Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 711. Extra Chapter: Zhu Yiba's Past (Thirteen)
"boom!"

"Bang! Bang!"

Several distinctive AK-47 gunshots shattered the silence of the night. The audacious man, just as he was about to escape into the village, whether as a show of defiance or to evade police pursuit, turned around and fired several shots at the SUV.

"Damn it, they dared to fire!"

This time, Zhu Yiba immediately made up his mind, took the QBZ from the squad leader's feet, got out of the car, released the safety, and fired several shots at the target while kneeling.

He was confident he could take down the man at this distance.

As expected, the man's body spun around for a moment as the gunshot rang out, then he began to tremble violently and slowly collapsed to the ground.

The all-night chase finally came to an end. Zhu Yiba could not hide his excitement and signaled the squad leader and others who had already gotten out of the car to hurry over and drag the shot man back into the car.

With things having come to this point, the squad leader, being a decisive person, didn't utter another word of complaint. He led Little Fatty and Yellow Hair like lightning to the edge of the village and carried the man back.

In fact, according to the standards of Zhu Yiba's special operations platoon when they carried out missions outside the mountains, once the death of the target was confirmed, there was no need to bring the body back.

However, once Zhu Yiba calmed down, he also realized that he was no longer with the special operations platoon, so he had to find a reasonable explanation for this unwarranted border crossing.

The armed police at the border station are there to investigate cases, and they need witnesses and physical evidence; unlike the special operations platoon, which only needs to deal with people, and everything is based on a list and location.

When they carried him back, the man was half-dead.

Zhu Yiba glanced at them briefly before turning away. After all, he had killed quite a few people; one more or one less wouldn't make a difference, so he didn't even consider providing first aid. Whether they lived or died depended on their own fate.

On the contrary, the two men, Huang Mao and Xiao Pang, watched with great interest, eager to try to save the man, showing no fear whatsoever at the sight of him about to die.

Only after asking did I learn that the two had extensive experience in rescue and carrying corpses.

With the matter settled, Zhu Yiba sat in the car, watching the village gradually become noisy. He thought to himself that this long trip was still a bit dangerous. Now that he had arrived at the border post, unlike the special duty platoon, he still had to be more discreet.

Outside the car, the squad leader, along with Huang Mao and Xiao Pang, cleaned up the man who had been shot and put him in the trunk. Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly noticed three or four children, both boys and girls, standing by the car staring blankly at the three of them.

The squad leader waved for the children to leave and was about to get into the car when the children pulled out pistols from somewhere and fired several shots, hitting the squad leader, Xiaoqiang, and Huangmao in succession.

As soon as the gunshot rang out, Zhu Yiba rushed out of the carriage and saw only three people lying on the ground groaning. There was no one around. Looking into the distance, he saw the backs of several children running back to the village.

He had no idea what had happened.

Seeing the village erupt in chaos, with many villagers surging towards them, Zhu Yiba could only shove the three of them into the car one by one and drive back to the border like a madman.

The Dragon Boat Festival is an ancient and traditional festival of the Chinese people, which has been celebrated for two thousand years and is still popular today.

It should have been a joyous day, but today, the entire station is shrouded in sorrow.

Huang Mao was seriously injured and is currently lying in the ICU at the hospital, his life hanging in the balance.

At the last moment, the squad leader found a comfortable position to lie down, looked at his comrades standing around him and said, "This beautiful land can never be fully seen." He smiled and seemed to have a very open mind.

Perhaps sensing his impending death, the squad leader, ignoring others' attempts to stop him, struggled to get up and stared blankly out the window into the distance.

Everyone at the station knew that the squad leader was looking at his hometown until he quietly closed his eyes.

When Xiao Pang was taken to the hospital, he was still able to crack a few jokes at Zhu Yiba, who was standing to the side with tears streaming down his face, saying that the class monitor just wanted to go home and find his childhood sweetheart, that his vision was too small.

Even at this point, they're still thinking about teasing the class monitor.

"You're in your fifties, yet you're still homesick like a child." The chuckled mockery of the class monitor was as usual, but in the end, Little Fatty couldn't hold back any longer; his head tilted to the side as he laughed.

"Mom, sister," were the last words Xiao Pang left behind. His wide eyes were filled with longing, perhaps because he was thinking of his mother and sister back in his hometown.

“What child doesn’t miss home?” Stationmaster Wang Hai stood to the side, his voice choked with emotion.

Zhu Yiba walked out of the hospital with his head down.

Lying in his dormitory that night, he felt scared for the first time.

This fear does not stem from killing, or from the fear of death and remorse one feels when a comrade is killed.

But whenever he was on a mission, watching lives end in his hands, he had an indescribable feeling.

Now, recalling the time when he ambushed the graves on the mountain, surrounded by blue-green will-o'-the-wisps, Zhu Yiba could no longer laugh as freely as he had then.

He always felt that in the darkness, there were gaping maws waiting to devour him the moment he let his guard down, and then chew him up.

That night, Zhu Yiba had a dream.

In his dream, targets he had killed over the years came looking for him.

Some crawled over, some hung down from the ceiling, some crawled out from under the bed, and so on. Zhu Yiba searched everywhere for the gun, but couldn't find it anywhere.

