One-sided sworn brotherhood
I can't believe I spent over a month recovering from my injuries on the front lines of the fight against the zombie horde.
Wherever Yu Zhongjian's troops went, he would move me there to ensure I was always under his watchful eye. They usually set up camp about ten kilometers from the main battlefield, providing me with a separate tent. Meals included extra fruits and vegetables, and a constant supply of clean water. Follow-up medical appointments were handled by Dr. Cao, and nursing care was provided by Liu Meili. I spent twenty-two hours a day in bed, with only two hours for walks inside and outside the tent, assisted by Liu Meili.
The actual front-line camp was five kilometers ahead of my camp, but he would always come to my tent to take a look when he got up early or went to bed late. Sometimes he would say a few words of nonsense, and sometimes he would just glance at it. It was more like visiting someone in prison than visiting someone in the hospital; his behavior was suffocating.
From Dr. Cao, I learned the exact details of my injuries. One arm was fractured, the other dislocated, both legs suffered soft tissue contusions, there was slight squamous bleeding in my lungs, and I had also experienced concussion symptoms a few days ago. It's said that it takes a hundred days to recover from a broken bone. If I can stay in bed for three months, avoid handling weapons for six months, and refrain from strenuous exercise for a year, my injuries will heal quickly, with fewer long-term effects. I'll be fully recovered next year and as energetic as ever.
But I can't wait until next year, six months, or even three months. Every time I hear the intense sounds of gunfire and think of my teammates fighting among the hordes of zombies, my wounds itch and I have difficulty breathing.
I tried to persuade Liu Meili to sneak out for a stroll, bring binoculars, find a high vantage point, and witness the grand spectacle of combined air and land operations. She firmly refused, criticizing me for not appreciating my good fortune. Her exact words were: "President Yu treats you so well, so stop causing trouble."
See, people say a woman's heart is like a needle at the bottom of the sea, and that's absolutely true. Just a month ago, she wanted to dig up Yu Zhongjian's ancestors and curse them all, but now she thinks he's a good person. The reason for this is simply that Yu Zhongjian has been treating her well lately. This is mainly reflected in his not scolding her, not letting her handle guns or ammunition, sharing his food with her, and turning a blind eye when she secretly hid supplies to give to Xiao Hei.
After enduring immense suffering, a little sweetness was all it took for her to switch sides, now urging me to be obedient and not cause trouble for others. This is a soul corrupted by sugar-coated bullets—lacking principles and wavering in its stance!
The rear camp was in an area swept by the main force, so safety wasn't an issue. Therefore, there were very few personnel left behind: a quartermaster, a doctor, and four guards who regularly changed shifts. Their role was to monitor and keep an eye on me; if I strayed too far from my tent, I'd be dragged back and threatened to be reported to Commander Yu. I actually didn't want to go out and chat with them; as soon as I did, they'd start spouting nonsense and calling me "sister-in-law," which made me want to vomit.
Han Bo, Gao Chen, and the others left without looking back, and I don't know which area Yu Zhongjian transferred them to. I haven't seen them for a long time. But with my right hand in a cast and my left hand in a sling, I need Liu Meili's help to eat and dress, so going to the battlefield is out of the question. I can only stay in my tent like a caged animal every day, and I strongly miss the days when we fought together.
Ten more days passed, and the camp moved sixty kilometers west, reaching the outskirts of Zhangcheng. The final climax of the zombie tsunami was here. The sling on my left hand was finally removed with the permission of Dr. Cao. A dislocated shoulder hanging around my neck for two months was unbelievable, but Dr. Cao said that if it wasn't properly healed, it would become a habitual dislocation. I didn't want it to become a habit, and I still wanted to throw grenades, so I endured dozens of days with both hands crippled.
That evening, Yu Zhongjian returned to camp after his troops had finished their work. As usual, he came to my tent and glanced at me. I waved my weak left hand in front of his face and said, "Arrange a vehicle for me. I'd like to go to the front lines and throw a few grenades to exercise my atrophied muscles."
"You'll blow yourself up," he said seriously.
"Give me a telescope, I'll find a high place to observe the battle."
“There are air-to-ground bombings every day, so it’s not safe to walk outside the designated area.”
"Three of my limbs have recovered, my head doesn't hurt, and my chest doesn't feel tight. I can continue fighting guerrilla warfare!"
