Chapter 44: Hero (7)

  Xiao Lie had never tried walking in the desert before, he had seen the endless Gobi Desert, but compared to the desert, the Gobi was much more lively, at least the ground there was hard, you didn't have to worry about quicksand. But when he first saw the desert, he was shocked by its dead atmosphere, he even doubted whether he could cross this desert, or rather, he doubted what Ouyang Yuan said, was it really only sixty kilometers?

  "What's wrong? Are you scared?" Ouyang Yuanye said.

  "No, I'm not afraid." Xiao Lie said.

  "That's good." Ouyang Yuanye said: "The first principle of survival is a strong willpower. Humans have passed through even more terrible places, let alone just a desert. Isn't it just about working hard for one day? What's the big deal?"

  When Xiao Lie heard Ou Yang's words, he felt a bit embarrassed. If even Ou Yang wasn't afraid, what was there for him to fear? Thinking this way, the pressure in his heart lessened greatly. It wasn't until much later that he realized sixty kilometers really wasn't something to be taken lightly. If it hadn't been for Ou Yang's words at that time, and the relaxed mood they brought, it was still unknown whether or not he would have made it through that desert.

  After the wind last night, the sky was very clear, not a cloud in sight, and the air was also very clear. Although the sandstorm last night made people eat a mouthful of sand, even the nostrils were full of sand dust. Seeing such good weather, Xiao Lie also felt better. With the sun out, it's easier to tell directions. Without much wilderness survival experience, Xiao Lie didn't know that the seemingly warm sunlight would quietly turn into a killer in the desert.

  To conserve energy, the two men didn't talk, Xiao Lie led the way in front, while Ouyang Yuanye followed behind to correct their direction at any time.

  "Who would have thought that at my age I'd be having such an adventure?" Ou Yang Yuan Ye couldn't help but exclaim.

  "Older brother, your physical quality is really good. I'm thinking now, if we encounter the Blue Army's command center after we get out, wouldn't it be awesome if we two come together and launch a surprise attack?" Xiao Lie said.

  "Hmm, this idea won't die. Who says we old soldiers are useless? We'll let them take a good look later." Ou Yang Yuan Ye said. Look, there's an animal moving over there."

  "Ah, it's a scorpion."

  "Scorpion, catch it and we'll have a settled lunch."

  "What? Can't find Master Zhang?" Su Rongjuan asked anxiously.

  "Yes, in our area, the commander was nowhere to be found. My entire company was lost and we couldn't find the commander." Xia Tianyu said: "It's as if he vanished into thin air. I think the Blue Army hasn't found him either, otherwise the director's department would have informed us. Our last sighting of the commander was in Area Five. He encountered a Blue Army ambush there, my company rushed over and engaged the enemy, then covered the commander's retreat before being completely annihilated."

  "As long as the commander doesn't fall into the enemy's hands, there's still a chance for everything." Su Ronghuan said: "The Blue Army's offensive is very fierce now, we've already lost half of our troops. In terms of troop numbers, we're now evenly matched with them, and both sides are at a stalemate."

  At the beginning of the exercise, the Blue Army's attack was not only fierce but also unexpected, causing heavy losses for the Red Army. Sometimes, in just a moment, they would wipe out an entire regiment. Later, when the two sides' forces clashed, the Blue Army was forced to reveal itself. Originally, it was thought that as long as the deployment of the Blue Army's troops could be found, a confrontation between the two sides would soon settle the matter. However, unexpectedly, the Blue Army's special forces had infiltrated the Red Army's positions, and in one night, a division commander and three regiment commanders were beheaded. In the second round of fighting, the Blue Army was again at a disadvantage. Perhaps because their previous victories came too easily, the Blue Army did not take a first-class division seriously, so their special forces brazenly caused destruction in small groups within the Blue Army's area and even intercepted the mobile command center of Ou Yang Yuan. In one battle, if it weren't for the appearance of a company, they might have succeeded. However, war is not just about military strength; it also involves some inexplicable luck.

  However, Ou Yang Yuan Ye has indeed disappeared, and the question of facing this problem is not only Su Rong Quan, but also Ning Chen Hao, the main officer of the Blue Army, who is also a suspect. Because he knows his old superior too well, he has been under his command for many years, and he knows that Ou Yang Yuan Ye is not only very determined, but also commands troops without being bound by conventions. When the troops were going through the motions, he was the first to propose a guiding principle of taking actual combat as the starting point. He was also the first in the military region to propose that the troops would win high-tech information warfare in future wars. The ace division in the Chinese army is absolutely a fist unit, whether in terms of equipment or personnel. Moreover, A Division is also the first mixed-branch division after reform and opening up, and its significance is self-evident. In many exercises, he was able to use his weak forces to turn defeat into victory. For A Division, this opponent, although they have a chief of staff like Su Rong Quan, who is the best in the army, but in terms of personality, Su Rong Quan is an excellent chief of staff, but when it comes to key decisions, Ou Yang Yuan Ye is much higher. Therefore, as long as Ou Yang Yuan Ye cannot be found, this exercise will not end, and A Division has become very cautious under repeated sudden attacks, and now both sides are like two boxers, carefully probing each other's weaknesses and looking for an opportunity to strike.

