79: Chapter 80 Where is your home?

The wounded soldier did not answer.

Moonlight leaked through the holes in the window paper, falling on the corners of the black-and-white photograph.

The little girl's smile was sliced in half by the light—one half bright, the other dark.

Tony waited for a long time. His Chinese vocabulary barely reached ten words at most.

The phrases taught in the interrogation manual were all imperative sentences like "Drop your weapon and we won't kill you" or "Don't move."

"Where is your home?" was already the most complex sentence he could construct.

The wounded soldier slowly turned the photograph over.

A few lines of brush calligraphy were written on the back.

Tony couldn't recognize a single character,

but he noticed that the edges of the ink had blurred,

with some spots darker than the rest, as if they had been soaked by water droplets.

The wounded soldier spoke.

His voice was very soft, as if he were afraid of waking the people in the neighboring bunks.

He said the name of a place.

Tony couldn't understand it. But from those few syllables, he caught a word he recognized—"Shandong."

Shandong.

This word was not unfamiliar in Tony's memory.

The pre-war intelligence briefings had mentioned this place name repeatedly,

accompanied by a long string of geographic coordinates and population data.

But in the wounded soldier's mouth, the pronunciation of "Shandong" was completely different.

The final sound was drawn out, and his tongue lingered on the roof of his mouth for an extra half-second, as if he were savoring the taste of something.

Tony pointed at himself, held up five fingers, and then three. Fifty-three.

The wounded soldier shook his head.

Tony tried a different way. He pressed his palms together,

placed them against his cheek in a sleeping gesture,

and then opened his fingers, counting them one by one.

The wounded soldier understood.

He held up two fingers.

Two days? Two months?

The wounded soldier added another gesture.

He drew a circle in the air with his index finger and then pointed at the moon outside the window.

Two years.

This Chinese soldier hadn't been home for two years.

Tony swallowed hard.

He remembered boarding the ship from the mainland to Incheon Harbor, traveling on a troop carrier equipped with heating and hot meals,

a fourteen-day voyage.

Before leaving, he had even made a special trip home for a farewell dinner, where Mary cooked his favorite roast Turkey.

Two years.

He looked down at the bandage wrapped around the soldier's left arm.

The layer of gauze had already been stained dark brown by seeping plasma,

and where the edges curled up, purplish skin could be seen underneath.

The ointment the army doctor had applied emitted a pungent smell of camphor.

"Your arm..." Tony gestured with his hands, making a pained expression.

The wounded soldier pulled his injured left arm closer to his side and used his right hand to tuck the photo back into his inner chest pocket.

His movements were very slow, as if he were deathly afraid of wrinkling the face of the girl in the photo.

Then he turned his head and gave Tony a small smile.

That smile reminded Tony of someone.

Little Shandong.

The sixteen-year-old boy in the game whose toes had frozen off and whose ankles had turned black with necrosis,

yet who still silently told Jack in the minus-forty-degree snow, "I'm fine, brother, it doesn't hurt."

Tony's eyes burned.

He quickly turned his face away, staring at the cracks in the canvas on the ceiling, blinking hard several times.

He was a prisoner of war.

Crying in this camp was shameful.

————

The next morning, the camp's loudspeakers blared punctually at six o'clock.

It wasn't gunfire, nor was it a whistle. It was a song.

The tune was cheerful, carrying a lively bustle reminiscent of a rural market.

Tony later learned that the song was called "The Sky of the Liberated Areas."

He was kicked awake by the British prisoner sharing his bunk.

The bearded one, named Duncan,

a Private First Class from the Royal Ulster Rifles.

He had been captured during the battle at Location, likely in Korea.

"Get up, Yank." Duncan poked Tony's ribs with the tip of his boot.

"The Chinese say registration starts today."

"Registration for what?"

"A sports meet."

Duncan's tone was strange, as if he were talking about something he didn't quite believe himself.

"The... whatever... Olympics."

Quite a few people had already gathered on the drill ground.

The Volunteer Army management cadres stood behind a makeshift wooden table, upon which a large sheet of paper was spread,

covered in densely written brush-ink characters.

Standing beside them was a translator wearing glasses,

holding a tin megaphone,

reading out the list of competition events in English.

"One-hundred-meter sprint, four-hundred-meter relay, long jump, high jump, shot put—using sandbags instead—basketball, volleyball, soccer, tug-of-war..."

With every event the translator read, a buzz of discussion rose from the crowd below.

Tony stood at the edge of the crowd, his eyes scanning the area.

The drill ground had been leveled once again since yesterday.

The white lime lines of the track had been redrawn, straight as if measured with a ruler.

Red cloth strips were wrapped around the hurdles.

The basketball hoops were made of two thick pieces of wood nailed together, with the rims bent into circles using iron wire,

and half a fishing net hanging underneath—to catch the ball after it went in, making it easier to retrieve.

The setup was crude to the extreme.

But everything had been made with earnest care.

