Chapter 4

  A bonfire was lit in the trench, and a wisp of blue smoke curled up into the damp heavy air. Dead men used their helmets as pillows, writing their names on them at Ah Dai's suggestion, then crumpling the paper into a ball and tossing it into another helmet.

  He yelled at me: "Get over here. I need a holder!" I went over, fuming. The guy clapped the two helmets together and shook them violently, while the onlookers watched with glee. He nearly shook himself apart before plopping them into my hands, saying "Hold this!"

  He pulled out a crumpled paper from his helmet. He stood in a position that was utterly shameless, but only I could see the name on the paper - Lin Yi. I was taken aback. Ah Yi stood several meters away, with a gleam in her eye, her hair fluttering, and written all over her face were the words "Let me go". To make sure people saw this, she was holding a long gun in a very provocative way.

  Dead dead hit a dry haha, "Heavenly father's arrangement, whether called or not, don't fart."

  I suddenly worried that he would take the opportunity to get rid of the eyes and ears planted by Shifu's department. A-Yue stepped on this journey to send himself to death, and he would die in perfect harmony. But he suddenly shouted: "You're lucky, Ming Long."

  "Finished! You really want to drive me crazy!"

  He died and died, and then he copied the second name. It was a name that I didn't know either, but that guy cheated under everyone's expectation and trust, with a puzzled expression on his face, "Who is Hao Xichuan?"

  Hao Shouyi was so frightened that he stood up trembling all over, "I... uh, I'm not afraid or anything, what's the use of me going?"

  He nodded his head sincerely, "It's useful! Of course it's useful!"

  Old Hao nodded vigorously at others, humming "hmm", meaning: "See, I'm useful."

  "Non-spicy said: 'Egg, old man wants to return home.'"

  Hao Lao's fist came crashing down with a loud "thud". The newly acquired beautiful helmet was no match for the punch, and it would have been better if he hadn't worn it at all. He was stunned and dazed, and fell to the ground.

  I held the helmet and watched them laugh and make a ruckus. "Die, die!" they shouted one name after another, and whoever was called would spit on the ground and curse, "Get out of my mother's way." He said he only needed twelve people, that twelve people couldn't possibly capture the west bank, but could fight, dodge, and run - in his words, just enough to scratch an itch. But there were at least 120 people waiting in the trenches, itching from their hands to their hearts.

  Heaven and earth are just, he didn't even look at the paper ball once. To scratch this itch, I almost cleared out my entire inventory of goods. The people who went to fetch things brought back a Thompson submachine gun, eight magazines, and six hand grenades. The guy whose name was called went to rummage through the ammunition box placed beside him, and it quickly became a scramble. They punched and kicked each other, cursing the ancestors of those who died together. As I watched them proudly patting their chests and not-so-proudly getting kicked in the butt, I suddenly felt that our nation might truly be great after all. I saw those who had fought across the land and conquered their own ancestors returning to life through reincarnation.

  He's dead, he's dead. He himself is undoubtedly going to go. After reading the eleven, he poured all the paper balls into the fire and instantly ignited a raging flame. He put his helmet on his head and turned around to leave. Of course, he hasn't fallen to the point of wanting to rob eight clips and six hand grenades.

  I suddenly remembered a matter of life and death, chasing after him shouting: "Hey, don't go!"

  "Oh yeah." He replied, but just snapped his fingers at Dog Meat, and Dog Meat followed.

  "You son of a bitch!"

  He let out a loud "hmmph" and still ignored me. In order to get rid of this cripple, he deliberately walked very quickly.

  There is a hole in front of our position on the ground, and I look at the outside world from the hole. At night, there are many stars, but I can only see that star in my field of vision.

  I sat down, but the stool was too short and I ended up squatting. Sometimes I looked at the hole under my feet and wondered why it wasn't filled in; sometimes I stared at the dead guy sleeping on the bed with the dog meat, who had squeezed together for warmth. He slept like a child, which referred to his restlessness rather than being reassuring. He would lie prone, then supine, then on his side, and no matter what position he was in, there were always hands or feet dangling off the bed and touching the ground. The bed was originally small, and under his torture, with the addition of the dog meat, it became even smaller. The dog meat could only occasionally let out a couple of discontented snorts.

