War of Resistance: Glory of the Beasts

Chapter 301: Common Man (Thanks to 'Pima Pingchuan' for the reward!)

In the early morning, the sky was filled with rosy clouds and the weather was no longer cold, so it was not so difficult to get up.

Xu Chaoyang woke up, and the first thing he did after opening his eyes was to light a cigarette for himself. In the past, he didn't have such a strong addiction to smoking, but now, he feels that if there is no such spicy feeling rushing to his head every day when he opens his eyes, something is missing.

He was wearing a military cotton coat, a white shirt whose lining was already dirty but he hadn't thought about washing it, and long boots covered in mud, but he had tucked his clean pants into the boots.

And along the way he passed, he was greeted everywhere: "Captain, are you awake?"

"Shen Guaizi, pull up your pants, you're smelling so early in the morning!"

But he was not at all kind to his subordinates. Not only did he speak with a lot of dirty words, he also didn't give them any face at all.

In the distance, Yuan Fuzhen, who had just woken up, was dressing up in the room. It wasn't that she wanted to put on heavy makeup, but once a girl gets used to makeup, her face will look pale once she removes it, so she always has to cover it up.

However, she saw the figure strolling under the city in her dressing mirror.

Yuan Fuzhen was also very puzzled. She wondered why Xu Chaoyang's men were so obedient to him. She also wondered where such a rude-looking man got such prestige in the army. After all, in this team that seemed to be no different from a warlord, there were too many strange things. So, she wanted to find someone to ask.

After putting on her makeup, Yuan Fuzhen walked slowly under the city wall along the path Xu Chaoyang had walked. When she saw a limping man who almost had to use a gun to support his body when walking, she stopped and asked, "Is your last name Shen?"

Shen Guaizi looked back. They had recently been talking about Xu Chaoyang as a celebrity gossip from another era. Naturally, he knew Yuan Fuzhen. So, he smiled and said hello, "Miss Yuan, you woke up so early too?"

Yuan Fuzhen nodded, but did not continue on this topic. Instead, she asked, "I heard Captain Xu scold you just now. Why?"

"Scolded me? Where did you scold me?" Shen Guaizi was not talking nonsense, he really didn't feel that he was scolded.

Yuan Fuzhen pointed at his crotch in confusion: "Just now, wasn't it..."

"Oh my god, Miss Shen, in your wealthy family, do you call this cursing?"

He laughed: "So do you think hearing a dirty word is cursing?"

Aren’t dirty words considered cursing?
Yuan Fuzhen didn't understand.

Shen Guaizi smiled and said, "Then we are different."

"In our hometown, that's not how we curse people."

Yuan Fuzhen asked curiously, "How did you curse?"

Shen Guaizi bent down and wiped the top cover of the ammunition box clean with his sleeve. Then he scratched it with his rough hands. When he saw that there was no prickly place, he gave way and said, "Miss Yuan, please sit here."

Then, Shen Guaizi squatted down two meters away from Miss Yuan and said, "My hometown is in the Northeast. That year, the Japanese invaders had just occupied the Northeast and there were wars everywhere. Our house and land were bombed by planes flying over the sky. All seven of my family members, except me, were buried in the sea of ​​fire."

"I didn't have the money to bury them, and I couldn't bear to just dig a grave and bury them, so I went to the landlord in the village and asked to borrow some money to buy a few thin-skinned coffins, even if it was only one for two people."

He was laughing, and said, "But do you know how the landlord scolded me?"

"He called me poor!"

Shen Guaizi said with a sharp nose: "At that time, he pointed at me and said, 'You poor bastard, it's better to buy bran to feed pigs than to lend you the money. The pigs can be sold at a good price!'"

Yuan Fuzhen couldn't even describe the expression on her face when she heard these words: "How could he... say that about you? 'Poor is poor', what right do you have to say that people are poor?"

"Look! Look! Miss Yuan, I told you that you don't know what swearing is, right?"

"Did I understand it wrongly?"

Shen Guaizi was still smiling at Yuan Fuzhen, and finally said, "Bran was the staple food of our family at that time."

Yuan Fuzhen stood there like a wooden stake.

"Later, I held this anger in my heart and pawned the hundred pounds to the army. At that time, there was a shortage of people everywhere, so I exchanged my life for money."

"It was good to change it. After the change, my family of seven could have four coffins for burial. That's why I joined the army and followed the troops all the way to Inner Mongolia, and finally to the 217th Regiment."

Yuan Fuzhen finally came to her senses: "Are all people like you here?"

"Miss Yuan, can you tell that I'm a human being? Hahahaha..." He said this as a joke, but the second half of the sentence took a sharp turn: "When I was in the 9th Brigade, no one treated me as a human being. Our squad leader would call me 'that, that'. In Inner Mongolia, we almost didn't even have the chance to be human beings. If it weren't for our regiment commander who stopped the 9th Brigade from rebellion... Commander Dao Wenbin also asked us to follow Commander Xu as reinforcements..." He laughed, really laughed: "I don't know how I survived today." "As for me, it was only when I arrived at the 217th Regiment that I became a human being."

He looked to the side, his eyes shining: "The regiment commander knows who I am and what my nickname is; Lao Yang knows who I am and what my nickname is; it turns out that our company commander Wang Tianhao knows who I am and what my nickname is."