"Registration is not mandatory," the translator said, pushing up the glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Participation is voluntary. Comrades—er, friends—with serious injuries are not encouraged to compete, but may watch."

Duncan raised his hand: "Is there cricket?"

The translator paused, whispered with the management cadres behind him for a moment,

then turned back: "No. But it can be added. You teach us the rules, and we will make the equipment."

Duncan's eyes widened, and he was speechless for a long while.

A Black soldier squeezed forward from the back of the crowd,

shouting in a thick Southern accent: "Is there boxing?"

The translator turned to consult again.

This time it took longer.

The management cadre's brow furrowed for a good while before he finally nodded.

"Yes, but hitting the face is not allowed. Hitting the face will be considered a foul."

A burst of laughter erupted from the crowd.

This was the first time since being captured

that Tony had heard so many people laugh out loud at the same time.

China, Su Yun's Studio.

On the backend data panel, a new set of values was jumping upward at a rate of hundreds per second.

Emotion Type: Confusion — 52%

Emotion Type: Curiosity — 31%

Emotion Type: Skepticism — 12%

Emotion Type: Warmth — 5%

Su Yun noticed that 5%.

The "Warmth" metric had never exceeded 0.3% during the entire Battle of Chosin Lake. Even after the Battle of Triangle Hill, it hadn't broken 1%.

But on this first morning in Bitong, it had reached 5%.

Su Yun picked up his stone-cold coffee and took a sip, staring at the data for a long time. He set the cup down and pulled up a folder hidden in the deepest layer of the asset library.

The folder was named "Bitong Details Pack."

Stored inside were not weapon stats, terrain models, or explosion effects.

It was one thousand four hundred prisoner of war files.

Each file recorded the prisoner's name, rank, nationality, injuries, dietary preferences, family situation, and psychological assessment.

All data came from declassified historical archives and original POW memoirs.

Su Yun clicked on one at random.

File Number: POW-1951-0847

Name: James Vidal

Rank: Lieutenant

Nationality: United States

Injuries: Blindness in left eye (shrapnel), amputation of right index finger

Notes: Weighed only 112 pounds upon arrival at the camp, severely malnourished.

On the third day in camp, voluntarily requested to participate in a study session organized by the Volunteer Army.

After the war, returned to the United States and was prosecuted for "collaboration with the enemy," eventually acquitted.

In his later years, he said in an interview: "Bitong was the only time in my life I was treated as a human being."

Su Yun copied the last sentence of this file

and set it as a hidden inscription on a stone monument within the game.

Trigger condition: The player does not use any violence against prisoners for three consecutive days in the camp.

He closed the folder and switched to the live stream's real-time feed.

On the screen, Jack was leaning against a wooden plank, staring at the group of prisoners on the drill ground chatteringly discussing the competition events.

The hand-rolled cigarette in his hand had burned to the end, but he didn't react even when it burned his fingers.

The bullet chat was still scrolling.

But it was different from before.

When they were fighting,

the chat was full of "Go go go," "Kill them all," and "Jack is amazing."

Now the chat had become:

"These prisoners are actually quite pitiful..."

"Wait, the Chinese are holding a sports meet for the enemy? For real?"

"I searched it up, this really happened in history—the 1952 Bitong POW Camp Inter-Camp Olympics."

"Holy crap, I thought Su Yun made it up."

"This is too surreal—fighting to the death one moment and holding an Olympics the next???"

Su Yun looked at the chat; the curve of his lips was slight, but he could feel it himself.

He was waiting for the right moment.

He wasn't in a hurry to play the Bitong card.

——

Game World.

Registration continued throughout the entire morning.

Tony did not sign up.

His feet were still being treated,

making walking difficult, let alone running.

He sat on a rock by the drill ground,

watching those prisoners in better condition than him write down their names under the translator's guidance.

Jack walked past him.

Tony noticed that Jack had changed into a slightly cleaner cotton coat today,

and the scorch marks on the shoulder had been mended with needle and thread.

The fabric of the patch didn't quite match the color of the coat, with dark and light spots, but the stitching was very dense.

Jack didn't look at him, heading straight for the other end of the drill ground.

There, several Volunteer Army soldiers were setting up a simple broadcasting station,

two bamboo poles tied into a tripod with a tin megaphone hanging from it.

Tony watched Jack's retreating back.

The hand that threw him the dry rations yesterday,

was the same hand that had smashed a machine gunner's head on the battlefield the day before.

The same person. The same pair of hands.

This realization made Tony's head buzz.

"Hey." Duncan plopped down next to him, holding half a boiled sweet potato,

"Guess what, I signed up for boxing."

"You?" Tony looked Duncan's physique up and down.

The Englishman was as thin as a bamboo pole,

and the muscles on his arms had shrunken by at least half under the camp's food conditions.

"Who are you going to fight? You'd fall over if the wind blew."

