Xia Lan: From Meeting a Martial Arts Girl

Chapter 40 Defeated Soldiers' Camp

After leaving the fishing village, Lu Siye traveled for another seven days.

During those seven days, he passed through five villages.

There are people in the village.

It's not just the elderly, but also young people.

There were several villages he didn't enter.

They didn't even get close.

He simply stood on a hillside at a distance, glimpsed the outline of the village with his naked eye, and then turned and left.

It wasn't because the village looked particularly dangerous.

Although it does look very dangerous.

It's not because he doesn't want to see those things anymore.

Those things he couldn't change, couldn't stop, and didn't even have the right to condemn.

Evil deeds, atrocities, disgusting things.

He was just a passerby.

Sorry, it didn't work.

Sorry can't be eaten; sorry is just something survivors use to comfort themselves.

So he left.

He is indeed running away.

In the fourth village, he met an old man.

There was nothing in the old man's eyes.

He sat on a rock by the roadside, his legs missing below the knees, the cloth wrapped around the severed ends seeping with yellow liquid, and flies swarming around his legs.

The old man did not chase them away.

He watched Lu Siye walk over, and opened his mouth slightly.

Lu Siye stopped.

He took a compressed biscuit out of his bag, squatted down, and placed it on the stone next to the old man.

The old man's eyes twitched, he looked at his face for about three seconds, and then he smiled.

pity.

An old man who had lost both legs was sitting by the roadside waiting to die, and people were feeling sorry for him.

Lu Siye stood up, turned around and left.

He walked very fast, almost running.

He didn't stop until he was out of the village's boundaries.

He was bent over, his hands on his knees, panting heavily.

That smile.

...He didn't want to recall it.

He squatted down by the roadside and stayed there for a long time.

Then he stood up and continued walking forward.

On the evening of the seventh day, he arrived at his destination.

A military camp.

Although it's called a military barracks, it's actually more like a large garbage dump surrounded by barbed wire.

The campsite was located on a flat wasteland with no obstructions and a wide view.

The barbed wire fence wasn't very high, about two meters, and there was a wooden guard tower every ten meters or so, but there weren't necessarily any people inside the guard towers.

Lu Siye watched from afar for about ten minutes and only saw two figures moving inside the guard towers; the others were empty.

Inside the camp, tents and makeshift houses were scattered haphazardly.

There was a flagpole in the center of the camp, with a flag hanging on it.

The flag of Siam is red, white and blue, and occasionally a corner is blown open by the wind, revealing the elephant pattern on it.

There were no sentries at the entrance, only a plastic chair, a register, and a ballpoint pen on the table.

Lu Siye stood outside the gate, looking at the camp, and took about half a minute to make a judgment.

This is a rear camp.

It was so far from the main battlefield that the sound of artillery fire couldn't reach it.

There was no tense atmosphere here; not even a single gunshot could be heard.

It was more of a shelter than a military camp.

It shelters those who can be sacrificed at any time, those for whom there is no difference between being alive and dead.

He went inside, and no one stopped him.

He walked in through the gate and all the way to the open space in the middle of the camp, and no one stopped him.

No one asked him where he came from, nor did anyone ask him for identification.

He wasn't even sure if anyone in the camp noticed he'd come in.

He stood there for a moment, then saw the curtain of a tent lifted and a man walk out.

The man was probably in his thirties, or perhaps younger, and had a scar on his face that ran from his forehead down to his chin.

The scar is very fresh; the stitches haven't been removed yet.

He was wearing a dirty camouflage uniform and paused for a moment when he saw Lu Siyue.

Then he looked Lu Siye up and down, his gaze sweeping from his face to his feet and back again.

"What are you doing here?"

He looked at the man but didn't say anything.

"What are you doing?"

"Just passing by."

The man narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Just passing by?"

"I haven't passed through here before. Where are you from?"

Lu Siye remained silent for a second.

"From the north," he said, "from the fishing village."

The man glanced at him, his gaze lingering on his clothes for a moment.

Lu Siye's clothes were indeed not very nice.

When I left Japan a month ago, I only brought a windbreaker and a pair of dark-colored work pants, and now I can't even tell what the original color was.

