44: Chapter 45 The Two-Kilometer Death Line

Su Yun sat before the control panel, the data stream on the screen turning a dazzling blood-red.

[Wind Speed: Level 7]

[Water Temperature: Near Freezing Point]

[Mission Objective: Ensure the passage of Yanli Bridge, Time Limit: 4 Hours]

[Mission Description: Yanli Bridge is the throat of logistics transport; the main force ahead has been without rations for a long time.

US aircraft are enforcing an all-weather blockade. We must guarantee that twenty trucks fully loaded with supplies pass through before dawn.]

He pressed the enter key without the slightest hesitation.

The command instantly traveled through the fiber optics to the retinas of tens of thousands of players.

Jack was still kneeling on the ground, clutching the half-broken piece of straw rope, the other end dangling empty.

The gunshots, explosions, and the final resolute shout of that young soldier from last night still echoed in his ears.

The surviving players huddled in the mountain hollow, like a flock of quails soaked by a torrential downpour.

Hunger, cold, and the terror brought by night blindness had drained their last bit of strength.

No one spoke, only the uncontrollable chattering of teeth and the hollow gnawing pain in their stomachs.

Jack wiped the ice shards from his face and exhaled a puff of white air.

"Everyone, hold on!" he roared into the public channel,

"The mission says 'fully loaded with supplies,' did you hear that? Fully loaded!"

"Su Yun finally did something useful! Hahaha!"

"I'm about to starve to death!"

Brother Bao's voice came through the communication channel, carrying a hint of weak excitement,

"This damn game is too realistic. I feel like gnawing on the bark of the trees by the roadside right now. I really don't want to eat frozen potatoes anymore.

The supplies this time must be canned meat, right? At the very least, it has to be compressed biscuits!"

"Stop dreaming. I'll be satisfied if we just get hot steamed rice," Dai Dai muttered quietly beside her, struggling to drag a frostbitten casualty toward the cover.

This place was Yanli Bridge.

Or rather, there used to be a bridge here.

Just five minutes ago, four US B-26 bombers swooped down like sharks smelling blood, dropping eight 500-pound aerial bombs.

The blast wave flipped the accumulated snow on the riverbank, blowing the wooden bridge, which had just been hastily repaired, into countless fragments floating on the icy river.

The river water was black, like a giant, flowing wound, glaringly conspicuous against the vast white snowfield.

"Stop standing around! Quick! Haul up the logs!"

The Sapper Company Commander NPC's hoarse roar was torn apart intermittently by the cold wind.

He waved a trenching shovel in his hand, half his face blackened by smoke and fire.

Jack climbed out of the snowdrift, his body stiff as raw iron.

Brother Bao next to him was still coughing violently; that round of bombing had nearly ruptured his lungs with the shockwave.

"This is the so-called 'lifeline'?" Brother Bao spat out a mouthful of saliva tinged with blood, looking at the churning icy river before them,

"This is a death line, damn it."

The riverbank was piled high with corpses.

They were the players from the engineering battalion who had been working on the bridge just moments ago, now reduced to clusters of data points about to dissipate.

Some light spots were swept away by the river before they could fully scatter, disappearing into the darkness downstream.

"Stop talking nonsense and get to work," Jack gritted his teeth and dragged his heavy legs toward the riverbank.

There was no heavy machinery, no cranes.

Only a few dozen pine logs recently cut from the mountain, and a few hundred ragged 'coolies' holding only ropes and shovels.

"One, two, heave!"

A dozen or so players shouted cadence, bracing their shoulders against the slippery logs, inching toward the river.

The wood was covered in ice shards, which tore through their padded uniforms and dug into their flesh.

Su Yun locked the pain system at 30%.

Even so, the stinging pain of the rough bark chafing their shoulders and then being soaked by sweat was clearly transmitted to the cerebral cortex of every player.

"This is real war," Jack gasped, his foot slipping, and he fell entirely into the muddy water.

The bone-chilling cold instantly pierced his padded trousers, like countless steel needles stabbing into his marrow.

He shivered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

"Jack! Are you okay!" Dai Dai ran over, reaching out to pull him.

"Forget me! Push the log down!" Jack shook off her hand, crawled up using his hands and feet, and once again braced against that pine log.

