Chapter 196: Chapter Twenty‑Seven: We Are Not Deserters 2

This feeling is extremely familiar to me; when Little Fat lunged into my body at the restaurant in Aomen back then, my body was suddenly filled with the same sense of helplessness as now.

Again a dizzying, illusory spin overcame me, and I, dazed, was brought to an unknown place.

On the drill field, rows of soldiers in yellow uniforms stood rigidly; though their faces were smeared with mud and their bodies bore wounds big and small, their expressions were firm and calm, showing no trace of fatigue. Only when their gazes swept over the seven figures kneeling in the yellow mud ahead did their eyes reveal contempt and scorn.

On the yellow earth ahead, seven figures covered in mud and blood, likewise dressed in yellow uniforms, had their hands bound, knees on the ground, heads lowered, not daring to lift them.

Before these seven stood a tall, sturdy man; he was broad‑shouldered, with a crew cut, and a fierce knife scar ran from his left brow, adding a touch of brutality.

"Ready..." seven soldiers stepped out of the ranks, raised their guns, and aimed at the seven kneeling figures.

"Wait," the scarred man barked low, waving his hand to halt.

Then he crouched on the ground, grabbed the collar of a thick‑eyed brute, and glared, saying: "Speak… Yuan Zheng, why did you bring the whole squad to desert? Do you not know that your flight ruined the entire plan, wasting the lives of so many brothers?"

Only now did I finally know where Fate Penetration had brought me.

This should be the place where Yuan Zheng was captured after his escape. And what I see now is his past life.

The place Fate Penetration brought me to must be connected to Yuan Zheng's karma; I stared intently at their dialogue, afraid to miss anything.

At this moment I finally saw Yuan Zheng's appearance. Though not handsome, he was a tall, sturdy seven‑foot man. I truly cannot fathom how someone like him could become a deserter.

"Regiment Commander, I was wrong. I received a letter from home saying my wife was defiled by the landlord; she and my seventy‑year‑old mother jumped into a well together, leaving only my ten‑year‑old child alone in our hometown. I thought we would die in this battle. If I die, who will avenge my wife and mother? Who will care for my son?" Yuan Zheng wept uncontrollably.

The reason for deserting was just as that old woman said—Yuan Zheng too had no choice.

"Regiment Commander, I, Yuan Zheng, am no coward; I broke military law and accept death without complaint. I only beg you to give me a chance to take revenge, to give me some time to entrust my child to someone else!" Yuan Zheng lifted his head to the sky and let out a long wail, then kowtowed to the Regiment Commander.

The Regiment Commander fell silent, then after a moment squatted, helped Yuan Zheng to his feet, and ordered his men to bring five grenades and several broadswords. After untying the deserters' ropes, he handed each a broadsword and a grenade.

The Regiment Commander's eyes swept over the deserters, and he said coldly: "You have violated military discipline, abandoning your brothers to become deserters. By the rules you must be executed. But what kind of death would be worthy of your parents and fellow villagers, of the yellow earth beneath your feet? … Choose your own way to die."

The Regiment Commander's meaning was to let them kill themselves.

Yuan Zheng, clad in yellow uniform, his eyes blood‑red, kowtowed several times to the scarred Regiment Commander, then dragged his heavy legs away; the seven deserters slowly departed under countless looks of contempt.

At that moment the view shifted to an unnamed small courtyard. I saw the seven deserters break into a deep residence and drag out an elderly man over sixty.

"You insulted my wife, you scum, you deserve to die!" Yuan Zheng roared in anger and chopped off a head.

Thereafter, in that night of roaring artillery, Yuan Zheng and his seven men sneaked into a camp planted with rising‑sun flags.

Two of the brothers knocked out two Japanese devils, disguised themselves as them, entered the officers' tent, and when no one had recovered, they surged forward, drew their guns, and killed two high‑ranking Japanese devils.

After the final bullet struck the enemy's heart, the two, eyes blood‑red, lunged at the nearest Japanese devil; even if their hearts were pierced, they remained blood‑red‑eyed and fiercely bit the enemy's ear.

