Chapter 250
The battlefield in East China is a meat grinder.
Artillery fire plowed the scorched earth repeatedly like a plow, and the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder, blood, and decay. The army's position had been compressed to the last line of defense. The trenches were filled with rainwater and blood. The soldiers held their rifles with empty bullets, but their eyes were still as hard as steel.
The ghosts' charge became more and more fierce, a gray tide of steel helmets surging in the smoke, accompanied by the piercing sound of "boarding". Each charge meant that the flesh and blood of the soldiers on both sides collided and tore apart at the forefront of the position.
The position was shaky and on the verge of collapse.
At this critical moment, a dark shadow, like a ghost, silently slid across the cracks of the battlefield. Rong Zhou crouched behind the rubble, his gaze fixed on the dilapidated bunker housing the Japanese command post. He took a deep breath, suddenly accelerated, and using his footwork to gain momentum, he drifted past like a falling leaf.
The Japanese sentry guarding the bunker didn't even have time to utter a warning before his throat was crushed by cold, pale fingers and he collapsed silently. Rong Zhou infiltrated the bunker with swift and precise movements. Within a few breaths, the Japanese officer commanding the attack lay in a pool of blood, his eyes wide open.
Once the command center was lost, Xiao Rizi's offensive instantly fell into chaos.
The army seized the opportunity and launched a desperate counterattack, temporarily forcing the Japanese to retreat. A faint but inspiring cheer rang out from the battlefield.
Rong Zhou had done this many times before. On different battlefields, on different nights, he was like a lonely shadow, silently and single-handedly eliminating the enemy's command nodes, repeatedly delaying their offensive.
As he watched the Japanese retreat in disarray, a glimmer of hope ignited within him. He thought, if he could drag out the battle in East China, if he could make them bleed enough, they would no longer have the strength to attack Nanjing. Perhaps, then, the darkest tragedy in his memory could be averted.
However, reality dealt him the heaviest blow.
The stalemate and heavy casualties in the East China Theater made the Xiaori Military Headquarters anxious. Instead of continuing to fight in East China, they quickly transferred elite troops from the North China battlefield and marched south along the Jinpu Line, heading straight for Nanjing.
Their plan was clear: capture the capital, force the Nationalist government to surrender, and thus lift the siege of East China in one fell swoop.
Rong Zhou was hiding in a dilapidated village when he heard the news of the fall of Nanjing on the radio. The sound on the radio was intermittent, but it clearly reported that the Japanese had entered the city.
At that moment, his whole body was cold, as if he had fallen into an ice cave.
All his previous efforts, his assassinations on every battlefield, had become a great irony. He thought he was changing history, but he hadn't expected the wheel of history to have such terrifying inertia. He tried his best to stop it, but in the end, it only changed its path and continued to roll over the ancient capital.
Nanjing fell.
Then came news that was even more terrifying than hell—a massacre.
Three hundred thousand of our compatriots were brutally slaughtered by the Japanese invaders in just six weeks. They committed murder, looting, and every other kind of atrocity. The once prosperous ancient capital was transformed into a living hell.
Rong Zhou held the illegible, ink-stained intelligence document, his body cold. He stood there in a daze, as if all his strength had been drained away.
He did so much, repeatedly disregarding the world's repulsive force, dancing on the edge of a knife, thinking he was protecting something. But in the end, his efforts not only failed to prevent the tragedy, but may have indirectly accelerated the pace of the Japanese invaders' southward advance in North China by hindering the war in East China.
The feeling of powerlessness and despair overwhelmed him like a tide. He looked at his blood-stained hands and for the first time began to doubt everything he had done.
He couldn't understand why? Why, despite trying his best, he still couldn't protect the people he wanted to protect?
The ever-powerful energy seems so small and ridiculous.
Rong Zhou stood there, holding the information tightly in his hand, almost crushing the edge of the paper.
"Three hundred thousand..."
Those three words cut through his heart like a rusty, blunt knife, each bite accompanied by a tearing pain. What emerged before his eyes wasn't cold numbers, but vivid faces—children playing on the streets of Nanjing, women washing clothes by the Qinhuai River, old men playing chess at the foot of the city wall... These compatriots, whom he had never met, were now cold corpses.
He recalled his actions on the battlefields of East China. The commanders he had silently eliminated, the offensives that had been temporarily halted because of his surprise attacks, the chips he thought he was accumulating towards victory...
It seems so ridiculous now.
He thought he was a lone hunter stalking the darkness, using precise killing to buy time for dawn. But in reality, he was merely swatting a few flies in vain beside the vast meat grinder of war. His efforts not only failed to stop the machine's motion, but perhaps, by temporarily jamming a gear, they caused the blade on the other end to fall even faster and more fiercely.
"What did I... do?"
A cold voice echoed in his heart, filled with endless mockery. His pride in his skills and his unwavering belief in justice completely crumbled before the blood of three hundred thousand compatriots.
He recalled his previous warning to Lu Er, "Don't cause trouble, or you'll be thrown out of this world." It wasn't just a matter of discipline; it was a lack of trust in Lu Er's abilities. But now, for the first time, he began to suspect that perhaps what he needed to stop wasn't Lu Er's "troublemaking," but his own foolish attempt to single-handedly change the world.
The world's repulsive force?
No, what truly repelled him was the truth of this cruel world. The "more important things" he pursued, the future he tried so hard to change, continued to unfold in an unchangeable way.
He punched the broken wall beside him, the bricks and stones shattered, and blood oozed from his fingers. But this little pain could not alleviate the despair and anger in his heart.
A suppressed, silent roar erupted from his throat. He stared at the gray sky, squeezing out two words bit by bit through his teeth, his voice hoarse as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper: "Lu... Er..." Each word was coated in blood and hatred, like shards of ice bitten through his teeth.
Thousands of miles away, time stopped in the yard. Lu Er, who was lying on a recliner like a corpse, suddenly opened his eyes, and a hint of red light flashed in his eyes.
"Finally..." He chuckled softly, his voice as light as a feather, yet laced with a venomous edge. "I've been waiting for you to look like you've been consumed by hatred."
Lu Er was angry because of his calm look. Cats hold grudges from morning to night.
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