Chapter 71

  "Die, die! We have to give Mi Long the money for goods, or he'll cut us off. You'll only have coarse grains to eat."

  I've already put my hand in my pocket, "You go ask Old Hao for it."

  "Die die! You're so impatient, pinching your fingers together: 'Others work hard to save money for their sons. You're such a passionate and aware young man, don't haggle over the price!'"

  I got angry and snatched back the money that had reached his fingertips. "No way."

  "Die die die: 'I have your handle.'"

  "I'd rather die than be your follower. If you want money, I can give it to you, but don't expect me to be your lackey."

  "Die, die: 'Come and come. Are you free if you stay away from me? What I say or do is none of your business! If you get close to me, what are you not free to do?'"

  I almost choked, "You're our team leader. You don't have anything, yet you're giving orders like a boss."

  "Die, die! After some thought, he said: 'In that case, I still have something on you.'"

  I didn't retort because he pulled out a stack of dirty and old letters, shaking them. Those letters had been passed through many places, some were even opened, all with folded corners and stained edges.

  "It won't be mine."

  He pulled out a letter and waved it around: "A beacon fire for three months, a family letter worth ten thousand gold. Do you want freedom or the beacon fire and family letter?"

  I stared desperately at the letter that he had waved in front of me, making everything blurry, trying to make out what was written on the envelope, but it was completely impossible.

  "I'm free now."

  "Dead dead stunned: "...Ah ha?"

  He didn't look back, but I deliberately avoided looking at him either. I gave him a very gentlemanly bow, and then I limped away as fast as I could, trying to appear cheerful.

  "Damn it! I'm so annoyed!"

  I turned around, and next to me was a pile of fire. The guy had hung the letter that the ghost knew who it was on top of the fire. He's not fighting with me now, but studying my mentality - this is what I least want.

  So I chuckled and rolled my eyes: "If for freedom's sake, both can be abandoned."

  Then I walked away with a lame man's normal gait.

  "What in the world are you doing?!"

  I turned back, the dragon was fighting with Della, and Dr. Hao was rushing to grab the letter that had just been thrown into the fire and extinguishing it in his arms.

  They are all staring at me now, because I have an expression that can no longer be concealed, it's very serious - even the dead would realize.

  "It's not mine. They all thought I was dead long ago."

  Hao Shouyi just glanced at the letter and looked at me suspiciously again.

  Then I snatched the letter from Dr. Hao's hand and ran away in a hurry.

  He's yelling excitedly behind me again, he won. "You're not free! You're not free!"

  I didn't care about him, I didn't care about anyone, I hastily ran towards a deserted place.

  I was hiding in a bush, looking at the letter, which had been passed around for who knows how many times, probably not much less than I had. I was amazed that just a few pages of paper could have traveled so far to today. The envelope was dirty and worn out, but I could still see the familiar elegant yet rigid calligraphy.

  I tore the letter, I don't know if it was the end of the letter or if my hands were shaking too hard. I stretched out my hand and ripped the letter in half, then unfolded the two halves of paper and pieced them together to read. Even here, I still hid it in my arms, not wanting my family affairs to become someone else's gossip.

  I consider myself a genie from "One Thousand and One Nights", after three thousand years of silence, I finally learned to hate humans. But people always overestimate themselves, I couldn't do it.

  The letter wasn't long, I finished reading it and started muttering to myself:

  "Are you kidding me? Why didn't you just kill yourself earlier?"

  I was in the bunker I shared with Deadly, gazing at the opposite bank through binoculars. My eyes were filled with hatred, although in reality, after the Japanese army finished their camouflage work on the other side, I couldn't see anything. The South Gate looked like it had returned to its original appearance, and you couldn't tell that there were several thousand rifle muzzles and dozens of cannon muzzles hidden inside.

  Except for the giant tree on the mountain top which has been transformed into a permanent fort and now looks like an ogre.

  Hao Shouyi: "Come on, you're really not going?"

  "I want to be alone."

  The old man left. A few more appeared: "Damn it. Where does your wife live?"

  I didn't even bother responding, glaring at them furiously. They finally couldn't take it anymore.

  "Mind your own business, don't interfere with others' family affairs."

  I stared at those guys disappearing, the dragonfly and they were not in the same group, but when running out of the bunker, patted my ass. Dead dead followed by dog meat, the guy peeked his head in to glance at me.

  "Die die die: 'Forget it then.'"

  It seemed quiet, but the last one to come in was A Yi, and he came in the most formally, dressed the most brightly, tidied himself up, and looked at me with a similarly bright and shiny gaze, bright and shy.

  "Whatever, just get out of here."

  A Yi nodded enthusiastically and even gratefully at me, then left. Finally quieted down, I stared blankly at this messy and moldy cave.

