Chapter 197 My sister-in-law is amazing!
Hearing the deafening roar from the ranks, Lu Zheng strode into the tail of the conscription line, which stretched like a long dragon from one end of the street to the other, filled with men whose eyes were burning with passion, just like his.
The line moved forward like waves of wheat swaying in the wind, and finally it was his turn to stand in front of the wooden table at the recruitment office.
The clerk in the blue cloth cap asked without looking up, "Comrade, did you bring the letter of introduction?"
Lu Zheng handed him the letter of introduction. The clerk held the letter up to the light and examined it twice, then his brows suddenly furrowed: "Comrade, this letter of introduction of yours..."
He pointed to the red seal at the bottom of the page, "The ink is too smudged, and the paper is not right. I know you want to go to the battlefield to serve your country, but your identities are unclear, so we cannot accept your documents according to regulations."
Just as Lu Zheng was about to speak up and argue his point, an impatient shout suddenly erupted from behind him: "Hurry up! Dawdling will only delay things!"
The line was like a hornet's nest that had been poked; he could only clutch the fake letter of introduction and reluctantly squeeze out of the queue.
"Bang!" He kicked open the car door, yanked Peng Fei out of the passenger seat, and glared at him with eyes that seemed to pierce him: "Where did you get this damn letter of introduction?!"
Peng Fei was pulled so hard he stumbled, but he still swaggered around with a grin: "Brother, I carved the seal myself!"
He proudly pulled out half a red radish, still stained with red ink, and exclaimed, "Look at this stamp! It's so perfectly red!"
Lu Zheng's temples throbbed, and he raised his hand to slap him, but Peng Fei nimbly dodged it: "Brother, don't be in such a hurry!"
Peng Fei winked at Lu Zheng and nudged his arm: "With Brother Lu's skills, getting two passes should be a piece of cake, right?"
"You dare to scheme against me?" Lu Zheng flicked his forehead with his finger, but not hard.
Peng Fei rubbed the back of his head, grimacing, but he wasn't annoyed. He just chuckled, a sly glint in his eyes.
Looking at his grinning face, Lu Zheng's lips curled up almost imperceptibly—a tacit admission.
In just over ten minutes, Peng Fei and Lu Zheng quietly approached the new recruits who had just received their passes and secretly slipped two of them into their pockets.
He whistled to his men, and the group scrambled into the jeep, which roared toward the blockade.
A long line had already formed in front of the blockade. Suddenly, the piercing sound of a car engine tore through the twilight. The recruits in line turned their heads and saw a military jeep charging straight towards them like a raging leopard.
"Emergency! Passes!" Peng Fei was the first to jump out of the vehicle, his military boots slamming heavily onto the frozen ground as he slapped several passes into the guard's hand.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lu Zheng sharply turned the steering wheel, and the jeep sped through the checkpoint railing.
The guard glanced down at the pass, then at the crowded carriage. Without even counting the number of people, he waved and shouted, "Just drive straight ahead! Someone will organize you into platoons up ahead!"
"It's done!" Peng Fei looked back through the car window and smiled, revealing two rows of white teeth.
Lu Zheng's lips curled up, and he made a sharp turn of the steering wheel: "You're the one with the most clever ideas."
He looked at the sentry post that was gradually shrinking in the rearview mirror and said, "I hope we can be put into the same team."
The jeep bumped along the potholed dirt road, the smell of gunpowder in the air growing stronger, like burning cotton shavings that made one's throat tight. The distant gunfire was no longer sporadic explosions, but a continuous, rumbling roar.
Clearly, fierce fighting is taking place on the front lines.
The men in the jeep instantly turned red-eyed, and Peng Fei's voice was louder than a cannon: "We've been so bored lately, it's finally our turn!"
Just then, a communications soldier covered in mud rushed out from the front, waving a signal flag and stopping the vehicle: "Brothers on the vehicle! The Third Regiment's position is about to collapse! Which unit are you from? Quick! Follow me!"
Lu Zheng's eyes narrowed, and he jerked the steering wheel. The jeep cut a dangerous arc on the crater-strewn road, hurtling towards the direction of the most intense gunfire.
The communications soldier suddenly stopped, his right hand instinctively reaching for the Mauser pistol at his waist, his eyes icy: "Which unit are you from? I've never seen you before."
"We're new recruits, the officers at the checkpoint told us to come in and form a unit right away!" Lu Zheng said urgently, waving his pass in his hand.
Before he could finish speaking, a piercing whistle suddenly came from above—it was a shell!
The communications soldier turned pale and before he could react, he was suddenly slammed to the ground by a tremendous force. Lu Zheng held him down tightly on the back and they rolled and crawled on the frozen ground.
"boom--!"
The deafening explosion overturned the jeep, flames shot into the sky, and parts flew everywhere like sparks.
The communications soldier's mind went blank. He struggled to look up and saw the jeep reduced to a twisted, mangled piece of scrap metal. His lips trembled as he stammered, "Comrades... comrades..."
Before he could finish speaking, a dozen men dusted themselves off and stood up from the smoke in the distance, all unharmed.
In the middle of the crowd stood a woman, wiping the ash from the corner of her mouth with a plain white handkerchief, smiling at him with her eyes crinkling: "Comrade, are you injured? I have some medicine here."
Signalman: "???"
He looked at the charred skeleton of the jeep, then at the woman who had suddenly appeared, his jaw nearly dropping in astonishment: Where...where did she come from?!
Xia Qianqian's back was still damp with cold sweat. When the shells came whistling in, she had instinctively taken everyone into the Peach Blossom Spring.
Gazing at the jeep twisting in the flames, the lingering smell of gunpowder finally gave her a true taste of war—the coldness of rust mixed with blood.
But she wasn't afraid; she even smiled at the communications soldier. That smile, like melting snow in spring, silently soothed the soldier's tense nerves.
"Let me see." She squatted down and skillfully bandaged the abrasion on the communications soldier's arm. Then she took out a glass bottle from her small cloth bag and poured out two anti-inflammatory pills. "Take these after meals; they'll reduce the inflammation."
The communications soldier's eyes suddenly widened.
He stared at the two pristine white pills, then suddenly grabbed Xia Qianqian's wrist: "Comrade! How much medicine do you have left?!"
"I still have quite a few medicines. Do you need any right now? I can provide them to you."
The moment those words left his mouth, the communications soldier's eyes lit up instantly, all his previous wariness vanished, and he grinned so wide his eyes disappeared: "Comrade! This medicine of yours looks like something precious!"
He carefully held the two anti-inflammatory pills: "We're even selling red antiseptic by the drop here now, if you could give us a little more..."
He grabbed Xia Qianqian's arm and yanked her into the trench with such force that it felt like he wanted to meld her into his very bones: "Come with me! If the commander sees you, he'll treat you like royalty!"
Xia Qianqian stumbled from the tug, but the medicine bottle in her hand remained steady. Peng Fei, behind her, stroked his chin and clicked his tongue, winking at Lu Zheng: "Look at our sister-in-law, she's become a hot commodity in no time—amazing!"
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