Chapter 561: Settling New and Old Grudges Together

Radar sounded alarm, and the red‑side driver who was about to aim at Lu Yang and fire changed his expression in shock.

Realizing an anti‑air missile had locked onto him, he immediately abandoned firing and chose to release a jamming projectile.

Yet he didn't expect his action was still a step too slow; the airframe was directly hit by a Red Ying-6, blown apart in midair into an invisible fireball.

Zhou Kaidong, acting as observer, continuously watched the sky with a night‑vision binocular; the exercise couldn't see real fire, and the drone, considering flight safety, was not equipped with a smoke sensor.

Guo Yongwen impatiently asked, "Did we hit it?"

"It should have hit!"

"Hit it, but no smoke?"

"With such strong wind, any smoke would be blown away; ask the director‑coordinator!"

Zhou Kaidong hurriedly asked the staff standing nearby from the directing department, "Did our missile hit that armed helicopter?"

The director‑coordinator saw the whole scene clearly, and although subjectively he thought it should have hit.

After all, the Red Ying-6 is designed for low‑altitude targets, especially helicopters.

Moreover, it was likely a helicopter already damaged by bullets.

Nevertheless, for thoroughness, the director‑coordinator also queried the directing department's data‑collection center and quickly gave a definitive answer.

"The data center determines your missile was truly effective; that red‑side armed helicopter has been successfully shot down by you."

"Whoa, awesome!"

"That bird‑plane really got taken down by us!"

Guo Yongwen tossed the Red Ying-6 man‑portable anti‑air missile tube aside and, excitedly, gave Zhou Kaidong a hug.

When the attack occurred earlier, Lu Yang immediately told them to grab anti‑air weapons and look for an opportunity and position.

Lu Yang then took the squad's machine gun, went to the hilltop to attract and harass the enemy, making them careless.

In short, without Lu Yang's interference, their anti‑air missiles might have been detected by the enemy, who would release jamming projectiles in time.

The advancing helicopter, after seeing a teammate shot down, was frightened and quickly climbed higher and sped away.

They never expected the Blue army to actually have man‑portable anti‑air missiles.

And it seemed they were specifically for defending low altitude, repelling helicopters.

Seeing the remaining drone had already left range, Lu Yang immediately ceased fire and withdrew, rejoining the others.

Guo Yongwen, upon seeing Lu Yang, shouted impatiently, "Company Commander, we hit it! I coordinated with Old Zhou and successfully took down a red‑side armed helicopter, hahaha!"

Lu Yang raised his thumb to the two, "You guys also know the timing; if we'd been slower, Kong Long and I would have been blown to pieces."

Ma Qing'an and He Zhen Tao finally fully understood Lu Yang's true intention this time, and couldn't help praising.

"Lu Yang, your feint was slick!"

"We saw you grab the machine gun to shoot the gray plane and thought you were crazy, didn't expect you had a backup plan?"

"Using a universal machine gun to draw enemy attention, Zhou Kaidong and Guo Yongwen operated the Red Ying-6 anti‑air missile together, bringing the enemy down in one stroke; the coordination was flawless!"

"No wonder during preparation you insisted on bringing man‑portable anti‑air weapons; it was to counter their move!"

Lu Yang wasn't in the mood to celebrate now; two transport trucks had been blown up, and part of the supplies and ammunition inside were destroyed.

Around them, many Blue army soldiers had their heads smoking; this surprise attack left them somewhat on the defensive.

"What's the casualty rate?"

"Seventeen killed, two transport trucks destroyed."

He Zhen Tao tallied the casualty rate immediately.

Ma Qing'an said, "Fortunately we discovered it in time, everyone got out of the vehicle and took cover; otherwise the loss would have been much worse."

Gao Feng: "But we did get something; we shot down an enemy armed helicopter. One thing I still don't get is how they knew our marching route."

"Even we only learned the exact route right before departure, and we took only small paths; could the red side have opened a third eye?"

Lu Yang mused, "Maybe, it really is a third eye."

In the face of information‑warfare, mechanized means cannot hide.

Even though they turned off lights and radios, the heat emitted by the engines during movement cannot be concealed.

If the red side has dedicated reconnaissance equipment that can detect these large heat sources, then unless they hide underground, it's useless.

Now Lu Yang worries about what level the red side's detection means are.

Whether they can detect the heat from a single soldier's jamming, that would be troublesome.

Gao Feng asked him, "What should we do now, keep moving, or…"

Lu Yang shook his head, "The vehicles can't go on; for safety we must go on foot."

The soldiers who escaped death voiced no objection.

After all, for these veterans of Old Lu's unit, the least feared thing is marching on foot.

Moreover, many among them came from Motorized Infantry, each a lightning‑fast runner.

But to be safe, Lu Yang's group decided a few would drive to draw red‑side attention; the rest would march rapidly via another route to the designated area.

After the plan, the force split into two, quickly leaving the area.

Meanwhile, inside the fleeing red‑side helicopter, the pilot was still shaken.

Luckily it was fast; if it had been slower, the Blue army would probably have shot it down with a missile.

At this moment, the onboard intercom crackled, and from the other side came Night Tiger Huang Honghui's voice.

"Is everything smooth over there?"

"Chief, we had an incident; one of our helicopters was shot down."

"What?"

Huang Honghui's face darkened, asking what had happened.

After hearing the details, his expression immediately turned sour.

Machine guns draw attention, conducting interference!

Anti-air missiles are secretly hidden, waiting for the right moment to strike—virtually impossible to defend against!

Originally, Huang Honghui intended to exploit the enemy's unprepared state and directly cripple Lu Yang and his men; but he never imagined he would be turned back on himself, even losing an armed helicopter.

After the communication was cut off, Huang Honghui entered a makeshift command room erected with camouflage netting; Xiao Tang, a female soldier from the Electronic Countermeasures Team, was tinkering with a professional military computer.

"Chief, are the coordinates I provided accurate? Has that Blue Army unit been wiped out?"

"The coordinates are correct, but the attack was ineffective; the enemy was on guard."

Xiao Tang frowned: "No wonder you said earlier that this Blue Army unit must be eliminated first; it really is tough to deal with."

Huang Honghui grunted, then pressed: "I need their next move's trajectory—can you do that?"

Xiao Tang nodded: "Yes, but this system can't show exact positions in real time; it updates specific coordinates only every five minutes, so we might have to wait a bit."

"No problem."

Five minutes later, Xiao Tang performed some operations on her end and found numerous moving heat sources suspected to be Blue Army soldiers.

"They seem to have split into two groups—some left by vehicle, while the others disembarked and are now moving quickly northeast on foot."

"No vehicles were detected among the heat sources; in just five minutes they've moved this far—these people are fast, all speedy legs?"

Huang Honghui also didn't expect that Lu Yang's unit could march this fast without any vehicles.

No wonder they're from motorized infantry—their legwork is truly formidable.

But with the support of information-age technology, the Blue Army's movements are nowhere to hide—running anywhere is useless.

Based on their route, Huang Honghui roughly predicted their next direction and found a crucial chokepoint they must pass.

"Move out!"

Huang Honghui mustered a company's worth of troops from the Night Tiger Reconnaissance Battalion.

He prepared to personally lead the force and set an ambush on their essential route.

Because he determined that Lu Yang must be in the marching group on foot; the vehicles were merely a decoy.

Huang Honghui's eyes blazed with fire, his fists clenched with a crackling sound: "New and old grudges together! Lu Yang, if I don't beat the shit out of you this time, I'm not a real man!"