Chapter Thirty-One

  The sky grew darker, and we continued to move forward, misunderstandings lingering between us like a fragile victory. Kang Ya, on the flank, broke away from the group to pick a wildflower and stuck it into the muzzle of his rifle, his vulgarity and inspiration not mutually exclusive - only that the rifle shook ungracefully.

  There were many wildflowers and grasses, so Kang Ya picked a flower with her left hand and smiled with a face full of joy.

  "Don't be arrogant, Kun," "You come again and I'll chop you to death."

  Kang Ya still smiled slyly, "You can kill me then."

  He'd rather use the non-lethal rifle as a vase, and he wouldn't even shake it off if there was no lethal one. He waved his hand at that shameless guy like shooing away a fly, but his mind wasn't on this.

  "Die die die! At the end of the line, someone shouted loudly: 'Veterinarian! This is your business!'"

  Hao ran hastily from Lao La's side, muttering: "Your dad is the real veterinarian."

  But Zhang was staring at the team leader.

  Non-spicy worry is my hell, his close friend Ma Zheng and Mi Long are both vanguard.

  I walked behind Yao and Mi Long, leaning on my gun. I was very annoyed because my legs hurt, and also because the two of them had been bickering nonstop along the way. Hao Shouyi went to the back of the team to take care of the patients, and Dou Bing, who was walking beside me, was almost like a panting wooden stump.

  Even the birdsong and beasts' cries that had never stopped in this dense forest were drowned out by the argument between the Sichuanese and the Northeasterner.

  "The owl is hooting. Counting the northeastern guy's eyebrows, when it finishes counting, you silly kid will return home. Alas! Don't look for trouble."

  The dragon said disdainfully: "Blow, you'll just die from blowing. In my hometown, there are more night cats than old hens. The mice in my house can swallow you whole if they're a bit bigger. My house also has a big blind bear, and when it sees you, a little southerner, sitting on a small stool, you'll be finished with just one squeak, and it will roll you up like a scallion pancake."

  "My hometown..."

  I'm so fed up, "Why don't you all just go back to your hometowns and die?! Is that the end of it?!"

  We climbed up the mountain, a path with steep slopes on both sides where dense vegetation and towering trees grew like walls, while those two obviously didn't take me as an opponent.

  "Your hometown has a hammer. My hometown has wild men, shaved hair is just like your melon head. Is there such a bird in your hometown? What's it called?" Ma pointed his head towards the direction of the bird's call.

  The bird that called out happened to be a certain type of bird unique to the south, and Ming Long was suddenly choked, "...Hán Hào Zǐ."

  He was afraid of being scolded and didn't even know what "Hanjiaozi" meant, but his principle was that whatever Minglong said was wrong. "Hanjiaozi?" he followed the bird's cry, "Guo Gong Guo Gong?"

  "... Flying Dragon Bird..."

  What's the big deal about it?

  "Has Flying Dragon Bird arrived in Myanmar? Did you put Daxing Anling in your backpack?" I interrupted Miegong's train of thought.

  When the dragon was scratching its ears and cheeks, the birds in the dense forest at the front of the steep slope began to respond in unison, with a tone that was exactly the same as Want Ma's: "Guo Gong Guo Gong."

  How surprising and delightful! "This bird is quite sensible!" - Guo Guo Guo Gong!

  The bird also cried: "Guo Guo Guo Gong."

  In front of us, there was a small clearing on the path, and the birdsong came from the steep slope above. He shook his sleeves vigorously, facing the forest and showing off his newly learned bird language: "Guo Guo Gong, Guo Gong, Guo Guo Gong Gong, Gong Guo Gong..."

  "Whoa!" We looked up at the slope and saw a bush rustle, revealing a man wrapped in foliage, his Japanese-style face contorted in surprise and anger under a helmet also wrapped in leaves. He must have thought he was a bird, but he could tell that Yamada was just teasing him like a colleague.

  We stared at each other in silence for several seconds, then the Japanese soldier turned around and tried to crawl back into his hiding thicket. He slipped with one foot, rolled down with a rustling sound, all the way to Ma's feet, even dropping his gun.

  We woke up at the same time, I put the rifle on my shoulder, Mi Long raised his machine gun, and Ma reacted the fastest, a bayonet stabbed into the chest of that passerby.

  I listened to the steep slope again with a loud rustling sound, looking at the steel helmet's faint light in the thicket. The first shot rang out, and I watched from behind as a cloud of blood mist burst forth from his numbed head. His last consciousness was to try to maintain his stand by relying on the bayonet still stuck in the enemy's body. He tried for about one second before falling straight onto the Japanese corpse.

