Chapter 468

I am extremely familiar with this feeling; when Little Fat lunged into my body at the Aomen restaurant back then, my body also suddenly filled with the same sense of helplessness as now.

Again, a wave of graceful spinning illusion; the dazed me was brought to an unknown place.

On the drill ground, rows of soldiers in yellow uniforms stood straight; although their faces were covered in 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 disdain.

On the yellow earth ahead, seven figures covered in mud, bloodstained all over, likewise wearing yellow uniforms. Their hands were bound, knees on the ground, heads lowered, not daring to lift.

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

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

"Wait" the scarred man shouted low, waving his hand to stop.

Then he squatted on the ground, grabbed the collar of a burly man with thick brows, and glared, saying: "Speak... Yuan Zheng, why did you bring the whole squad to desert? Do you not know that by doing so you ruined the whole plan and wasted the lives of many brothers?"

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

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

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

At this moment I finally saw Yuan Zheng's appearance clearly. Though not handsome, he was a tall, sturdy seven-foot man. I truly couldn't understand 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, and she jumped into the well together with my seventy-year-old mother, leaving only my ten-year-old child suffering alone in our hometown. I think we will 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 desertion was just as that aunt said; Yuan Zheng had no choice.

"Regiment commander, I, Yuan Zheng, am not a coward; I violated military discipline and die without resentment. I only hope you can give me a chance to take revenge, give me some time to entrust my child to someone else!" Yuan Zheng raised his head and let out a long howl, then kowtowed to the regiment commander.

The regiment commander fell silent; after a moment, he squatted down and slowly helped Yuan Zheng to his feet, ordering his soldiers to bring five hand grenades and several broadswords. After untying the deserters' ropes, the regiment commander handed each a broadsword and a hand grenade.

The regiment commander's eyes swept over the deserters, and he said coldly: "You violated military discipline, abandoned your comrades and became deserters. According to military discipline, you must be executed. But how can this death be worthy of your elders and hometown, worthy of this yellow earth beneath your feet? You… choose your own way to die."

The regiment commander's meaning was to let them destroy themselves.

Yuan Zheng, clad in a yellow uniform, his eyes blood-red, kowtowed several times to the scarred regiment commander, dragging his heavy legs; the seven deserters slowly departed under many contemptuous gazes.

Just then, 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.

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

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

After the final bullet struck the enemy's heart, the two, eyes blood-red, lunged at the nearest Japanese; even if their hearts were pierced, they still stared blood-red and fiercely bit the enemy's ears.

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

Yuan Zheng, together with a soldier named Niu San, sneaked into a Japanese squad's camp and, taking advantage of their sleep, assassinated a squad of Japanese.

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

That explosion came from the other three brothers, who sneaked up with hand grenades to attack the enemy's ammunition depot, detonating them with their own lives, destroying the enemy's logistics ammunition supply, and then threw themselves into the flames in a hymn.

In the clash of blades, Yuan Zheng and Niu San were already covered in wounds. They had become blood-soaked 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 they had killed.

The two, covered in wounds, stumbled out of the camp, while the Japanese pursued relentlessly. When they fled into a valley, the enemy's steps gradually closed the distance, pressing step by step.

As the enemy was about to catch up, Niu San shoved Yuan Zheng aside without hesitation, grabbed the last hand grenade, and, under Yuan Zheng's tear-filled gaze, roared as he charged toward the enemy behind them.

"Squad leader, go tell the regiment commander: we brothers are all real men, we are not deserters..." That was the only line Niu San left before detonating the hand grenade.

After a long while, the dust settled, leaving only scattered bones and corpses everywhere.

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 struggled.

Finally he could no longer hold up, his knees buckling to the ground. Yet he did not give up, gripping the broken sword with his bloodied hands, planting it in the earth and dragging himself forward by crawling.

The direction he headed was the drill ground where he had first been captured back. It was 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 had long since dried up.

His vision grew ever more blurred; the bloodied hand gripping the broken sword could finally only weaken and release. Relying on willpower, Yuan Zheng used his own blood to write a line of crooked characters on the ground.

Before death, Yuan Zheng weakly glanced 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. 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 characters Yuan Zheng finally wrote on the ground with his will were the names of six people. They were exactly the same as the names I had seen on the loamy slope 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's a pity that no one heard Yuan Zheng's last words; as he died, 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 he was possessed by resentment and obsession, relying only on his former consciousness, repeatedly injuring the actors who played Japanese. But… in his heart there remained an unforgettable obsession.

That was the instruction the brothers gave him as they fell in pools of blood, each word ringing in his ears, each character sinking into his heart.

When I returned from the realm of Fate Penetration, I was still unconscious. Yet my consciousness in that unconscious state was clear. I distinctly heard the last words Yuan Zheng spoke, still echoing in the wind.

"Regiment commander, we are not deserters!" Each word was steeped in bloody sorrow, wringing out the whole heart.

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

A commoner who fights a hundred battles for his country dies; why must a man resort to corpse‑reviving?

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