“Wait, why did you come in?”
Stepping into the deserted tent, Lin Yu suddenly realized the man was still trailing her, and immediately snapped a question at him.
“From the very beginning, I’ve wanted to ask you: people merely extended a polite invitation, yet you genuinely tagged along?”
‘…That medic was so overwhelmingly enthusiastic, he left me no room to refuse.’
His utterly tactless remark left Lin Yu utterly speechless for a prolonged moment.
‘Is it that one day you’ll meet someone, chat for a bit, and when they eventually invite you to their home for dinner, you’ll actually show up, shamelessly carrying a pair of bowls and chopsticks, ready to freeload a meal?’
Amidst her exasperation, she suddenly recalled that this man was an utter imbecile, his mind perpetually consumed by thoughts of His Majesty the Emperor, making it entirely plausible he would indeed nod.
He merely shook his head.
‘Oh? How is it that he possesses a modicum of tact this time?’
‘I don’t know how to use chopsticks, so I would only bring a bowl and a spoon.’
The fleeting surprise on her face swiftly morphed into utter disdain. ‘Truly, you never disappoint,’ she muttered.
Lin Yu frequently harbored the illusion that the young man before her was, in fact, a normal individual; yet, the stark reality was that he was utterly aberrant, defying all conventional understanding.
Abandoning her exasperation over his social ineptitude, Lin Yu began a thorough ransacking of the tent, meticulously packing a dozen bags of saline and plasma. She then crammed a woven sack full of bandages, tourniquets, and sutures, hoisting the cumbersome load with palpable effort.
The man trailing her had, without a word, collected double that quantity of medical supplies.
Furthermore, Lin Yu had brazenly appropriated ten doses of analgesic injections, a supply ample enough to facilitate ten minor surgeries, or, alternatively, to grant an equal number of wounded soldiers a peaceful departure.
“Be careful not to bump them on the way; the disinfectant solutions inside are all housed in glass jars.”
With her surgical kit finally tucked into a small satchel at her waist, Lin Yu led him, laden with enough provisions to treat scores of individuals, back towards the labyrinthine trenches.
“Why carry such an abundance? This resupply was only meant to cover…”
“Tomorrow night, we’re assaulting the Lanforthian trenches. There will undoubtedly be far more casualties then than now, so isn’t bringing extra medicine for your own good? Enough chatter, let’s go! Our two-hour reprieve is almost over.”
“…”
He, with rare sagacity, refrained from further comment. In times past, he would undoubtedly have offered a rebuttal that would have left Lin Yu sputtering with indignant rage.
Just as when she’d extracted a bullet from him the previous time, or the time before that…
‘Damn it, why is this fellow always inextricably entwined with my affairs?’
Upon their return to the trenches, the surroundings had plunged into complete darkness. With no moonlight to pierce the gloom and the austere trench conditions precluding the extravagance of oil lamps, the two, burdened with medical supplies, were forced to navigate the winding passages by feel alone.
Despite her countless cries of ‘Excuse me!’ and ‘Coming through!’, a clumsy soldier’s canteen still managed to shatter a glass bottle, splashing disinfectant liberally across her boots.
Thankfully, the saline and plasma were hermetically sealed.
Having traversed two trenches and reached the bunker, only a short stretch of communication trench remained before she could return to the frontline, and to the modest, yet effectively adorned, sanctuary she called her own.
But Lin Yu was utterly spent, exhausted to the brink of collapse; she leaned against the bunker’s exterior wall, gasping for breath, utterly incapable of taking another step.
“You… you take these back. I… I can’t move another step.”
The young man silently took the medical supplies she had been carrying, then turned and strode towards the communication trench.
“Hey, don’t forget to inform the Staff Sergeant that I’ll return shortly…”
He offered no reply.
His level of perceptiveness had scarcely improved since their initial encounter.
She slowly slid down, her back pressing against the rough concrete wall, her head tilted heavenward as she gazed at the sky.
By now, stars were visible, though only a sparse scattering. In her childhood, she had meticulously observed the night sky, discovering that this celestial expanse was virtually identical to the heavenly sphere of her previous life; she had even discerned several familiar bright stars and constellations.
The star-dusted firmament was, in all likelihood, neither a grand deception nor a mere holographic projection.
This implied that, given sufficient time, the inhabitants of this alternate world would likewise ascend into the azure skies, perhaps even reaching for the moon itself.
Judging by their technological trajectory, it seemed imminent. In her previous life, the interval between humanity’s invention of flight and their lunar landing was but a few decades. Perhaps, in her old age, she might even witness a live broadcast of this world’s own lunar expedition, televised right before her eyes.
While intensely curious about the appearance and operating principles of a magic-driven spacecraft, her immediate concern, however, should have been her throbbing calves and aching arms.
The exertion of transporting that heavy sack had unequivocally surpassed the acceptable limits for a fifteen-year-old girl, magnifying her day’s accumulated weariness and transforming it into a punishing, twofold pain that exacted its revenge.
