23: Chapter 23 Flying Tiger Mountain, the stones are hot.

Feihu Mountain was not a mountain.

Under the twenty-four-hour, uninterrupted artillery barrage of the US military, it resembled an anvil being continuously hammered.

Su Yun pushed the dynamic range of the environmental sound effects to the extreme. That kind of explosion wasn't just loud; it carried a low frequency capable of shattering internal organs.

Every time a 105mm howitzer shell landed, the entire mountain would convulse violently as if afflicted with malaria.

Jack huddled at the bottom of a shell crater twisted out of shape by an explosion. Without needing to look up, he could feel the layer of earth above his head thinning.

Mud, gravel, and severed limbs blown skyward rained down on his steel helmet, sounding like crackling raindrops.

"Ptooey."

He spat out a mouthful of saliva tinged with blood. It wasn't from biting his tongue; it was blood seeping out from ruptured alveoli in his lungs.

"Is this... a place for humans?"

Brother Bao next to him held his head, curled up into a ball like a shrimp.

His glasses were long gone, and his highly nearsighted eyes stared blankly at the scorched earth in front of him.

"Is this the third day?" Brother Bao muttered to himself,

"Or the fourth? I can't remember... I want a Coke... an ice-cold one..."

No one answered him.

In the past few days, they had repelled nine US military charges.

The cost was two-thirds of the company's strength lost.

More fatally, the supply line leading to the rear had been completely severed.

US military planes swarmed overhead like flies, tracking every moving object; even a rabbit running past would draw a burst of cannon fire.

"Water..."

A faint groan came from a corner.

It was the young soldier whose leg had been blown off earlier. His wound was already festering, and a high fever had left him burning like charcoal.

Brother Bao stirred. He patted his waist where three military canteens hung.

Empty.

All empty.

Last night, he tried to sneak down the mountain to fetch water.

There was a small stream at the foot of the mountain, less than five hundred meters away in a straight line.

But those five hundred meters were the domain of Death.

US snipers and searchlights had sealed the area so tightly that not even a fly could pass through.

As soon as Brother Bao poked his head out, a bullet pierced the canteen in his hand. If he hadn't pulled back quickly, that hole would be on his forehead now.

"Damn it..."

Brother Bao pushed himself up with his weak leg, staggering to his feet.

"Sit down."

The squad leader's voice came from beside him.

The veteran was slowly wiping his bolt, his movements unhurried, as if the deafening roar outside were merely New Year's firecrackers.

"Going out now is just suicide," the squad leader said without looking at him. He reassembled the bolt and pulled the action; the crisp metallic click echoed in the crater.

"Save your strength. When the foreign devils come up later, we'll still need to use bayonets."

"But he's about to die of thirst!" Brother Bao pointed at the wounded soldier, his emotions suddenly breaking loose,

"That's a human life! Not data!"

The squad leader stopped what he was doing. He looked up, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Brother Bao.

"I know."

The squad leader pulled something from his chest and tossed it to Brother Bao.

It was a stone, covered with a thin layer of dry, pale green moss.

"Scrape this off," the squad leader pointed at the moss. "Keep it in your mouth. It can generate saliva. If you're lucky, you might even chew out some moisture."

Brother Bao froze. He looked at the dirty stone in his hand, and his stomach churned violently.

In the live broadcast room, hundreds of millions of viewers watched this scene, and no one typed any comments.

In the real world, they might be holding bubble tea or have takeout on their tables.

But the people on screen were figuring out how to eat rocks.

Extreme hunger and thirst trigger a self-preservation mechanism in the brain—hallucination.

Brother Bao stared at the stone. His vision began to blur.

The layer of green moss slowly changed color. It turned white. It looked soft. And it was steaming.

Was that... a steamed bun?

A freshly cooked, large white steamed bun?

An aroma of wheat that didn't exist drifted into his nostrils.

"Steamed bun..."

Brother Bao's Adam's apple bobbed violently.

He snatched the stone, as if afraid someone would snatch it away, and savagely bit down.

"CRUNCH!"

A teeth-grinding, sharp sound.

Brother Bao screamed in agony, clutching his mouth as he fell to the ground.

Blood flowed between his fingers, and a broken incisor lay in his palm.

The intense pain instantly brought him back to his senses.

There was no steamed bun in his hand. Only a piece of cold, hard granite smeared with blood.

"Wuwuwu..."

Brother Bao spat the tooth onto the ground and finally couldn't help but cry.

It wasn't because of the pain, but because of the humiliation—the extreme feeling of indignity as a modern person, stripped of dignity and thrown back into a primitive society.

"Don't cry."

A hand reached out and picked up the stone.

It was Jack.

He carefully scraped off the moss on the stone's surface with his bayonet, leaving not a speck behind, then cupped the small amount of green powder and held it in front of Brother Bao.

"Eat it," Jack's voice was hoarse, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

"Eat it, and you'll have the strength to kill."

...

BOOM—!

A ball of orange-red fire exploded at the front line of the position.

This was not a howitzer shell. It was napalm.

