The wooden crate Lin Yu was squatting on was positioned not far from the communication trench’s junction.
Any soldier moving between the front and rear trenches inevitably passed by her.
“Ah… help… save me…”
A faint groan, as if from someone on their last breath, emanated from the communication trench leading to the front lines.
An injured soldier, his leg severed, was being dragged along the ground towards them.
“Is there a medic?!”
No sooner had they emerged from the communication trench than someone loudly called out to the armed soldiers standing guard nearby.
Yet, the others merely glanced at the injured man, their eyes either cold or pitying, before returning their aim to the front of the trench.
There were no medics here.
Hearing the commotion, Lin Yu slightly pushed up her steel helmet, revealing a gruesome scene before her eyes.
It appeared to be a blast injury; everything below the calf was simply gone, and blood still gushed from the artery.
Bone fragments protruded, and the hastily wrapped bandage wasn’t even in the correct position, doing nothing to staunch the flow, merely turning a more alarming shade of red.
Confronted with such a bloody spectacle once more, Lin Yu couldn’t help but bend over and retch.
However, her stomach was already utterly empty, and she merely added a few drops of acidic bile to the pale pink muddy water.
“You… you don’t even know how to apply a tourniquet…?”
Lin Yu couldn’t bear to see a living human life extinguished by such foolishness; he wasn’t her comrade, but he was her “compatriot.”
“Tourn… iquet?”
Hearing her utter the word, the soldiers responsible for moving the injured man all froze, as if they had never heard of such a miraculous device.
Even the most basic military training taught battlefield emergency medical procedures; a line-filling mercenary like Lin Yu knew when to apply a tourniquet to stop bleeding.
To simply ‘treat’ arterial bleeding by wrapping a couple of bandages around it… if he didn’t die, who would?
“Give me your belt…”
Lin Yu wiped the corner of her mouth with her sleeve, then extended her hand to one of the soldiers, asking for his belt.
“This…”
Another soldier, appearing younger, quickly stepped in for the dazed one, pulling out his own belt and handing it to Lin Yu.
Carefully, she fastened the belt around the injured man’s thigh, relying on memories from over a decade ago.
“Someone come and help me tighten it; my strength is too little.
If it’s not tight enough, he might die.”
Hearing Lin Yu declare that the injured man might die, someone immediately took the belt from her hands and, as if strangling an enemy, tightened it with all their might.
The wound no longer gushed fresh red blood; only a few remaining drops seeped from the laceration.
“Now you can wrap the bandage.
Do you have any water?
Rinse it first; alcohol would be best.”
“Ugh… Ahh—”
The pale-faced injured man suddenly cried out in agony with renewed vigor, his screams drawing the attention of everyone around, making them wonder if this was treatment or torture.
‘It’s best if he still has the strength to scream.’
After instructing them not to immerse the wound in the stagnant water on the ground, Lin Yu returned to her empty wooden crate, pulled down her helmet, and retreated into darkness.
‘Seriously, after so many years of war, have they not even learned to use something as basic as a tourniquet? Are these even “soldiers”?’
Recalling the injured man’s attire, which differed little from a farmer at the village entrance, Lin Yu seemed to grasp something.
‘Perhaps they aren’t soldiers at all, but merely conscripts snatched up as they passed a military train, just like me… were they farmers this morning…?’
‘Such forced conscription truly is too cruel.’
The injured man was also helped to sit on the ground, leaning against something, awaiting further treatment from a medic.
His wounded leg was propped up on the opposite wooden crate, spanning the entire trench.
During this time, someone clumsy stepped on his injured leg, igniting a significant shouting match.
The offender only backed down upon seeing his injury.
Then he suddenly spoke to Lin Yu, “Brother, what’s your name?”
“Lin Yu, and, I’m not…”
“Thanks, brother.
Without you, I might have died here.”
‘A slight unease settled in her heart.’
‘Firstly, the other party had interrupted her.
Secondly, his lips and complexion were frightfully pale; he clearly hadn’t escaped the jaws of death yet, but was already speaking as if he’d survived a great ordeal.’
‘Lin Yu didn’t even dare to imagine how filthy the puddle on the ground was, especially since he’d been dragged through it all the way from the front trench.
Infection was absolutely unavoidable.’
“It’s too soon to think you’ve survived,” she replied.
