Returning to the bridge, Lin Yu was first greeted by Nangong’s embrace.
“You’re finally back! Are you hurt anywhere? Were you hit by a bullet?”
She threw herself onto Lin Yu, unconcerned that her clothes were being stained by the blood and dirt clinging to Lin Yu.
“Had I known the Lanforthians would attack, I never would have let you go.”
A subtle sense of role reversal settled over her.
Just yesterday, she had been clinging to Nangong, shedding tears.
Today, it was Nangong’s turn…
Oh, but not yet to the point of tears, she noted.
Nangong was indeed a mature, dependable adult, unlike her own fifteen-year-old self.
“It’s alright, I’m perfectly fine.
I even managed to get his name.”
“Got his name…?”
Nangong released her hold on Lin Yu’s waist.
“Is *he* alright too?”
“Yes, we’re both fine.”
She continued, “Barely half a minute after the shelling, the Lanforthians swarmed us.
They nearly seized the first trench.”
With wildly exaggerated terms, she vividly recounted the perilous situation from half an hour prior.
“They charged like a tsunami, bullets raining down thicker than raindrops!
The foreign devils who made it into the trenches were all towering and formidable, their shoulders broader than a double-door refrigerator!”
“But we repelled them all, working together.
We knocked them down one by one with our shovels—one came, one fell; two came, a pair fell!
Hmph, pretty impressive, right~”
As Lin Yu spoke, a distinct pride resonated in her voice, as if she had just ‘fought seven times in and out of Changban Slope with Zhao Zilong’ (TL Note: A famous historical and literary allusion to the heroic feats of the general Zhao Zilong during the Battle of Changban, where he repeatedly charged into enemy lines to save Liu Bei’s infant son.).
Nangong, however, showed not a trace of delight.
Instead, she tenderly removed Lin Yu’s helmet, gently running her fingers through the long hair that tumbled out, matted with dirt and blood.
“You shouldn’t have killed anyone.
A girl your age shouldn’t bear such a sin…”
The smile lingering on her lips stiffened for a moment.
“I… I just…”
“Lin Yu, once you pull that trigger and kill your first person, you embark on a path from which there is no return.”
Nangong changed her grip, taking Lin Yu’s hand and clutching it tightly in her palm, preventing her escape.
“You will grow indifferent to life, you will become ruthless, you will turn into a beast… You will become something a girl your age ought not to be.”
With a stern expression, Nangong declared, “Taking another’s life is absolutely not what a medic should do!”
“But everyone was caught in the Lanforthians’ shelling—”
Lin Yu was no cold-blooded demon; she knew well that many of the Lanforthians were, in fact, good people.
Her initial, idealistic ‘Besieged on All Sides’ plan had revolved around breaking enemy morale to force peace talks, not about slaughtering countless Lanforthians on the battlefield.
Yet, this sentiment could not alter the reality of two nations at war.
Nor could it change the fact that the Lanforthians’ “new long-range artillery” had annihilated Commander Yang’s residence, along with the four mentors who had accompanied, cared for, and taught her.
Even less could it change the stark truth that every acquaintance whose name she knew was either dead or missing.
“How many people did you kill?”
“…I shot and killed seven, avenging all the acquaintances lost in that shelling.
After that… I followed Yang Xi, delivering coup de grâce to end their suffering.”
“Listen to me, stop now.
Don’t go on, alright?”
“In that situation, you would have died if you hadn’t fired, so your conscience won’t stop you now.”
“But once you grow accustomed to killing, you’ll find you’ve become a demon, unable to stop.”
Nangong’s voice grew increasingly agitated.
“Didn’t the soldiers on the front lines call you an ‘angel’ before?”
“If this continues, they’ll start calling you a ‘demon’.”
“You don’t want to become that kind of person, do you?”
“No… I don’t.”
“Then come back to the rear with me.
Let’s find the regimental commander and tell him we possess healing magic.
That way, we can be transferred to a safe position behind the lines.”
She took two steps back, pulling Lin Yu towards the bridge.
“Don’t force yourself to do these things anymore.”
Nangong genuinely hoped Lin Yu wouldn’t be stained by the bloodshed of war, truly believing that medics, whose purpose was to heal and save lives, should not engage in killing on the battlefield.
Could Lin Yu manage that?
[Nangong Yun! A new batch of wounded has arrived, come help out quickly!]
From a distance, the voice of a frontline medic calling Nangong echoed, and Lin Yu was soon left standing alone by the bridge.