  "Where will he be?" Ning Chenhao muttered to himself. He had seen the desert on the map several times, but he always denied it. Not to mention that Ouyang Yuanye was now at an advanced age, his physical ability could not withstand crossing that desert. Generals and soldiers were different in that generals did not need to personally go to the battlefield to kill enemies, while soldiers were born for the battlefield, so they had to adapt to various survival modes. That desert was no exception, unless it was a special forces unit that had received special training. Ordinary troops could not cross that desert without logistical support. Moreover, the situation at the time indicated that when Ouyang Yuanye went missing, he was only taken away by a small soldier, which made Ning Chenhao even more determined that he could not be there.

  "What? Found them in the desert?" A three-star general in the directorate shouted incredulously.

  On a large screen in the exercise room, satellite real-time images clearly showed two people walking one after another on that vast expanse of yellow desert.

  "Has Ou Yang gone mad?" Everyone in the director's department thought so. If it were a young person doing this, there might still be a glimmer of hope for success. But a nearly fifty-year-old man daring to do such a thing - no matter how good his body was, his age had already reached the point where it was an utterly impossible feat.

  "Who is that person with him?" the general asked.

  Staff and intelligence officers' fingers flew across the keyboard, and in less than a minute, they pulled up the intelligence on Xiao Lie and presented it to the general's computer.

  "He is a new recruit who has been in the army for less than a year and is a soldier of the demolition company."

  Everyone was speechless, and the difference between new recruits and old soldiers was understood by everyone present. It was a destructive company that couldn't show its strength in physical power or wilderness survival ability. If the people of the destructive company knew various ammunition, they would still believe it, but a new recruit from the destructive company dared to rush into the desert, which is an absurd thing.

  "Report, the soldier named Xiao Lie has almost no water left on him, and his physical strength is only about sixty percent of normal." An intelligence staff officer analyzed from the image of Xiao Lie: "And I'm sure they don't have any food on them either."

  The people present listened to the staff officer's words and looked at the two people in the picture, who seemed to be on the verge of death. Anyone with a little common sense would know that without enough water in the desert, the consequences would be disastrous.

  "What are they doing?" someone said.

  Xiao Lie seemed to have seen something on the screen, then left the marching route to search for something on the ground. After the intelligence officer enlarged the screen, everyone saw that Xiao Lie had actually caught a scorpion on the ground. At this time, he put the scorpion into an empty plastic bottle on his body, then looked up at the scorpion in the bottle with a strange smile.

  "He's already hungry, although he hasn't eaten a scorpion before, but I'm sure they'll feed him the scorpion bit by bit next." The intelligence officer saw Xiao Lie's throat move and the scorpion's eyes shining brightly, so he said with certainty. For this intelligence officer who held a Ph.D. in psychology, analyzing a person through their body language was his specialty.

  "It seems we underestimated them just now." The general muttered to himself.

  After catching the scorpion on the screen, Xiao Lie immediately returned to his original position. In the army, there is a standard for walking, that is, two people in a row and three people in a line. Many countries do not understand the reason for doing so. If we watch several soldiers walking together, it's not hard to find that this idea has taken root in their minds. Compared with some Western countries' armies, which are more casual in this regard, soldiers who have experienced countless battles will unanimously mention the discipline of the army. Discipline is one of the conditions for an army to win every battle and also an important aspect of maintaining a soldier's morale.

  The two people on the screen, one in front of the other, have already turned every move into an action, and that action seems to have been practiced thousands of times. It's worth noting that one is a nearly 50-year-old coach who rarely engages in physical training, and the other is a new recruit who has only been in the army for half a year. Even just through this screen, you can see the two people's unwavering faith in their invincibility on the road to war.

  "How much longer will they have to stay in?"

  When the general finished speaking, the staff officers had already calculated the speed of the two men and the diameter of the desert. One of the staff officers said: "At their current average speed, they still need 7 hours, but after halfway through, their physical strength will decline, so it's estimated that they may take another 2 to 3 hours, or even 4 hours."

  "Commander, shall we send someone to bring out Ou Yang Sheng Long? It's quite threatening there." a colonel said.

  "You know his temper. Let's go after they send out a distress signal."