Waiting always proves to be an agonizing ordeal, regardless of what one awaits or whom one waits for.
Lin Yu and he sat together, jointly anticipating the unfolding of this offensive, waiting for the Lanforthians to completely overrun the trench.
During this protracted vigil, they maintained an absolute stillness, quietly listening as the clamor of shouts and curses around them gradually shifted from Diaclan to Lanforthian.
Then, even the Lanforthian voices faded, leaving only boundless silence around them.
“Have they broken through?”
“It appears so.”
“What’s next? For now, I’m under your command.”
“You’d best be as obedient as you claim… One wrong move, and the Lanforthians could discover us, leading to our demise in a hail of bullets.”
Lin Yu admonished him with a grave tone; before, his reckless words had merely irked her, but from this moment onward, any misstep in speech could very well earn him a bullet.
“You want me to stay silent?”
“It would be best if you could instinctively hold your tongue. If not, then I urge you to manually seal your mouth, at least to prevent the Lanforthians from hearing you babble about your ‘Emperor.'”
Having impressed upon him the absolute necessity of silence, Lin Yu finally began to outline their tasks.
“Come over here. Use the shovel to dig this open. Soon, I’ll slip out to assess the situation.”
Obediently, he unclipped the entrenching tool from his waist, moved past Lin Yu, and began digging beneath the desk, each deliberate scoop of earth making him resemble nothing so much as a diligent mole.
Meanwhile, Lin Yu returned to her miraculously intact cot, meticulously gathering the items she needed to carry.
The glass bottles of painkillers lay shattered, as did the antiseptic solution; only a few bags of blood plasma and saline remained undamaged.
She tucked another bag of blood plasma into her basic medical kit, then, with a flicker of stubborn hope, peered into the light, meticulously searching among the glass shards for any intact bottles.
To her surprise, she discovered a final vial of painkiller.
It had been as fortunate as her, untouched by the blast, shrapnel, or flying splinters, retaining its perfect form just as it had been before being placed in the woven bag.
‘If my lung gets punctured by a bullet, I’ll inject this myself…’
Stealthily, she concealed it in the inner pocket of her uniform, then continued to fill her webbing with various necessities, even slipping a can of food into a bullet pouch.
‘Since last night, I haven’t eaten a single bite or had a drop of water. I’m exhausted, parched, and starving; I’ll need to find an opportunity to fill my stomach.’
Only after every pocket, large and small, on her person was filled did Lin Yu retrieve the last roll of bandage and place it on the cot.
Then, plucking tweezers from her surgical kit, she brought her hand to the light streaming through the firing port, gritting her teeth as she painstakingly extracted the tiny glass fragments embedded in her flesh.
‘It truly aches.’
Once cleaned, she meticulously bandaged the wound, clenching her fist to ensure the tightness was just right before tying a secure knot.
Only then was the self-inflicted wound, a consequence of her own rashness, finally tended to.
Next, she would wait for him to clear the exit, then quickly peek out to confirm safety before venturing forth to find two Lanforthian corpses and strip them of their uniforms.
Her current Diaclan uniform was far too conspicuous; she would likely be shot on sight by enemy forces.
Disguising themselves as Lanforthians was absolutely essential.
Finally, she retrieved the scalpel from the ground, along with the hemostatic forceps that had been flung aside in a moment of emotional collapse.
Finding a half-empty bottle of antiseptic, she dipped the tools in for a perfunctory, better-than-nothing disinfection, thus completing the organization of her surgical instruments.
On the handle of each tool, Nangong had carved two diagonal slashes.
As Lin Yu ran her fingers over these marks, originally meant to distinguish their respective instruments, a sudden pang of sorrow tightened her nose.
Suppressing the urge to shed more tears, Lin Yu quietly asked the young man digging under the desk, “Are you finished digging?”
“Mostly. It should be enough for you to get out.”
Lin Yu immediately rose and moved towards him, then, lying prone at the hole’s opening, she wriggled into the loose earth of the tunnel, using both her hands and feet.
After a strenuous wriggle, her head emerged from the other end, and she surveyed the state of the trench to her left and right.
Her gaze instantly grew heavy, for outside lay many people.
Dead people.
Inside the trench passage, the bodies of Diaclan soldiers lay strewn haphazardly.
Most had been struck by bullets, a few torn apart by shells; not a single one remained alive.
They had already perished half an hour ago, when the surrounding Diaclan voices gradually faded.
Now, this was a trench captured by the Lanforthian army, a battlefield awaiting cleanup.
