Chapter 3 third chapter

With eyes closed and index finger resting on the trigger, the mystery of death will completely disappear. After a loud bang, he will disappear like smoke, which may not cause too much pain. The hand that didn't obey the command was shaking there, and the temple was very painful and painful from the pressure of the gun.The pain shook his confidence in death, and he thought in fear: What if he couldn't kill himself with a single shot?How would he suffer, how would he struggle in a pool of blood?Besides, who would know that he died for her, for a holy and pure love.Shang Wuqiang would call him a coward, just like calling that Hao Laosi.His death does not prove his love, nor the strength of his own life. Maybe even Qu Ping despises him—his death just shows his weakness and incompetence.

He was desperately looking for a basis for himself to live. Besides, the world will never be ennobled by his noble death.This bewildered world was not noble, is not noble now, and never will be noble in the future.He is dead, and the world is still full of wars, disasters, killings, assassinations, bloody plots, insidious betrayals, blatant robberies and darkness full of traps. No! He is not dead! He can't die! He still has to harden his heart and fight this world, defeat it, occupy it, or destroy it!He wants to harden himself, to be vicious, to act and fight only for his own survival and victory.

He convinced himself further. He is different from Hao Laosi.His reluctance to kill himself was definitely not because of weakness.He is very strong!From the time he buried Hao Lao Si on the last night, he has been very strong.Didn't he rebel against Shang Wuqiang?Hasn't the action of increasing the weight of life already started?Why did he have to die?His leg was not injured, and he could walk out of Savage Mountain to create a new life of his own.He hasn't enjoyed life like Hao Laosi. He is only twenty-three years old and doesn't know what women are. Why should he die?Why?

"Fool! Stupid! Stupid!" He cursed viciously. He closed the safety on the gun and mechanically put the gun into the holster on his waist. Life becomes as precious as the whole world again. He began to roll up his trouser legs to deal with the leeches that were sucking his life juice.The two leeches lying on his calf were both huge, with a protruding belly, and half of their bodies with their suction cups had penetrated into his flesh.He lit a wisp of dried vine with a strange smell and smoked it for a long time before it came off the calf. He lifted the leech stained with his own blood to a stone, and trampled and crushed it viciously with his feet, as if trampling and crushing a dirty world.

He felt a victor's pleasure. Poisonous mosquitoes buzzed around him, frequently attacking his bare head, neck and arms.He believed that they were the despicable allies of the leeches. When they crushed the leeches with their feet, they waved their hands and "cracked" and beat them around on the face and neck. He played like crazy. After thumping for a while, he was tired and sat on the rock to rest for a while. What's the next step? He didn't want to go back again, he didn't want to encounter that disgusting scandal again, he didn't even want to meet Qu Ping and Monk Wu Qiang again!After thinking about it carefully and touching it, the thin rice bag that belonged to him was still tied around his waist.He decided to travel alone overnight.The backpack in the shack is gone. In the subtropical forest in May, there is no need for a wet quilt. With guns, bullets, rice bags, and bonfires, he can survive tenaciously.

He stood up and staggered out of the woods, onto the path he had come from.He saw the bonfire he had lit himself, and the shack beside the bonfire. He couldn't help himself, and saluted in the direction of the bonfire and the shack. He got into the woods on the other side of the road, followed the creek, bypassed the bonfire, and walked slowly on the road alone. After walking a long way, he heard the faint gunshot calling him back... Bodies were found along the way.Starting from the mountain stream where we camped last night, we climbed over a hill about ten miles away, and descended the mountain. When it was dark, we had already encountered a dozen of them.Shang Wuqiang counted silently.These corpses were either lying on their backs, or lying on their backs, or leaning against rocks, or tree trunks by the roadside, and most of them were stiff.Some corpses were covered with leeches and mountain flies, which made people want to vomit.The breath of death filled the mountain road with the smell of corpses.At first he felt sorrow and fear, but then both sorrow and fear vanished like mist.Emotions gradually become numb.Yes, the death of these people has nothing to do with him, so he has no need to bear the moral and conscience responsibility for these victims.

