Chapter 198 Are you from above?

Xia Qianqian followed the communications soldier deeper into the battlefield. The further they went, the stronger the smell of blood became, like blood-soaked cotton stuffing in their throats.

The tents of the wounded soldiers' camp were leaning precariously in the shell craters, their canvases riddled with charred bullet holes, letting in biting snow pellets when the wind blew in.

The scene inside the tent made her heart clench—the straw mats were covered with wounded soldiers, some with bandages soaked with dark red blood, a soldier with a broken leg groaning as he bit a wooden stick, and a medic with a missing arm using tongs to cauterize his wound with a red-hot bayonet. The sizzling smell of burning flesh mixed with the groans sent chills down her spine.

“I’ve learned bandaging before.” Xia Qianqian suddenly stopped, her voice soft but firm. “Let me stay. We need someone here.”

"Good!" A man in a tattered military uniform strode over, carrying half a rifle on his shoulder. He was none other than Company Commander Li from the wounded soldiers' battalion.

He glanced at Xia Qianqian's dusty blue cotton-padded jacket, then looked at the wounded soldiers who couldn't fit in the tent, and without saying a word patted her shoulder, "Comrade, welcome to the team! We're just missing a craftsman like you!"

On the other side, Lu Zheng and his brothers' eyes had already lit up.

They walked over to the wounded soldier lying on the straw mat, and gently took the rifle from his clutches, the butt still stained with dried blood.

"Brother, lend us your guns for now." Lu Zheng patted the wounded soldier's arm, his fingertips rubbing against the bleeding bandage. "You two take good care of yourselves. We'll fight the rest of the battles for you."

The wounded soldiers grinned, revealing their missing teeth and gums: "Kill a few more enemies for me!"

When Lu Zheng walked to Xia Qianqian's side, she was squatting on the ground cutting bandages for the wounded, her fingertips stained with blood.

He swallowed hard, then knelt down to tidy her wind-blown hair: "I've gone to the front lines."

Xia Qianqian looked up at him, her eyes reflecting the firelight outside the tent, shining like stars that had been tempered by fire: "You must come back safely."

Lu Zheng nodded emphatically, then turned and led his brothers into the smoke of battle.

But as soon as Xia Qianqian picked up the tweezers, the sight before her made her heart clench.

A young soldier shot in the abdomen was convulsing in pain, his intestines spilling out; another veteran with a blast wound to the leg was running a high fever, his lips cracked and peeling from the heat. She took out her suture needle and heated it over a fire, but her fingers trembled uncontrollably. When the needle pierced the flesh, the wounded soldier screamed in agony, and her own knuckles were marked with red welts.

"Girl, there's another one bleeding from an artery over here!" Company Commander Li rushed over carrying a bloodied figure. Xia Qianqian looked up and saw that the soldier's arm was gushing blood, staining half of her sleeve red.

She gritted her teeth, took out a tourniquet, and tightly tightened it around the other person's upper arm. But then another wounded soldier was carried in, and the groans outside the tent seemed endless.

Xia Qianqian was quickly overwhelmed with work. Taking advantage of a break while changing bandages for the wounded, she crouched down and slipped into a corner of the canvas tent. With a thought, Doctor Zhang appeared out of thin air with two assistants, carrying a medicine box, followed by several black men carrying equipment.

She then moved out a military cot and boxes of medicine from the space, the glass syringes gleaming coldly under the canvas tent.

"Quick! Treat the one with the bullet wound in the abdomen first!" Dr. Zhang, being a veteran, immediately directed his assistants to set up a makeshift operating table. Some were cleaning the wound, others were suturing it, and the crisp sound of tweezers clattering replaced the previous chaos.

With the addition of these fresh troops, the efficiency of treating wounded soldiers was significantly higher than before.

After treating the last wounded soldier, Xia Qianqian had just wiped her hands clean with an alcohol swab when she suddenly caught sight of a figure at the tent entrance. She looked up and met Li Lianchang's red-rimmed eyes.

