‘My head hadn’t burst open, my limbs were still intact, and my body… had no wounds either.’
Once again, she had escaped the clutches of death, surviving miraculously and without a scratch.
Standing in the trench, she shook her head vigorously, like a drenched dog shedding water, dislodging the mud clinging to her face and hair.
Around her, amidst the dying wails of the wounded, faint battle cries echoed from a distance.
And then there was… the blood of Private First Class Qi Fei, who had tackled her to the ground.
True to form, he was injured again; a gash on his face dripped blood, and his military trousers darkened around his leg, a telltale sign of blood soaking into the fabric.
Just as she pulled out a first-aid kit from behind her waist, intending to roll up his pant leg and bandage him, Lin Yu’s ears were suddenly pierced by another hoarse cry for help: “Medic! Medic—”
Mere steps away, another soldier, both his legs mangled by an explosion, crawled out from behind a trench corner, propelling himself forward with his hands.
Had the trench builders not designed this particular bend, the very shell that tore off his legs would have claimed both their lives.
Lin Yu immediately abandoned the seemingly lightly wounded Private First Class Qi Fei before her, pulled out a tourniquet, and, hunching over, ran towards the soldier: “Don’t be afraid, I’m coming!”
With a sliding kneel, she lunged in front of him and immediately began emergency treatment.
Blood.
So much blood.
It gushed outwards like a floodgate opening, seeping down like water irrigating a field. The crucial difference was that the fluid used to open floodgates and water fields was transparent, while the liquid splattering everywhere and clinging to her hands and face was a vivid crimson.
Swiftly stemming the blood from his left leg, Lin Yu then retrieved another tourniquet she had personally added to her medical kit and bound it above the severed end of his right leg.
She tightened it as if strangling an enemy, and then… finally, the massive hemorrhage ceased.
“It’s done. The bleeding has stopped. I’ll find someone to get you to the rear now…”
Her words of comfort trailed off mid-sentence as she saw the wounded soldier, who had just been crying for help, close his eyes.
His breathing had ceased.
‘In… in this situation, I should immediately perform CPR, hands clasped, arms straight, pressing down forcefully, at a rate of per minute…’
Before she could officially begin CPR, Private First Class Qi Fei’s shout from behind her jolted her from her thoughts: “They’re here!”
‘Who? Who’s here?’
Lin Yu turned to look; the still-bleeding Private First Class Qi Fei had already propped his rifle on the sandbags, aiming outwards.
This was a Lanforthian artillery bombardment, which meant a Lanforthian infantry charge would soon follow.
Outside the trench, a burst of blue light erupted as the soldiers who had survived the shelling collectively opened fire, felling a swath of khaki-clad figures surging towards them from the front.
Turning back to the pale face of the fallen soldier, Lin Yu gently closed his eyes, then returned to her previous position.
“Don’t move around so much. I need to bandage your wound.”
“This isn’t the time for bandaging!” After firing a shot, he crouched back behind cover to reload, his injured leg shifting with his movements. “You stand up and fight too! They’re about to overrun us!”
Lin Yu, about to roll up his pant leg to tend his wound, froze in place. ‘Fight?’
When she had come from the right bank position, she was wearing only a military uniform, without even a steel helmet. The rifle she had brought out from the shelter, the one that almost exposed her to the enemy, was currently lying by her sleeping mat from last night.
She felt like the unarmed medic on Hacksaw Ridge, facing the enemy defenseless. The problem was, she was now on the defensive, and if they couldn’t hold, they would be annihilated on the position.
‘I’ll die, won’t I? A 10mm copper-jacketed lead bullet piercing my chest, blood spurting out with a ‘poof-poof’ sound, air escaping with a ‘huff-huff’.
‘With each breath, my lungs would shrink a little, eventually shriveling into a tiny lump, unable to draw enough oxygen no matter how hard I tried. Coupled with the hypoxia from blood loss, I’d literally suffocate even in a place full of oxygen.’
‘No, this isn’t the time to be afraid of dying. This is the time to find a gun.’
She dropped the bandage in her hand, scanning her surroundings. The makeshift trench, covered in loose dirt and bloodstains, held many dead soldiers, their firearms mostly shattered into unusable kindling by the explosions.
“How can I fight without a gun!”
“Then go find one!”
“They’re all broken!”
“Then find one that isn’t!”
Several more Lanforthian shells landed on the position, the ringing in her ears from previous blasts compounding with the new explosions, forcing them to shout at each other just to be heard.