"Shut it. I grew up in Leeds; I was fighting in back alleys behind pubs at twelve."

Duncan took a bite of the sweet potato, his cheeks bulging as he said indistinctly,

"Besides, the Chinese rules say no hitting the face.

Boxing without hitting the face—isn't that just dancing while hugging? I'm good at that."

Tony couldn't help but chuckle.

This was the first time he had laughed since being captured.

After laughing, he stunned himself, raising a hand to touch the corner of his mouth—a very unfamiliar feeling.

Duncan stuffed the remaining half of the sweet potato into his hand: "Eat. You're thinner than me. If you don't eat, that rotten leg of yours will never get better."

The sweet potato was warm.

Tony cradled it in his palms, feeling the warmth against his skin, but didn't eat it immediately.

The Volunteer Army opposite us relied on eating this stuff to beat our UN Forces like this.

In the center of the drill ground, the translator raised the tin megaphone and began shouting again.

"At two o'clock this afternoon, participants for all events gather on the drill ground for training.

For those without sportswear, the camp will issue standard shorts and vests."

"Sportswear?" a French prisoner interjected in broken English,

"The cotton coats they wear themselves are patched, yet they're giving us sportswear?"

No one answered him.

But everyone was thinking the same thing.

The afternoon training was much more lively than imagined.

The drill ground was crowded with people.

Competitors, spectators, and helpers—even the wounded sat on the sidelines leaning on crutches to watch.

The sprinting speed of several Black American soldiers was incredibly fast,

reaching levels close to professional athletes on the dirt track.

The Volunteer Army management cadres stood by, clicking their tongues in amazement,

and said something to the translator, who then turned and gave those Black soldiers a thumbs-up.

The volleyball court had no net.

So, several Chinese soldiers found a thick hemp rope,

tied the two ends to wooden stakes,

and hung several white cloth strips in the middle as markers.

The ball was made of wrapped rags, making a "thud-thud" sound when hit,

and its elasticity was terrible, but those playing didn't care.

A Turkish prisoner used too much force during a spike,

sending himself flying,

and landing in the recently tilled vegetable patch nearby, covered in mud.

Everyone burst into laughter.

The Chinese soldiers laughed, and the prisoners laughed too.

Tony sat by the edge of the drill ground,

finishing the sweet potato bite by bite.

He watched the mud-covered Turk crawl out of the vegetable patch,

shake off the vegetable leaves,

and hop back onto the court to continue playing.

Tony suddenly understood something.

There was no smell of death in this camp.

Triangle Hill had it.

Chosin Lake had it.

Pine Bone Peak had it.

Every battlefield he had been on had that sickly sweet, decaying scent that crawled into the nasal cavity and never left.

But Bitong didn't.

Here, there was the smell of earth,

the scent of steam from boiled sweet potatoes,

the smell of sweat,

the smell of cheap soap,

and the damp smell of grass roots in the freshly tilled vegetable patch.

The smells of the living.

As Jack walked past him, he dropped a sentence.

His voice was very low, as if talking to himself, but intended for Tony to hear.

"Recover well. On the day of the opening ceremony, you need to be standing to watch it."

Tony opened his mouth, wanting to say something.

Jack had already walked far away.

China, Su Yun's Studio.

On the emotion panel, the "Warmth" value climbed from 5% to 9%.

Su Yun stared at the screen, his fingers hovering over the keyboard for three seconds before he began typing.

System Announcement—Server-wide Push.

"The Bitong POW Camp Olympics will officially open in three days of game time.

A global live broadcast will be conducted then. All online players can enter for free through the spectator channel."

After sending the announcement, Su Yun added a line of small text.

"This sports meet will not feature any combat segments. No enemies, no death, no pain."

He leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling.

His Grandpa's medal sat on the corner of the desk, its bronze surface polished bright from his touch.

"Grandpa," he said to the air,

"after fighting for so long, it's time to let them rest."

The live stream's bullet chat went wild.

"No combat? Su Yun, are you serious?"

"I don't believe it; this is definitely a trap."

"Last time you said it was easy mode, and I ended up crying eight times."

"Wait... no more fighting? Just purely watching a sports meet?"

"Why do I feel like this is even scarier than fighting..."

Su Yun did not respond.

He switched to the foreign data stream, and as expected, Far East Command press officer Jeffrey's team was already in action.

An article titled "The Communist Circus: The Brainwashing Truth Behind the Bitong 'Olympics'" was being pushed across major Western media platforms.

The article was accompanied by three photos. All were AI-generated—prisoners tied to poles forced into labor, with a Chinese flag photoshopped into the background.

The synthesis level was appallingly crude. The lighting direction on the poles was completely opposite to the Sun, and the flag's proportions were wrong.

Su Yun took a screenshot and tossed it into the system's asset library.

He didn't plan to use it yet. But he knew that when the sports meet opened in three days, these photos would serve as the best control group.

Truth needs no defense.

Truth only needs to be seen.