The viscous burning agent, like living magma, splashed onto the rocks, tree trunks, and even the air.

The flames instantly consumed all oxygen, turning Feihu Mountain into a purgatory.

"Save them! Quick, save them!"

The Political Instructor's shout sounded weak amidst the sea of fire.

The air-raid shelter had half collapsed. Several wounded men were trapped inside, and flames were pouring in through the entrance.

Dai Dai had originally shrunk into the innermost part of the trench. She was afraid of fire.

The high temperature that could scorch skin and ignite fat instinctively made her want to flee.

But then she saw that hand.

It was the hand of the wounded soldier from before, reaching out from the collapsed entrance, desperately clawing at the ground.

Her fingernails dug into the dirt, leaving streaks of blood.

It was the instinct for survival.

"Ah—!"

Dai Dai shrieked. Instead of running away, she charged out.

She rushed into that scorching area.

The rocks beneath her feet were burned bright red, and she could smell the stench of melting rubber even through her canvas shoes.

She grabbed the wounded soldier's hand and desperately tried to drag him out.

"Get out! Get out for me!"

But the wounded soldier's leg was pinned by a fallen rock, and he wouldn't budge.

Tongues of flame licked at Dai Dai's back. Her hair was singed, releasing a foul, acrid smell.

"Forget about me..." the wounded soldier weakly pushed her,

"Medic... hurry and go..."

"Shut up!"

Dai Dai's eyes were red, and her face, usually adorned with a sweet smile, was terrifyingly contorted.

She let go of his hand, knelt on the ground, and grabbed the scorching rock with both hands.

It was a stone that had been burned by napalm, reaching temperatures of several hundred degrees Celsius.

Sizzle—

The sound of flesh contacting a high-temperature object.

White smoke billowed up.

Dai Dai flinched violently from the pain, and tears instantly streamed down her face.

Even a fraction of the pain judged by the system compared to the real world was enough to make one wish for death.

But she did not let go.

Not only did she not let go, she increased her strength.

"Get... up... NOW!!!"

She roared, the flesh on her palms being scalded, carbonized, and peeling away.

Red muscle tissue curled outward, revealing stark white bone.

What a pair of hands they were.

The live broadcast camera zoomed in for a close-up.

Those hands that once only held an eyebrow pencil or clutched a doll while acting cute had now turned into a pair of blackened bone claws.

But these bone claws forcefully shifted the several-hundred-pound rock by a small gap.

The wounded soldier was dragged out.

The two of them tumbled into a nearby shell crater, avoiding the fatal wave of fire.

Dai Dai lay on the ground, gasping for breath. She raised her hands and looked at them.

Strange.

Truly strange.

She should have fainted from the pain.

But looking at the wounded soldier who had narrowly escaped death, looking at his eyes full of gratitude and tears, Dai Dai suddenly felt like it didn't hurt so much anymore.

"I am a Medic."

She spoke softly to the air, as if speaking to the hundreds of millions watching on the screen.

"This is my duty."

The comments exploded.

The haters who had once mocked her as a 'vase' or someone who 'only knows how to cry' were all silenced.

The entire screen was filled with only two words, scrolling densely and obscuring the picture:

[Salute!]

[Salute!]

[Salute!]

...

Night fell again.

The US military's attack paused. Perhaps they were tired, or perhaps they believed these Chinese soldiers had already been burned to ash.

The position was silent.

Only occasional coughs and the suppressed groans of the wounded could be heard.

The company commander sat on an ammunition box, taking inventory of their last remaining supplies.

One box of grenades.

Three mortar shells.

And a few dozen rounds of bullets.

Nothing left.

Truly nothing left.

This wasn't the most desperate part.

The most desperate part was that, apart from the scraped moss, they hadn't eaten a single bite of food for two full days.

The soldiers leaned against the trench wall; many had already starved into unconsciousness.

Their eye sockets were sunken, their cheekbones prominent, making them look like skeletons still clinging to a breath of life.

The company commander patted his pocket.

There was a flattened metal tube inside.

It was toothpaste.

A consolation gift issued to officers by the regiment before departure. Mint flavored.

The company commander unscrewed the cap, squeezed a bit onto his finger, and put it in his mouth.

A cool, stimulating sensation of chemical flavoring exploded in his mouth.

This thing couldn't fill a stomach; eating too much would even cause heartburn.

But that intense flavor could temporarily wake someone from a coma.

"Collect all the toothpaste,"

The company commander's voice was light, but it was heard clearly across the dead-silent position.

The Communication Runner paused for a moment, then silently walked across the entire position, collecting three tubes of toothpaste from the pockets of a few officers.

The company commander squeezed these three tubes into an enamel mug, added a little snowmelt, and stirred them together.

It was a mug of murky, foamy white liquid.

"Send this to the Assault Platoon."

The company commander handed the mug to the Communication Runner, his gaze fixed on the very front edge of the position.

A dozen figures were prone there; that was their last line of defense.

"Tell them,"

The company commander paused, his throat working hard.

"This is dinner."

"Eat your fill, and it'll be easier to go on your way."