"It hasn't come to the point where people with missing hands need to go to the battlefield."
"If you won't let me fight, then can't I go back to Ningcheng? I'll go see how everyone is doing, join them, stay there to recover from my injuries, and come back after my arm is healed, okay?"
“There are people in Ningcheng to take care of you, so you don’t need to worry.”
I got angry: "What do you mean? This isn't allowed, that isn't allowed, and you insist on keeping me locked up in the tent? This is restricting my personal freedom, violating my human rights, and illegally detaining me, do you know that?"
Yu Zhongjian replied indifferently, "Then go ahead and sue me."
Liu Meili was sitting on the bed rolling up gauze when she heard that we were about to start arguing. She quickly got up and slipped out like a little mouse.
"......"
The candle flame flickered, casting two shadows that rose and fell on the canvas tent wall. After a moment of silence, I suppressed my anger. "Can't we talk this out? My legs aren't broken, and I don't want to stay in the tent all the time. I have to do something and make a contribution, or I'll go crazy."
Seeing that I was calm, his tone softened: "Your good health is your contribution. If you're really in a hurry, go help the quartermaster with the inventory of supplies. We expect to take two more cities in a month and a half, and this horde of zombies will be completely wiped out. Don't distract me, and your freedom will come sooner."
I rolled my eyes, speechless: "How did I distract you? Please, don't take me to heart, okay? You could be with your teammates, but you insist on keeping me by your side. This special treatment makes me unrecognizable to others. How am I supposed to lead the team in the future? Your soldiers keep calling me 'sister-in-law,' it makes me feel uncomfortable. You've ruined my reputation. What are you trying to do? Even if you want to pursue me, I can't accept this method at all. No woman can accept this."
I spoke these words very calmly, without any emotion other than helplessness. Starting from my dissatisfaction with his actions, I naturally pointed out the fact that he was interested in me, like a casual chat where I poured out my troubles. I didn't feel embarrassed speaking these words, and I don't think he would get angry or embarrassed listening to them.
After much deliberation, I've decided that I can't deal with Yu Zhongjian by force. I don't know if he'll respond to gentle persuasion, but he certainly won't respond to coercion. His attire and identity have changed; no one dares to disobey his orders, and his imposing aura is overwhelming. If I resist him too fiercely and push him too far, the scenario in my dream might very well become a reality. Therefore, I plan to take a different approach to gradually dispel his ill intentions towards me.
"Who said I wanted to pursue you?"
See? Sure enough, he won't admit it. He's doing something blatantly exploitative while simultaneously trying to save face. He's clearly never been in a relationship, wants to be a domineering CEO, but is essentially still a primary school student.
I smiled knowingly: "Among women, I'm considered pretty slow on the uptake, yet I can still see right through you. I was fooled by you for a while, genuinely believing you liked someone else, but plenty of evidence proves you just want to pursue me. Don't deny it, so what? A real man should be honest and straightforward."
Yu Zhongjian gave him a complicated look: "Should I say you're narcissistic or shameless?"
I didn't like hearing that: "I'm shameless? You dare say you don't want to pursue me?"
He didn't speak, only let out a soft chuckle.
His awkward admission played right into my hands, so I quickly seized the opportunity and said, "You really don't want to pursue me? Okay, okay, I misunderstood! Since you don't want to pursue me, yet you're being so special and caring towards me, it seems you see me as a sister. Then let's just become sworn brothers! What are we waiting for? We'll swear an oath of brotherhood, become sworn brothers, and from now on, my parents will be your parents, my relatives will be your relatives, and my friends will be your friends. You'll receive the same treatment as Han Bo, how about that?"
Yu Zhongjian stood with his hands behind his back, his chest heaving, and after a long while he said, "I don't have time to chat with you. I have something to do. You should rest."
He finished speaking and left. I chased after him and shouted, "Big brother, it's settled then. From now on, I'm your little sister. Tell your men to stop yelling nonsense. If they keep talking rubbish, don't blame me for not giving big brother face!"
Yu Zhongjian didn't turn around, and the two sentries stared at me blankly. Liu Meili, who had been eavesdropping by the tent, suddenly appeared and grabbed me, saying, "What happened? I just heard you interrogating him about whether he liked you, how come he's acting like an older brother all of a sudden?"
I said smugly, "Do you know how to scare off a suitor with paranoia without causing a criminal case? Become sworn brothers with him! Put a huge moral and ethical label on him!"