War means blood and death, and war without blood and death can only be a game for kindergarten children.And a war that decides the destiny of a nation will never be as easy as a child's play mixed with childish voices!As long as the machine of war is in operation, it can only be bloody and cruel, and the historical destiny of a country and a nation is determined precisely in this bloody and cruel. or, survive and reproduce; Or, death, extinction. He understands this. However, they shouldn't be extinct in this rare mountain of savages. They have come to this point, in fact, they were betrayed by the highest authority manipulating the war machine.He couldn't help but suspect that there was some kind of conspiracy impregnated in this forest of death.Those marshals, generals, and politicians are actually conspirators who are good at conspiring.In their eyes, an army does not mean tens of thousands of alive and kicking creatures, but only tens of thousands of guns, hundreds of chariots, and hundreds of cannons. On the chessboard of war, it is just a small pawn, so , in order to win a game, they will never spare one or two pieces.

As a singular person, they are insignificant in a war, and it is precisely these countless insignificant people combined that constitute the capital and motivation for war. People are always great. He arbitrarily wants to remember: he can't fall, can't sleep like the dead on the side of the road, on this foreign land full of traps!He is great and powerful, and he wants to survive, squeeze into the high society where celebrities gather, and be the master of the war machine in the next war! He is only twenty-eight years old, and life is full of golden temptations for him.When he was summoned by Chairman Jiang at the Chongqing Military Officers Training Corps, he thought crazily and stubbornly: Ten, twenty, or thirty years later, he would definitely be like Chairman Jiang and those dignitaries around him. , arrange and decide the fate of an ancient nation.He was only in his twenties, those stupid pigs and idiots would die one by one, this is the law determined by nature.The responsibility of changing the destiny of the country and the nation will definitely fall on the shoulders of their generation.

He was full of respect and love for Generalissimo Chiang. Now, the respect and love for the chairman has been completely submerged by the breath of death. When he embarks on this road of death, he feels that he has seen through all the secrets of the world, and he wants to conquer this world and trample it under his feet , can only rely on himself!What Chairman, what Chief Du, what sense of historical mission, the sense of responsibility for the survival of the nation, are all fucking nonsense!He can only and should only live for himself! The way down the mountain was much easier than the way up the mountain. Halfway up the mountain, there was a dim mountain village at the foot of the mountain. He didn't see it, but Qu Ping, who was walking in front of him, saw it.She exclaimed happily:

"There's a village ahead!" He stopped and looked down the mountain, sighed and said: "I'm afraid there won't be anything to eat in the village!" Qu Ping was puzzled: "why?" Before he could answer, Wu Shengnan, who was walking at the back, had already spoken: "Thousands of people from the vanguard have passed by, even if there is some food, they have already eaten it up!" Qu Ping was disappointed, she sat down on the roadside and refused to leave. He and Wu Shengnan were also tired, and sat beside Qu Ping to rest for a while. After walking for about half an hour, I went down the mountain and entered the village.The village is very small, with only thirty or forty families living there, and all the people have fled long ago.All the houses in the village were burned down by the fire. The hundred and ten soldiers of the 22nd Division who arrived here to camp earlier said that the fire was set by Burmese traitors, and the villagers were tricked into the mountains by Burmese traitors.

