It was a widely accepted truth that women were not conscripted to fight on the battlefield in this era.
It was equally understood that a woman’s place was not as a rifle-toting grunt crouching in the trenches.
Should an outsider glimpse a woman, helmeted and armed, appearing in a trench, they would undoubtedly mock, ‘Has this nation run out of men?’
Diakla still boasted a plentiful supply of able-bodied men.
Consequently, to avert such scorn from falling upon their army, Lin Yu was certain she would be released the moment she disclosed her gender to the commanding officer.
The medic’s hand darted out, abruptly reaching for Lin Yu’s chest.
However, the flatness of the area, stark as a chopping board, offered no conclusive proof of its owner’s gender, necessitating a further request to observe her primary s*x characteristics.
‘Take off your clothes,’ the medic instructed.
Lin Yu lowered her rifle, then removed her steel helmet, before slowly unfastening the buttons of her tunic, one by one.
Due to the dual burdens of poverty and her undeveloped physique, her chest remained bare, a stark expanse where each rib was distinctly visible beneath the medic’s gaze.
Lin Yu’s life had been utterly miserable in recent years; the protracted war with Lanfusi had led the imperial court to levy additional taxes on her village.
As the sole daughter of her household, her food rations had been cruelly halved, stunting her growth during what should have been her prime developmental years, leaving not a trace of body fat.
‘Your trousers,’ the medic then commanded.
As she slid her outer trousers, along with the tiny undergarment her mother had worn as a child, down to her knees, Lin Yu squeezed her eyes shut, unable to meet the other’s gaze.
‘Alright, you’ve proven you’re a girl,’ the medic declared.
‘Now… you can work as an apprentice medic in the rear. I will report your specific reassignment to Lieutenant Xia.’
As she rustled her trousers back into place, Lin Yu was about to utter a word of thanks when, in the split second before it escaped her lips, she registered the abnormality of the situation.
‘Wait… shouldn’t I be sent back home?’ she blurted out, a tremor in her voice. ‘Why am I still being made a soldier?’
Lin Yu’s mind reeled as she realized that events were unfolding in a manner entirely contrary to her expectations.
‘First, change out of these dirty clothes,’ the medic said, tossing over a set identical to her own, ‘and I’ll explain everything to you slowly.’
Lin Yu quickly changed into the fresh garments.
Then, from the lips of this woman, who would soon become her ‘big sister’ in the ranks, Lin Yu began to grasp the full extent of her predicament.
‘Bullshit,’ she thought, the word echoing with bitter irony.
‘Had you arrived here just a few days earlier,’ the medic elaborated, ‘I could have arranged for Lieutenant Xia to release you, even if you were, in fact, a boy.’
‘But now, that is no longer an option. The Emperor has issued an imperial edict, commanding all women across the nation to contribute their efforts to the war, and has simultaneously expanded the scope of recruitment for ‘medics’ within the army.’
Defying all opposition, the current Emperor, with a single imperial decree, had irrevocably altered Lin Yu’s professional trajectory from a simple village girl to an army medic.
It was said that the Crown Prince, during a tour of the front lines, had tragically fallen victim to enemy shelling.
Due to a severe shortage of medics, he had not received adequate treatment and had perished before even being transported to a field hospital.
‘So, his own son died due to a lack of medics, and now he’s massively expanding medic recruitment… and even including women in the army’s ranks?’ Lin Yu pondered, disbelief warring with dawning horror.
‘Unreasonable. Utterly, completely unreasonable.’
‘Diakla still possesses countless men capable of dying for His Majesty,’ she thought with growing despair, ‘so why must they also take me? I barely managed to escape that hell, and now I am being dragged back into it…’
‘Why is this happening?’
Judging by the weaponry and the battlefield environment, the ‘war’ currently raging was undeniably the infamous ‘trench warfare’ of history.
It was a conflict where soldiers crouched in dugouts, bracing for bombardments, and then scrambled into no-man’s-land for suicidal charges, bullets harvesting lives with the efficiency of a reaper’s scythe.
A prolonged war of this nature could entirely decimate a generation of young people.
It was a complete annihilation, both physical and spiritual.
Even in the trench warfare of her previous life, women had remained in the rear, contributing to production, while men fought on the front lines; she had never encountered a situation that demanded women on the battlefield.
Furthermore, she was merely fifteen years old. To leave such a young, pitiable, frail, and helpless child trapped within these man-devouring trenches… would those commanders truly feel no pang of conscience?
They appeared utterly devoid of any such compassion.
‘You can read, can’t you?’ the medic abruptly asked Lin Yu, a knowing look in her eyes.
‘While I was tending to that soldier with the broken leg, you were glancing around, your gaze fixed intently on the characters etched into the wall for a considerable time. If you were illiterate, you would never have been so engrossed.’
Lin Yu could not refute this observation. She was incredibly fortunate not to have to re-learn the language and script of this world, as she could comprehend roughly seventy to eighty percent of the traditional characters currently in use throughout Diakla.
‘You understand first aid, and you can read,’ the medic continued, her voice firm. ‘You are already hundreds, even thousands, of times more capable than those crude young men who were farmers just a few hours ago.’
‘If I were to let you leave, where would I possibly find another assistant?’
‘So…’ Lin Yu began, her voice barely a whisper.
She tried to meet her fate as a medic head-on, though a knot of dread tightened in her stomach.
‘Therefore, you will remain here and work,’ the medic stated unequivocally. ‘I will personally instruct you in all the knowledge required of a medic. The conditions here are vastly superior to the trenches; the cannons of Lanfusi cannot reach this far.’