A few days after unilaterally becoming sworn brothers with Yu Zhongjian, good news from the front lines came that was anything but joyful.
Zhangcheng is the capital of Province C, the largest of the nine cities, with a permanent population of over five million. Excluding the civilians who escaped the city or died before the mutation, the number of zombies in the surrounding area is as high as one million. They have completely taken over the city. When Dr. Cao came to examine me, he said that when planes flew low over Zhangcheng, the ground was no longer visible; it was densely packed with corpses.
The zombies of Zhangcheng had originally connected with the zombie armies of Liulisong and the other two cities, but under the relentless onslaught of human forces, their lines were broken. This was originally a good thing; as long as the army cut off their eastward route and the air force, as it had done with the southern front, bombed the central area several times, breaking them into pieces and defeating them one by one, the tide would recede soon.
Unexpectedly, survivors appeared in Zhangcheng.
Yu Zhongjian kept in mind the suffering endured by the people on the southern front. Large-scale bombing was only used against hordes of zombies in the countryside; air power was avoided as much as possible in cities, and the infantry fought the battles alone. Every time they crossed a city, they would search for survivors, and even after they left, the guerrillas would search again—though they never found any. Not only him, but everyone believed that the zombie horde had been besieging them for too long, and there were no survivors left on the western front.
The AW139 pilots, having likely received a thorough education, were no longer as perfunctory as Lieutenant Colonel Wu. Before each city was captured, they flew over it twice a day, broadcasting messages hoping for a response from survivors. However, after passing through several cities without receiving any response, the helicopter flights, morning and evening, became routine again.
Often, changes occur when people begin to be dominated by habitual thinking.
The survivors of Zhangcheng sent a signal from the middle of a fifty-story building, supposedly written in blood on a curtain or something similar. The building was surrounded by other buildings, and the flight conditions were complicated. The helicopters flew over it the first time but didn't spot it. The second time they did, they found it but didn't see anyone. No one knew when the SOS was written. What if the person was already gone? So they observed for another day until they noticed that the blood in the SOS was brighter than the day before, confirming that there were indeed living people in the building.
After the helicopter made calls for a long time, a weak man finally climbed out of the SOS window and waved. He was told to go to the roof for rescue, but he said he couldn't; the helicopter wanted to lower the ladder, but it was too high to reach, and too low due to the distance between buildings.
This is very troublesome. The helicopter was about to return, and the man frantically gestured, indicating that there were dozens of survivors on his floor who were on the verge of death and desperately needed help.
The medic, Cao, was in his thirties and usually seemed stern and unsmiling. But once we got to know him, he became quite talkative. He would often extract military intelligence from the younger soldiers and then relay it to us. At this moment, he vividly described the scene of discovering the survivors, as if he had witnessed it with his own eyes: "The wind force of the propeller was so strong. If it had forced its way down between the two buildings, the building materials of the exterior walls, glass, bricks, and so on would have been sucked into the turbine. In that case, the survivors wouldn't have been rescued, and the helicopter wouldn't have been able to return."
"What should we do? There are dozens of people, we have to save them," Liu Meili said anxiously. "It's not easy for them to hold on for a year. If we don't save them, it won't be a victory even if we drive back the zombies."
The military doctor, Cao, was also worried: "There are too many zombies. I heard that there is no place to step in the whole city. They are as numerous as locusts. There is no other way but to fight them off little by little."
"They're starving to death. If we beat them little by little for a month, how can they possibly survive?"
“What about bombing?” I said.
Liu Meili exclaimed in surprise, "Weren't you the one who was most opposed to bombing? Those shells have no eyes; what if they hit the survivors?"
"At least blast a road into the city, then send in a commando team to rescue people."
Doctor Cao shook his head: "Bombing the city means countless buildings will collapse, roads will be damaged, and large amounts of construction debris and zombie corpses will become obstacles. How can the assault team get in? On foot?"
I'd say, why not just bomb the area around the building? Bomb the building bare, then the helicopters can lower their angles and deploy the ladders. But there are people in this building, what about other buildings? We are ordinary people who have suffered, we can't become "big-minded" people. When faced with potential lives at stake, bombing is not the right thing to do.
The three of us discussed it for ages without reaching a conclusion, while Yu Zhongjian had already started taking action.