  After the salary was issued, many people wanted to go into the city. The only place they could go was Zentaya. Shila and Midori were must-gos, for either open or secret purposes. Doran and Hao's veterinarians were also going, as they were a group of bound people. Aya was also going, although he had an expression that said he was meeting his first love, but everyone knew that every now and then, he had to go report to Tangji about the poor performance of the Cannon Gray team.

  I'm wandering in the trenches, in the eyes of the soldiers who stayed behind, I am the highest commander of this position for several hours. To myself, I am a crippled soul who doesn't know where to go or what to do. The old gunpowder has all left, facing a group of new gunpowder, I feel like a human being. I hope the road leading down the mountain is broken and becomes a cliff, and the place I'm in becomes an isolated peak, and I die alone on this isolated peak.

  I pointed at this, poked that, got a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings to stand up in line, buttoned some guy's collar until it was choking him, kicked a few butts, whacked someone's helmet with a stick, and herded people to move the gun emplacement from point A to point B.

  Within two hours, I found out that I overestimated myself. If this were a solitary peak, I would have already taken up the hoe and filled in the road leading to the outside. I couldn't take it anymore, these new recruits are cannon fodder. They think they're invincible just because we let them see the rabbits on the other shore, when bullets hit their bodies only taking away flesh but not lives, thinking that as long as they carry a gun, they'll never die.

  I am just a person, I have never tried being alone. If you say there is no clothes, then let's wear the same robe together.

  I no longer look like the highest commander of the army, I'm hiding in a traffic trench, surrounded by a bunch of soldiers who don't look like soldiers at all, and I'm undermining their morale while spreading rumors.

  I was striking the helmet of Manchu with a spirited and lively attitude, making him often have to lift it up again to block his line of sight.

  "Have you been shot before?" I tossed a 7.92mm bullet, "Would it be so big if it hit your body? Stupid... Bang..."

  I shot that pellet gun at Mud Egg's chest. Mud Egg shook once and sat down on the ground with a thud.

  "You can't dodge it. Don't even think about dodging, it's more than twice as fast as sound. It goes in, tearing flesh open, tearing it wide open, along with blood vessels and nerves. Whoosh, taking away a big chunk of you, it leaves, your flesh wants to close up, but can't, torn apart. This is good, it didn't hit bone. If it hits bone, it will spin around inside you, weighing over 100 pounds, opening up a path, bullets that hit the chest may only be found in the belly. When it hits the head, it goes in, ---zzzt---, then can't come out, spinning around inside the head. ---Soft and soft and soft---, several circles, everything inside is turned into mush..."

  Those country folks' faces were scared white by me, and somehow this brought me a strange kind of pleasure.

  "Muddy egg: "How come you said it differently to others?""

  "They say lies, I say the truth. This is still good. This is a rifle, light. Heavy machine gun, empty empty empty, that thing is a scatter bullet. Don't expect to get hit just once. Zoom zoom zoom, it can push you from here to there. You're smashed, you're also smashed. Quick look, hiss, your hand holding the gun is light, whole, torn away..."

  Among a sea of pale faces, one face stood out as the palest: "...Really?"

  "Of course it's true, do you know why there are always so many missing people in war? It's all messed up... how did you manage to come back?"

  I jumped up, and among a group of people, the one who was scared the most was our supervisor, A-Yi.

  "No one."

  "Is Tang Ji not here?"

  "Aye." He turned it over in his mind: "What am I looking for Vice Master for?"

  "Alright, alright. A tapeworm in one's belly, whose lice are male or female can't be hidden from anyone."

  A Yi suddenly looked at me with a strange expression, and I also found that I was patting him in a rather intimate manner.

  "Annoying! You've been acting weird for the past two days."

  "Young master has always been extraordinary."

  "What I mean is..."

  The muddy egg on the other side shouted loudly: "Bastard!"

  "What's going on? What's happening?"

  "The devils on the other side are scolding us!"

  "What did you curse?"

  "Eight Trigrams Boxing!"

  "I'm out of ideas. Let them eat leftover shit."

  "Exactly!"

  I didn't have the heart to participate in this endless quarrel, so I walked away along the traffic trench. Man Han hurried back to start a new round of scolding. A Yi hesitated for a moment and decided to take the high road, following me. I wanted to keep some distance from A Yi, because suddenly that small white face seemed familiar to me.

  A Yi wants to get closer to me because he suddenly feels that this little white face of mine looks familiar.

  "In the past few hours, I and several others on the battlefield, including our squad leader A Yi, all discovered one thing - we've always been a group of people, never trying to be alone."

  I've retreated back to the first line of trenches from the communication trench, and Ah Yi is still following me stubbornly. I'm holding binoculars to look at the opposite shore, and he's pretending to look too.

  The muddy egg full of Han on the other side was scolding loudly with the opposite bank, sometimes in Mandarin, sometimes in local dialect. On the west bank, there were sometimes Japanese and sometimes awkwardly mixed Chinese. As a result, the east bank also had sometimes Chinese and sometimes awkwardly mixed Japanese.

