The rain stopped. Hu Yi lay in a dense bush on a high place, quietly watching the people who were temporarily resting in the pile of rocks through the branches and leaves. After watching carefully for a long time, he slowly slid back in the mud like a crocodile, silently reached the bottom of the valley behind the slope, crouched down, and quickly fled away along the low-lying area.
Zhou Wanping sat in a wide crevice, rubbing the mud on her hands desperately. Her whole body was sticky, which was unbearable for her, who usually did not pay much attention to her appearance. She did not feel anything when she was running, but now that she stopped, she began to feel uncomfortable. She was wet, cold, sticky, dirty, and tired. She had never felt so miserable in her life.
His clothes and pants were all stuck to his body with mud. He lowered his head and looked at himself. No wonder he looked a little unnatural just now. The ups and downs, the straight parts and the sunken parts were all visible. As he looked at them, even Zhou Wanping herself smiled helplessly.
The green field not far away began to shake. Zhou Wanping, who was trying to loosen her wet clothes, raised her head and soon he appeared.
"Is that them?"
Hu Yi walked to the edge of the crevice with his head down, looked down at Zhou Wanping who was waiting for an answer with her dirty face raised while pulling at her clothes: "It's them, and there's one more person."
"One more?"
"Section Chief Xu."
"Ah?" Zhou Wanping finally showed a look of disbelief, and even stopped moving her hands: "You mean... could it be that he..."
"At least he's not hurt." Hu Yi said this in a light tone.
Zhou Wanping understood what Hu Yi meant, she sighed and lowered her head.
"We have to change our plans." Hu Yi took out a compass and said as he opened the leather box, "Now I'll teach you how to use it. As long as the direction is right, you can find your way back to the division before dawn tomorrow. Don't take the side roads, try to follow the valley."
Zhou Wanping looked at the compass that Hu Yi handed over, but did not reach out to take it. She lowered her head and continued to adjust her tights without saying a word.
"then."
"I don't want to. It's getting dark, and I can't see even if you teach me. I think... the safest way is for you to go back first, and I can walk slowly behind you, or find a place to hide first."
Hu Yi was also helpless. It was not very reliable to expect Dr. Zhou to go over the mountains and back in the dark to report the news. Whether it was her physical endurance, courage, or direction, plus the chance of accidental injury, her speed of returning to the division could not be relied upon, and her survival might even be a problem... Once his action failed and Chief Xu did not die, there would be no room for recovery.
Zhou Wanping's idea was indeed the most conservative and safest option at the moment, but Hu Yi could sense that her main purpose was not to put herself in danger. If she was left alone in the wilderness, it was not impossible, but there was always a chance of failure, and he was afraid that he would regret it, which was no different from expecting her to go back alone.
After a moment of silence, Hu Yi put away the compass and said, "Can you stop fiddling with your pants? It makes me dizzy. Pack them up quickly, hurry up."
Zhou Wanping stopped tidying up, raised her dirty face and looked at Hu Yi, waiting for an answer.
"Let's go together. We must hurry up. From now on, you have to grit your teeth and stop complaining about being tired. What are you looking at? Hurry up!"
Of the two things, at least one must be completed successfully first, and then strive to complete both. Between the division headquarters and Dr. Zhou, Hu Yi finally put Zhou Wanping first.
"But... I will still slow things down. I'll just be a burden. If you're worried, I can hide first..."
"I'm your guard. I don't know the people in the division. If you want to think about them, then let me carry you less."
If other people heard this, Hu Yi would be cursed. But when Zhou Wanping heard it, she didn't feel it was banditry at all. Instead, she suddenly no longer felt cold.
Section Chief Xu, with his hands still tied, sat on a rock. He saw Platoon Leader Ye mumbling something to his men in the distance, and suddenly asked the person next to him, "What do you want?"
"What do you think?" The person who answered was the guide for Platoon Leader Ye and his men.
"Can money be more important than human life?"
"At least I didn't betray anyone directly." The guide's tone was filled with contempt, ridicule, and self-righteousness.
Section Chief Xu looked at the guide very seriously, nodded and said nothing.
Coo coo coo... A strange sound was faintly heard.
Following the sound, I saw a soldier unloading things from behind him. The covering oilcloth slipped off, revealing a small square box with small holes on the four sides. That was the source of the sound.
Section Chief Xu frowned deeply and stared at that place blankly. He saw that the soldier seemed to take out some grains and feed them into the hole of the box.
"That's... raising a living thing?"
Seeing that the guide ignored him, Section Chief Xu took the initiative to stretch his head towards him and tried to put on a smile: "At least we can talk to each other. This can be considered fate, right? If we really return alive, who knows who will ask for help from whom."
