Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Here is the translation:

  "Foreword: There are only two more chapters left, and the first part will come to an end. (Deep Blue bows) Thank you to all readers for patiently reading through Deep Blue's articles. Now, Deep Blue wants to give a name to the first part, please help out! Think carefully about it~ Also, this is also seeking everyone's opinion. I wonder, when the next part starts, will it be telling another person's story? Or will it continue with Hayato and Yamakuma's story? (Of course, there will be a connection in the end)"

  Uggghhh... "Ah..." As my body was heavily thrown to the ground, I also let out a miserable cry from my throat... Clang! The iron door behind me was heavily closed, and with great effort, I used my only good hand to support my battered body. Slowly, enduring the intense pain all over my body, I moved to the door, leaned my body against the icy cold iron door, and felt the chill emanating from it. This way, it could slightly alleviate the pain all over my body, and also clear up my spirit that was on the verge of collapse...

  "Hey......" A low growl emerged from my throat, directed at the person guarding outside the door. I knew that there was always someone keeping watch outside, always...

  I waited for a long time, but there was no one outside to respond to me, so I had to shout out again, "Does anyone have cigarettes?" As soon as the words left my mouth, low murmurs of discussion came from outside. My ears were still ringing and I couldn't hear clearly what people outside were discussing. 'Are my ears going deaf too?' I muttered to myself, although I kept telling myself not to mind anything, but I just couldn't help it, I really couldn't accept it, I still had so many things left undone...

  After a while, through the peephole in the door, a pack of cigarettes and a pack of matches were stuffed in. "Hmmm..." Because I was leaning against the iron door, the pack of cigarettes hit my head. My current self is so fragile, a pack of cigarettes can make me let out a low, mournful cry.

  With great effort, I used my left hand to pull out a cigarette from the pack, put it in my mouth, and then took out another match, laboriously rubbing it until it ignited, lighting the cigarette in my mouth. Taking a deep breath... "Cough! Cough!" I let out a loud cough, having accidentally inhaled too much smoke.

  "How much time do I have left?" With my breathing finally calming down, I slowly raised my right hand in front of my eyes. What I saw was that my right hand had almost been crushed to a pulp. Trying to move the fingers on my right hand, they still seemed okay, and could still move. However, every time my fingers moved, waves of piercing pain shot from my hand to my heart. Ignoring the increasingly intense pain, I continued to move the fingers on my right hand. "Do you want to cripple me?"

  "I wonder how the mountain bear is doing? Hopefully his situation is better than mine... Now I've moved to a corner of this small room, with the monitor right above my head, so they can't see my movements. I start to slowly check the injuries on my body with my relatively intact left hand. 'At least half of my ribs are cracked, but probably not broken. Both eye sockets were kicked... They're really ruthless, was someone giving them hints?' As I ask myself this question, my tongue starts to check the wounds in my mouth, and fortunately, no teeth were knocked out, they didn't use a hammer..."

  "Hey!! How many days have I been locked up here?" After checking my wound, I loudly asked the person outside the door about the current time. Because in this sealed small room, it's completely impossible to keep track of time, and I've only managed to count up to the 5th day before losing track.

  "14 days." The voice from outside told me how long I had been here, and also reminded me that the day of my departure to see Ouyang was approaching. "How humiliating, I'll definitely be laughed at by Ouyang, and I ended up dying at the hands of the military court's enforcement team...... But with these injuries, I reckon she'll worry about me first before laughing." I gently picked up my only personal item, my ID card, which had Ouyang's protective charm on it. Looking at the only thing Ouyang left for me, my heart slowly ridiculed myself.

  "Do I regret it?" The low voice in my mouth was asking myself the question that had been on my mind all along. Do I regret what I did? Do I regret it? As I pondered my own question, my thoughts sank back to when Mountain Bear and I returned, letting me recall once more, and then answer my own question...

  BOOM!!! As the explosion sound came from far away in the corridor behind us, Mountain Bear and I exchanged a smile. "In there, heavy white phosphorus incendiary bombs, estimated no survivors! You little devil, you're really ruthless!!!" Mountain Bear laughed while teasing me.

  I made a helpless gesture, "Who told me I only had that one left on my body, and you want it from me, but you don't give it to me." Then, also smiling, I said the helpless words, but in my words, the tone of teasing was more than serious.

  "Haha ~ you little devil!! Let's go, to the battlefield, it's still far away." The big bear laughed and patted my shoulder, we walked towards the battlefield together...

  As we walked to the edge of the formation, I raised my gun high, not wanting to be mistakenly killed by our own people. "How did you guys come back?!" I turned around following the sound, and saw that new guy named Zhang Feng. His tone made me frown involuntarily. 'What's with the surprised tone, more than a welcoming one?'

  "Hey kid, what's going on? You seem really off. It feels like we shouldn't have come back...?" The mountain bear also sensed something was off from his words and grabbed Zhang Feng who was about to run away, asking in confusion.

  "Not... nothing, it's fine." I heard him say, and I slightly shook my head, looking into his eyes, a hint of my signature smile playing on the corner of my mouth.

  "What's going on? Your words are too fake. What happened?" I saw that his eyes were unnaturally avoiding mine and the mountain bear's gaze.

  "I, I, I don't know..." He was still evading my question.

  "To be honest, we won't eat you." This time, it was the mountain bear's rare gentle tone, and I hoped he could seize this opportunity.

  "What's going on? What are you talking about?" The hesitant words and evasive gaze made it clear that he knew something, but didn't want to tell us.

  I reached out and patted the mountain bear on the shoulder, stopping his desire to roar loudly. "Let's go, let's go back, we'll know everything." After I finished speaking, I walked straight towards the campsite.

