Chapter Seven

  Speaking of being a soldier, it's necessary to talk about guns.

  I don't know how many brothers who became soldiers had this thought before putting on that green uniform: their mind was full of themselves standing in a horse stance, holding a machine gun, with flames and smoke behind them, the enemy's ferocious face in front of them, then a loud shout, best followed by a sentence of the most powerful curse words from their hometown, and then wildly sweeping with fire.

  No way, you can say that the movie from my childhood was misleading too, anyway, in the movies from my childhood, those heroic tough guys were all like this and no matter how I looked at it, they were absolutely awesome, absolutely cool, and absolutely breathtaking!

  So when that day Guangming called me and Jiang Kuan to go with him to get the gun, I was full of energy from head to toe, my eyes were all green light, if it had been at night, people would have thought I was a wolf!

  Oh, two wolves.

  That big guy Jiang Kuan's grandson is even greener than my eyes!

  Signed and registered, then carried ten Type 56 assault rifles on his back and walked away.

  Brothers, don't say that Wu Liu is an old gun, fighting has no power, and it looks like there's a bit of a rustic feel to it.

  That's a counterfeit Kalashnikov, the favorite of thugs all over the world!

  Don't look at the Americans' light weapons, one on top of another, with beautiful shapes and all sorts of high-tech stuff piled on, as if a single automatic rifle could match the power of a 155mm howitzer. But when it comes to close combat on the battlefield, it's still these AK-series guys who are sturdy and reliable!

  Don't believe me? Look at the Vietnam battlefield, why did the Americans abandon those M-series guns and pick up AK-series instead?

  Let's get back on track again.

  At that time, one person had a gun in hand, and according to the usual practice of the KMT, they began to disassemble the guns they had obtained and maintain them. In front of each person was a large piece of cloth, carefully wiping all the parts until they could see their reflection, then they went to the shooting range and started aiming at targets.

  The gun had just arrived, and the fresh momentum was still quite strong. Looking at a group of brothers lying down one by one, pulling their hat brims back, and aiming at the target with one eye open and one eye closed, starting to compete. Anyway, as soon as the training bullet was fired from the barrel, the sound of pulling the gun bolt echoed loudly, making it feel like the Eighth Route Army was pulling a big bolt in some year.

  After a day, the freshness was gone.

  Originally, aiming at the target was holding a single-eyed dragon towards the target and competing with each other, and even paying attention to shooting skills such as three stickers. Holding this posture for a long time is indeed tiring and extremely boring.

  Plus, in Xinjiang, even though it's winter, the small sun shining on my body while wearing a military cotton-padded jacket has a somewhat hypnotic effect. After aiming at the target for an hour, I felt my eyelids starting to droop and someone humming a lullaby in my brain, and before I knew it, I had leaned my head against the gun and fallen asleep.

  Those who have played with AK or seen AK should know that it's not easy to put the magazine holder of that thing on the ground steadily, especially when you need to put your head on it to sleep, which is a high-difficulty action.

  But at that time, it wasn't just me who made it, many brothers also made it.

  According to what Huang Ming told me later, at that time he and several instructors were fooling around in the back. This is not to say that the instructors were not serious, but since they had already taught the key points and the new recruits seemed to be following them, there was no need for them to stand in front and watch.

  Suddenly heard a brother lying down among them let out at least C-level snore!

  At that time, several instructors were stunned, but they all laughed.

  Everyone was a new recruit who knew that new recruits didn't have enough sleep, even standing up could snore loudly, let alone lying down in such a comfortable posture.

  Everyone has fallen asleep while aiming at some point...

  Then Kuang Ming went up to take a look and thought to himself, "Who is this? Even if you're sleeping, why do you have to snore so loudly that others will know you're asleep?"

  This time, he's really angry!

  There are ten people in a class, all with their mouths open and drooling, as if they were covered in gun grease and had a fierce man sleeping next to them, who was still muttering something about dreaming of improving his diet by eating braised pork on the weekend.

  So my eldest brother is someone who makes people admire and respect him, but also someone who makes people hate him to the bone!

  You said you saw the soldiers aiming at the target and sleeping, didn't you just kick them awake? Or else, grab that guy and take him for a 5-kilometer run to refresh his mind.

  That would really make it impossible to see the hateful side of Nako!

  He walked quietly to the front of the gun and kicked it sideways with one leg.

  Isn't AK always leaning?

  He was kicked down with one foot and immediately fell to the ground. The brother who had been resting his head on the gun to sleep suddenly made a full-body fly-swatter motion!

  But the problem is, those flies are on the ground, and their wings are right under our noses, chins, and faces.

  When a person is sleeping soundly and gets hit hard, the first feeling isn't pain but rather that their head feels like it's been severely shaken, leaving them dizzy and unable to make a sound.

  So when Kuangming kicked ten AKs, not one of the brothers could make a sound to wake up those brothers who were still sleeping for hundreds of years!

