Searching for an unknown common soldier across the vast left-bank positions proved far more challenging than her previous quest with a lunchbox.
Last time, she had at least been given a general location; this time, she had to steel herself and search through each person individually.
Naturally, she couldn’t go around shyly biting her lip and twisting her fingers while examining each soldier’s face.
Instead, she briefly recounted Yang Xi’s deeds, and soon, others pointed her to his whereabouts.
Dug out over an afternoon, then expanded and deepened throughout the night, the trench still lacked the stability of the defensive lines that had been maintained for years.
This left the defending soldiers constantly questioning its ability to withstand an artillery barrage.
Lin Yu, too, constantly worried that a shell might inexplicably fall from the sky above her.
“If we go now, wouldn’t it be disastrous if the Lanforthians started shelling?”
Before she was issued a steel helmet and sent to the front, Lin Yu had voiced this concern to Nangong.
Her and Yang Xi’s audacious plan had destroyed the Lanforthians’ ready-to-fire ammunition, but it had failed to inflict significant damage on their heavy artillery.
Provided the Lanforthians’ supply and deployment capabilities weren’t as inept as they had been thirty years prior, they would swiftly regain their artillery dominance.
With their overwhelming artillery range, they would undoubtedly inflict devastating blows upon the Diacla artillery, leaving their own side vulnerable to bombardment.
Lin Yu had a premonition that the shelling would begin soon, followed by the hellish scene of khaki waves she had witnessed yesterday.
‘A creeping barrage.
After so many years of war, the Lanforthians understand far more than our Emperor of Diacla.’
“If we don’t go now, it’ll be truly disastrous if the Lanforthians start shelling.”
Nangong’s words still echoed in her mind.
If he were to die in the shelling before she could thank him, Lin Yu feared she would live the rest of her life burdened by an unpayable debt of gratitude.
Just like Commander Yang.
While Commander Yang’s actions could at least be explained by his ‘liking her,’ Yang Xi’s many deeds for Lin Yu were likely motivated by the abstract notion of ‘fellow warriors loyal to His Majesty.’
She absolutely refused to live the latter half of her life burdened by such a thing.
After circling several times, Lin Yu finally spotted him around a corner, leaning against the trench wall, holding his rifle, and resting his eyes.
She stopped before him, clearing her throat twice to catch his attention.
As usual, he paused for a moment before recognizing Lin Yu, then lifted his head, meeting her gaze.
‘Oh, dear.’
The words she had prepared suddenly vanished from her mind.
‘What was I going to say?’
“You… are you alright?”
Her carefully prepared words of thanks had inexplicably transformed into a bland greeting, much to Lin Yu’s own vexation.
“I am well, ever ready to annihilate any encroaching enemy for His Majesty.
As for you, has your health improved?”
Following his habitually idiotic pronouncements came a genuine question about her well-being, catching Lin Yu completely off guard.
“I… I’m fine, of course.
Uh… while I’m still unsure why I suddenly fainted yesterday, I’m much better now.”
“It’s good that you’re alright.”
‘Tsk,’ she thought.
‘Did he omit half a sentence?
According to his usual manner of speaking, he should have added, “It’s truly wonderful to be able to offer loyalty to His Majesty side-by-side once more.”‘
Yet, a reduction in his idiocy would greatly benefit both Lin Yu’s interactions with him and the stability of her blood pressure; she ought to be pleased by this development.
Lin Yu slightly pushed up her steel helmet.
“Honestly, instead of worrying about others, you’d do better to take care of yourself.
If you keep running to the medical post every other day, covered in injuries like before, someone is bound to make trouble for you.”
Looking down at the Private First Class who was leaning back in the trench, she realized, only after finishing her sentence, that she hadn’t come all this way just to discuss such matters.
“And also…”
Noticing that his gaze, which had drifted elsewhere, now returned to fix on her, a blush of embarrassment inevitably crept onto her face.
“Thank you.”
Three simple words were certainly not enough to repay what he had done for her, so she felt compelled to add a few more explanatory sentences to convey her sincerity.
“At present, I have nothing with which to repay you.
Consider me indebted to you for one… no, two favors.”
She had almost forgotten; it was originally one favor, but yesterday, while bandaging him, she had told a small lie to save face.
“Aside from tacitly allowing you to sustainably over-utilize medical resources, you may also make a few requests of me—provided you are clearly aware that we are of different sexes.”
Lin Yu might never forget that day: having accepted his invitation with the intention of observing a patient’s psychological state, she discovered he had invited her to scrub each other’s backs (TL Note: A common practice in public bathhouses where bath attendants scrub a person’s body, or people scrub each other’s backs, often implying a degree of intimacy or familiarity.).
This statement was meant to establish a clear boundary between them, to make him understand the distinction between men and women, and to at least maintain a basic distance, unlike Commander Yang, who foolishly sought to reduce that distance to a negative value.
She suspected this was merely her own wishful thinking; Lin Yu had a premonition that, if given the choice, his ideal partner would likely be the Emperor himself.
An idiot whose mind was filled solely with the Emperor, a humorous imperialist, the worst comrade and a magnet for bullets and shells—all these descriptors could be heaped upon the man before her.
Despite possessing so many qualities she found repulsive, she somehow couldn’t bring herself to fully dislike him.
No, it wasn’t that she couldn’t dislike him; rather, she couldn’t entirely dislike him.
“Finally, after knowing each other for so long, we haven’t even formally introduced ourselves.
While I don’t think it’s that important, some people can’t stand it… So, shall we make it official?
My name is Lin Yu, as you’ve probably heard from others—Lin as in ‘forest,’ Yu as in ‘rain.'”
Habitually rambling on without regard for whether he was truly listening, Lin Yu directly quoted a line from a famous anime of her past life: “What’s your name?”
‘Yes, yes.
I’ve thanked him, and now that I’ve asked his name, Nangong won’t scold me.
No matter if he’s a Tom, d*ck, or Harry, I just need to remember it properly.’
He opened his mouth to reply, but his lips and the sound he made were entirely out of sync.
Only one familiar word remained: “Shelling.”
Lin Yu was pulled down by a powerful arm, her steel helmet thudding heavily against the loose earth.
When she opened her eyes again, Yang Xi’s face was mere centimeters from the tip of her nose.
His breath ghosted over Lin Yu’s face, and with each rise and fall of his chest, a cloud of loose dust was expelled, clinging to her fair complexion.
Her own breath likewise brushed against his face, and with every warm exhalation, it stirred a swirl of dust that settled on his already grimy features.
“You… you…”
The successive impact of falling shells crushed all words back into the young woman’s throat, rendering her utterly speechless.
‘Damn it, why so early?
I knew I shouldn’t have chatted with Nangong for so long… No, no, I knew I shouldn’t have come to this cursed place!’
120mm howitzer shells blossomed across the left-bank positions of the Mang River, the sky ablaze with fire, almost engulfing the entire front.
Lin Yu lay trembling on her side in the trench.
The combat engineers hadn’t yet managed to dig enough shell-proof dugouts, so she couldn’t take cover as she had before.
Should even one shell land within the trench, she and everyone beside her would be pierced by flying shrapnel, strung together like grapes.
All she could do was pray the shells would land slightly off target.
She whispered, ‘Don’t hit me,’ just as she had two months ago when the charge bugle had urged her up the ladder.
With “Mr. Always-Just-Injured,” a magnet for bullets and shells, holding her waist, could she possibly survive this bombardment?
After ten deafening minutes of the brief artillery barrage, Lin Yu, covered in dirt, slowly rose from the ground.