This log had to be secured onto the bridge pier within two minutes.

Because in two minutes, the next wave of US aircraft would clock in right on schedule.

This wasn't an exaggerated setting in a game; this was the historical Yanli Bridge—destroyed and repaired repeatedly, repaired and destroyed again.

The Americans had woven a net of steel and explosives, attempting to strangle this army that lacked air superiority.

"Vroom—"

The scalp-numbing sound of engines echoed again from above the clouds.

"Air raid! Take cover!"

The players dropped what they were doing and frantically ran toward the piles of rubble on both banks.

Jack had just dove into a bomb crater when a massive explosion erupted right next to his ear.

Dirt mixed with ice chunks rained down on him.

He looked up and saw with despair that the pine log, which they hadn't managed to secure, had been blown into two pieces and was drifting alone down the river.

That log had taken them half an hour and the lives of more than a dozen people to move to the center of the river.

"Damn it!" Brother Bao hammered the ground fiercely, his fist covered in blood,

"How can we repair this? We can never finish!"

At that moment, two beams of light shot out from the highway on the bank.

Several trucks fully loaded with supplies turned off their main headlights, only using their dim anti-aircraft lights, crawling like snails along the rugged mountain road.

They stopped by the broken bridge, not daring to move another inch forward.

That was the ammunition and grain desperately needed by the front lines.

That was the lives of tens of thousands of men.

If these supplies weren't delivered, the men at Pine Bone Peak would have to use stones to smash American tanks and use snowballs to fill the stomachs of men who hadn't eaten in over a hundred hours.

"Where's the bridge? Why isn't the bridge open yet?"

The leader of the transport convoy jumped out of his truck, stamping his feet anxiously. He looked at the empty bridge piers on the river surface, and his eyes instantly turned red.

The Sapper Company Commander didn't speak; he just silently picked up a length of rope and tied it around his waist.

"Commander, what are you doing?" Jack was stunned.

"There are no more logs," the Commander pointed to the bare hillside not far away,

"There isn't time to cut more."

He turned around and looked at the group of 'new recruits' from 2024 behind him.

"Comrades," the Commander's voice wasn't loud, sounding thin against the roaring wind and snow,

"The vehicles must cross. The front line is waiting for rescue."

He didn't give an order; he just took a deep look at everyone, then was the first to jump into the bone-chilling river water.

"Splash."

The black river water instantly submerged him to his waist.

The Commander shivered but didn't stop, continuing toward the center of the river until the water reached his chest.

He stood at the original location of the bridge pier, turned around, faced upstream, and exposed his shoulders above the water surface.

"Second Platoon Leader, come down!"

"Yes, sir!"

Another figure jumped down.

"Third Squad Leader, come down!"

"Yes, sir!"

One by one.

There were no grand pronouncements, no system prompts.

Those NPCs who usually just mechanically issued missions in the mission hall were now like living people, stepping into this river of death without hesitation.

They stood in the water, supporting each other, using their shoulders to hold up the remaining wooden planks.

They were human bridge piers.

Jack stood on the bank, the blood in his body seemingly frozen.

The system interface showed no prompts. No mission guidance told him what to do.

But he saw Brother Bao throw his beloved type 38 rifle onto the ground and jump in without a word.

He saw Dai Dai, who feared pain the most and usually cried even when getting a shot, wipe the snot from her face and jump in after them.

The barrage of complaints about the difficulty in the public channel had vanished completely.

In its place was a screen uniformly filled with text:

[Players of District One, requesting to join the line!]

[District Three Sappers, requesting to join the line!]

[For victory!]

Plop, plop, plop.

It was like dumplings being dropped into boiling water.

Hundreds of players jumped into the ice hole named 'Yanli River'.

The river water was colder than human imagination could conceive.

The instant he entered the water, Jack felt his heart skip a beat.

Then came a sharp, intense stinging—the direct torture of low temperatures on the nerves.

Su Yun sat in front of the screen, his finger hovering over the 'Decrease Pain' button.

If he pressed it, the players would feel much better.

But he didn't press it.

Because the people who jumped into that river seventy years ago did not have a system to lower their pain perception.