Act 1 Chapter 29

  "Here, this is yours." Along with the sound of exhaustion from above his head, he lifted up his own head which had been weighed down to its limits, and saw the face of Yamakuma filled with fatigue.

  He took the thing I handed him, his eyes fixed on the epaulets and ID card, as well as the officer's badge. "A colonel, you little devil, always lucky." Panting heavily, Shan Xiong sat down, leaning his tired body against the concrete wall behind him, taking the cigarette I handed him, lighting it up, and muttering this sentence from the corner of his mouth.

  "Sorry" A tired self, now even without the strength to lift its head, could only lower its head and mutter this sound from the corner of its mouth.

  "What's with the apology? You didn't eat or drink for three days, guarding this guy. I just helped you retrieve your spoils of war, and you're saying sorry? This is something I should be doing." The mountain bear had a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he spoke in a muffled tone, while simultaneously taking down the water bottle from his waistband. He unscrewed the cap, removed the cigarette from his mouth with one hand, and raised the water bottle to his lips with the other, only to discover that not a single drop of water came out. With a loud "clunk", he violently threw the water bottle into the corner, where it let out a piercing sound.

  Shaking his head, he took the water bottle hanging from his waist belt and handed it over to me. The weight of it felt heavy, as I had only taken a sip in the past three days, so the bottle was still full. As Mountain Bear received the bottle, he also noticed that it was almost full, and with a puzzled look, his hoarse and dry voice came over, "You're not drinking? This is still full."

  He shook his head at him, "I just filled it up when you left, drink up, I can go for days without water, but you can't. The water I just drank was so satisfying. At least, I won't need to drink again for a few days." As he spoke, he also gave the soldier next to him who wanted to speak a warning glance, warning him not to make trouble.

  "Haha, you're so dehydrated that you look like you're about to burst! I'm dying from laughter, no need to be polite!" Seeing me make a face like I was stuffed from drinking too much, the mountain bear couldn't help but burst out laughing loudly.

  He saw him drink the last drop of water from the canteen, and he couldn't help but lower his head, swallowing hard the little saliva left in his mouth, then licking his dry, cracked lips. His eyes inadvertently fell on the officer's ID card that had been clenched in his hand all along, and he slowly opened it to see a young face full of sunshine and vitality. He slowly flipped to the last page, only to find a photo tucked between the covers. Carefully pulling out the photo that had been stained with blood halfway, he wiped off the blood on its surface. What he saw was the young man in the previous photo happily hugging a beautiful girl, both of them smiling broadly, very happily. "Is this his fiancée?" He inadvertently muttered to himself in a low voice.

  "It's quite pretty, I didn't notice it just now." When he heard my questioning voice, the mountain bear also squeezed his big head over and said this after seeing the photo.

  "Would she, his girlfriend or fiancée, be heartbroken when she heard the news of his death?" He casually tossed the photo to the curious eyes of the soldier next to him, and leaned his head back against the cold concrete wall behind him, letting the chill of the wall refocus his already blurry vision, and also stimulate his numb brain. Then, feeling the coolness at the back of his head, he asked this question out loud.

  "What's wrong with you, kid!!! Do you regret killing him?" The mountain bear subconsciously answered my question and immediately started shouting loudly in my ear, trying to use his voice to drive away the hesitation he thought I had already shown. However, he didn't notice that others who heard his voice were startled.

  "Do you think I would?" As he spoke, he casually put down the officer's ID in his hand and then pulled out my officer's ID from the upper pocket, flipped to the last page, and handed it to Shanyin.

  "What's this for?" The puzzled Yama-kuma, who was confused by himself, asked while taking the thing I handed over to him. "Xiao Shuang's photo?" Seeing Ou Yang's photo on the military ID I handed over to him, Yama-kuma said in doubt.

  "Well, if one day someone gets it, they'll say the same thing too" The murmured voice still came from his mouth, but I knew he heard very clearly.

  A pair of large hands suddenly appeared in front of my eyes, and before I could react, they tightly pinched my face, rubbing it up and down or shaking it left and right. "You damn idiot!!! Wake up for me!!! Get rid of those weird thoughts in your head!!!!!!"

  Finally, the hands on my face stopped rubbing and shaking. Now I'm lying on the ground, panting weakly, with a burning sensation on my face. The bear's hands were extremely rough, and some places had even been rubbed raw. My head was even more dizzy, and everything in my eyes became blurry, to the point where I felt like vomiting. "What's wrong with you? Have you gone mad?" I managed to crawl up from the ground, and with great effort, leaned against the wall again, weakly voicing out my grievances.

