Chapter 26: In Search of the Taliban

  Zhao Ziyang, who was rescued by the little wild cat, slowly came to and opened his eyes to find himself in a mountain forest. Underneath him was a pile of branches, and on top of him was a blanket, with nothing around but trees and rocks.

  Slowly sitting up, Zhao Ziyang felt a tingling sensation from the wound and instinctively reached out to touch it. But as soon as he touched it, his blood-stained face froze in shock: the wound was still there, but it had almost healed.

  "Hey." A small wild cat's voice came from above, calling out to Zhao Ziyang.

  Zhao Ziyang looked up at the sound and saw a small wild cat lying on the branch of the tree, gnawing an apple.

  "Does this tree grow apples?" Zhao Ziyang blurted out these words.

  "Guess what... Hehe..." The little wild cat hehe'd with a smile, and flipped over to jump down from the tree.

  Do you still need to guess? Such a tree will definitely not grow apples. Zhao Ziyang, who had just woken up, was dizzy and saw the little wild cat gnawing at an apple, and his brain actually came up with this idea. However, this is also very normal. When people are weak, they will always produce illogical ideas, and then express them through words and deeds.

  "Where are we?" Zhao Ziyang asked the little wild cat.

  The little girl didn't say a word, her hands behind her back, pouting and staring at Zhao Ziyang with wide eyes, as if she wanted something.

  "Oh, thank you for saving me." Zhao Ziyang realized he hadn't thanked the person yet and quickly expressed his sincere gratitude.

  "This is about right." Xiaoyezi muttered, taking out an apple and handing it to Zhao Ziyang, saying: "Eat this."

  Zhao Ziyang shook his head and refused Xiaoyezi's kindness.

  Now he is worried about Angie in his heart and doesn't know if Angie can escape smoothly.

  "Don't eat, forget it! This tree can't grow apples, hum!" The little wild cat glared at Zhao Ziyang and took a big bite of the apple, mumbling: "This is..."

  "Where?" Zhao Ziyang stretched his neck.

  "I don't know where this is either."

  Zhao Ziyang, who had stretched his neck, was speechless for a moment, and then stood up from the ground. But as soon as he got up, he felt a sharp pain in his chest, mixed with the numbness of his wound, not to mention how unbearable it was.

  As soon as he felt it, he immediately realized that the bullet head shot into his body had not been taken out.

  "You, you didn't help me get the bullet out?" Zhao Ziyang covered his wound and asked Xiaoyezi again.

  "Why should I give you a bullet?" Little Wildcat said with great curiosity: "Besides, I won't take the bullet anyway."

  "But aren't you very powerful?"

  "Who says that just because one's martial arts skills are powerful, they must be able to catch bullets?"

  “……”

  After a fierce stare, Zhao Ziyang chose to admit defeat, pulled out his military knife and cut open the clothes on his chest, finding the wound.

  "Xiao Ye Mao, go to the trunk of the car and get me some medical alcohol. I need to take out the bullet." Zhao Zi Yang said to Xiao Ye Mao while examining the wound.

  It's only been about twelve hours since last night, but the wound looks like it's had a week of rest. The torn flesh has grown together and exposed tender red flesh, with waves of numbness coming from it.

  The wound has healed, but the bullet head and gunpowder residue have not been removed, leaving them in the body will gradually become infected, eventually leading to internal suppuration.

  "The car was abandoned." The little wild cat said nonchalantly.

  "Then help me find some clean water, I want to wash the wound."

  "There isn't, there's only an apple." The little wild cat threw away the apple core and took out another apple.

  。

  "Never mind." Zhao Ziyang shook his head, not expecting this girl to be able to help him much more, and still had to rely on himself.

  A military canteen was pulled out by Zhao Ziyang, held in his hand and swirled around, nodding his head. There was still more than half a canteen of white wine inside, barely enough to use.

  The location of the gunshot wound is on the left chest, judging from the wound and the direction of the pain, this bullet should have shot to the edge of the heart. It can be said that it was a great luck in misfortune, while narrowly escaping death, I had to face the situation of taking out the bullet by myself.

  The knife tip lightly touched the wound, and Zhao Ziyang gritted his teeth and stabbed it in.

  A streak of fresh blood flowed out from the wound, and the military knife cut through the muscle fibers that had already grown together, inserting it straight into the depths of the wound.

  "Uh!!!!!!!......" Zhao Ziyang clenched his teeth tightly, letting out a pained sound from his throat, and beads of sweat the size of soybeans appeared on his forehead.

  Seeing Zhao Ziyang's chest flowing with fresh blood and his painful appearance, the little wild cat was somewhat unbearable, but the whole person was extremely calm.

  The bayonet had gone in halfway, Zhao Ziyang gave up the action of continuing, the unbearable pain made his right hand start to tremble, he didn't dare guarantee that he wouldn't accidentally stab a small hole in his heart.

  The wound healed too quickly, which was a good thing, but now it's become a bad thing. The muscle growth from the bullet hole is preventing him from completing the task of removing the bullet head.

  "Ugh..." A low groan escaped Zhao Ziyang's lips as he pulled out his military knife and began to cut away the muscle tissue stained with gunpowder.