  "I shouted at the top of my lungs, nearly scaring myself in the process, 'The Japanese Army!'"

  The dragon fell, opening the footrest. I blindly fired the first shot of the counterattack. The bean cake was busy picking up the cartridges that had fallen to the ground when it fell. Then the fire tongue poured down almost vertically, pouring around me. When I wanted to fire the second shot, I found myself retreating. That was the bean cake and several other squad leaders grabbing my feet and pulling me back. The machine gun bullets just hit the position where I had fallen earlier.

  We crawled into a thorny thistle. The dragon rolled and crawled back among us, he and I and Dou Bing were relatively lucky to get into a slightly sheltered depression.

  The dragon was furious because he hadn't fired a single shot yet. "You despicable thing! There's even one on the tree!"

  I took a glance at the Japanese soldier who had been shot by our comrade, and I could feel lucky that he was killed by the first shot in this encounter battle. The Japanese soldiers under him were groaning and crying out in pain. The machine gunner on the tree couldn't tell whether these cries came from the enemy or their own side, so the tongue of flame from the machine gun moved towards them, sweeping over those two people once again.

  The wailing has also stopped now.

  The dragon futilely fired a burst of bullets, "Vice gunner! Vice gunner? - Damn biscuits?!"

  I and the lost dragon turned back, the bean pancake buried his head deep in the ground motionless. Our first feeling was that he was dead. So I went to touch his helmet. We thought the dead man had lifted his head. I found out that the bean pancake was crying for hemp.

  I reached into the back of the bean cake and pulled out a magazine, handing it to the confused dragon, who silently loaded it.

  He dashed from the rear to the front of the squad amidst the gunfire, slapping those he thought could be used, including the entire crew carrying the only remaining Type 92 machine gun. He stretched his neck to look for someone to slap but happened to miss him.

  Dazed for a second, "How come I'm not there?" Then followed behind without caring about anything.

  We've heard that the Japanese army likes to climb trees, using bird calls and monkey cries as signals, hiding in hundreds or thousands of dense, towering trees, with three or four people perched on one tree shooting at hundreds of fleeing people. The fugitives have no time to search, they can only use their foreheads to withstand bullets.

  He endured the bullet wound and quietly pressed down on the Japanese soldier he had just killed, two machine guns set up in the trees were still sweeping, one was aimed at us, the vanguard soldiers, and the other was blocking our narrow mountain road behind us, the Japanese soldiers on the steep slope were also shooting at us.

  Another soldier fell. A bullet hit the machine gun that Mí Lóng had just set up, and Mí Lóng cursed as he dug out the ricocheted bullet that was embedded in his skin.

  Dead, dead, running over, the hit vanguard was rolling down to his feet. The main force, separated from the vanguard, was firing blindly into the treetops and bushes. It was a slope steeper than 45 degrees, everything was convenient for the Japanese army who had already taken position in the treetops, casualties were also appearing in the main force.

  "Die, die! Take the rifle and stick it into the ground. 'Set up the machine gun! Set it up here!' Then he looked at the soldiers who were standing still on the spot, 'What are you doing hiding here? The squad leader is dead, now it's your turn!"

  But charging into the hail of bullets that came from the darkness, almost vertically piercing, took courage. A soldier who had just stood up was knocked down with his back to the sky. Dead, dead, looking at the slope, another squad leader in the bushes was shot like a beehive. Looking back, the Type 92 machine gun had just been pulled into the team, he lowered his body and started crossing that blocking firepower with his hands and feet together. The machine gun shaved off the mud in front of his face, a rifle bullet hit his helmet and made a sharp sound, flying high and rolling back down the slope.

  I and Mí Lóng Dòu Bǐng hid behind a slightly lower bush, when another leading soldier tried to climb towards us but was quiet after the rain of bullets. The leading soldier was left with just the three of us. I tightly grasped Mí Lóng who wanted to go out and exchange fire with the enemy, while staring at the slope where the foolish charge had resulted in a pile of corpses rolling back down, leaving only one person who didn't dare to retreat and was following behind him.

  The dragon struggled for a while before turning back, and when it turned back, it was stunned. Then, looking at the two of them rushing into our small depression, they filled up the entire narrow space with people.

  The dragon stared at Dead Dead, "Have you turned into a yellow mouse? You're still not dead?"

  He's dead, dead, and doesn't care about him, spitting out a mouthful of dirt.

  "Ah, my grandson Monkey King has gone mad! Where is he going to die?"

  The bean pancake sobbed and said: "I'm dead."

  Don't take this as a rhetoric, "I'm talking about where I'd die..."