  I looked up at the skylight again, blinking my eyes.

  Behind him came his voice, "Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze hard, squeeze out tears and I'll believe you."

  I'm so angry, I thought he was asleep, "Not asleep, what are you snoring about?"

  "It's already three o'clock, time to wake up. A group of people who never want to take care of the whole thing. I don't think, nobody helps me think."

  He rarely looks tired, but like now, he always looks tired when he just wakes up. He lies among the debris with his hands and feet spread out, looking a bit absent-minded. He stares at the damp soil on the dome, his expression is no different from when I look at the stars.

  He stretched his limbs and yawned, grumbling, "I really don't want to get up. Getting up means seeing those annoying people and dealing with their nonsense again. I'd rather sleep for a hundred years."

  "Sleep, sleep. Everyone will calm down once you fall asleep." I said.

  He sprang up with a fierce movement and asked me: "Not yet, what do you want to say?" The startled dog meat suddenly jumped down from the ground.

  "Me?" I asked.

  He's dead, he's dead. Start getting ready for yourself. Today is undoubtedly a battle day, but he dressed himself up neatly as if he was going to see a prostitute, "Don't pretend to be stupid."

  "We spend our whole lives learning what it means to say nothing at all," I said.

  "If you're going to be so muddled just from reading those books, then the twelve of us will go instead. Oh yeah, and you too, Dog Meat Grandpa, you're much stronger than him."

  "You really dare to do this?" I looked at him, "Let me stay in this rat hole, you guys cross the river, claiming to go rescue my parents - just like sending them to their deaths. Even if all of you die, I won't die. Even if the turtle king dies, I still won't die. Are you humiliating me? Is that it?"

  He responded with a shocking and earth-shattering brushing of his teeth, spitting white foam at me. It seems that even if I were to die in agony, he wouldn't interrupt his tooth-brushing.

  "I've never held a grenade or shot a sergeant major, the wound on my leg was from a bayonet stab when I played dead, while comrades around me were being burned to ashes. It's not my first time deserting, every time I escaped and got caught again, good people tied me up like a rice dumpling and said, with national crisis at hand, how can you just sit back? I stole money from a little girl who had just saved me. I wanted to help her but more so I wanted to sleep with her. I'm furious, before I was angry about others wasting my life like worthless currency, now that I'm 25, I'm angry because I'm only 25 and have become such a broken person."

  That guy spat out mouthwash at me and said "Are you bullshitting?"

  "What's wrong with you? Why are you talking nonsense like this?"

  "I'm not a foreign monk, I don't have the mind to listen to your confession. There are things to be busy with, no time to listen to your nonsense. A group of cheap people, even if you talk nonsense, it's nothing but who owes you and hasn't paid back. Who owes you, go find him! Why bother me? I have something to do, I want to do this thing! Shut up and get out!"

  "You want me to clear myself up! If I don't, you won't take me!"

  "Did I make myself clear?" he asked me.

  "Are you clear about what you're saying? You'd better be clear, or I'll thrash that young bookworm twice!" I retorted to him. "If you want to be clear, you must have faith! What do you believe in? He believes in Young China, and he has a Young China in his heart. 'To speak of the country's old and young, one must first speak of people's old and young.' You talk about Young China, but do you have a Young China in your heart? Am I blind? Can't see that you dream of being Yu Xiachen? It's just that you're unlucky, repeatedly defeated, with a heart higher than the sky, but a fate thinner than paper..."

  He listened to me scolding him, looking foolish, then splashed a whole basin of washing water on me, making me into an angry drowned chicken.

  "Ah! You're going too far! A decent person wouldn't resort to such despicable tricks!"

  "Get a grip! We're here to get things done! Besides having a few good guns in hand, we need to have a clear mind! Not all this nonsense! I just want to get things done, I just want things to be the way they should be!"

  "Troubles are also our shared worries that we can't shake off!"

  He stared at me for a while, then suddenly burst out laughing, "You're on the defensive again?"

  "Just telling you, what you want me to do, you can't even do it yourself."