Nevertheless, they decided to camp here. They found a dilapidated house with only half of the roof burned down, found some wood from the ruins, and started a fire. While cooking rice soup, they waited to continue searching for Qi Zhijun's old Zhao Tou and Liu Guanshi. It was almost midnight when the old Zhao head arrived, and as soon as he entered the room, he hugged his gray head and burst into tears.Shang Wuqiang, Qu Ping, and Wu Shengnan thought that Qi Zhijun was dead, and asked one after another: "Is it Xiao Qi..." "Did you see the body?" "Say it, old Zhao, tell it quickly!" Old Zhao choked up and said: "I didn't find Xiao Qi! No... I didn't find it!" Shang Wu is on fire: "Then why cry!" Old Zhao jumped up, with teardrops on the old walnut-like face: "Officer Liu is not a human being! It's...a bastard's beast!" "What's the matter?" "He... He stole my rice and ran away by himself!" Only then did Shang Wuqiang and Qu Ping notice: Officer Liu didn't come. The cruelty of survival competition was vividly presented to everyone.Qu Ping was dumbfounded, her mouth was half open, as if she didn't know what to say.Wu Shengnan's eyes were bloodshot, as if he was about to spew fire.Shang Wuqiang put one hand on the belt around his waist, stared blankly for a while with his leaden gray face, and then squeezed out two words through his teeth: "asshole!" After scolding, he turned around abruptly, slapped Old Zhao's head roughly, and shouted: "You are useless too! You are a fucking bastard, why did you let him go? How do you have the face to come back alive? Ah?!" Old Zhao fell to the ground, covered his face like a child, and cried even more painfully. Qu Ping couldn't stand it anymore, she rushed between Shang Wuqiang and Old Zhao, stared at Shang Wuqiang fiercely, trembling with excitement: "This...can you blame Old Zhao? You...you beat him! He...he...at his age, he can be your father! Are you crazy?" Wu Shengnan is not as presumptuous as Qu Ping, but his attitude is firmer and his tone is more stern: "Director Shang, you are wrong! At Lao Zhao's age, can he beat that Liu? Do you know how many people's hearts you have slapped? Director Shang, you have to admit your mistake to Lao Zhao!" Shang Wuqiang never thought that Wu Shengnan, a subordinate who is usually amiable and amiable, would dare to speak to him in such an orderly tone!It was unimaginable that he should admit his mistake to a partner. He decided: the world is in chaos. He stared at Wu Shengnan's swollen and pale face, as if he wanted to find his unshakable dignity on this face.While watching, I thought: Either he is crazy, or she is crazy. He concluded that she was crazy. He had to stop this indiscriminate madness. "What if I don't admit my mistake?" Wu Shengnan pulled out the gun abruptly: "Either I kill you! Or you kill me!" Qu Ping was terrified by this scene. She rushed over and put her chest against Wu Shengnan's gun, and cried out: "Sister Wu, don't...don't be like this! He...he was confused!" Turning her face away, she begged Shang Wuqiang again: "Wu Qiang, you...you admit your mistake! You...you were confused for a while, didn't you? Ah? You are a junior, so just admit your mistake, and you will not lose your identity!" The tense air also woke up Old Zhao. He rushed over, hugged Wu Shengnan's waist and said: "Section Chief Wu, blame me! Blame me! Director Shang is right, blame me, blame me!" Shang Wuqiang suddenly burst out laughing, tears streaming down his face.With tears streaming down his face, he pulled Old Zhao's head, took off his hat, bowed to him, then patted his shoulder and said: "Old Zhao, I'm sorry! I was wrong!" "No! No! Director Shang, I was wrong!" Old Zhao was so moved that he wiped away tears. Only then did Wu Shengnan put the gun back into his waist. Shang Wuqiang regained his senses, and sincerely said to Old Zhao: "I was confused by that guy surnamed Liu. There is only a little rice for one person. If your rice is taken away, it means half your life is taken away! I lost my temper because I was worried about you." Wu Shengnan said: "Lao Zhao's rice has been robbed, we still have rice, if we eat, so does Lao Zhao, don't you, Director Shang?! As you said, we are revolutionary soldiers, not mobs. We want Let's help each other!" "yes!" Shang Wuqiang nodded, regained his confidence and majesty, and said sonorously: "We are revolutionary soldiers, we must be sincere and sincere, and help each other in the same boat! Today Liu set a bad precedent. In the future, I will never allow this kind of thing to happen again. Who dares to be like Liu, who only cares about himself and entraps Others, shoot them immediately!" "yes!" "Immediately, let's go separately to find food. I don't believe that a