Chapter 11 My Troop My Soldiers (1)

  Along the winding dirt road in the middle of Tunzi, I met several fellow villagers. I had some vague impressions of them. They warmly greeted me and I kept nodding and smiling, sincerely responding to their enthusiasm and genuine concern.

  The snow in every courtyard and on the roads has been swept very clean, it seems that the villagers here are all diligent people and good at managing their daily lives. In rural areas, the cleanliness of a courtyard reflects the diligence of the male owner, which is basically a kind of sign.

  Every household passing by is a courtyard with a wooden door, a delicate gate, and the layout of each household is similar, and every family has a high threshold.

  This firewood is particular, mainly made of birch wood. In winter, after the snow has sealed off the mountain, whole birch trees are felled and slid down the snowy path, then carried back home. According to different uses, they are cut into lengths of varying sizes, with longer ones reaching almost one meter and shorter ones about one foot. They are divided into fire wall firewood, stove pit firewood, and earth stove firewood for different purposes. The cut firewood cannot be used in the same year; it is stacked into a woodpile and left to weather through the snow of winter, the scorching sun of summer, and the drying winds of autumn. Only when the next snow falls can it be used.

  It takes time to split it with a large axe, and the axe head is also different from the common axe. I can't describe what it looks like, but you'll understand when you see it later. Anyway, I think that splitting such firewood requires using such an axe! Basically, pine wood is not used for firewood because although it burns well and is easy to ignite, it doesn't last long and is only used as kindling. When splitting, the birch wood needs to be split into smaller pieces than the fir wood, which is used to light larger chunks of birch wood.

  The current Northeast China, although there are coal-burning ones, but habitually, still love to burn birch bark, despite the quality of the bark being far inferior to that time, yet still habitually so, many generations of Guandong people have grown up and grown old smelling the scent of birch bark, circulating endlessly, generation after generation thriving.

  I rushed to the school, this should be the direction, can't go wrong, identifying directions is a basic ability of special forces. After walking for a short while, I saw from afar two large black-painted doors, tightly closed, with a pair of massive bronze door handles, one on each side, looking very majestic and solemn. As I walked closer, I could see that the door handles were polished to a bright yellow, still made of brass? Is it an antique? Bah, what am I thinking, next to it was hung a large wooden sign, a whole thick plank, because I didn't see any seams, black background, with several gold-plated traditional Chinese characters "Tang Family Wopu Primary School", the font is ancient, strong and powerful, looks like the person who wrote this has some calligraphy skills.

  I can still recognize these traditional Chinese characters, yes, I was a graduate student in my previous life (with a high degree), but I learned simplified Chinese characters. In this era, they used traditional Chinese characters, and it's likely that there are many characters I don't know how to write or recognize. This is a serious problem. Think about it, oh, just like with the little friends, from a young age, I was a leader among them, but suddenly becoming semi-illiterate is unacceptable. Moreover, I'm afraid it will affect my glorious and great image in their minds and damage my dignity. I need to think of a foolproof plan.

  Here is the translation:

  "Right, after falling off a cliff and temporarily losing my memory, it's normal that I can't recognize people or remember some things. As for not recognizing some words, that's even more common. Slowly recovering, it seems I need to add learning to read and write to my tasks in this life. No wonder they say learning is a lifelong thing - I deeply understand now! Don't want to lose face, heavens! Then let's learn! (In my past life, I saw many Korean or Japanese dramas that people were obsessed with, where the male and female leads, aside from being handsome and beautiful, had clichéd melodramatic plotlines. The probability of them getting amnesia after being hit on the head by a fly or a slipper was ridiculously high - I wonder if their brains were made of paper? Borrowing this for a moment, doesn't count as copyright infringement, right?) What's more, I really did fall off a cliff and got hurt, so my chances of getting amnesia are much higher! Smart, what a genius - ugh, here we go again!"

  Looking at the school gate, I feel that the courtyard inside is quiet. It seems that it's not time to get out of class yet. But wait, they are all 16 or 17 years old, shouldn't they be in high school? How come they are still in elementary school? Are they repeating grades multiple times? Becoming a "postdoctoral" student in elementary school? What am I thinking? At that time, as long as there were books to read, it was all good!

  I really want to thank my dad and his generation for their foresight. They knew the saying "ten years of trees, hundred years of people". Knowledge is power, this is a motto for future generations. Never mind, I'll borrow it to praise and admire my dad's generation for their vision, strategic thinking and farsightedness. This is what they are cultivating in me, a group of "four haves" youth. During the war years, what was most important? Talent! The first requirement to become talented is to have culture.

  You think, if they are all illiterate, they can't even recognize a few big characters, let alone pass on intelligence or draw a map. In the future, when passing on information or drawing a map, it's not like they'll take a piece of intelligence and directly ask someone to translate it for them. What's written on it? They won't even recognize Chinese characters! Or if they receive valuable intelligence, but can't read the words, they might just throw it away or tear it up. Some might even use it as toilet paper in the latrine! The old man said: "A military without culture is a barbaric military, a person without culture is a barbarian." They won't accomplish great things and can't bear the weight of the people's trust. I want elites, not illiterates! If my subordinates are all illiterate, what I just said might actually happen. If that's the case, why bother resisting the enemy or fighting wars? My god, it makes me want to hang myself!