Finally, they surrounded him, staring coldly at Zhu Yiba, and said ominously that it was his turn next. The scene abruptly changed, and Zhu Yiba was back in the mountains of Yunnan Province. He looked down at the sniper rifle in his hand and the combat uniform he was wearing, now stripped of its insignia—it felt both familiar and strange.

The sounds of enemy pursuit could be heard intermittently from behind; the noise was quite loud, indicating that there were clearly many enemy soldiers.

He could only run for his life, and then got lost in the process, falling off a cliff and into the river where he was swept away by the swift current.

In the river, he tried to grab onto something, but couldn't grasp anything for a moment. Just when he thought he had caught something, he pulled it close to his body and saw that it was a string of skulls, like the targets he had killed.

The skull's fleshless jaw clicked, and its two empty eye sockets suddenly glowed with eerie green flames, as if silently mocking it.

That night, Zhu Yiba, who had never been afraid of anything, was scared.

Afterwards, the station sorted out the belongings of the squad leader and Xiao Pang and handed them over to their families, who were brought over by their superiors. The families were informed that the two had died in an accident during training.

Zhu Yiba did not show up, and his self-proclaimed invincibility became a laughing stock of the entire team. If it weren't for capturing the drug trafficker alive and his merits accumulated in the special operations team in his earlier years, he would most likely have been forced into early retirement after this incident.

This incident caused him to fall into complete silence.

The squad leader, who was over thirty, had originally planned to work for another two years until the third term ended, after which he could go home and get a stable job and live a peaceful life.

Just moments before, Little Fatty was happily planning his outstanding achievements in earning a third-class merit, but in the blink of an eye, he died in a hospital on the frontier. No one knows if his soul will return home with his ashes.

However, all of the above is predicated on the premise that the two of them are still alive.

Of the three men shot, only the blond-haired guy, who was completely unaware of what had happened, survived, but he suffered from severe psychological trauma. It's said that even after being transferred to the logistics department of the brigade, he couldn't overcome his fear and ultimately had to retire early.

Despite his young age, Huang Mao is easily fooled by others in his class. Unexpectedly, he already has a wife and children back in his hometown. In reality, he is the winner among all the soldiers.

But it ended up like this; it's hard to say whether it's a blessing or a curse.

After Zhu Yiba left the Yunnan border defense, the two never saw each other again.

Before leaving, Zhu Yiba squatted by the roadside where the group had been attacked, holding a letter addressed to the class monitor, sent from the mainland. It was a very pretty envelope, with delicate handwriting that was clearly a woman's, and it even emitted a faint fragrance.

This is a letter to the class monitor. In today's world of advanced communication, whether by phone or WeChat, messages can be sent instantly. For a woman to still maintain the habit of sending letters under such circumstances suggests she must be a very thoughtful person.

The letter was supposed to be returned to the class monitor's parents along with his belongings, but the letter arrived just as his parents returned to their hometown with his ashes, so they arrived at different times.

During special periods, all mail at the station had to be checked by the instructor before being sent to the platoon leaders below.

Thus, the opened letter ended up in the hands of platoon leader Zhu Yiba.

As if possessed, he opened the envelope.

The text states that after receiving a letter from her squad leader about to be transferred to a border police position in the area, which would provide her with a stable job, she thought about it for a long time and ultimately rejected the marriage arranged by her family.

They persuaded their traditional parents to agree to their marriage. Now, they are obediently waiting for the class monitor to return so that he can marry her in a grand and glorious way. Then, she will come with the class monitor to start a new family.

After waiting for so many years, she finally saw hope.

As a result, hope turned into despair.

Clutching the letter in his hand, Zhu Yiba felt as if his heart was being torn apart. The scene of chatting with the squad leader on patrol a few nights ago felt like it had just happened yesterday.

If he were still alive, upon receiving this letter, he would surely jump up and shout with joy, feeling like the happiest person in the world.

If he were still alive, gazing longingly at the girl from his distant hometown, he would surely be filled with joy, waiting for his beloved to rush over and embrace him.

With tears in his eyes, Zhu Yiba burned the letter for the class monitor.

Little Fatty, such a burly guy, usually brags and jokes around with his comrades with an incredibly thick skin. But that night, under Zhu Yiba's persuasion, when taking a picture of his younger sister wearing his medals, he carefully chose only the common third-class merit.

They say this thing is real; if he trains hard and performs well in the army, he'll definitely get it before he retires. Then, he can proudly wear the medal back to his hometown and show it to the villagers, finally holding his head high.

The image of Little Fatty making such a confident vow is still vivid in my mind.

Zhu Yiba took out a "Loyal Guardian" medal from his jacket pocket and burned it without hesitation. Since it didn't burn completely, he dug a small hole and buried it.

They tamped the soil down, but were still not satisfied.

Zhu Yiba returned to the station, carrying a box of medals. He dug a hole, dumped them all in, and then set it on fire.

Finally, he realized that Little Fatty had closed his eyes at the Yamanouchi Hospital.

"Little Fatty, Class Monitor, I want to take you home."

Even the toughest man couldn't hold back his tears.

(End of this chapter)