village can't find a single grain! The food may be buried in the ground and hidden, let's look for it!" Old Zhao found a broken iron mill with a scorched handle in a ruin on the edge of the village.He used this bad iron mill to turn it around, and dug up two dry and hard raw corn in a half-collapsed stove.This success greatly encouraged him, and he relied on Hu Yi's experience to find firewood for the stove.When he was tumbling, Wu Shengnan lit a torch to illuminate him. Later, the luck was not good, and the next two kitchen rooms got nothing but ashes and tiles.Wu Shengnan felt that it was getting late, so he proposed to go back.He didn't agree, and led Wu Shengnan to pick up on a ruin connected to the foot of the mountain, and the dust was boiling. While pawing, he said to Wu Shengnan: "Section Chief Wu, thank you so much, thank you so much! If it wasn't you, Director Shang might have gone crazy! Alas! No wonder, at this stage, who can be so polite as usual? !" Wu Shengnan held up the torch and carefully illuminated him: "Yes, people have reached this stage, and they can't be as gentle as they used to be. But no matter what we say, we are still human, right? Not to mention the anti-Japanese soldiers, as human beings, we have to look like people, and we have to have people. The dignity of wow!" Old Zhao bent his head, hugged his arms, panting: "Hey! Dignity! Dignity! What dignity! This is what you educated gentlemen say! Just say that I, Lao Zhao, have no dignity in this life! It's not you, Section Chief Wu, who can't see it today. The director beat me, and it was not for nothing! I am the officer! The officer should beat the soldiers!" Wu Shengnan felt sour in his heart and wanted to cry. Old Zhao took out something to look at, decided that it was not something that could be eaten, threw it away again, continued to pick and hug, and said: "Earlier, when I was working for Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Dashuai, I put a little more salt in the cooking, and Zhang Dashuai's adjutant poured a plate of hot dishes on my head! Alas! Alas! Dignity! Dignity..." Wu Shengnan couldn't take it anymore, and grabbed Lao Zhao's iron hand. "Come on, Old Zhao, you take the torch, and I'll pick it up for a while." "no no!" Old Zhao grabbed hold of the rear handle firmly and did not let go. "You are the officer, you did not do this job!" Wu Shengnan said: "Now there are no officers, only people!" Old Zhaotou said sincerely: "People are different! You, Section Chief Wu, can write and draw, but what can my old Zhao do? My ten lives are not as precious as yours! If there is no distinction between high and low in the world, it would be a mess!" When Old Zhao Tou said these words, Wu Shengnan heard footsteps.She thought it was Shang Wuqiang and Qu Ping, or soldiers camping in the village, but she didn't pay attention at first.When she casually turned her face to look at it, she was suddenly dumbfounded: in the flame of the torch, what caught her eyes was not a face wearing a military cap, but a few Burmese people who looked like mountain people. They were hiding not far from them. Five meters behind a half-collapsed earthen wall, several black guns were aimed at them. It's a traitor! She exclaimed: "Danger!" With a flash of his body, he blocked the back of Old Zhao's head, dropped the torch and went to touch the gun. Unexpectedly, as soon as the gun was pulled out and the safety was turned on, the gun in the traitor's hand exploded first. As if she had been stung by something on her chest, she fell to the ground involuntarily, and the old Zhao head behind her was also pressed down. She raised the hand holding the gun, trembling, and hit the dangling head on the low wall.She heard a scream in a trance, and heard the sound of Lao Zhaotou firing a gun next to her.She didn't know when the gun in her hand was in the hands of Old Zhao?Then, she heard a flurry of footsteps. Blood gushed out, soaked her military coat, and flowed down her lower abdomen to her thighs.She felt the juice of her life seep into the ground under her body little by little, and she realized that death was approaching her step by step. Old Zhao wept bitterly and bent over her.Beside her was the lost torch, and in the blue afterglow of the torch, she saw the familiar face of Old Zhao, and she wanted to finish what she had just said. She opened her mouth with difficulty, and said intermittently: "Old...Old Zhao, you...you are human! Humans must have dignity!" She seemed to want to tell Old Zhao to apologize to Shang Wuqiang, but she only said Shang Wuqiang's name, and the rest of the words were cut off forever by death... Under the call of gunshots, Shang Wuqiang, Qu Ping, and many soldiers camped in the village