Chapter Twenty-Two: The Scars on His Body

  "Alright, everyone's here, let's eat! I can see that you little rascals are all drooling. " said Fu Zhenbang, sitting at the head of the table as a parent.

  Fu Zhenbang's parents died early, and there was only him in the family, so there was no need to send any relatives. As for Fu Zhenbang's father's generation, it is said that there was one, but Fu Xin didn't know about it until many years later from Fu Zhenbang's mouth. That person was a national army before liberation and escaped to Taiwan before liberation, after which he lost contact.

  So there is no saying that the meat will be shared with other family members to eat together. Li Fanghua cut out about three catties of meat and took it for marinating, leaving more than two catties of meat, which was enough to make a pot of braised pork belly, satisfying these seven greedy mouths.

  As they were eating, Fu Xin suddenly said: "Right, mother, can you cut out about a catty of meat for me tomorrow? And that bottle of wine, give it to me too!"

  "Why? We don't even have enough to eat ourselves!" Little Wu, this little gluttonous cat, although didn't know how much a catty was, as soon as he heard that some had to be given away, immediately became unhappy.

  "Yes, big brother, why do you have to cut some out?" The other little guys also asked unwillingly, even Fu Jiu, the most stable and already a junior high school student in the family, was very puzzled and dissatisfied.

  "Uh, you guys listen to me first." Fu Xin looked at the four little guys staring at him, waiting for his response, and suddenly felt a lot of pressure.

  "It's like this, I'm taking these things to go see Old Third's master," Fu Xin explained.

  As soon as Fu Zhenbang heard this, he became a bit unhappy. It wasn't because Fu Xin was taking away the good things from home to give to others, but rather because he thought that Fu Xin had some kind of ulterior motive and was not focusing on his proper duties. He angrily said: "You little brat still haven't given up, have you? Everyone says they won't accept you as a disciple anymore, do you think that just by bringing over such trivial things, they'll take you in? Don't you know that practicing martial arts requires qualifications?"

  "No, Father, it's not what you think." Fu Xin hastily explained, he didn't dare to bear his father's anger.

  "It's not like that, how is it? Speak!" Fu Zhenbang was still very angry. This kid actually wanted to go learn martial arts. The job in the factory with a sixth-level worker treatment, can't even do it properly.

  "Yes, Xiaoxin, what's going on? Tell me about it. If it makes sense, I'll definitely prepare something for you." Li Fanghua chimed in gently from the side.

  Fu Xin thought for a moment and said, "I want to take these things to visit Old Three's master, to thank him for his teaching. Although he didn't accept me as a disciple, he still taught me some moves, which benefited me greatly and increased my ability to stay alive. As a result, among the hundreds of people in our company, I became one of the three lone survivors."

  As he spoke, Fu Xin's face began to change, sometimes looking grateful, sometimes sad, and sometimes relieved.

  "What, son, what unit did you join?! A whole company of hundreds of people, and only three survived! Are you okay?!" Li Fanghua was shocked and immediately stood up, feeling around Fan Xin's body to see if he was missing any limbs.

  Feng Zhenbang, who was standing beside him, was also shocked by Feng Xin's words. He had originally thought that it would be good enough for Feng Xin to serve as an engineer on the battlefield, but he didn't expect that Feng Xin would bring back skills after returning from the army, and even more unexpectedly, Feng Xin was doing such a dangerous job in the troops.

  "I can't say which unit, I signed a confidentiality agreement, but one thing I can say is that my specialty is a new type of troop, tens or even hundreds of times more dangerous than scouts." At this time in China, special forces were just secretly established, so this matter was absolutely not allowed to be made public.

  "What! More than ten times more dangerous than a scout, you're bragging again! Are you still thinking of going to pay respects?" Although Fu Zhenbang had never been in the military, there were some things he understood. However, his suspicion this time was much weaker because he thought of the scars Fu Xin had shown him before.

  "No, I really have to go thank him. Don't believe me? Tomorrow Old Three will follow me there. Old Three, it's settled then!" Fu Xin had never addressed Fu Wen by his name, from the day Fu Wen was born, Fu Xin had always called him Old Three.

  "Alright!" Lao San paid back.

  Go see his master, there's nothing wrong with that, besides he was going to go anyway. Every day at dawn when the purple energy rises, Fu Wen would go to the old man's place to practice his skills.

  "Then you tell me!" Fu Zhenbang still had some doubts.

  "Ah, Father, you've already seen the scars on me, so I won't say much. Let me just tell you how I got these injuries." Fu Xin explained.

  "What's this? A scar! Son, let me take a look." After that, Li Fanghua was about to lift up the new clothes.

  Feng was caught off guard by Li Fanghua's sudden move, and could only cooperate with his mother to lift up his clothes to show the scars. He had originally not wanted his mother to know, so he lifted up his clothes with some helplessness.

  He suddenly exposed the scars on his body and explained, pointing to each scar: "This one was left during training... this one is a bullet wound... this one was left by thorns in the jungle..."

  Looking at these scars, Li Fanghua could no longer hold back and interrupted Fu Xin's words, saying: "Alright, son, let's not talk about this for now. First tell your mother about your experiences as a soldier over the past few years. Mother wants to hear about it. If it involves confidentiality regulations, then don't say it, lest we get into trouble."

  "Tell me, let mother understand too..." As she said this, Li Fanghua's tears began to well up in her eyes. She hadn't expected that her eldest son would have so many scars on his body, even though the wounds had already healed quite a bit. Not to mention that he almost lost his life on the battlefield.

  Unconsciously, Li Fanghua's tears began to flow from the eye socket down her cheek, leaving two bright streaks, very noticeable.

  Seeing Li Fanghua's tears fall, Fu Zhenbang couldn't help but feel a wave of annoyance. The other day, after listening to the news on the radio, Li Fanghua had been secretly crying for many days, which already made him feel suffocated.

  Now Fu Xin has returned, she is still crying. These words made Fu Zhenbang unable to bear it, and he immediately shouted loudly: "What are you crying about? Isn't your son standing in front of you? Listen to him..."

  At this time, Fu Zhenbang almost believed that Fu Xin was a different kind of soldier. Otherwise, in such a simple local war, how could there be so many scars on his body? Fu Zhenbang also wanted to know what his son had learned in the army for two years.

  "Mother, don't cry. Your son is already retired and standing in front of you." Fu Xin didn't dare to help his mother argue with his father, so he could only comfort her.

  Li Fanghua wiped away the tears on her cheeks with her hand and sobbed: "Okay, mom won't cry. Mom wants to hear about how you've been doing in the army for the past two years. Can you tell mom?"

  Listening to his mother's words, Pei Xin's thoughts drifted back to those passionate years.