When the Japanese devils dragged their corpses away, their lips still clung tightly to a bloody ear.

Yuan Zheng, together with a soldier named Niu San, infiltrated a Japanese devil squad's camp and, while they slept, assassinated an entire squad of Japanese devils.

When Yuan Zheng and Niu San pointed their knives at the second squad of Japanese devils, a violent explosion suddenly rang out, exposing them completely to the enemy's sight.

That explosion came from the other three brothers, who, carrying grenades, sneaked to attack the enemy's ammunition depot, detonated the grenades with their own lives, destroyed the enemy's logistical ammunition supply, and then threw themselves into the flames in a self‑immolating hymn.

In the clash of blades, Yuan Zheng and Niu San were already covered in wounds. They had become bloody men, their blood partly their own, partly the enemy's. Even when their broadswords broke, they could not tell how many times they had been stabbed or how many Japanese devils they had slain.

The two, wounded all over, staggered out of the camp, while the Japanese devils pursued relentlessly. When they fled into a valley, the enemy's steps gradually closed the distance, pressing step by step.

As the enemy seemed about to catch up, Niu San shoved Yuan Zheng aside without hesitation, took the last grenade, and, under Yuan Zheng's tearful gaze, roared as he charged toward the enemies behind them.

"Squad Leader, go tell the Regiment Commander, we brothers are all real men—we are not deserters…" Those were Niu San's only words before he detonated the grenade.

After a long while, the smoke cleared, leaving only scattered bones and corpses across the ground.

Yuan Zheng wept, tears and snot streaming, struggling step by step toward the camp. In the valley he gritted his teeth and pressed on, blood flowing wherever he staggered.

Finally he could hold on no longer; his knees hit the ground. Yet he did not give up, gripping the broken sword with his blood‑soaked hands, planting it in the earth and dragging himself forward by crawling.

The direction he moved was the drill field where he had first been captured back— the place he had left, yet also his final resting place.

Where Yuan Zheng crawled, a long trail of blood flowed; as time passed, the blood on the ground dried up.

His vision grew ever more blurred; the blood‑stained hand gripping the broken sword could only weaken and release. By sheer will, Yuan Zheng used his own blood to write a crooked line on the ground.

On the brink of death, Yuan Zheng weakly gazed into the distance, his eyes full of longing, his lips trembling as he uttered an indistinct phrase; in the end he could only close his eyes unwillingly.

Behind Yuan Zheng lingered the smoke from the joint self‑destruction of Niu San and the Japanese devils. A breeze mixed with smoke swept over his corpse, rustling the wild grass along the small paths on either side of the valley, adding a touch of desolation and sorrow to the battlefield after the smoke.

As an observer, I had already burst into tears.

The crooked blood‑stained characters Yuan Zheng finally wrote with his will were the names of six people—exactly the same as the names I had seen on the muddy hillside before I fainted.

I could not hear the words Yuan Zheng struggled to say at the end, but I could read his lips.

He gazed into the distance and said, "Regiment Commander, we are not deserters."

It is a pity that no one heard Yuan Zheng's dying words; with his death, that sentence was forever buried in the yellow earth.

I finally understood why Yuan Zheng kept appearing on the stage again and again. Perhaps after death his spirit was seized by resentment and obsession, and, relying only on his living consciousness, he repeatedly cut down the actors playing Japanese devils. But… in his heart there remained an unforgettable obsession.

Those were the brothers' earnest admonitions as they fell in pools of blood—words that entered his ears and sank into his heart.

When I returned from the realm of Fate Penetration, I was still unconscious. Yet my consciousness within the coma was clear; I distinctly heard Yuan Zheng's final words still echoing in the wind.

"Regiment Commander, we are not deserters!" Each word dripped with blood‑tinged sorrow, wringing out the whole heart.

Even while unconscious, my eyes still unknowingly shed a line of hot tears.

A commoner who dies in a hundred battles for his country—why should a man need to return from a corpse?

How lamentable that brothers suffer undeserved humiliation; now they become fierce ghosts whose fame stands tall.