  When the pain comes, tears and snot come out all at once, and it's even harder to cry out loud. It's as if they've been attacked by tear gas, and in their hearts, they've already cursed that bastard Huang Ming to death!

  That's it, just this once, and no one will dare sleep when they're being targeted again!

  I don't know if brothers who have been soldiers or have a concept of guns have the same feeling?

  No matter what the target is, as long as there's a living thing in front of you, it's absolutely going to be aimed at that living thing instead, and the feeling of pulling the trigger is like a storm brewing inside, reaching its peak.

  Sometimes aiming at targets can also be a bit fun.

  Actually, if I were to tell this story, I reckon it would invite a barrage of curses from my comrades, especially those military personnel who have become minor officials. If they saw it, they would be even more likely to jump up and denounce me for spouting nonsense and tarnishing the reputation of the army?

  Haven't you seen that I've already made it clear in the first sentence of this article?

  I'm just talking nonsense, adding some fun for everyone, don't take it seriously, I've said that everything I said is all nonsense!

  When we aim at the target, it's not always on the shooting range. Sometimes, during lunch or in the evening, we set up targets outside the courtyard and a group of new recruits lie down to take aim, which also has its own meaning.

  One day, after dinner, we set up targets under the sunset and lay down on the ground to aim. Several instructors stood behind us, but since there were no senior officers around, two of them lit cigarettes and chatted idly to digest their food.

  Suddenly, two girls wearing jeans walked towards us from the road in front of us.

  That's absolutely not a woman but a girl, although it's quite far away, just by looking at the figure and gait as well as the vague facial outline, you can tell that this definitely won't be some family member coming to visit the troops. That's absolutely a female soldier from the sanitation team who changed into casual clothes to show off for a bit.

  I dare not say that all the brothers turned their guns at those two girls, but at least several brothers around me absolutely did not aim at the target, and I was one of them.

  I was aiming at the two girls wearing jeans, I aimed at their heads but I'm sure that Jiang Kuan, that son of a bitch next to me, was definitely aiming at someone's butt or chest and he was even drooling while talking about how grand, huge, enormous, great...

  We took aim at the two girls, we took aim at those two girls of our age under the sky filled with flames. I even fired my gun at them, although I knew it was just a training bullet, I still pulled the trigger.

  The sound of guns being cocked and fired around me merged into a cacophony!

  The several instructors behind us also saw the two girls and started whispering to each other, saying "Which one is this? This should be the new one from the sanitation team, right?"

  That tall guy should be Tian Shu. I met him last time when I went to fetch medicine, and from the way he walks, it's definitely Tian Shu!

  That short guy should be that girl from Sichuan, it must be you, look at that butt, the hygiene team has no other girls except her, and she's got a T-34-like figure!

  Which one do you think is better looking? I think Tian Shu looks clean and neat, but taking her home as a wife may not be necessarily better than that Sichuan girl. Moreover, I heard she has a boyfriend, isn't it Zhu from the team?

  Haha, Counsellor Zhu is 1.87 meters tall and has a head like a bear's. With that build, if he presses down, Tian Shu will become a pancake! Who's the matchmaker who brought them together?

  We were a group of new recruits lying on the ground aiming at targets but all of us were staring at those two girls wearing jeans until they left our line of sight.

  A few old comrades just chatted nonsense and pointed fingers at each other, satisfying their cravings.

  That's it.

  At that time, we were all still young, very young!

  It's true that this sighting system can indeed help people find the right feeling to shoot, which is very beneficial for future shooting training.

  But some habits developed during blank firing practice are carried over into live-fire exercises.

  Let's just say the first shot was real.

  The first real shot! My heart was excited and couldn't find its way, thinking I must be a natural-born god of guns, a heroic figure. The gunshot is more exciting than the firecrackers on New Year's Eve, making me feel like a total boss! I've also fired a gun before!

  Each person has ten rounds of ammunition loaded into the magazine, the gun is placed on the shooting platform, running to position, prone position, loading bullets, and then one by one, shouting loudly, preparing for shooting.

  The instructor on the other side shouted and started firing, and the brothers below began to wildly shoot.

  No wonder this new recruit is of poor psychological quality.

  I remember that at the time, a brother who was squatting next to me might have been excited and had not forgotten his habit of aiming, so he fired a shot and pulled the bolt, treating the AK as if it were a Type 38 rifle!

  Later on, that brother really became famous because of this shooting competition.

  Ten bullets were fired and five went out, the other five flew to the side. That brother's surname was Zhang, and at that time he was given a nickname - Zhang Ga!

  If it weren't for Zhang Ga's words, how would there be a habit of hitting three eight big covers?

  It's also weird that the brother was confused, but he managed to hit all five bullets on the 10-ring and even got two double taps, which is a standard shooting competition technique called "double tap" in English.

  Don't you think this is unorthodox?