  That guy continued to laugh and said, "Forget it, I'll let you off easy."

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "Anything at all. I'll count one, two, three, and you'll remember right away." - One, two, three!

  He smiled complacently, and I said somewhat irritably, "Nothing at all."

  "Come less often. You're thinking too much."

  He didn't say anything wrong, I did think of it and felt a bit worried. "...My father studied mechanical design and was one of the children sent abroad to study during the Qing dynasty. However, he dismantled many things in his lifetime, but didn't design any."

  "He interrupted me, 'Do you want me to listen to your dad's bad words? I want to hear one thing.'"

  I ignored his interruption. "Twenty years ago, my father suddenly became energetic, I was five years old that year, he wanted to make a perpetual motion machine, saying it was for me."

  "What chicken?"

  "Perpetual motion machine. A machine that has been running forever since it was made. Without sacrificing quality, energy can be obtained. My father always wanted to do something earth-shattering like this, so that foreigners who believe in the law of conservation of energy would die from eating a block of Chinese tofu."

  Died died died, doubting my father's dream.

  I wasn't disturbed by him, I was already fully immersed in what I was saying, “……He used a metal wire to hang the collision ball as power, driving an eight-tone box. He told me that this music will keep ringing until the end of the world. He said it was for me. The music was very nice, kept ringing... rang for a long time, about an hour. It really sounded good. Did I ever tell you? My father is actually very powerful, just like us, but unfortunately born at the wrong time.”

  Dead, dead, wearing armor, "Very fierce father's son, when should I be born?"

  "Suddenly, it stopped." I said.

  "If you don't stop, there will be trouble."

  "The music is gone. I told my father, it's gone. My father was very angry and picked up a hammer. One strike, two halves; two strikes, four pieces; three strikes, eight fragments. All shattered. He struck more than twenty times. All shattered. All gone. That's the end of the story. Gone."

  It's all gone, and there's no one left in this cave. I don't know when they left, but now I'm the only one left here. I looked around blankly, then gazed up at the skylight above my head.

  "Die die die! Outside they're calling me: 'Thirteen people, one dog. You've fooled your way through.'"

  I stood there in a daze for a while before going to grab my clothes and weapons.

  One of us stood on the riverbank, forming a semicircle with his back to the Nujiang River. I shouted loudly at him, I had to be loud to drown out the sound of the river, "Are you going to cross the river like this? Why didn't you say so earlier?"

  "You didn't ask either," he said.

  "Why wouldn't I ask? If I asked, I could sleep at home! What a ridiculous river!"

  "You didn't say anything either!"

  "How could I not say it? It's all because of that dead bookworm! I knew it! I really overestimated your intelligence!" I said indignantly.

  Dead, dead, staring blankly at the turbulent river flow. I walked angrily on the riverbank, occasionally picking up stones to smash into the raging river - this was exactly the section of the river where I had been before and sighed when I was a deserter, and also the section where that Japanese soldier would rather kill himself than get in the water. The current was so rapid that even if you had a boat, once you let it go downstream, it would probably be smashed to pieces instantly.

  The dragon provided me with a stone in the raging river, and I was blinded by it almost smashing my own feet - what he easily picked up was naturally not something I could easily pick up. He chuckled and said: "What's the hurry? If you can't get through, just take it as coming out to breathe."

  Hao Shouyi scolded: "You want to make trouble on a different day! Ming Long, you're not unaware of his family's affairs!"

  The dragon became a bit more honest and went back to be slapped on the back of the neck by the old man. The dead-hearted one stepped into the river again, but immediately rolled back and said: "Disperse and search around to see if there is a place that can be crossed."

  I ignored him and continued to stare at the river. They carefully searched in the river, the water was too rapid, even at a depth that didn't reach their knees, they had to support each other.

  I didn't believe in Jiang from the start, nor did I believe he could save my parents. I even doubted whether my parents were still alive. But not believing doesn't mean I don't hold onto a glimmer of hope. Holding onto that glimmer of hope is what scares me the most - the fear of hitting a dead end as soon as I step out the door. I sat down, feeling like I was going crazy.