  "Round legs! Shorty!"

  "Damn it!"

  "Chicken legs! Radish head!"

  "Trash soldier!"

  "Little Eastern Ocean! Even the beggars are fighting for the grassy ditch!"

  "We bring you the awareness of death!"

  "Zhū nèi lián shān shàng le shān, dài gè lián duì shǐ kē zhāng! Lǎo zi yī pào gàn tā gè qiú, tǒng tǒng gǔn zuò lǘ fàn dàn!"

  Translation: "Zhū nèi climbed the mountain with his troops, bringing a bunch of crap! I'll take him down with one shot, and they'll all roll away like dung eggs!"

  The west coast was quiet for a moment, and they heard the four words "Takeuchi Renzan".

  When he comes to kill again, it's the vernacular Chinese: "The headless little devil is Yu Xiaoqing! The wronged wild ghosts are all his soldiers! Captain Takeuchi's dog is Kentaro! Gnawing through his gall and liver!"

  We've all fallen silent this time, probably because we were shocked that little Japan actually used Chinese profanity.

  "How boring."

  "His writing is incoherent."

  "Both sides of the strait, all are propping up."

  "Thirteen points." He also wanted to explain to me: "Thirteen points is a fool who stirs up trouble, isn't it?"

  "You're both thirteen points, so you're fourteen points."

  A Yi immediately looked at me with vigilance.

  "I'm at least a thirteen-pointer." I hastily looked at him with a friendly expression: "I remembered when I was stupid. You don't know how stupid I was, the little Japanese had just dropped white phosphorus bombs on our position, everything was messed up, and I was still striking matches."

  Ah Yi's face lit up with a smile when she confirmed I had no ill intentions: "I'm thirteen points. I... I..."

  He even wanted to think about when he had done something stupid. I kindly reminded him: "No need to think, it's been a lot."

  "Right, Dora! My thirteenth point is that I shot at you, don't mind."

  "I didn't get hit anyway. I was telling you, at 13 points, when we were going to the parade, a big stick just swung over and scared me so much that I almost peed my pants, luckily the water cannon came over right away. I was thinking while pushing forward, this time no one will notice."

  "Listen to me. I was electrocuted when I was 13 years old, and as a kid, I climbed up an electric pole. My hand got stuck on the nail, and I didn't dare pull it out, so I just hung there waiting for adults to come and rescue me after half an hour. Later my dad asked me how could you bear the pain? Actually, I was afraid of pain, afraid of that one moment of pain. Ah, even now when I talk about it, I still get chills."

  "You're very thirteen points, you've already reached twenty-six points thirty-nine points."

  "Your score is 78 points."

  "I'm 156 points."

  We just laughed and then fell silent for a while.

  "Thirteen means fool, right?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "I really want to be foolish, I really want to live again."

  "I am too."

  We fell silent again, and this time our silence was broken by a loud shout from the top of the mountain, so loud that it could only have been amplified by a megaphone. "Listen up, you little devil! Rabbit ears perk up, Grandpa's got something good for you!"

  I was startled, I understand that the guys from Hengyang Mountain would go crazy for any insult to Yu Xiuren's words, but they really made me stare in amazement: two riflemen jumped out of their trenches over there. As if to say they were guarding, or rather just putting on a show, and then jumping out was that little four-eyed guy He Shuguang who liked to sell meat, without any weapons, with his sleeves rolled up, carrying his accordion. When he started playing the accordion, one of his dead party members held a large megaphone to his mouth.

  He Shuguang started singing, and I suddenly found that there were so many fast board poets among us.

  "Bamboo inside, bamboo inside, busy to the point of exhaustion! Mountain after mountain, year after year suffering from injuries! Digging holes, digging holes, rat's trickery! Crossing rivers, crossing rivers, dying a thorough death!"

  He also pulled out a very long melody, dragging a big tail tune: "All the rats died, one by one they fell on Wang Ba Tan!"

  I let out a "poof" and even the binoculars rolled to the ground. A Yi stuck another pair of binoculars to her eye sockets, her open mouth unable to close.

  "This..."

  "... thirteen points..."

  "...one hundred and thirty points is enough..."

  Muddy eggs rushed over, with a look of great shock on his face, "Main force team! Main force team signaling flags, want to unite!"

  "What can we unite with them?"

  Muddy Egg: "That..." He also didn't know how to clearly express that the main force team actually wanted to unite with us: "That!"

  I stood at the end of the trench, and our scum soldiers from my side opened up to me, opening up to the corner of the trench that I couldn't see. I stared at A Yi, A Yi's shoulders were above the trench, holding a telescope staring at the flag language on the top of Henglang Mountain.

  "Is it okay now?"

  "Alright?... No! They're also getting ready!"