The Lanforthians had begun firing towards their position, bullets whizzing over the sandbags as Lin Yu, hunched over, navigated the trench, desperate to find an intact rifle.
Just as she rounded a corner, she spotted a rifle leaning against the breastwork; it appeared complete, with only some loose dirt and splattered blood on its surface.
‘This is…’
Following the trail of blood to the now lifeless soldier behind her, Lin Yu snatched up the rifle, ran back to her original spot, and, standing upright, rested the barrel on the sandbags.
‘Let me avenge you. For the Lanforthian shell, let a Lanforthian life pay the price.’
‘Hoo… hiss… hoo…’
Taking a deep breath, she pressed her right eye to the sight, casually aiming at a khaki-clad figure charging their position with a rifle.
“Free fire! Free fire!”
Through the din of explosions, someone’s faint shouts could be heard, ordering all living personnel to return fire.
‘Speaking of which, those foreign devils are really bold. Their artillery doesn’t even stop when their own side is attacking; some of their own people are getting blown up by friendly fire…’
“Our artillery support has arrived! Hold your ground!”
‘Oh, so that’s it.’
Silently dismissing her previous thought, Lin Yu squeezed the trigger forcefully; a magic array bloomed at the muzzle, and a figure dozens of meters away collapsed, shot.
‘Alright, your revenge is done. This next shot… is for Liang Yu.’
She pulled the bolt, ejecting the spent magic stone, and a new round was chambered.
The dull, transparent crystal fell from mid-air, bounced on the loose dirt at the bottom of the trench, and was then crushed by a soldier rushing past behind Lin Yu.
The bullet, imbued with hatred, flew at supersonic speed, piercing through the blast wave, skimming past the corpses, and burrowing into a saucer-shaped helmet, penetrating skin, bone, and brain tissue.
Liang Yu’s vengeance was achieved.
But the hatred was far from over.
Pulling the bolt back to chamber another round, Lin Yu aimed at the next figure and squeezed the trigger a third time.
Target hit.
Bolt pulled, round chambered.
Aim at the enemy.
Trigger pulled.
Target hit.
‘Well, what do you know… my aim isn’t half bad.’
Just as she was about to pull the bolt to avenge another comrade, Lin Yu suddenly felt someone grab her collar from behind, yanking her from her standing position to the ground.
“Who taught you to shoot like that! After one shot, you pull back and change position! Keep lying there and you’ll get yourself killed!”
A furious, exasperated shout descended from above. She sat up, adjusting her steel helmet, and gazed blankly at the person yelling at her.
‘This is the first time he’s cursed at me. Usually, I’m the one cursing at him.’
“Do you understand?!”
“Alright…”
Shifting slightly, she peeked out from a different spot, rested her rifle back on the sandbags, and casually aimed at her next target.
‘Hit… missed.’
The foremost Lanforthians had already advanced to within twenty meters of their position—a dangerously close distance for defensive operations.
They could now toss grenades directly into the trench, eliminating swathes of the defending forces.
After firing five rounds, Lin Yu ducked back behind the breastwork, rummaging through her gear for more ammunition.
All she pulled out was a packet of sutures.
Cursing under her breath, she shoved the useless item back into its place and crawled towards Private First Class Qi Fei, who was reloading nearby.
“Give me a strip of bullets!”
He pressed the five-round stripper clip he held into the magazine, then immediately pulled out two ten-round strips from his ammo box with his left hand and thrust them into Lin Yu’s grasp.
With trembling hands, she pulled back the bolt of her rifle; due to her clumsy motion, the ejected spent magic stone bounced onto her face. Ignoring the sting, Lin Yu reloaded her rifle, then scrambled up by the sandbags, propping her rifle on them once more.
‘This time, I must hit, for…’
As she closed her left eye to aim, Lin Yu saw a small black dot flying from the hand of one of the foreign devils.
‘Eh? Is that… is that a grenade?’
Tilting her head back, she watched the small black dot arc through the air, approaching her like a suicide drone from years past, and fear began to well up from the depths of her heart.
“Get down!”
Pulled by an unknown hand once more, her steel helmet struck the ground with a heavy thud.
“Ow… *cough*—”
Pinned to the ground by a dark figure, she cried out in pain, coughing half the air from her lungs.
‘Such force… my ribs won’t break, will they…’
An extremely close explosion scattered her thoughts, leaving her dazed as if a shell had just landed nearby.
Only a nonsensical curse echoed deep within her consciousness: ‘Niang Xipi (TL Note: A Chinese expletive similar to “motherf***er,” often used to express extreme frustration or anger), next time I need to find a server that prohibits explosives.’