She then confided in Lin Yu a widely acknowledged secret, one concerning ’empty pay’ (TL Note: A practice where salaries are drawn for non-existent soldiers, often to embezzle funds) and conscription.
‘This unit has recently fallen under scrutiny for the excessive practice of drawing empty pay,’ she explained.
‘Lieutenant Colonel is currently scrambling to fill the depleted ranks, so it was entirely normal for some of his soldiers, momentarily blinded by haste, to mistake your slender frame for that of a boy and forcibly enlist you into the unit.’
‘Now that you have been brought in, why would they release you, only to create further complications and potential liabilities?’
‘Moreover, His Majesty has already issued an edict allowing women to serve in specialized military roles, effectively nullifying any argument you might have had, as a ‘girl,’ to remain away from the battlefield.’
Lin Yu stared directly at her impending fate as a medic, a profound sense of melancholy washing over her.
‘No,’ she resolved, ‘there must still be a way out.’
‘She explicitly stated that even if I were a boy, she would have helped me leave just a few days ago,’ Lin Yu thought, her mind racing. ‘Why is it suddenly impossible?’
‘You were willing to help a boy defy military regulations and escape the battlefield,’ Lin Yu pleaded, her voice trembling, ‘so why would you detain a girl who now conforms to those very regulations?’
Unbeknownst to her, tears had begun to well in her eyes. ‘I still need to return the money from selling the steamed buns to Papa…’
Her hand instinctively pressed against her trouser pocket, where a small purse was secured.
The meager earnings from a morning’s worth of unsold steamed buns were all tucked inside, representing her small family’s precious funds for a month’s supply of salt and cloth.
Should Lin Yu fail to return, her household would be deprived of a laborer for washing and cooking, and the fields would lack a helper for carrying meals.
In the foreseeable future, the dowry that would have been gained from her marriage would vanish overnight, leaving them with nothing.
‘Don’t cry,’ the medic said, her tone softening slightly. ‘I will tell you why.’
From the medic’s dry, pale red lips, the ‘why’ was finally elucidated for Lin Yu.
‘There are limits to how much one can help others,’ she explained.
‘The higher-ups have now issued quotas for treating the wounded, and I, working myself to exhaustion, cannot possibly save so many on my own.’
‘Lieutenant Colonel’s various concubines will certainly not deign to return and tend to the sick and wounded; you will be my sole assistant in the coming days.’
According to her one-sided account, the primary duty of the unit’s other ‘medics’ was not to treat the wounded, but to serve as members of the Lieutenant Colonel’s harem.
It was, regrettably, a truth that prior to this, women within the military had often been relegated to such roles, their services extended to a diverse range of individuals, from common soldiers to high-ranking generals.
It was likely that such practices would continue to occur, albeit perhaps less overtly, even after this.
‘As for that paltry sum of money,’ she continued, ‘I can entrust it to the postman to deliver back to your family, along with a letter explaining your whereabouts.’
‘There’s no need to fret about your family; they are safely within the nation’s borders and will encounter no misfortune. Should you require it, your medic’s salary can even be sent directly to your home.’
‘Finally, come over here and take a look,’ she beckoned.
She led Lin Yu to the table, then lifted an iron bowl that had been inverted upon its surface.
Beneath it lay half a bowl of thoroughly cold, utterly unappetizing leftovers.
A layer of solidified grease shimmered on the soup’s surface, while vegetable leaves stood upright within it, resembling the spikes of a cheval de frise.
Thumb-sized squares of what appeared to be meat, like bunkers on a battlefield, stood proudly, announcing the solemn presence of this fatty morsel.
There, nestled within the scraps, was a piece of fatty meat.
Fatty meat.
Meat.
Forcing down the immediate urge to scoop it out with her bare hand and devour it whole, Lin Yu cast her gaze towards the medic, her future ‘big sister’.
‘Judging by your appearance,’ the medic observed, a hint of understanding in her voice, ‘you haven’t had enough to eat, have you?’
‘If you become a medic, you’ll have meat to eat every single day.’
A powerful and stirring melody spontaneously began to play in her mind:
‘Farewell, dear Mama~♩Please kiss your daughter goodbye~♫Farewell, Mama, do not grieve, do not mourn~♪Bless us with a safe journey~♬’
Admitting this felt somewhat shameful, for she had almost instantly envisioned herself as a warrior from a song in her previous life, embarking on a journey to defend her homeland—all for the simple promise of meat at every meal.
‘Isn’t there a saying, ‘Food and s*x are human nature’?’ she mused. ‘As a scrawny Lin Yu, neither alluring nor sexy, my efforts could only be directed towards food.’
‘It seems I’ve entirely misunderstood that phrase… but never mind that, filling my stomach is paramount.’
Lin Yu, with a magnificent surrender, devoured the bowl of leftovers, scraping every last drop into her belly after it had been simply reheated.
Were she forced to choose between the life of a perpetually hungry village girl and a well-fed medic, Lin Yu might have deliberated for a considerable time before ultimately opting for the former.
However, with her stomach utterly empty, the latter transformed into the sole, undeniable option.
‘After all, medics aren’t required to fight on the front lines,’ the medic had reassured her. ‘They merely tend to the sick and wounded in tents situated safely at the rear.’
This notion, which appeared entirely plausible in the present but would seem utterly naive from a future perspective, coupled with the irresistible allure of regular, satisfying meals, ultimately compelled Lin Yu to succumb.
‘My surname is Nangong,’ the medic revealed, ‘you may call me Sister Nangong.’
‘Lin Yu…’ she replied, her voice soft with resignation.
And so, Lin Yu’s latter half of life as a medic began.