His hair had grown long; it hadn't been cut for a month, and he just tied it up casually with a rubber band.

He certainly looks like a refugee.

But he was strong.

In Baozi's words, "A homeless man who looks like he can fight."

The man's gaze lingered on his shoulder for two seconds, then he smiled.

A smile that sounds like "I've struck gold".

"You," the man stretched out his hand, pointed at him, and then pointed deeper into the camp, "come with me."

Lu Siye did not move.

The man laughed again, this time even more, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "There aren't bad people here. Do you have the strength?"

Lu Siye looked at him without saying a word.

"You have strength," the man answered himself, his gaze sweeping over the man's body again. "I can see that. It's good that you have strength; with strength, you can eat."

There is food to eat.

He repeated it.

But Lu Siye understood what was behind those three words.

To test the waters.

He was testing whether Lu Siye was so hungry that he could be bought off by any means.

Lu Siye did not answer.

But I followed him.

It's not because "there's food to eat".

This is because it presents an opportunity to enter the camp.

He had been lingering on the border for far too long; the fishing village had taken him three days, and the journey had taken him another seven.

It has been a full month and ten days since I left Fusang.

He couldn't wait any longer.

The man led him to a tent, lifted the curtain, and gestured for him to go inside.

The tent was dark and smelly, with all sorts of disgusting odors mixed together.

Several people were sitting on the mats on the ground, some young and some not so young.

But they all had one thing in common: they all looked like they hadn't had a proper meal in a long time, but they were very robust.

Lu Siye glanced at it and roughly understood what was going on.

These people are not ordinary refugees.

They are deserters.

Or rather, soldiers who "disappeared" from the battlefield.

In this country's war, disappearing from the front lines is an easy thing to do.

As soon as the artillery fire starts and the smoke rises, you dart into the nearby woods, roll into the ravine, or lie down among the dead, and then no one remembers you anymore.

No one will come looking for you because no one remembers your name, your number, or your face.

You are just one of a string of numbers, and that string of numbers changes every day. Today there is one less, tomorrow there are two less, and no one cares where the missing ones go.

This camp is a gathering place for those "disappearing numbers".

An official, semi-legal black hole used to absorb deserters and fleeing soldiers.

After pushing Lu Siye into the tent, the man ignored him.

He left, the curtain fell behind him, and silence returned to the tent.

The group glanced at him, then looked away.

No one speaks.

Lu Siye found a corner, put his backpack on the ground, and sat down leaning against it.

He closed his eyes, but didn't fall asleep.

He was listening.

Listen to the sounds outside the tent.

Footsteps, voices, people arguing, people crying.

The crying lasted for about ten minutes, then stopped.

Instead, a more terrifying silence prevailed.

The next morning, he was awakened by a commotion.

There were people shouting outside the tent, quite loudly, probably taking attendance or assembling.

The people in the tent stood up one after another, and some of them stretched.

Someone cursed something, and someone pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from under the cushion, took one out, lit it, took a deep drag, and then exhaled the smoke from their nostrils with a look of enjoyment.

Lu Siye followed them out of the tent.

There were already quite a few people standing outside, in twos and threes, without any formation or discipline.

Some people were wearing military uniforms, some were wearing civilian clothes, and some were shirtless.

They all had only one thing in common: they all looked incredibly boring.

The person who shouted was a middle-aged man dressed in a relatively neat military uniform with a pistol tucked into his waistband.

It looks very casual.

But Lu Siye noticed that his right hand always hung naturally next to the holster when he walked.

He could draw his gun and kill them at any time.

A middle-aged man stood under the flagpole, holding a piece of paper in his hand, on which was written some kind of list.

He began to read the names.

One word is read aloud, and someone responds with a weak, feeble voice.

Halfway through his reading, the middle-aged man stopped, looked up, and scanned the crowd before finally fixing his gaze on Lu Siye.

He frowned and said something to one of the soldiers beside him.

The soldier walked over to Lu Siye and looked him up and down.

"Your identification."

Lu Siye took the military insignia out of his pocket.

It's the one Old Yang gave him; it's already turned black.