“I’m going back to help.
You must take care of yourself.
When you speak to the commander, be confident, state your purpose clearly, and make your requests.”
With a final, firm squeeze of Lin Yu’s palm, Nangong returned to the large, canvas-covered pit.
She remained standing alone, gazing out at the trenches ahead, and further still, at the small hill where the Lanforthian army was entrenched.
‘How many more must die?’
Asking herself this in her heart, she silently turned and walked onto the railway bridge spanning both banks of the Mang River—the ultimate objective in the fierce clash between the two armies.
The Lanforthians would never rest until they secured the bridge, and the Diacla, she mused, would surely not relinquish such a vital path to victory so easily.
****
Lin Yu’s instincts were correct.
At this very moment, several battles raged simultaneously near the Mang River basin.
Beyond the direct struggle for the railway bridge, the Lanforthians were also pursuing Diacla forces entrenched east of Commander Yang’s former unit, and a distant artillery barrage was underway at the highway bridge ten kilometers west of the main crossing.
Thousands of lightly equipped Diacla troops awaited withdrawal on the Mang River’s left bank, while tens of thousands of Lanforthian reinforcements stood ready in front.
Behind the right bank, allied reinforcements were rushing in by train.
What began as skirmishes involving a mere thousand men was poised to escalate into a massive battle of ten thousand, forming a crucial component of the Fifth Imperial Offensive, following the failure of the Fourth.
To be assaulted before launching an assault of one’s own was, in itself, a form of assault.
There would be ever-shifting tactical landscapes, and the nascent forms of a new kind of warfare would emerge.
And more blood: blood that would stain the rivers red, blood that would paint the world crimson, blood that would forever stain her own hands.
Oblivious to these grander machinations, Lin Yu scurried across the railway bridge, pausing at its center to lean on the railing and gaze downstream for a moment.
She didn’t linger long before turning, descending from the bridge, traversing the right-bank positions, and vaguely finding her way back near the morning’s starting point, where she curled up alone in an empty corner.
After a prolonged daze, she realized her mouth was parched.
Untying her canteen, she twisted open the cap and tipped it toward her lips.
Only when not a single drop emerged did she recall that the water she’d filled before departing had been depleted in the trenches—half used to clean ‘that guy’s’ wounds, the other half guzzled by her exhausted self.
Dejectedly, she sought out water elsewhere, eventually finding a well beside the crowded casualty station.
After a long wait in line, she finally refilled her canteen.
As the cool, unpurified well water flowed down her throat, she tasted a sweetness she hadn’t known in ages.
Unable to resist, she tilted her head back and emptied the entire canteen, then wiped away the liquid tracing the curve of her jaw with the back of her hand.
“Phew… I’m alive again.”
She found a clean wooden crate to sit on, pulling her knees up and preparing to bury her face between them.
Before she could properly relax, wounded soldiers being brought back from the front entered her line of sight.
They were all so terribly mangled—missing limbs, and some were simply covered by sheets.
That recent battle had been truly brutal.
Lin Yu alone had collected no fewer than a hundred dog tags, not to mention those utterly disintegrated by artillery fire.
As a familiar face entered Lin Yu’s vision, the life that had just returned to her suddenly drained away.
Dropping her canteen, she bolted towards the stretcher-bearers.
His face was ghostly pale, almost like a corpse, not unlike the wounded soldier who had bled out earlier.
“What happened to you! Wake up! Wake up! You said you were fine! How could you end up like this!”
She frantically called out to the young man on the stretcher, shoving his body with such force that the bearers halted.
“Yang Xi! You can’t die! Yang Xi!”
“You can’t just ‘get your lunchbox’ (TL Note: A slang term, ‘lǐng biàndāng,’ used in film and TV to refer to a character dying or being written out of a story.) like this!”
“Dying in the blink of an eye?”
“Fate, you wretched thing, you can’t be this absurd!”
As she vigorously shook the man on the stretcher, she cursed this melodramatic fate in her heart.
“Calm down, miss, he’s not dead,” the stretcher-bearer said, patting her shoulder.
“He just lost a lot of blood and needs a transfusion.”
The young man on the stretcher, too, struggled to open his eyes, meeting Lin Yu’s gaze with utter confusion.
“Eh…”
As she comprehended her own outburst, a vibrant blush bloomed across her face, forming a stark contrast with the other man’s pallor.
“Eh—!”