Slumping onto a grimy wooden plank, her upward gaze at the sky slowly drifted closed.
With her eyes now shut, she shifted the bag of surgical instruments that had been digging into her lower back, pulling it forward to rest against her front.
‘I have this persistent feeling that I’ve forgotten something.’
She possessed an unfortunate habit: the moment her eyes closed, her mind would invariably begin to wander. Her thoughts could careen from her past life’s self all the way to her present one, with questions ranging from ‘Why can’t I secure employment?’ to ‘Why can’t I debut as an idol?’
‘Singing is my innate talent, and magic is equally so… Oh no, what if, in some alternate timeline, I’m actually burdened with the destiny of becoming a magical girl idol tasked with saving the world?’
‘To be capable of such elaborate flights of fancy is, in itself, a peculiar talent.’
She raised a hand to adjust her hair beneath her steel helmet…
‘Hmm? Where’s my helmet?’
Lin Yu ran a hand over her nearly dry hair, only to find her head bereft of both the medic’s cap and the steel helmet she’d been wearing when she was first unceremoniously shoved into the trenches.
‘Could it be that I left it… left it with Commander Yang? Damn it, do I really have to go back for it?’
Her steel helmet couldn’t possibly be in her small ‘nest’; she had long since cultivated the habit of wearing the cumbersome headgear everywhere, and she would undoubtedly have put it on before departing.
She must have been utterly incensed by Commander Yang’s abominable antics, departing in such haste that she forgot to don both her cap and helmet.
‘Tsk…’
As her thoughts churned, she suddenly recalled another forgotten item: the small backpack containing her towel and dirty clothes, which she had carried out earlier.
She hadn’t brought it along when Nangong Yun had pulled her out for a diversion, nor had she remembered it when she’d left Nangong Yun to return to the medical tent alone. At this very moment, it lay precisely where she used to sleep: on her old folding cot.
As for her clothes, she would simply wash them on her return tomorrow. The steel helmet, however, would require a new pretext for her to request leave from the Staff Sergeant. It represented one of the soldiers’ precious few means of survival, a fact Lin Yu intended to grasp firmly.
While a steel helmet could not directly withstand a bullet, it offered a crucial, albeit seemingly negligible, layer of protection against stray rounds and shrapnel. Allowing the helmet to contend with flying metal fragments and ricocheting projectiles was, after all, far more pragmatic than relying on one’s own skull to deflect them.
The human skull’s hardness paled significantly in comparison to that thin steel helmet, and even in a world brimming with magic, there would be no cosmic constant 14.3 to defy such realities.
Fortunately, the assault was not slated to commence until tomorrow night. Heaven only knew whether the Lanforthians, upon witnessing Diacla’s army charge, would decide to casually lob a few artillery shells into these very trenches.
After several minutes of respite outside the bunker, Lin Yu finally leveraged the wall to rise to her feet, slowly making her way towards the communication trench ahead.
“Hmm? What is that sound?”
Hearing the commotion emanating from ahead, she furrowed her brow and began searching for the source of the sound within the trench.
A woman’s singing.
It was not the familiar melodies from her own records, but rather a different, slightly more mature voice.
Passing soldiers continued to greet her, some even bestowing upon her the moniker ‘Little Angel.’ The descriptor ‘little’ certainly suited her, both in stature and overall build; regrettably, it did nothing to deter Commander Yang’s untoward inclinations, perhaps even serving to ‘provoke’ them further.
Eventually, at the entrance to a dug-out, she spotted soldiers gathered in a circle. Beside them lay the amplification equipment originally designated for the ‘Surrounded by Songs of Chu’ (TL Note: A Chinese idiom referring to being attacked from all sides, or in a desperate situation.) operation plan.
The equipment had been rotated 180 degrees, now broadcasting a love song towards the rear, its lyrics recounting the tale of a young widow’s romance with a certain soldier.
As the sole woman in this particular trench, Lin Yu found the song profoundly inauspicious. Yet, the soldiers were thoroughly enjoying it, their arms slung around each other as they sang boisterously. Several bowls of plain white rice sat nearby, and each mess tin contained stir-fried vegetables and meat, none of which looked particularly appetizing.
To them, however, merely having meat was undoubtedly a grand feast, making their joyous spirits entirely understandable. With the assault slated for tomorrow night, this was likely their final moment of simple happiness; it was best not to disturb them.
Abandoning the notion of correcting their misuse of the equipment, Lin Yu continued her trek back, intending to explain her tardiness to the Staff Sergeant.
“Ah? You already knew?”
Returning to her small ‘nest’ in a state of bewilderment, she briefly pondered before sitting up and turning to him. “You heard that remark?”
“Yes, I told the officer you were resting behind and would be back shortly. The things you asked me to carry, I put them in…”
“You could at least answer! How am I supposed to know if you heard me if you don’t say anything!”
Once again, this fellow had provoked her anger.
It felt as though repeated vexations might eventually grant her immunity; her level of exasperation seemed to be gradually diminishing.
Such adaptability was something she had no desire to acquire.