The soldier took the insignia, examined it carefully, then turned and walked back, handing it to the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man glanced at it, and his brows furrowed even more.

He stared at the military insignia for about five seconds, then looked up, glanced at Lu Siyue, his gaze lingering on his face for a moment before moving away.

He threw the insignia back to the soldier and said one sentence.

The soldier returned and handed the insignia back to Lu Siye.

"You can stay."

"The soldier said."

Then he turned and left.

They didn't ask for my name, nor my unit number, they didn't ask anything.

Lu Siye put the military insignia into his pocket.

He later learned that there were quite a few people like him in the camp.

"The Corpse Soldier".

These are the names the veterans gave them.

They would strip military insignia from dead men, sneak into the barracks, and try to earn a living.

A veteran can tell at a glance.

Those people's eyes were wrong, their posture was wrong, their tone of voice was wrong, their way of walking was wrong, everything about them was wrong.

But they couldn't be bothered to care.

Because there aren't many truly "right" people in this camp.

Those who were capable of fighting had long been transferred to the front lines; those left behind were either wounded or deserters.

They're either waiting to retire, or they're like him, "corpse card soldiers" who appeared out of nowhere.

No one cares if there's one more or one less.

We're all just cannon fodder anyway.

Anyway, there's no chance of them ever getting ahead.

Lu Siye stayed in the defeated soldiers' camp.

During the first week, he did nothing but observe.

Observe how this camp operates, and observe the daily lives of those soldiers.

Observe who you can talk to and who you should avoid. Observe the patrol patterns and changing of the guard times around the camp.

He figured it out quickly.

The camp was outrageously poorly managed.

There was a perfunctory roll call in the morning, and after that, there were no further group activities.

During the day, most people are sleeping, playing cards, drinking, arguing, or spacing out.

It gets a little more lively in the evening, with people singing and dancing.

Some people gathered together to tell stories and news from the front lines.

They talked about how someone they knew died, how he died a terrible death, how a village was massacred, and how a general's concubine ran away with an adjutant.

Nobody cares whether these stories are true or false.

Because truth and falsehood are meaningless here.

The important thing is that when they tell these stories, they can temporarily forget where they are, who they are, whether they will die tomorrow, and that they are already dead.

They died spiritually, died in dignity, died in everything a "human being" should possess.

They were just a bunch of corpses that were still breathing.

Lu Siye rarely leaves his tent during the day.

He stayed in his corner, practicing Qi with his eyes closed.

The cultivation of primordial qi cannot be stopped, not even for a single day.

Traveling against the current, retreating if not advancing.

He kept the flow of his primordial energy to a minimum, preventing it from leaking out and ensuring that no one noticed any abnormal energy fluctuations in his body.

In a place teeming with deserters and fleeing soldiers, revealing one's identity is tantamount to suicide.

It's not because these people are afraid of him.

It's not because they're afraid.

A group of people who have nothing left are not afraid of anything.

He survived the first week.

On the third night of the second week, things changed.

It rained that night, not much, just a light drizzle.

The rain masked some of the stench in the air, but it also made the tent even more humid and stuffy.

Lu Siye lay in the corner, not asleep.

His intuition told him that something was going to happen tonight.

He couldn't explain what it was, but the feeling was very familiar to him.

People walked past outside the tent; their footsteps were more numerous and hurried than usual.

Someone was speaking in hushed tones, their voices very low, as if they were plotting something.

Lu Siye opened his eyes, but did not move.

He lay there, ears perked up, catching every sound outside the tent.

About half an hour later, the tent flap was lifted and a person walked in.

It was the scarred man who brought him into the camp on the first day.

"You," he pointed at Lu Siye, "come out."

Lu Siye sat up and looked at him.

The scarred man offered no explanation and turned to leave the tent.

Lu Siye stood up and followed him out.

The rain was still falling, and the ground in the camp was soaked.

The scarred man led him to a tent at the edge of the camp, lifted the curtain, and let him inside.

There were already seven or eight people sitting inside the tent.

They were all young men; the oldest looked no more than thirty, and the youngest was probably not even twenty.

They sat in a semicircle on a cushion, with a kerosene lamp in the center. The lamp's dim light cast a yellowish glow on everyone's face, making it appear half-lit and half-shadowed.

