass. Immediately afterwards, the devils and puppet troops following behind also fell into misfortune. If you lie down, the ground is full of thorns; if you don't lie down, the horse will lose its life.
However, after weighing the pros and cons, one's life is still more important, so it's better to endure the beating than to lose one's life. So, after a large number of devils and puppet troops fell down, all the remaining devils and puppet troops lay down on the snowy ground, and there was not a single devil standing in the open space.
Li Tie led a few men in quickly disappearing into the woods after each of them fired a shot.
Seeing the devils in the open space being attacked, the devil lieutenant immediately ordered the machine gunners to fire at the small woods and threw hand grenades into it.
After a lively half-day, when no more bullets were fired from the small forest, the devils and puppet troops cautiously approached the forest to search.
Into the woods, saw branches broken by bullets, trees blown up by hand grenades, lying all over the place, the frozen soil under the snow was blasted into the sky, everywhere in blocks, but no bodies of the Eighth Route Army or other objects showing that the Eighth Route Army was injured were found.
Further searching ahead, in a place where hand grenades had not reached, a small path was finally found, the path of the Eighth Route Army's retreat.
It's called a small road, because there is only one line of footprints, as if only one person has walked through, but it's clear that this line of footprints is relatively thick and large, and should be the footprints of all the people who followed behind walking on top of the footprints of the person in front.
Having learned from the open space in front, the devils who explored the road ahead also started to move forward by treading on the footprints left by the Eighth Route Army. It's true that this way is much more convenient, no need to trudge through the snow themselves, and their shoes were filled with snow everywhere.
The scout cautiously stepped on the footprints, calling out to the people behind him to follow up. After walking for a while, nothing unexpected happened, and the ghost gradually relaxed and sped up.
At this moment, the devil suddenly realized that his foot seemed to have stepped on something, because all the other footprints were very flat and comfortable to step on. Now there was something underfoot, indicating an unexpected situation, so it was necessary to take a look. As a result, before the devil even had time to bend down and see what he had stepped on, a loud explosion sounded, directly sending this devil to heaven, and also giving the devils behind him a disembowelment.
When the devil fell, his lower body was already a mess of blood and flesh, and he died on the spot. The other devil who had been disembowelled was still breathing but was about to die, lying there with shallow breaths.
The devils were frightened by this explosion and no longer dared to follow the footprints left by the Eighth Route Army, so they dispersed and advanced while exploring the road.
Finally out of the woods, I saw the mountain slope in front of me. The snow on the mountain slope had almost melted, and many places had exposed withered grass. It was clear that it would be much easier to walk ahead, as the footprints of the Eighth Route Army were also scattered, each person walking their own way, no longer following a single path.
The Eighth Route Army marched along the mountain slope into the valley.
The devils followed the guide of the puppet army vanguard, with some entering the mountain valley. However, another group advanced from the ridges on both sides.
About one-third of the devils entering the mountain valley, 200-300 people, swarmed into the mountain valley.