That evening, as usual, I sat calmly in my tent waiting for him to come and pay his respects, but he didn't come. I asked the sentries, but they didn't know anything about the situation at the front either. He didn't come the next day, nor the third. Although I was quite at ease that he didn't come to visit me, his continued absence made me suspicious. The commander's prolonged absence from the front lines—could there have been significant changes in the battle situation?
But the sounds of gunfire every day seemed normal, without any particularly intense bursts, so it didn't feel like something bad had happened.
On the morning of the fifth day, I didn't receive any news from Yu Zhongjian, but I did receive news from Han Bo. He drove to my camp alone and said as soon as he entered the tent, "Dafeng, Xiao Yu went to Zhangcheng to rescue people and has been out of contact for a day and a night."
I was shocked: "What? He's the commander, why would he personally go into the city to rescue people?"
“We sent a team of twenty people in two days ago,” Han Bo said, his face ashen. “None of them have come back.”
I couldn't believe my ears. "This is impossible. Yu Zhongjian isn't such a hapless person. Zhangcheng is full of zombies and hasn't been cleared yet. How could he rashly send a team in!"
Han Bo sighed: "The day before yesterday, the survivor from Zhangcheng threw corpses out of the window, saying that half of their people had starved to death and couldn't survive another day. Xiao Yu then ordered the air force to provide cover, bomb a road, and send a team in. The helicopter said they saw them enter the building, but no one came out, and they couldn't be contacted by radio. Xiao Yu was the same; he only took ten people to storm the city of a million corpses, and a support team had been set up outside, but they also entered the building smoothly and disappeared as well."
"Holy crap!" I slumped onto the bed, utterly astonished and bewildered. "Is that building haunted?"
Han Bo said in a low voice, "Now the capital has handed over the temporary command of the assault force to Gao Chen. He won't let me lead people into the city, saying that we can't make any more unnecessary sacrifices before the situation is clear."
I was silent for a while, then scratched my arm through the cast in frustration. "The lives of the survivors in Zhangcheng are important, but the lives of the soldiers are also important. From the perspective of the overall situation, Gao Chen's decision is correct."
Han Bo's eyes widened: "Strong wind!"
“Of course, no one’s life is more important to me than my brother’s,” I said, changing the subject and standing up abruptly. “Who cares about the survivors in Zhangcheng? Yu Zhongjian absolutely cannot die. We’re going to save him right now!”
Han Bo stopped me: "Your words are enough. I know Gao Chen doesn't have bad intentions, but now that he's regained his memory, his thinking has suddenly risen several levels. He can't think like the short-sighted local people. I just came to tell you that I've decided not to report it and will quietly bring a few people into the city tonight. For now, it'll be Zhou Yi, Xiao Hei, Li Tonggu, Gan Mingde, and Lai Yunfei. If Gao Chen comes looking for you, just keep quiet and say we've gone to Ningcheng. Don't say you don't know anything, or he'll understand."
“That’s impossible,” I said outright, ran to the tent entrance to call Liu Meili, then turned back and said, “Fighting… no, rescuing people without me, you can’t go either.”
Han Bo frowned: "I wouldn't mind if you were a perfectly healthy person leading the charge, but you're still disabled, aren't you?"
"It won't delay me. I can still use a gun and a knife with my left hand."
Liu Meili came in, and I grabbed her and repeated Han Bo's words. She was so frightened that her lips turned blue: "No, how can you all go? President Yu isn't coming back. What if you all die inside? Yingjun... Xiao Hei, he..."
I understood what she meant, so I said to Han Bo, "Let Xiao Hei stay, and replace him with someone else, Zhang Yanhuang."
“Xiao Zhang is a die-hard supporter of Gao Chen; if it were him, everything would be exposed.”
"Then let's switch to Fatty Luo."
Han Bo said impatiently, "Fine, fine, whatever, you can't go to Dafeng. If you disappear, everything will be exposed."
"I have to go!"
I ripped off the gauze from my neck, walked to the cot with my right hand, raised it and slammed it hard against the metal frame. The plaster cracked and then shattered into pieces, which fell to the ground with a clatter.
Ignoring the sharp pain in my joints, I declared confidently, "I have to go no matter who doesn't! I just became sworn brothers with Yu Zhongjian a few days ago. How can I, as his younger brother, stand idly by when he's in trouble!"
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