The scarred man sat down in the middle of the crowd, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, pulled one out, lit it, and took a deep drag.

He exhaled a puff of smoke, looked at everyone present, and slowly scanned them from left to right, then from right to left.

"Everyone's here," he said.

"I have something to say," he said, holding a cigarette between his fingers and leaning forward slightly, "Do you want to leave here?"

No one speaks.

But Lu Siye noticed that several people's eyes lit up.

That kind of brightness wasn't excitement; it was something more fundamental.

The scarred man put the cigarette back in his mouth, took a folded piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and placed it next to the kerosene lamp.

There was a map drawn on the paper. It was drawn very roughly, with crooked lines, but the key locations were marked.

"Here," he pointed to a location on the map with his cigarette butt, "is where we are now."

"Here," the cigarette butt moved to another spot, in the upper right corner of the paper, "is the main battlefield."

"Here," the cigarette butt moved again, this time stopping at the very bottom of the map, in a corner far from the battlefield, "is the camp of a third-party force."

He raised his head and looked at everyone present.

“A third party,” he said, lowering his voice, “not government troops, nor anti-government troops. They are foreigners, from the east.”

"East?" someone asked.

"East," the scarred man nodded, "Eastern Continent."

The air inside the tent suddenly became quiet for a moment.

He lowered his head, staring blankly at the flame of the kerosene lamp.

"What are they doing here?" someone else asked.

"I don't know," the scarred man flicked his cigarette ash onto the ground. "I heard it's something to send to the royal family, something quite important anyway."

"They have their own troops, why are they coming to us?"

The scarred man smiled, a smile with an indescribable quality.

"Because they don't want to cause trouble," he said. "This is a war zone. Even though they are special forces, foreign troops entering another country's territory, even if they are helping, will inevitably encounter all sorts of trouble."

"They need a group of people, a group of locals who are familiar with the terrain, capable, and whose deaths won't matter."

He paused, looked at each person, and spoke slowly and deliberately.

"cannon fodder."

These two words are very direct.

But no one stood up and walked away.

Because the scarred man was telling the truth.

They are just cannon fodder.

In this camp, we're cannon fodder; on the front lines, we're cannon fodder; following that foreign special forces unit, at worst, we'll just be cannon fodder in a different place.

But at least, that place isn't in this muddy mess.

"I've inquired about it," the scarred man said, stubbing out his cigarette without even flinching. "That team is well-paid."

"They provide food and lodging, pay us daily, and if we do well, they can even help us clear our identities."

"From now on, I won't be a deserter anymore. I'll be a legitimate mercenary with a contract and records. I won't be afraid of being checked wherever I go."

"Of course," he shrugged, "you might die on the way, but staying here guarantees you won't die, right?"

silence.

No one answered.

Because everyone knows the answer.

If you stay here, you'll either be re-integrated into the army and sent to the front lines as cannon fodder.

They'll either rot in this defeated army camp for the rest of their lives until the war ends.

If this war ever ends, it will become a ghost that no one remembers, has no identity, no home, and no future.

Let's go, there's at least one other way.

There's nowhere to go.

"When are you leaving?" someone asked.

The scarred man glanced at the other man, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"Tomorrow night."

How many people are there?

"It's not certain yet," the scarred man said. "I've contacted a few veterans, and they're still considering it."

"But whether they go or not, I will leave."

He stood up and patted the mud off his pants.

"Those who are willing to leave, meet at the barbed wire fence on the east side of the camp at 8 pm tomorrow night."

"There's a gap there. I cut it beforehand, and I also bribed the patrolmen. That shift won't look in that direction."

He walked to the tent entrance, stopped, turned around, and glanced at everyone.

"Think it over before you come."

"Once you leave, there's no turning back."

Then he lifted the curtain and stepped into the rain.

The people inside the tent stood up one by one and walked out.

Lu Siye was the last to leave.

When he stepped out of the tent, the rain had already subsided.

He stood outside the tent and took a breath of the post-rain air.

He will leave this defeated camp tomorrow night.

The risk is very high.

Garrison Legion.

Artificial Xia Lan...