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A month and a half ago.
Beneath the cloudless sky stretching endlessly over the valley, a sallow, emaciated girl dozed, her bamboo basket cradled in her arms.
A sudden breeze startled her awake.
Straining, she pried open her brown eyes, staring blankly at the boundless azure before her.
‘Tsk… drones again,’ she muttered.
Twisting her head to confirm no one else was around, she rubbed her eyes, using her other hand to lift the tattered cloth covering the basket, checking its contents.
“One, two… thirteen, fourteen… Hmm, none missing.”
Inside the bamboo basket lay a full fourteen white steamed buns.
In her previous life, she might not have spared them a glance, but now, they were a delicacy potent enough to make her mouth water.
Suppressing the urge to sneak another bite, she picked up her basket, dusted off her pants, and hastened towards her destination.
Two li away, a small train station stood, where passing trains arrived daily.
Villagers from nearby could hawk local specialties and small souvenirs on the platform and within the train cars, a rare money-making opportunity for them in recent years, aside from selling their annual harvest.
And this basket of steamed buns—or rather, ‘Diacla-style sugar-free mini-loaves’—would, after passing through a buyer’s hands, transform into the precious funds her family would use to buy salt and cloth for the coming month.
Bearing such a weighty responsibility, Lin Yu entered the train station, her bamboo basket in hand.
“White steamed buns, white steamed buns! Hot white steamed buns!”
She merged into the clamoring crowd of villagers on the platform, all vying with their various local products to catch a glimpse of the train cars pulling alongside.
However, the train docked at the platform today was somewhat peculiar.
All its passengers wore uniform caps, and each carried a long wooden stick slung over their shoulder…
No, those were soldiers!
This train was clearly a military transport!
Lin Yu recognized the insignia on their caps: the military emblem of the Diacla Empire.
Those wooden sticks were their ‘rifles’ for battle.
They were heading to the front lines by train to sacrifice themselves for His Majesty.
Many of them looked as sallow and emaciated as she did, likely having gone without a proper meal themselves.
The soldiers began trading with the villagers through the half-open windows.
However, due to her short stature, Lin Yu was swallowed by the crowd, even when she raised her bamboo basket high.
No one noticed the basket of homemade steamed buns, and thus, she wouldn’t earn the money needed for salt and cloth.
With a hardened resolve, she clung to the train window and clambered inside, skillfully flipping her body to land steadily amidst the hat-wearing soldiers.
Many noticed her small figure, but naturally, even more eyes were drawn to the dozen large, white steamed buns in the bamboo basket she clutched.
“Want to buy some? They’re still warm, all made from white flour, and they smell wonderful.”
Their eyes held the exact same expression Lin Yu had worn just minutes earlier when she looked at the steamed buns, and they asked her the price in hoarse voices.
Within half a minute, Lin Yu’s hands were brimming with copper coins.
Having temporarily raised the price, she not only recouped the cost of the fifteenth bun she’d secretly eaten after leaving home but also found herself with a few extra coins to buy something more at the station before heading back.
‘Hmph, opportunities truly favor the prepared…’ she mused.
Clutching her empty bamboo basket, Lin Yu tried her best to squeeze a path through the throng, intending to exit through the train door.
While many were displeased by Lin Yu’s sudden intrusion, they still made an effort to create a small gap for her to slip through.
Navigating through the press, offering apologies and requests to pass, she finally reached the only soldier in the entire car who was wearing a full military uniform.
She lifted her gaze to meet his, and in the next instant, a cap was abruptly placed upon her head.
“Eh?”
The train began to move slowly, and outside the windows, villagers reluctantly chased after it, some for unpaid coins, others for unsold goods.
“I… I came to sell steamed buns.
Please let me off the train…”
He adjusted the cap on Lin Yu’s head, positioning the military insignia prominently at the front.
The man’s foreign accent was thick, and from his lengthy speech, Lin Yu could only discern words like ‘sacrifice,’ ‘Your Majesty,’ and ‘battle.’
Unable to communicate properly, Lin Yu decided to bypass him and jump off before the train gained too much speed.
Her collar was grabbed from behind…
“Let go!”
The train traveled southeast, towards the rising sun, towards the front lines.
Only then did Lin Yu belatedly realize the awkward predicament she was in: her flat chest had seemingly led to her being mistaken for a boy, consequently drafted as a conscript (TL Note: A person, usually a man, forced into military service).
“So, why is this happening?”
The small, pitiable, and helpless village girl found herself stranded on a military train packed with rough soldiers, speeding westward at a rate of at least seventy or eighty kilometers per hour.
The culprit behind this entire situation, moreover, spoke with such a heavy foreign accent that communication was practically impossible, leaving her to fret helplessly in place.
What was she to do?
Jump off?
The train driver was going so fast; jumping off would surely cost her at least half her life, if not kill her outright.
And now that she was nominally conscripted into the military, wouldn’t jumping off make her a deserter?
Even if she didn’t fall to her death, she’d face a firing squad…
Having already died once on a battlefield in her previous life, she absolutely refused to go to such a place to die again, whether it was for invasion or counter-invasion, for ideals or for an emperor.
The soldier in the full military uniform seemed to be the highest-ranking officer; everyone else in the car obeyed his every command.
If she couldn’t get his consent, Lin Yu would undoubtedly be mixed into the ranks and die as a private.
Having been granted a second chance at life, how could she allow such a fate to befall her again?
She once again stood before the officer, arguing passionately for the undeniable fact that ‘she was a girl.’
It was, however, utterly useless.