"Comrade..." Company Commander Li's voice trembled as he looked at the orderly scene inside the tent—the wounded soldiers who had been groaning all over the ground were now lying on clean cots, wrapped in snow-white gauze, and even the most painful groans had subsided.

He suddenly stood at attention and saluted: "You are truly a heroine! In the past, after a major battle, the number of brothers who died because there wasn't enough time to treat them could fill half a truck! Now, with you..."

He choked back tears and wiped his face, his gaze falling on the penicillin bottle that Xia Qianqian had just opened. He suddenly lowered his voice and said, "These medicines... I asked the medics, and they can't even get painkillers, let alone this penicillin."

He took two steps closer, his eyes gleaming with inquiry: "Are you some important figure from above? Otherwise, why would that stingy regimental commander allocate such precious life-saving medicine to us?"

Xia Qianqian was disinfecting a cotton ball with tweezers when she heard this and burst out laughing, her eyes curving into crescents: "Comrade, I still don't know your name."

Company Commander Li then realized he hadn't introduced himself, and quickly said, "My surname is Li, and I'm in charge of logistics and wounded soldier management."

"I'm Xia Qianqian, I just arrived today. These medicines are from home." Xia Qianqian wiped the sweat from her forehead, her fingertips still stained with the brownish iodine.

The excitement on Company Commander Li's face faded slightly. His lips moved; he had initially thought it was life-saving medicine allocated by higher command, but it turned out to be her personal property that she had moved from home. How long could she survive on her family's savings alone?

"Are there any other wounded soldiers in the camp?" Xia Qianqian seemed to see through his thoughts and suddenly asked, "I brought quite a lot of medicine this time, enough to last for a while."

"What?!" Company Commander Li excitedly clenched his fist, making the tent poles vibrate. "That's...that's like a godsend! These kids are saved!"

A chorus of thanks immediately rang out, and the wounded soldiers, lying on their cots, had a renewed light in their eyes.

Just then, a low sigh suddenly came from the corner: "If only... if only they had these medicines on Koyama Island too..."

The air inside the tent seemed to freeze instantly.

Xia Qianqian looked around and saw that all the wounded soldiers had lowered their heads, some even secretly wiping away tears—the three words "Xiaoshan Island" were like a red-hot iron, burning the hearts of everyone.

Company Commander Li suddenly squatted down, pulled out a half-pack of crumpled cigarettes from his pocket, his fingers trembling so much that he couldn't even strike a match.

Xia Qianqian handed him a lighter. As the flame licked the cigarette, she saw tears still wet in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

"The soldiers on Xiaoshan Island... are heroes forged with their lives." He took a deep drag on his cigarette, smoke leaking from between his teeth. "What is this place? Second-line! We have tents to shelter us from the wind, and earthen stoves to heat water, but Xiaoshan Island... is a meat grinder where lives are poured out!"

His knuckles were white as he gripped the cigarette, and ash fell in a flurry onto the frozen mud: "Eighty nautical miles from land, not even a decent reef is visible at high tide. Resupply? The wooden boats are blown to pieces by artillery shells as soon as they leave the harbor! Of the transport team sent last month, twenty-seven men, only three and a half returned—the half was an arm that drifted back!"

Xia Qianqian gripped the handle of the medicine box tightly, the metal edge digging painfully into her palm.

"But those kids..." Company Commander Li suddenly raised his voice, smashing his cigarette on the ground and crushing it out, "They carried frozen cornbread, crouched in the crevices of the reef for three days and three nights with machine guns in their arms! When they ran out of bullets, they threw stones at them; when they ran out of grenades, they bit them with their teeth! They didn't let those sons of bitches get a single step closer to the mainland!"

He stared into Xia Qianqian's eyes, his own eyes bloodshot: "But..."

His voice suddenly lowered, as if afraid of disturbing something, "The wounded soldiers on the island... don't even have mercurochrome. I heard that during the recent torrential rains, one kid broke his leg and stubbornly cut away the rotten flesh with his own bayonet..."