  Then he saw the corpse of Ma, and suddenly stood up, only to be pulled down by a dead hand that grasped his foot tightly.

  "Die! Want to...!" No La didn't get to finish his sentence, because Dang Dang suddenly rang out a clear and crisp sound. Die La Die La held up a ring-pulled Japanese hand grenade in front of his face. Die La Die La stared at the flames flickering through the treetops, while we stared at him - that guy didn't have the slightest intention of throwing the grenade.

  The dragon's voice was a bit hoarse, "...Throw it away."

  I almost couldn't get a word out either, "......Hey?"

  He's dead, he's dead! He finally sprang up and ran two steps on the steep slope before throwing out that grenade. As he fell down, bullets almost shaved his hair off, while that guy pressed his head into the soil and yelled: "Mist Dragon!"

  Just as the dragon adjusted itself from a prone position to a kneeling position, the grenade exploded in the tree canopy. The blast was so powerful that it blew the dragon into an empty shell, with smoke bursting through the tree canopy and shrapnel flying not only through the trees but also between us. The machine gun stopped firing, and a Japanese soldier fell into a thicket of bushes under the tree.

  The dragon faced the original place where it spat fire and hit two slaps, we also got up on our knees to shoot. Before Not Spicy opened fire, he was stunned for a moment because there were still wild flowers plugged into his gun muzzle by Kang Ya. Not Spicy muttered curses as he fired, and the petals and stems shattered and fell in the impact.

  Another Japanese soldier fell, and the machine gunner, with his rifle slung over his shoulder, stopped abruptly halfway down - he had tied himself to a tree with a rope around his waist, so he hung there, swaying back and forth.

  The rattle of the 92 machine gun joined us, our only remaining heavy machine had been set up at the foot of the slope and began to fire roughly at another machine gun on a tree crown. They managed to attract the firepower of that machine gun, but those scattered soldiers in the bushes were still shooting at us, the heads of the squad, they were closer, hitting accurately and ruthlessly.

  The dragon started "da da" and "da da" short points, and when there were only a few bullets left, he changed the magazine. He casually threw the replaced magazine down the slope, letting it roll all the way down with a loud noise. I stared at the dragon in confusion, wondering what he was doing with this fancy move, while four Japanese soldiers suddenly rushed out of the shrubs on the steep slope, and two of them were holding hand grenades.

  The dragon began to show a pleased expression of being hit by a pie, "Good cheat! I have something for you to eat!" He shouted and laughed as he opened fire, "Dada" four times, and there were no more Japanese soldiers standing in the bush, two unthrown hand grenades exploded with a loud noise.

  The heavy machine gun with the tripod also showed its advantage of continuous firepower at this time, and the remaining Japanese machine guns were quickly silenced. As a result, several more human bodies appeared under the tree canopy.

  The dragon smiled and turned around, "I'll think about it and come back to find you to learn some more tricks..."

  He didn't even have time to bother with his nonsense, he jumped up: "Let's go! Let's go!"

  The main force of the slope finally caught up with us, and the heavy machine gun squad carefully put away their powerful weapons.

  "Stop it! Go away!"

  "Really?" The dragon was astonished, but not for long. A cold shot knocked down a soldier who had just rushed up to join us. The dark forest was still in front of us, and if we could make it till dawn, maybe there would be some possibility of finding them.

  "Run! Can't even fight and can't run?!"

  The team finally started running. Dead dead rushed back a few steps, overturned the heavy machine gun that was still lifted by the heavy machine gun group, and let it roll down the slope. He followed the team for two more steps before stopping.

  Bulao and Doubing sat on either side of the corpse, one kneeling and the other sitting. Bulao didn't do anything, while Doubing was fastening the buttons on the military uniform that Yamah would never wear properly again.

  He died, he died, a big flying kick went over, the kneeling spicy was kicked to the ground, and when he jumped up, he wanted to fight. He died, he died, a big slap swung more than 100 degrees and threw him away, no doubt he beat the spicy stupid.

  "Is it okay?" he asked calmly.

  "Alright."

  Then he died and added another kick to let Bu Liao join the escape team, shouting: "Ming Long, take care of your own people!"

  The dragon was still staring intensely at the dark forest but gained nothing, after hearing this he started to be puzzled, "My own person? Who is that?"

  I turned his head around so he could see the bean pancake, then started joining the fleeing crowd.

  The dragon was furious and in the past, a backpack that had been tied to Dou Bing's back was pulled over, they were the last two of us who opened the road, Dou Bing looked at his former protector while being dragged.

  We had thrown down dozens of corpses on that slope alone.