  "How many of us will return from the team we took out?" I and Shanying, while quickly walking towards the camp, asked Zhang Feng, who had been following behind all along.

  "I, I don't know..." The mountain bear stopped in its tracks upon hearing his words, clenching its fists tightly.

  "Damn it! I don't know! I don't know! What the hell do you know, you little brat!!!" The unbearable mountain bear turned around and loudly shouted his anger at the person behind him...

  "We... will... avenge..." At this time, I suddenly heard the personal communicator brought by Zhang Feng, which transmitted a voice that interested me. 'Why are they allowed to carry communication equipment?'

  "We must avenge our comrades who have just been sacrificed!! They have our ace sniper, Wang Kun, our Li squad leader, Li Xue-liang, and the soldiers who followed them......" I snatched his communication device, put the earphone in my ear, and immediately heard this voice. Confused, I grabbed Shan Xiong, who was about to start cursing again, and directly stuffed the earphone into his ear.

  His face turned uglier with the voice in his earphones, "Damn it! How many of us are going to die?!" Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Mountain Bear yanked off his earphones and slammed the communicator to the ground, loudly asking Zhang Feng this question.

  "I don't know." Still a standard answer. I shook my head weakly upon hearing the response. "This guy, he's suitable for working at the Secret Bureau, doesn't know anything..."

  As I shook my head, my arm was grabbed by a bear-like man who started running towards the command center. "Damn it!! Let's go ask him properly." He yelled in my ear while running, making my ears buzz. 'It's not even my fault, why yell at me?'

  "YOU!!!" Bursting into the command center, Shan Xiong pushed aside the guard who tried to stop him and dragged me straight into the underground bunker. What I saw was not our familiar regimental commander, but a different person standing in his position. He looked at us, also taken aback, and involuntarily blurted out these two words.

  "Very surprising, can we go back?" The low voice also made the surprised guy completely calm down from his surprise.

  "Why not give a salute!!!" As he shouted loudly, I grabbed the mountain bear who was about to roar and gave him a commanding stare.

  I and the mountain bear, standing at attention, followed by a powerful salute. "Wang Kun, Li Xue-liang, fall in!" We said what we had to say, but I saw that the person opposite us, upon hearing our words, flashed a hint of venomous intent in his eyes for an instant, although it was immediately replaced with a warm smile. But I still saw it.

  "Welcome back, go take a rest." Seeing the warm smile in his eyes and hearing the concern in his voice, I felt a sudden cramp in my stomach, I wanted to vomit.

  Gently pushing down his shoulder, he dodged the hand that was about to pat him, "May I know what position you hold? And what about our former squad leader?"

  "My surname is Zhao, I am your new team leader." He slowly explained my answer, but I heard a hint of pride in his words.

  "What about our former captain?" Mountain Bear asked this question with a puzzled expression, at this time, the eyes of Captain Zhao, had an even more triumphant look.

  "Because there are places that need him more, so he was transferred, and I am his replacement." He explained patiently to us.

  "What you need now is rest, go and take a break." Another caring remark.

  "We want to know, why have we been listed as dead? And, it's said that the squad should have people coming back, but how come none of them are here?" The puzzled Shan Xiong asked slowly without leaving.

  "Deserted in the face of the enemy, disobeyed orders, and shot four." The words that slowly came out of his mouth made my heart sink. "Shot? Why?"

  "Why is it like this!!! Their mission has already been completed!!!” The mountain bear continued to shout in vain, I didn't say a word, because my eyes inadvertently saw that beside Captain Zhao, there was no one following him, and the entire bunker had only us three people...... "A trap?"

  To be honest... I didn't give Captain Zhao a chance to explain, but instead followed Mountain Bear's words and directly asked my question. It can be seen that there is a look of surprise in his eyes.

  "Really? I'm telling the truth!" Hearing his words, I grabbed hold of Mountain Bear who was about to throw a punch.

  "Attacking a superior, intending to mutiny. Enough to make me and Mountain Bear die without being able to die. I think, there must be people from the military court outside?" I said faintly, because I knew someone named Zhao before. 'Zhao Zhi...'

  "You're very clever, as soon as I shout, the military court people will rush in and you'll be done for." He said with a self-satisfied tone, giving me a feeling of being drenched from head to toe with a basin of icy water.

  "Why?" The mountain bear was so angry that he couldn't speak, I replaced him and asked this question.

  "Do you know the name Zhao Zhi? (I nodded slowly after hearing his words.) Good that you do, he was executed by firing squad in a military court for spreading rumors and disrupting military morale. He's my son!! My only son!!! As I heard his words, I didn't show any surprise or fear as he had expected, but instead continued to stare at him coldly with my eyes, noticing that his hand had unconsciously moved to the gun holster on his waist..."

  "Is that so? That guy's a goner." The words came out of my mouth, and as I glanced at the mountain bear's eyes, I knew he was thinking the same thing.

  "No matter how much hatred you have for us, go ahead and find us then. Those warriors are innocent, INNOCENT! Why do you want them to die with us?" Mountain Bear shouted at him, I saw from the side that he was crying!!

  "That's just my personal preference, originally your mission was supposed to be covert reconnaissance. But I secretly let the people on the other side know your position. Hahaha~~ They won't die, they'll eventually understand." As soon as he finished speaking, Yamakuma had already clenched his fists, ready to punch that despicable smile off his face. "Mutiny against a superior officer, intent to rebel..." I thought to myself, wondering if I should stop Yamakuma.

  "Aren't you the one who hates this kind of person the most?" The voice in his heart asked himself, and he had already seen him pull out a gun, aiming at the rushing mountain bear, with a hint of a triumphant smile on the corner of his mouth...