  "You damn bastard, don't you dare say that again! I promised Xiaofeng to take good care of you. You dare to leave before your brother? Wait for me to whip your corpse!!! Hearing his words, he couldn't help but start laughing bitterly, 'Remember not to hit my face.'"

  I casually tied up my hair that had been scattered earlier, "Can't I just not say anything anymore?! My face hurts so much, you bastard!! Don't you know how to be gentle?!" After tying up my hair, I slowly expressed my complaints to the mountain bear.

  "Hmph, hurt? Nonsense!!! If it didn't hurt, how could this guy wake up?" The mountain bear was still angry, angry at my self-abandonment, angry that I didn't cherish myself. "If this guy knew that I tricked him into drinking the only water I had, he'd probably stuff the entire water bottle down my throat." My heart started racing with fear as I thought of this possibility.

  "Alright, let's not talk about that anymore, Shan Xiong. Have you been to this city before?" Abruptly changing the subject, afraid that if he continued, he would really dig up things she didn't want him to know. "I don't want to drink from a water pot."

  The mountain bear, following my words, cast his gaze out the window at the ruins. "I've been here before, when it was so beautiful, with so many cars and crowds... I don't know how to describe my feelings back then." Hehe~" The mountain bear suddenly choked up halfway through speaking, and after a while, he awkwardly spoke out the second half of his sentence.

  "I've been here before, I think you're referring to the prosperity, right?" Also casting his gaze outside, he slowly spoke these words, which could be considered a response to him, and also a sigh from my heart.

  "Exactly, that's what I said. Hehe, brother, I was in a hurry and forgot everything." The mountain bear scratched his head with an embarrassed hand.

  I gave him a look that said, "If you can't say it, then just don't, no need to make up excuses." "Look at this place now," I said. "The dozens of floors of buildings have become ruins, the wide roads are either pockmarked with shell craters or littered with landmines, and the bustling crowds of people...either they're rotting in some corner or who knows where they've run off to." Then, Song's mother spoke up,

  "Yes, this place used to be a dream destination for people, but now it's become hell." The mountain bear was also sighing and grieving.

  "Do you know how long it took to build this place?" asked the mountain bear lightly.

  "It seems like 20 years." This guy, it turns out he knew all along.

  "How long did it take for this place to become like this?"

  "In less than 2 years" The words of Shan Xiong were cut off halfway, and he didn't continue speaking. Instead, like the warriors beside him, he sadly lowered his head.

  "From the start of the war, we've been constantly fighting over this place. Sometimes the enemy takes it away from us, and we bomb them back. When we take it back, they come to bomb us again. I don't know, Mountain Bear, will we ever have a chance to see this place restored to its former state?"

  "Peregrine, don't say that, we will, we definitely will!" The mountain bear seemed to have suddenly remembered something, lifted his head, looked into my eyes and told me his determination with a firm voice.

  "Why?" Curious about why the mountain bear would say such a thing, he couldn't help but ask this question, only to realize the foolishness of his own question as soon as it left his lips.

  "Not for nothing, because we will come back to restore this place to its former beauty, no, not just its former beauty, but even more beautiful than before!!!" The mountain bear didn't care about the foolishness of my question and instead spoke out his determination with an even firmer tone. "Really? I'm afraid I won't see that day." This sentence was only spoken in my heart, because if he heard it, I wouldn't dare to think about it.

  "You're always so determined, but we need to clean up the dogs here first." I didn't know what to say, so I just added a sentence and snatched the cigarette that had just been lit in his mouth, putting it in my own mouth and taking a deep drag. The irritating smoke scratched my dry throat, burning with a fiery pain.

  "Drive those sons of bitches into the sea!!" The bear-like man's words sparked a resonance among everyone around him, and various bold declarations began to echo in my ears.

  I'm not used to this, so I just leaned against the wall and found a comfortable position, gently closing my eyes. "Mountain bear, let me rest for a while, remember to call me." Then I told Mountain Bear that I was tired and wanted to sleep.

  "Alright, brother, you've been tired for three days now. Without you, I reckon there wouldn't be many people alive here either. Get some good rest and then we'll go meet up with the brothers at the main camp." The words of Shan Xiong echoed softly in my ear, as if he was afraid of disturbing my sleep. The soldiers beside us also lowered their voices to a level that was almost inaudible.

  "Wasn't it just the beginning when I first arrived? Now, can it be said that they respect me?" I silently asked myself this question, already prepared to drift off to sleep. However, my extremely fatigued self couldn't fall asleep at all, and could only let my thoughts start running again. "Let's recall what happened before I came here, when I went to see Ouyang... it was a very interesting feeling. Let me recall it once more, maybe it can help my tired mind rest."