  Looking at the tightly closed gate and high courtyard wall, I hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to push the door open or climb over the wall. Better not alert everyone just yet, so I'll climb over quietly and observe them up close without being noticed, get a firsthand impression and some real information. Besides, I still need to compare them with my memories, see if they match. As they say, "onlookers see most clearly". This courtyard wall is quite high, but it won't stop me.

  I took a look around, no one was there. I concentrated my energy in my dan tian, pointed my toes at the ground, and with a burst of strength from my heart, I did a flying kick into the air, "whoosh"! In an instant, I soared into the sky. Why didn't you say fly into the sky? How ridiculous, I'm a bird, can I fly? It's just a jump! In mid-air, I flipped over like a swallow, doing a front flip, and landed lightly on the snowy ground, leaving behind two not-too-deep footprints. So aren't you supposed to be good at lightness skills? Why did you still leave footprints? Nonsense, haven't I not yet reached the level of treading snow without a trace? This is already pretty good, if it were in the past, with my current inner strength breakthrough, I would have probably left behind two big holes.

  I crept quietly to the back of the house, a row of five large houses, facing south and sitting north, much larger than ordinary residential buildings, like a school building. Fortunately, each room had a rear window, which was rare in Northeast China's architecture at that time, probably for better lighting. In Northeast China, houses were built without rear windows to keep warm in winter, otherwise the cold wind would be unbearable. I peeked through the window and saw that it was covered with thick ice flowers, nothing could be seen inside.

  I went up and licked the window, feeling like a thief in a martial arts movie. Oh no, my tongue got stuck! This is a common thing in Northeast China. Some naughty kids don't understand and lick the outside of metal objects, and their tongues get frozen to them. If they try to pull hard, they'll definitely tear off a layer of skin, making it extremely painful.

  I had an experience in my previous life, that year during winter training in the Northeast forest area. One morning, after washing my face and not drying my hands, I went outside to pick up dumbbells that I had forgotten to bring inside the night before. As soon as my hand touched it, it stuck. At the time, I wanted to pull hard downwards, but an old soldier from the Northeast stopped me, telling me that if I pulled hard, my skin would peel off. If the peeled area got frostbite, it would be a big trouble. The only way was to slowly warm up my hands, and after more than half an hour of intimacy with the cold iron thing, my hand was finally freed. From then on, I never dared to touch metal things with bare hands again, always wearing gloves every time. Even now, thinking about it still makes me shudder.

  Now, I'm facing such a situation, but it's not my hand, it's my delicate tongue. This isn't because I was careless, I thought the window paper wasn't made of iron, no problem. But I underestimated the severity of the current weather in Kanto, this isn't the warm winter of past lives, temperatures below minus 25 or 26 degrees already feel very cold, and now it's a big cold day with temperatures approaching minus 40 degrees. When you spit, your saliva freezes on the ground immediately, forming small ice balls. Even going out to pee is a rush, if not, who knows, that thing might freeze too. The paper window is also taking lives, why am I so unlucky? Oh God!

  Calm down, impulsiveness is the devil. Let's warm up slowly. Please God, don't let anyone come now, or they'll see me in this state and lose their temper. I'd rather die by smashing my head into a block of tofu. Must stay calm, you're not saying you have internal energy, are you? You even broke through today, why aren't you using it? Idiot, who's ever heard of internal energy reaching the tip of the tongue? This is a dead end, let's use conventional methods instead.

  I patiently blew air with my mouth, not daring to touch the window paper with my lips, or else I wouldn't have lived to tell the tale. Gradually, my tongue loosened up, "hard work pays off", under my tireless efforts, my poor and delicate tongue finally managed to break free from its zero-distance contact with this iron-like thing, feeling cool and numb, after warming it up in my mouth for a while, I regained the flexibility of my tongue. What a close call, almost ruined my future career as a foodie.

  But this sneaky observation thing still needs to be solved, I'll try using my inner strength. My tongue won't work, but my fingers should be fine, it's just that I've never tried before and don't know if it will work. I use my mind to guide my inner strength to my fingers, ah, there's a way, my fingers are getting hot! I stick my fingers on the window paper, immediately, the thick ice flowers melt away, revealing the paper inside, but it's still not working, it's not transparent. Forget it, I'll just poke through it. I use a bit of force, but don't dare make any big movements, if there's a loud noise, that would totally expose me, and everyone would stare at me like I'm some kind of freak. What is this guy doing? Has he gone crazy? He's not walking out the front door, instead he's running over here to poke at the window paper? Is this kid an idiot or something? Did he come here to cause trouble?

  If my master from previous life saw me using the profound internal power of Nature's Gate on such trivial matters, I estimate he would give me a palm strike that would turn me into a pig head. What a waste of your practice! With a slight force, I poked a small hole in the window paper and then put my eye close to it...

  （）

  By the way, Xiao Jin has a cold and is feeling dizzy and doesn't want to write something casual to respond to all the enthusiastic book friends who care about Xiao Jin's growth! Today's update was a bit late, sorry everyone, please forgive me. Feeling much better now, if there are no other issues, maybe another chapter will be updated later, please pay attention, dear book friends!