came with guns. However, everything was irreparable. The Chinese woman has finished her miserable and short life in the foreign country of Myanmar. Guns of different lengths and calibers were pointed at the night sky one after another. Shang Wuqiang, Qu Ping, Lao Zhaotou and the soldiers around them rang their guns. The deep silence of the night. This is a simple but solemn military funeral. "Gunshots! Gunshots! Sir, it's right behind us! I hear it!" The skinny monkey He Guisheng sat up from the bushes lying on his side, his two small eyes with dark circles gleamed hotly.He sat there listening carefully with his ears sideways, as if he was ready to catch any possible sound at any time, so as to judge how far the marchers behind were from them. Qi Zhijun lying beside He Guisheng didn't move at all, he was too tired, he wanted to take a good rest.He also heard the gunshots behind him, not bursts, but a single, muffled sound, like a crappy single-headed firecracker, and drowned in the sound of rain, it seemed faint, as if they were far away from their shelter. The place is far away. It was raining heavily, and the green branches and leaves above their heads could no longer resist the rain, and drops of water the size of beans kept falling on them.They were soaked from top to bottom, and the bushes where they lived were also filled with muddy water.They didn't expect the sudden rain, and they didn't prepare for the rain at all.After the heavy rain fell, I didn't even find a banana leaf to cover the rain, so I had to hide in the rain and get drenched. He Guisheng still said stubbornly there: "When there is gunfire, there are people! Sir, as long as the brothers behind catch up, we will go with them!" Qi Zhijun didn't speak, he didn't want to speak at all.He felt that if he said one more word, his life would be wasted, and now his life not only belonged to him alone, but belonged to at least two people, he and the skinny monkey He Guisheng beside him. He met He Guisheng on the way from the small village at the foot of the mountain.At that time, he was accompanied by two senior soldiers from the regiment directly under the army.They came to a fast-moving mountain stream and tried to wade across it.The mountain stream is not deep, and the rocks under the water can be seen in a trance.But the water rushing down from the mountain was very fast, and they hesitated, not knowing how to cross it.While looking for a way to cross the stream along the bank, he found He Guisheng on a stone like a tortoise cover. He Guisheng's military cap was rolled aside, the gun was lying sideways, and his eyes were closed, as if he was dead.There was no bandage on his wounded arm, and the wound was infested with maggots. He recognized him, and remembered the dramatic scene that strengthened him on the last night. He was a little sad, bent over and picked up his military cap, trying to cover his face.But at this moment, he woke up, struggled to sit up, stared at his face and shouted: "Sir! Chief Qi!" He Guisheng hugged his muddy leg. In astonishment, he squatted down, leaned over He Guisheng and asked: "You... why are you staying here alone? How dangerous it is to meet a wild beast! Where are your brothers?" He Guisheng cried: "Dead, they're all dead! Two of them got a fever right after they set out on the road, and the remaining four were all swept away by the stream! I... I pulled the rope and walked to the end... When I saw that it couldn't work, I... ...then let go of the rope, and that's how I saved my life!" He stared at the stream in a daze, and the two senior soldiers not far from him had already entered the water at the place they had found. He Guisheng said: "Officer Qi, you can't enter the water here! It's dangerous! It's really dangerous! If you want to cross this stream, you have to... have to go up to find a place!" He hastily dissuaded the two privates, calling to them: "Don't...don't go into the water!" But it was too late, the two privates supported each other, staggered into the water, and before reaching the middle of the stream, they were swept away by the rushing stream; a piece of white foam embraced their struggling bodies, and went downstream In the blink of an eye, they were thrown onto a pile of rocks more than ten meters down, and they were swept away with vibrancy... Life has once again shown its incompetence and weakness in front of nature. Qi Zhijun thought, maybe this ordinary stream doesn't kill people at ordinary times, the reason why it can kill people is entirely because of people's incompetence, their bodies are too weak, so even the stream dares to bully them. Seeing this cruel lesson, he didn't dare to try to fight the stream anymore.He knew he was no match for