  The Mourning Star was overly confident in his own horsemanship, but he still lost to the Rapids. He was swept into a cluster of rocks and was pulled out by Not Spicy and Krupp with ropes and rifles. He lay on the riverbank, shaking his head repeatedly before he could even get up, "Can't make it. Can't make it." He casually tossed aside a stack of waterlogged, rotten paper.

  "What's that thing?" Nala asked.

  "If you want it, take it away, even if it costs half your life." said Zhongli.

  "What's the use of picking it up? You can recognize ten catties of characters that are worth five catties, and I can recognize two roots of characters that are worth one catty."

  They didn't look, but someone did. Dead dead picked it up and flipped through it. I stared at him as he flipped through it. Among us, those who read this kind of book are either extremely high-ranking or never want to be promoted for life - that's an absolute forbidden book. That's why I knew, and Dead Dead also knew, that this was the luggage of that little bookworm who was first beaten by him until his face was bruised, and then beaten by us until his head was bleeding.

  He died with a ghostly expression looking at me, "He's gone."

  We crowded around, watching Deadla Deadla butcher the dog meat. He threaded a rope through the front chest and front legs of the dog, tying as tight a knot as possible on its back.

  We were discussing it on one side.

  "What's he going to do with the dog meat?"

  "If you can't get through, then just go back. What's the point of bothering someone else's dog?"

  "Want to vent your anger? Change a dish of dog meat, what's the point of bullying a dog?"

  "Dog meat, bite him, bite him. Ah wu. The rabbit is anxious and bites you, don't you bite?"

  He ignored us, and it seemed that Dog Meat would bite us but not him. When he finished, he hugged Dog Meat, "Dog Meat, good Dog Meat."

  I suggested that he might as well tie me up and throw me down, but he sneered and said that with my physique, even the fish would find my bones too many to eat. A group of rascals burst out laughing at this, and when they finally stopped, he had a very long rope coiled in his hand, long enough to reach all the way to the other side of the river, and the other end was tied to Dog Meat's body. Dog Meat followed him faithfully. Everyone could see that he was dead serious, so we all followed close behind, trying to persuade him to abandon this idea and lecture Dog Meat on morality, telling him that he couldn't just send it into the fire pit.

  "Stop right there! All of you, stop! Anyone who takes another step, I'll kick his leg off! Yu Xiaoqing wasn't wrong, the battle has turned out like this, all of you in military uniforms should go to hell! Why aren't you going? From the moment we saw the enemy's vanguard, everyone started beating the drums, boom boom boom, not one person helped me come up with a plan, all I could hear was boom boom boom in my ears! Are you all crows? Don't go any further! Dog Meat and I are enough to handle it! Turn back! Otherwise, I'll blow him up! I'm serious, turn back!"

  We stood with our backs to the river, our buttocks facing the station. We didn't dare speak again, only dared to twist our necks to look at him. He squatted down, hugged the dog meat, muttered "dog meat, good dog meat", and then stood up and said: "Go, cross the river!" The dog meat rushed into the river water, the water immediately submerged its knees, it was washed away and couldn't stand still, circled around and came back, staring blankly as if dead.

  "Go!" he shouted, grabbing the rope. His dog was even more energetic than him, turning around and rushing back into the water, instantly submerged up to its neck, and with another wave, even its head was invisible.

  He's dead, he's dead! The rope in his hands was rubbing against his palms and slipping outwards. He immediately became stiff as a board. Our necks were twisted like a twisted flower, our eyes wide with shock. He shouted: "Fool! Help me pull!"

  We realized he couldn't hold on anymore, and a swarm of people rushed up to help him pull the rope. Only when our hands touched the rope did we understand how much pressure the dog meat was bearing, it was like we were engaged in a tug-of-war with the Nujiang River.

  We wound the rope around our hands several times, staring at the river. Most of the time we couldn't see the dog meat, occasionally it would struggle out of the water with its fur standing on end, only to be slapped back down again. Dead or alive was no longer pulling on the rope, he stood there with his arms akimbo, staring at the river with an expression more helpless than anyone else's.

  The Mourning Star shouted: "The rope has been thrown to the head!" The rope had indeed been thrown to the head. The rope was wrapped around our hands, and we didn't know if it was being pulled by the dog meat or washed away by the river current. The rope was straight like a stick, and we hadn't seen the dog meat surface for a long time.