  All of this was done under the watchful eyes of Little Wildcat, who stared blankly at Zhao Ziyang's pained expression.

  "Ahhhhh!!!!!!" Zhao Ziyang let out a loud cry of pain as he poured the white liquor onto his wound, the high-proof liquor instantly burning the nerves inside his body through the wound, his entire body emitting a faint hum.

  "Huff...huff..." Zhao Ziyang lay heavily on the ground, panting loudly, letting the fresh blood from his wounds seep out bit by bit.

  He didn't even mean to bandage, now his physical condition is very strange, the wound heals at a surprisingly fast speed. This has been studied by Ling Hu for a long time, but it has not been figured out what's going on, and can only be attributed to the piece of tree leaf he ate back then.

  The fresh blood from the wound flowed slowly and coagulated on its own after a while, and the wound began to heal quickly again, forming scars in a short period of time.

  。

  Unable to retrieve the warhead, it had to be this way. The top priority now is to find Angel and the team members. If the estimate was correct, Angel would definitely flee to the Taliban stronghold, which is the safest place.

  "Kitty." Zhao Ziyang called out to the little wild cat, casually cutting off a piece of camouflage fabric with his military knife and wrapping it around the wound.

  "Ah?" The little wild cat opened its mouth wide and responded with a meow.

  "Where did you throw the car?" Zhao Ziyang asked Xiaoyemao while pinching his own soldier badge.

  Hummer has a wireless radio, he wants to try to use the wireless radio to contact Seth at the base and then locate all members. Each person's soldier card has a positioning system, which is convenient for finding people quickly through satellites no matter what tasks are performed or what dangers are encountered, so as to facilitate support and rescue.

  "Thrown to......" The little wild cat pointed in all four directions with a confused face and said: "Probably, probably it's that direction..."

  For the confused look on Xiao Ye's face, Zhao Ziyang showed a helpless expression, but in his heart, a sense of vigilance rose.

  A person who can anticipate the US military's attack on them, a person with super-strong Chinese traditional martial arts skills, and a girl who is only about twenty years old, how could she be so confused? Moreover, she was in Afghanistan, which is enough to illustrate that the other party is not simple.

  But who exactly this girl is still unclear, could it be that she was sent by the country to spy on oneself? Impossible, one doesn't have such great charm for the country to specially send out a secret agent to spy on oneself.

  If possible, the girl's appearance was a mystery. However, no matter what, the other party saved him, and since they saved him, it means there was no malicious intent. But at the same time, perhaps there wasn't any good intention either.

  These things Zhao Ziyang would not reveal on his face, after a big turn of events, his emotions were more deeply hidden than before.

  "Never mind the car." Zhao Ziyang straightened his waist, gently rotated his arm, and confirmed that the impact of the bullet in his body was not too great. Only then did he raise his head to determine his position.

  In a mountainous area, with the sun overhead, it's easy to determine the direction of south and north by looking at the treetops.

  This is a mountainous terrain, and there is only one place near Grieshk where such terrain can occur: the Helmand River basin.

  。

  The Helmand River is located in the west of Greshk, and the direction of the river is northeast to southwest. It originates from the Selseleh-ye Kuh-e Baba mountain range in Afghanistan and extends into Iran.

  From Ghurian southwards the river flows through the southern desert, with sufficient water to create a fertile and richly wooded tract of country in Afghanistan.

  "Little Wildcat, are you driving south or north?" Zhao Ziyang asked Little Wildcat, but immediately changed his question: "Have you seen any deserts or rivers?"

  "I saw a big river, but I didn't see any desert." The little wild cat was very clear about this, so she answered quite readily.

  Zhao Ziyang nodded, he roughly knew where he was. If the deviation wasn't too big, Xiao Ye Mao driving him north of Ghurian would be heading in the right direction. The formed highway had disappeared here and it was an area where Taliban armed elements were active.

  The Taliban controls most of the mountainous terrain within Afghanistan, and controlling the mountains means controlling half of Afghanistan. The Afghan War launched by Russia in those years ended in failure because it could not conquer these mountains, and the United States will still follow this old path.

  Deep in the gorge, the US military did not have enough troops to complete the occupation. The most important point is that the mountainous terrain here was unfamiliar to them, just like the terrifying jungles of Vietnam.

  "Go." Zhao Ziyang beckoned to the little wild cat and put away his saber, striding towards the depths of the northern mountain forest.

  "Hey, where are you going?" The little wild cat shouted loudly at Zhao Ziyang.

  "Looking for Taliban." Zhao Ziyang strides forward without looking back.

  The best way now is to find the Taliban armed forces, then find Angel through the Taliban armed forces and contact the base, trying to gather the scattered team members.

  Zhao Ziyang knew his ideas were good, but the actual situation might be extremely bad.

  The base may have been razed to the ground, and perhaps no survivors of the hidden ones can be found again. But he still firmly believes that the members of the hidden ones are not so easy to die, these guys' battlefield survival ability is stronger than any special forces soldiers, because they have experienced too many life-and-death tests, each with their own survival skills.