it.He took He Guisheng's gun on his back, helped him up, and climbed about four or five hundred meters. After judging the gentleness of the stream, he dragged him across the stream and started on the road again. In this way, he and He Guisheng formed a dependent companion on the journey of life. When they first started on the road together, he hesitated, feeling that his actions were unbelievable: Why did he insist on bringing this injured He Guisheng with him?Didn't he see through this dirty world?Didn't he order himself countless times to let the blood around him cool down, cool down? !Why did he have to take him?He will become his burden, the burden of his life! He is useless!His feelings were always against his will.He can't forget the solemn military salute the soldier gave him, and he can't forget the support he gave him with a gun when he decided to change the quality of his life.He can help him, why should he not help him?They are all human beings, and human beings always have human feelings. Didn't he also help Hao Lao Si during the retreat? He is human. He should be proud of being a human being. The reality is cruel.Soaked in muddy water, they have lost their human pride and dignity.Their crotches and armpits have been soaked by the continuous damp of this subtropical forest, and they are itchy and painful.They are no more noble than any animal, crouching in the water-drenched bushes.They are not even as good as animals, and they don't even have a warm nest that can shelter from the wind and rain.My memory has become blurred, I can’t remember what day it is today, the past has become as distant as a dream, and the last vestiges of human civilized life have been washed away by the "squeaking" rain in this virgin forest up. He Guisheng's body was trembling in the rain, and when he met him by the stream, he had a fever, and his whole body was as hot as a stove.He listened intently there, trembling, the rain pouring down his head and neck. "Foot...footsteps, there are...footsteps!" He scratched his itchy armpits, leaned up and listened: no, there were no footsteps at all. He speculated: This is probably He Guisheng's illusion—as long as he can find a shelter from the rain, no one will rush on the road in the rain. He Guisheng was still calling: "Sir, it's footsteps, yes!" He listened again, and he really heard a monotonous and mechanical footsteps amidst the sound of rain. The footsteps were faint at first, and then became a little bit clearer and heavier. He stood up and jumped down the road to look. A wet soldier was leaning on a gun, staggering, and walking towards him step by step, walking hard and persistently, like a lonely soul trekking in hell. He rushed over and helped him climb up.He wanted to help him to sit beside He Guisheng, but he couldn't sit still and fell down on his face. "Is there anyone else behind?" The soldier opened his mouth halfway, panting, but did not speak. He asked again: "Only you?" The soldier snorted softly. He Guisheng also chimed in: "I... we heard... heard gunshots, is... what's going on?" The soldier said dumbly: "A...brother...a brother who was traveling with me committed...suicide!" Suddenly, the soldier struggled to get up and grabbed Qi Zhijun's skirt: "Sir, you...you...you do me a favor, give...give me...a shot too! I...I can't...get out!" Qi Zhijun froze for a moment, then staggered to his feet.There was a burst of dizziness in front of my eyes.He steadied himself, stopped, gritted his teeth, and kicked the poor soldier fiercely, shouting as he kicked: "Bastard! Bastard! Climb! You have to get out too!" The soldier closed his eyes as if dead, and fell silent. He Guisheng said: "Qi...Officer Qi, wait...when the rain stops, you...you can go first! I...I will go with this brother...as companions!" His heart moved for a moment, but he immediately stabilized his shaking heart: "What? You want to sleep here forever?!" He Guisheng cried: "Officer Qi, I... we can't drag you down anymore! I... I'm ashamed! I can't... I can't do anything for the chief, and... I still drag you down..." His throat was astringent, and he also choked up and said: "Brother, don't say such things! There are no officers here, only brothers. Since we are brothers, we must go together, and no one can stay! Take a break, let's all have a good rest! When the rain stops, we will go again Let’s go! Maybe we will meet brothers who can help us on the way!” However, Qi Zhijun never expected that after the rain stopped, that soldier he had never known before, whose name he did not even know, lay in the muddy water and fell asleep forever. His deeply sunken eye sockets were filled with clear rainwater. The half-closed eyes are like two black gems soaked in water.