He couldn’t understand Lin Yu’s heavy mountain-province accent, just as Lin Yu couldn’t understand his dialect from some unknown region.
Most of the other soldiers in the car seemed to be from his region as well, unable to relay Lin Yu’s words.
Lin Yu had no choice but to ask each person if anyone could understand her, finally finding a middle-aged man who understood both accents after a great deal of effort.
“It’s like this, sir, this private is actually a woman.”
“Hm?”
The ‘savior’ she’d brought over began chattering away to the officer, gesturing towards Lin Yu as he explained.
After listening, the officer nodded, walked over, pointed at Lin Yu, and then pointed towards the train door.
“I’ve explained it to the officer, sister.
The train will stop once up ahead, and you can get off then… you can take off this cap now.”
“Thank you, sir…”
She was on the verge of tears of joy, removing the military cap that had been forcibly placed on her head and gratefully handing it to the middle-aged man.
She then found a less crowded corner and squatted down, clutching her bamboo basket.
‘There are still good people in the world… No, wait, it was *he* who put the cap on my head in the first place.
How can I thank him?
If I’m to thank anyone, it should be the uncle who spoke up for me,’ she thought.
In Diacla, even men customarily wore long hair, so the distinction between men and women couldn’t be judged by hair length.
She had been mistaken for a boy and conscripted because she was too small and thin.
By clearly stating her true gender to the officer, she could be released, just as she was now.
Lin Yu huddled in the corner, lost in her thoughts, until half an hour later, the train’s speed began to decrease, just as the uncle had said.
‘It must be the station,’ she thought.
She pushed herself up against the wall, peering out from beside the train door.
The train seemed to have reached the border; structures resembling watchtowers stood outside the station.
Everywhere she looked, there were soldiers, all uniformly dressed in military uniforms, unlike the motley crew of ‘soldiers’ in her car, who varied in age and attire, with only their caps being uniform.
Soon, someone approached the train door, reaching for a jingling set of keys at their waist, ready to unlock the latch.
As Lin Yu watched with hopeful anticipation, a flash of fire erupted from the distant building.
An invisible shockwave instantly spread, shattering all the train’s windows.
She watched firsthand as the windows splintered into sharp shards of glass, like transparent flowers blooming, rushing towards her.
“Enemy attack!”
Calls echoed from outside the train, one after another, while curses filled the inside.
Many were injured by the glass fragments and the shockwave itself.
Lin Yu was fortunate not to be hit by the shards, but the soldier standing beside her wasn’t so lucky.
A piece of broken glass was lodged diagonally in his throat; blood continuously gushed from the wound.
He wouldn’t be able to open the door for her anytime soon… perhaps never.
The freshly stopped train immediately restarted.
Lin Yu, ignoring everything else, snatched the keys from the still-breathing soldier’s hand, fumbling nervously as she tried to insert them into the lock.
‘Not this one… not this one…’
By the time she found the correct key and opened the door, the ground below was a blur, the train having already accelerated to its original full speed.
Clutching the door handle tightly with both hands, Lin Yu rested her head against the metal door panel, gazing at the rapidly receding gravel below, an infinite sadness rising in her heart.
“I haven’t gotten off yet…”
Another half an hour passed, and the train reached its destination.
The soldiers were uniformly herded out of the cars, standing sparsely scattered.
The officer ordered them to form a single column and march along a muddy path forward.
Lin Yu, clutching her small bamboo basket, blended into the middle, her short stature appearing somewhat out of place.
She wasn’t the only one so short; she saw young boys her age within the winding line, equally short and thin, equally dazed and bewildered.
‘Were they also conscripted (TL Note: A person, usually a man, forced into military service)?
Has this war escalated to the point where children must be sent to the front lines to die?’ she silently asked herself, but her village-girl understanding offered no answers.
Now, she needed to think about how to escape, how to become a deserter without being noticed.
The people along the roadside, dressed in neat, uniform black military attire, were likely the execution squad (TL Note: A military unit tasked with ensuring soldiers do not retreat or desert during battle, often by force).
They held rifles, their gazes sharp, intently watching the sluggishly moving line.
Clearly, now was not a good time to escape.
‘Once we reach the destination and I meet the commander of this unit, things will be better…
The previous officer was just a platoon leader, and he’s already disappeared.
It’ll be hard for Lin Yu to find him again to explain the situation,’ she thought.
‘No one would make things difficult for a girl who’s only fourteen… fifteen years old.
Fighting in a war is far from her concern.
A reasonable officer would send her home,’ she hoped.
Clinging to this strong desire, Lin Yu continued forward with the group.
A corpulent quartermaster placed a steel helmet on her head, and seeing the bamboo basket still in her arms, he casually snatched it away, replacing it with a rifle he shoved into her hands.
A kick to her backside sent her stumbling into the communication trench.
‘Oh no…’
If the battlefield situation involved mobile warfare, Lin Yu might have been able to sneak away during the march.
But now, having been kicked into the defensive fortifications, with enemy bullets ahead and execution squad bullets behind, where could she possibly escape?
‘I absolutely cannot die in this place, absolutely not…
Even one day here would drive me mad!
She had transmigrated once already; this was certainly not the script she had envisioned!’
She gritted her teeth.
She had to find the commanding officer of this position immediately, even if it meant proving her gender by dropping her pants on the spot.
She had to escape this devil’s forge at once, even if the other party made some extremely unreasonable demands.
Soldiers bustled through the trench, rifles clutched in their hands, while Lin Yu incessantly scanned for the likely location of the front-line command post.