  Hao Shouyi's voice was almost a plea, "Pull back, Captain, pull back."

  He sat on a rock, his eyes fixed on the Nujiang River, his face twisted in hatred. He didn't say a word, just gritted his teeth and scratched his head fiercely, as if he could scratch out his brain.

  We remained silent for a long time, until the snake's butt finally broke the silence and said: "It's over."

  He's dead! He's dead! But he woke up, jumped up and shouted loudly in a crying tone: "Pull back! Pull back!"

  Not spicy crow mouth, "Pull back to death dog..."

  I kicked him hard and fell to the ground with a loud thud. I shouted: "Pull back!"

  We all rushed up, grabbed the rope head, and tried to pull it back. But at this time a hairy head struggled out from the other side of the riverbank, and then was slapped down again. When it appeared again, its feet were obviously on the bottom, desperately scrambling towards the shore.

  We watched, not daring to breathe. We've seen the look of exhaustion before, but we've never seen a dog's exhausted look, it seems like we could blow it down with just one breath across the river.

  It climbed ashore, no longer struggling or showing any intention to do so, found a sturdy tree and started circling around it, after several circles it almost tied itself to the tree, then fell down with a thud, half dead and panting.

  Dogs are so smart, people don't dare be stupid anymore. We found a large reef and tied the rope head tightly to it.

  The bean pancake is delicious, "the dog meat is great too."

  Hao Shouyi said: "Don't call it dog meat anymore, we're a bunch of useless people, it should be called human flesh."

  We once again tied up our equipment and sealed the things that couldn't get wet. We had long since made up our minds to cross the river, and we were well-prepared for this kind of thing. The Funeral Star took the lead, followed by the Mystic Dragon Hall, and then we entered the river one after another.

  We now have a suspension bridge - the first suspension bridge on the Nujiang River after being driven to the east bank by the Japanese army. The following things all became simple, as long as you didn't care about your life. Although each person had a safety rope tied to the suspension bridge, people were still repeatedly washed away and slapped into the water, then pulled out from under the waves by others who risked their lives. When Dou Bing was washed away and pulled back up, we heard a faint sound - Miao Long's powerful pull had broken the backpack strap on his shoulder, and the heavy equipment and spare bullets on Dou Bing's shoulder were all swallowed by the Nujiang River with a "plop". Then Miao Long gave him a heavy punch after pulling him out. None of us made a sound, because whoever opened their mouth would be choked to death by the rushing river water.

  After the mourning star landed, it started pulling up the numbness behind him. The numbness and the mourning star joined forces to pull up the dead. We finally crossed this uncrossable river, one by one stepping onto the long-lost land of the west bank. Most people did the same thing, crawling into the nearby woods like corpses, lying on the ground.

  The last dragon also landed. He was busy kicking the butt of the bean cake, and the bean cake kept drilling into the woods. Now there is only one Mauser 20 rounds and a few small waist bags left. As he drilled through the forest, he said: "There are still four clips! There are still four!"

  "With only eight bullets, how can I fight? And there's no spare barrel to exchange. Psst, psst, psst, the devils will hear and say that even farting is stuttering." Mí Lóng scolded.

  The snake's butt died on the ground, "Next time you carry Mark Zuckerberg over here, Mark Zuckerberg has a lot of face."

  "Shut up. This is the Japanese military defense zone, which dead monkey climbs the tree and looks up, that side is thousands of devils." We immediately stopped making a sound, even feeling like our bones were all scattered. We looked at him in silence, looking in the direction he was pointing.

  We are now in another world, and on the vast land of China, there is a kind of terror that is like being in a foreign land. We shout for recovery every day, but we never thought it would be such a sneaky recovery.

  He's dead, he's dead, don't mind him, he just wants us to be vigilant instead of tense. He untied the knot on Dog Meat's body, and this time he didn't mutter anything when hugging Dog Meat. He tied a dead knot at the top of the tree, then pushed Dog Meat hard, making it shake up and down.

  "Go," he said.

  We plunged into a safer thicket.