‘And thirdly, she wasn’t a “brother.”‘
‘However, this was clearly not the opportune moment to explain such a matter.’
“Is that so…? If you understand medicine, brother, you could tell an officer and be transferred to the rear as a doctor, instead of being bombed on the front lines like us.”
‘My deepest apologies, but your ‘brother’ here will soon be sent away from the front lines, returning home to be a village girl again.’
“Or, if you’re literate, you could run back and forth between the command post and the trenches as a messenger.
Though your small frame might find that quite strenuous… at least you’d dodge fewer shells.
Those foreign devils’ shells are always targeting the trenches.”
“With good luck, if you’re assigned as a communications officer, you could leave the front lines once and for all.”
‘My deepest apologies, but even if your ‘brother’ here is illiterate and can’t tie a tourniquet, I can still escape this wretched place.’
‘Such thoughts brewed only in her mind, left unsaid.’
‘And you, what’s your name?’
Before she could voice the question, a graceful figure appeared amidst the throng of strapping young men in the muddy trench.
Her face was weary, her hair disheveled, and her distinctive uniform made her stand out like a white crane among a flock of domestic pigs.
‘Lin Yu herself was but one scrawny piglet among them.’
As the only woman instantly recognizable, she surveyed her surroundings before her gaze landed on the injured man who had unilaterally called Lin Yu “brother.”
“Two of you, carry him to the back.”
She bent down to inspect the wound, lifting the tattered pant leg to reveal the tightly fastened belt.
“Who tied this for you?”
He eagerly pointed to Lin Yu, seemingly intending to help pull her from this hell, unaware of the irony…
“Well done, you saved his life.
You come with me too; we’re short on people who know first aid at the rear.
Oh, and where’s Lieutenant Xia?
Have any of you seen him?
He seemed to be looking for me.”
With both a death warrant and a lifeline appearing simultaneously, Lin Yu spoke up, seizing them both.
“I am the person the Lieutenant asked you to find.”
‘Could she be rescued?
Could she escape the grim fate of being blown up in the trenches because of her young age and her gender?
Or would she be kept as a hospital assistant, continuing to participate in this war she was innocently dragged into…?’
With this gaze, Lin Yu intently watched the medic’s tired, unfocused eyes.
“Then come along.
It’s too dangerous here; we’ll talk once we’re at the rear.”
Casually, she hung a bag of plasma she carried on the injured man, then beckoned the others to follow her back to the rear medical station.
Lin Yu matched the medic’s pace, and the group of five threaded through the winding communication trench, then through a reserve trench, before finally arriving at a rudimentary tent.
The quartermaster who had kicked her into the trench sat in the adjacent tent, drinking and dozing, making Lin Yu’s teeth itch with irritation.
“Place him on an empty cot, then you two can go.
As for you,” she addressed Lin Yu, “come over here and lend a hand.”
The two soldiers carrying the injured man lazily departed, lingering outside the tent for a while, perhaps to smoke and relax, or to stretch and rest.
Soon after, angry shouts erupted from next door, and the two rushed back to the trench entrance, clutching their helmets.
Lin Yu paid no further attention to the two privates; instead, she walked to the bedside, awaiting the medic’s instructions.
“Put this in his mouth.
I’m going to stop the bleeding and clean the wound; it’s going to hurt a lot.”
Lin Yu hastily took the towel, placing it between the teeth of the injured man whose name she hadn’t had time to ask.
As the medic began her work, an expression of agony, no less intense than during disinfection, erupted on his face.
‘Indeed, she was right; it really did hurt.’
The uniformed medic efficiently treated the wound and replaced the gauze and dressing.
“A clean break like this is relatively lucky.
If it were shattered by a blast, we’d have to use a saw, and then your small frame probably wouldn’t even be able to hold him down.”
Both the injured man and Lin Yu felt a chill run down their spines.
Finally, after hanging another bag of plasma for the injured man, the medic briefly washed her hands in a basin.
“Treatment complete… whether he survives the infection is up to fate.
You come with me now, and tell me if anything’s wrong.”
She waved for Lin Yu to follow her to a more secluded part of the tent, separated from where the injured lay by a cloth curtain.
Lin Yu stepped inside, speaking softly, “Actually, I’m a girl.”
Clutching a rifle, wearing a steel helmet, and with a figure as slender as a bamboo pole, she made this confession to the medic.