Shen Guaizi turned his head and looked at Yuan Fuzhen: "Really, now I feel like a human being."

"However, there aren't many people like me in the 217th Regiment..." He raised his chin, "They all died on the battlefield."

Yuan Fuzhen was already being touched when she heard the same person say something even more touching: "I should have died, too. When we were fighting for the Northeast Highlands outside Xifengkou, the eight of us who were left in our company rushed towards a flaming machine gun. We should have all been knocked down at the time, but I was lucky. Shrapnel from the exploding grenade hit my leg and knocked me down first. That's how I escaped the sweeping machine gun."

"I am lucky to have survived."

As Yuan Fuzhen continued to walk around the barracks, Shen Guaizi's appearance filled her mind. She had just been describing her miserable life story, but immediately she changed into another person: "Miss Yuan, I'm not bragging to you. When we took down the Northeastern Heights outside Xifengkou, the wounded soldiers camp under Xifengkou were all our men. At that time, Wang Changhai, who was still the commander of the 217th Regiment, said that he would change our organization so that more uninjured soldiers could be sent over. There was no one in the barracks who was capable of doing anything, not even one."

"Our regiment commander didn't know about this. If we had nodded at that time, the entire battalion would have been in turmoil. Could we have agreed to this?"

"Is it so easy to find a home in this chaotic world?"

"Don't be fooled by our regiment commander's cold face. He can call out the names of all the more than 1,000 people in the regiment as long as they are from the old first battalion, and he can..."

Yuan Fuzhen remembered that Shen Guaizi had told him a lot, about how their team was formed and united, how everyone couldn't endure being trained by Xu Chaoyang any more, how they teamed up to fool their superiors, and how they were beaten to pieces after being discovered.

Shen Guaizi said all these for fun, but this hero on the battlefield was always squatting two meters away from Yuan Fuzhen, while Yuan Fuzhen was sitting.

"Old Shen, why are you talking so much, Miss Yuan?" When her comrade asked, Yuan Fuzhen had already stood up and left, but the words fell clearly into her ears. She began to think that people from the Northeast were interesting. Obviously, there was a huge difference in status between the two sides, but they always managed to make peace with each other: "How can we not talk? Miss Yuan is asking about our Xu Tuan. It's like when you find a matchmaker and give the betrothal gift, the other party must ask about who you are?"

"We, Old Shen, understand this matter~~~"

That annoying death is not at all compatible with the sense of humor in his body, but they appear on the same person without interfering with each other, with the desolation forcibly stitched together by the tragic life experience in between.

Along the way, Yuan Fuzhen not only heard what Lao Shen said, he also saw that no matter where Xu Chaoyang went, he would quickly be surrounded by a crowd. Then, Xu Chaoyang's shouting and cursing would rang out, and the soldiers around him would all cautiously smile.

But this time, she understood.

In the eyes of these people, Xu Chaoyang's behavior was not scolding, but anxiety. He was not scolding the person, but such an obvious mistake on the battlefield. This mistake can cost you your life in the blink of an eye, and you are still smiling!

What made these soldiers willing to tolerate Xu Chaoyang's bad temper was not his official position, but his words when he distributed the salaries: "First, give the pensions to the brothers who died in battle. Do you have any objections?"

It was under his orders that Lao Yang shouted: "No one in the battalion, company, platoon, or squad is allowed to withhold the soldiers' pay!"

Before he scolds you, he treats you as a human being, as his brother.

In the words of Old Shen, "The soldiers of that idiot Sun had dug trenches up to their ankles, and our regiment commander didn't even bother to pay any attention to them."

"I scolded you but you didn't listen. When the bullet hits you, you will be scolded next time."

Yuan Fuzhen did not leave. She saw Xu Chaoyang already sitting on the sandbag, surrounded by the soldiers of 217.

No one knew who started Xu Chaoyang talking. At this moment, he was talking about something and bursts of laughter were heard around him.

This scene was originally very beautiful and warm, but it was broken by a shrill voice...

"Enemy attack!!!"

It took only one second for the voice to be heard and repeated by everyone, and it resounded throughout the entire camp... Then, between heaven and earth, the roar of fighter planes could be heard from far away to near.

At that time, Xu Chaoyang didn't even move, and all the people from the 217th Regiment left in an orderly manner.

And this man who seemed to be useless on the surface was still sitting on the sandbag, holding a cigarette and looking up at the sky. The tiny black dots that appeared in the distant sky were staring at each other, one high and one low.

At that time, Yuan Fuzhen was thinking that if the scene before her eyes was a painting, it would surely be sold at a high price, because this troop used facts that ordinary people could not accept to paint a very special kind of nature.

Xu Chaoyang, who had no idea that anyone was watching him, had already regarded the capital as a frontier stronghold. He calculated the trajectory of the plane that was about to descend in the distance. When it was almost time, he took the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed at the top of the city, shouting, "Oerlikon!!!!"

Yuan Fuzhen saw the whole scene. The man's wildness on the battlefield exuded an unparalleled charm. What a bastard!
　Thanks to my brother 'Pima Pingchuan' for the reward. Thank you very much.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)