The guide squatted on the rock, holding his wet sleeves with his hands together, and glanced at him, then looked at the box in the distance: "There is a white bird in it, as white as snow, very beautiful. There were originally two, but one was released two days ago."
"White bird? Release one? Why?"
"How would I know why?"
"Then can you tell me about that?" Section Chief Xu moved closer to the guide to know some details, but he saw Platoon Leader Ye coming over, so he had to take back the second half of his words.
"Get ready to go, Chief Xu, tell me about the next stop."
"From here, head southwest, around those three mountains, it's fifteen miles, but... the road is not easy to walk on."
Platoon Leader Ye smiled faintly: "Is this considered a road? Can you tell me how far it is?"
Section Chief Xu thought about it seriously and said: "If we continue at this speed, I will let you see the division headquarters tonight."
"Set off"
Although the rain stopped, the sky did not change. As evening approached, it gradually became a little darker.
Section Chief Xu looked up and saw a steep mountain in the distance. The path would pass over the steep cliff in the middle of the mountain. This dangerous section, more than a hundred meters long, was called "Half the Sky" because there was a steep cliff on one side and a cliff on the other, so only half of the sky could be seen.
After a while, the platoon leader Ye stopped and stood at the edge of the cliff to look around. A small path was bending along the cliff and passing by. The light was getting worse and worse. It was pitch black under the cliff. He turned his head to look at the cliff on the right. There were marks left by the scouts ahead. He looked back and found that Section Chief Xu was not following closely behind him. He was lagging behind the team behind him. He was walking unnaturally and seemed to have sprained his foot. So he asked loudly, "Section Chief Xu, what's going on?"
"It's okay, it's okay. I didn't see the road clearly and it twisted a little. It won't delay us." Chief Xu replied, and Platoon Leader Ye led the team to continue moving forward.
Section Chief Xu really didn't want to die, no one wanted to die. But he still had an old mother and a young brother at home. After joining the army, he became the glory of his mother, the idol of his brother, and the pride of the whole village.
Although I am a civilian, although I have never fought in a war, and although I was frightened by the soldiers who died at the hands of the Japanese, I still dare not forget my ancestral tomb. In fact, this is not bad. At least I have escaped the disaster of torture. If that were the case, I would definitely not be able to bear it and would definitely tell everything. At least I can live longer and die quickly. God has treated me well, and I have to endure it even if I am afraid. If I pass this, I will not be able to enter the ancestral tomb, and my mother and brother will be cursed for the rest of their lives, so I have to endure it even if I am afraid.
Originally, he wanted to take that bastard Ye with him, but later he felt that it was not right and thought about taking that scum guide with him. Losing the guide was more meaningful than losing the commander. But now, this idea was changed again. The white bird mentioned by the guide might be the method they used to pass the message. Only in this way could they make what Ye said true. If they could not contact the reinforcements, they would die sooner or later.
I just don't know if I guessed right, but I have to do it.
He pretended to limp, his legs trembling, and walked slower and slower; the limp was fake, but the trembling was real. He kept up with the group until the man carrying the box passed him, but his legs were still trembling, as if they were filled with lead. He trembled as he approached the cliff, trembled as he walked to the top of the sky, and trembled as he walked to the edge of the abyss.
This road, more than a hundred meters long, usually seemed very long and far, and I hoped to finish it quickly; but now it seemed too short, with a buzzing in my head. I had walked a long way in a few uneven and heavy breaths, and when I looked up, I had walked more than half of the way, and saw that Platoon Leader Ye and the guide in front of the team had already left the danger zone.
If I walk any further, I will be past it. If I walk any further, I will definitely be a traitor. I cannot walk any further. I never thought that this dangerous road would make me so attached to it, so reluctant to leave this last part.
He exhaled deeply, took two steps, and with his hands still tied behind his back, he bit the collar of the man carrying the bird in front of him, holding on tightly, and then raised his feet and kicked hard on the cliff...
White bird... Such a pretty white bird... Haha... I will never think this thing is pretty. It is clearly a bloody beast. When it spreads its beautiful wings, it may have doomed thousands of souls. It is more hateful than a crow. It is the real devil, the god of death. How can it be pretty? What right does it have to be pretty... Beast, you have no chance to fly again, and I am flying...
A shrill scream came from the bottom of the dark cliff and stopped abruptly after a few seconds.
The turbid stream flowed at the bottom of the dark cliff, tumbling among the gravel. On the dark water, a black feather floated, rushing with the turbidity. No one could see it, so the feather was black. If there was light, you would know that it was blood-colored.
That beast was either black or bloody, not white at all, absolutely not. Everyone was deceived by it. It was more ferocious than the Japanese.
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