"...Hey? There's blood! Someone's coming!"

Shen Dongqi dropped a piece of blood-stained cloth.

There were sounds of talking and walking outside.

Wei Aiguo quickly restored everything to its original state.

An elderly man and a young man entered through the door. Wei Aiguo greeted them, "Uncle and young man, my comrade is injured. Come in and rest for a while!"

"Ah, he's a soldier! Welcome, welcome! How did you get injured?" The older man looked at Shen Dongqi's bloodied leg and felt relieved.

“The animal trap was hidden in the dry grass, but my comrade stepped on it,” Tian Zhenguo said.

The younger man seemed to only then realize what was happening. "You must be cold. Come and warm yourself by the fire. There's still some food; I'll cook you some porridge!"

“No, no. We soldiers can’t take even a needle or thread from the people. We’d be grateful if we could just have a sip of hot water,” Tian Zhenguo said quickly.

"It's just a bowl of porridge, you've worked so hard, how can you not drink it?" The older folks were actually planning to cook some porridge.

"No, no!" Tian Zhenguo wanted to leave now, but Shen Dongqi hadn't warmed up yet. He looked at the others pleadingly.

Shen Dongqi was uncomfortable with his eyes half-closed, and Shu Hang didn't say anything either. Shu Hang was a very quiet person to begin with.

“My comrade is badly injured and needs to be taken to the hospital as soon as possible. Let him warm up for a while, then we have to leave.” Wei Aiguo’s words were reasonable. “Fellow villager, we’ll have your porridge again next time we have the chance.”

Hearing that they would be leaving soon, the two men breathed a sigh of relief. "I really wanted to do something for you, but unfortunately there's nothing I can do!"

Wei Aiguo: "It's so cold outside, we're very grateful for the hot water you provided as soon as we came in!"

"What kind of situation is this?"...

Wei Aiguo chatted with them leisurely, telling them about how they went hunting but caught nothing and even injured one of their men.

Tian Zhenguo was furious. Was it glorious to return empty-handed?

Wei Aiguo pretended not to notice Tian Zhenguo's increasingly dark expression and chatted more and more warmly with his fellow villager. The two were uncle and nephew, and also hunters.

Shen Dongqi felt warm and urged everyone to leave.

Once they were far from the cabin, Tian Zhenguo angrily said, "Wei Aiguo, you were just rummaging through their things while chatting so warmly with them. How could you do that?"

You came out empty-handed and injured, and you think that's something to be proud of? You have the nerve to gossip like a nagging woman!

Shu Hang couldn't stand Tian Zhenguo's words anymore. "Platoon Leader Shen is our comrade-in-arms. Do you think it's shameful for a comrade-in-arms to be injured?"

"No, no. Platoon Leader Shen, that's not what I meant, I..." Tian Zhenguo suddenly didn't know how to explain.

"Do you think there's anything wrong with this?" Shen Dongqi asked.

"What's wrong?" Tian Zhenguo asked.

"I think they were initially afraid of us. The people generally welcome us soldiers; this is the first time I've seen them afraid!" Shu Hang said.

Shen Dongqi is much better now. "What did you see in your bag?" he asked Wei Aiguo.

“It must be detonators, and there’s a whole bag of them!” Wei Aiguo said solemnly.

"Pshaw, do you even know what a detonator is?" Tian Zhenguo sneered at Wei Aiguo, who had only been in the army for a few months.

Shen Dongqi was very serious. As the highest-ranking officer in the military, he was fully authorized to command. "Are you sure, everyone?" he asked.

"Confirmed! I've seen the detonator! There's something else unusual in the cabin..."

"What's wrong with you? I think you're crazy. Where would ordinary people get detonators?" Tian Zhenguo interrupted Wei Aiguo.

Shen Dongqi ignored Tian Zhenguo, saying, "I'm not feeling well. If you hadn't looked at the cigarette pack and the luncheon meat can, I wouldn't have noticed!"

"What did you find?" Shu Hang didn't understand.

This wasn't the time to keep them in suspense. Wei Aiguo said, "Can you afford filtered cigarettes and canned luncheon meat? Don't ask me if I'm willing to spend money on canned food; do you even have luncheon meat coupons?"

Shu Hang and Tian Zhenguo were both stunned.

"And they were very nervous when they saw us enter the cabin. The younger one kept putting his hand on his waist, as if he wanted to reach for his knife at any moment." Shen Dongqi was injured and seemed to be in poor spirits, yet he had observed so much; we all admired him.

"You're really amazing!" Tian Zhenguo said.

“Wei Aiguo is the most observant. He chatted with the two men, and they relaxed a lot. They probably thought we hadn’t found anything.” Shen Dongqi’s words made Tian Zhenguo blush. He was resentful of Wei Aiguo because he was a new recruit.

Tian Zhenguo: "There are only two of them. We can just arrest them and take them down the mountain."

"no!"

"no!"

"No way!" the three of them said in unison.

Shen Dongqi: "There are only two people. How could they get so many detonators? Where did they come from? Where are they going to be sent? Are there any more? We need to find out all of this. If they can afford to smoke filtered cigarettes and eat canned meat, there must be many more people behind them. So we can't make decisions on our own. We need to ask our superiors for instructions."

“Shu Hang and Tian Zhenguo took turns carrying Platoon Leader Shen back to request instructions from their superiors. I'm here watching over them,” Wei Aiguo said.

"Why are you here? What gives you the right to give orders?" Tian Zhenguo said.

"Because you didn't find anything! Because you knew you were wrong and still questioned your comrade!" Shen Dongqi was also quite annoyed. "I'm useless too, I got injured and dragged everyone down."

"I...I don't mind being a burden," Tian Zhenguo said softly.

“If you hadn’t been injured, we wouldn’t have been able to rest in the cabin, and we wouldn’t have been able to find them,” Wei Aiguo said.

Shen Dongqi said, "It's too dangerous for you to be alone! Shu Hang, you should stay too!"

This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!