Striving to avoid eye contact with the faces that had greeted her just an hour prior, Lin Yu fully emerged from the hole, her heart pounding as she warily searched for any sign of Lanforthian presence.
The Lanforthian army had left behind fewer corpses, being the attacking force; most of their casualties lay in the no-man’s-land behind them.
By the time they reached the trench for close-quarters combat, they held a significant advantage, and the Diaclan resistance could inflict little damage.
She swiftly dragged a body with a head wound back to the hole’s entrance, then searched for another ten seconds, selecting the shortest Lanforthian soldier before pulling them back.
With a tightly furrowed brow, she stripped all their clothes, tossing each piece into the hole she had emerged from.
After both blood-stained khaki uniforms had been peeled off and thrown inside, she followed, wriggling back into the hole.
“You wear the larger set; the smaller one is for me…”
After Lin Yu laboriously wriggled back, she discovered him leaning against the wall, eyes closed.
Unable to shout and draw unnecessary attention, Lin Yu lowered her voice and rebuked him, “Hey! Pay attention, will you? Do you think this is the time for sleep!”
“I’m sorry…” His reply was unexpectedly weak, “I… I may not be able to continue serving His Majesty…”
“What? You— what’s wrong with you?”
This sudden, valedictory declaration instantly sent Lin Yu into a panic, and she began to meticulously recall if she had done anything to offend him.
‘No, no, his personality wouldn’t allow for such a joke.’
Lin Yu immediately rushed over to check his vital signs: rapid breathing, accelerated heart rate— she could initially…
Suddenly, her hand brushed against something wet on his person.
Looking down, she saw a distinct dark stain on his uniform, and her fingers, upon touching the damp spot, came away with faint traces of blood.
“You’re injured? When? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Lin Yu immediately rummaged through her surgical kit, grabbed the trauma shears, and cut away the dark fabric.
A piece of shrapnel was deeply embedded in his left shoulder, staining his pristine shirt crimson.
“You said… you couldn’t treat the wounded anymore… so…”
“Are you an idiot? I was talking about *him*, not you! Why did you endure it in silence?!” Lin Yu directly pulled the embedded shrapnel from his flesh with her bare hand, then produced a suturing needle and began to stitch the wound. “You almost got yourself killed!”
Muttering angry reproaches about how utterly troublesome this fellow was, she stitched the wound with the utmost speed and even hooked him up to the bag of blood plasma from the first-aid kit.
His vital signs had clearly indicated the onset of hemorrhagic shock.
Had she not discovered him in time, he might have literally bled to death from such a seemingly minor injury.
As the blood plasma flowed into his veins, providing precious fluid replenishment, his complexion improved considerably, and his voice gained a touch more strength than before.
“Thanks, Doctor…”
“Don’t thank me. If you must thank someone, thank yourself from two months ago.” Lin Yu offered no acceptance, unwilling to entangle herself further with such an idiot, and thus fabricated a lie.
“…I don’t understand.”
“Two months ago, you fired a shot at a Lanforthian devil in a shell crater, saving a mud-caked private.”
To legitimize her peculiar attentiveness towards him, Lin Yu lied about their first encounter.
“So, everything she does for you from now on is merely to repay that one shot you fired to save her.”
“Is that so…” He shook his head with effort. “I… I don’t remember…”
“Heh, I anticipated you wouldn’t remember, so I never expected you to recognize me anyway.” She picked up the Lanforthian uniform from the ground and tossed it onto him. “Put it on. You’ll play the wounded soldier, and I’ll help you out. I’ll handle any questions the Lanforthians might have, and it’s time for me to change too.”
“…”
“Incidentally, aren’t you going to turn away? Or do you still mistake me for a man?”
“Where else could I go? This place is tiny.”
“At least close your eyes, alright!”
‘What an utterly hopeless idiot.’
‘Yet he always seems to appear before me, occasionally even proving useful. I despise him, but sometimes I can’t do without him…’
‘Ugh, how annoying. If only there were a way to get rid of him once and for all.’
Biting her lip, Lin Yu turned her back to him and swiftly changed into the Lanforthian uniform, even buckling on a steel helmet that was excessively flattened.
‘Compared to the Diaclan helmets, the field of vision is much wider, and the ricochet angle is also quite generous.’
Before leaving, Lin Yu cast a final glance at her small nook, pondering if there was anything else she needed to take.
“And this.”
From beneath her pillow, she retrieved two sheets of letter paper, tucking them into her clothes, into the same pocket as the painkiller.