Light Novel Pub

Chapter 12: eve of battle

"You can't hold the gun and practice aiming on duty today, right?" When Shang Zhen was thinking about his worries, the soldiers who came to relieve the guard arrived.

Shang Zhen glanced at the soldier, lowered his head and said nothing, then walked back with his gun on his back.

When Shang Zhen walked into the kitchen, everyone else had already eaten.

The food was also very simple. The staple food was sorghum rice, and the dish was potatoes stewed with cabbage.

Shang Zhen was already very hungry. He picked up the two large bowls of sorghum rice and ate them. In a moment, the rice left for him by the cook was gone.

I don’t understand what’s going on. Shang Zhen is not a person who eats a lot, otherwise he wouldn’t be as thin as a stick.

But since breaking out from Beidaying that night, Shang Zhen's appetite has suddenly increased. He can now eat as much as two people.

Li Fushun said that this was a good thing. Being able to eat means gaining weight. Being a soldier cannot really be like a skinny guy.

That's the truth, but the problem is that they are in the army and eat in the canteen. How can the cook take care of him alone?

So during this period of time, Shang Zhen was always in a state of half-hungry and half-full.

Shang Zhen naturally didn't have enough to eat this time. He looked up pitifully at the cook squatting at the door smoking a pipe and asked, "Brother Wang, are you out of food?"

The cook was also very forceful. He rolled his eyes at him and said, "Do you have any raw sorghum rice?"

Shang Zhen was a newcomer, so he was naturally speechless.

But just as he stood up and was about to go out, Ma Erhuzi rushed in from outside.

"I guessed that you weren't full. Look what I brought you." Ma Erhuzi put down a package in his hand and spread it out.

"Huh?" Shang Zhen, who was always taciturn, laughed because there were six ears of roasted corn in the package.

The roasted corn was yellow and black, emitting the unique aroma of food.

"For me?" Shang Zhen asked.

"Of course it's for you, all for you, got by my third brother!" Ma Erhuzi said with a smile.

Shang Zhen grinned, reached out, touched an ear of corn and started to chew it.

It's easy to be an official if you have someone in the court, and it's easy to eat if you have someone in the company! Li Fushun took care of his younger brother Shang Zhen in every possible way.

"Oh, there's roasted corn too. I'd like one too." The cook came over.

But before his hand could touch the corn, it was picked up by Ma Erhuzi next to him.

"There's no share for you. It's so difficult for me to add a bowl of sorghum rice to my brother's bowl!" Ma Erhuzi did not hide his displeasure with the cook.

Ma Erhuzi is certainly also a veteran, although his seniority is not as long as that of platoon leader Wang Laomao and squad leader Li Fushun.

But he is a tiger. In Northeastern dialect, tiger means a person who is rather stupid and has a bad temper, similar to the kind of person who has a simple mind and strong limbs.

The cook dared to offend Shang Zhen but would never dare to offend Ma Erhuzi.

"He's as thin as a bamboo pole. It's a waste to eat more of him!" said the cook embarrassedly, his face flushed red after being teased by Ma Erhuzi.

"What do you mean by waste?" Ma Erhuzi was certainly not happy.

He is good friends with Li Fushun, so Li Fushun’s brother is his brother!

"Our waiter stabbed two Japanese soldiers to death with a bayonet. If you are not convinced, just ask if there is anyone in our company who has killed Japanese soldiers?" Ma Erhuzi looked at Shang Zhen proudly and said.

"Really?" The cook sneered, then laughed, "You're as skinny as a stick. Did you poke the Japanese soldier down with your own hands?"

"Empty words are not enough." Ma Erhuzi sneered, and then he stretched out his hand and pointed at Shang Zhen's waist, "See, there is the bayonet of the Japanese Type 38 rifle. My brother stole it!"

Naturally, Shang Zhen was reluctant to throw away the Japanese bayonet he had snatched when breaking out of Beidaying.

In his opinion, this bayonet saved his life, and the steel tip of the Japanese bayonet was very good, and it would definitely be useful in future battles.

So he took the time to make a thin scabbard for the bayonet and hung it around his waist.

"Come on, who knows? I might have picked it up somewhere else." The cook still refused to admit defeat.

The so-called cooks refer to the kitchen team, which is responsible for the meals of the entire company.

That group of people were not familiar with Shang Zhen, and they did not notice the bayonet hanging on Shang Zhen's waist. As for the people in Shang Zhen's platoon, they knew that Shang Zhen was the last one to escape and was said to have killed a Japanese soldier.

"Waiter, tell him how you stole it?" Ma Erhuzi said proudly for Shang Zhen.

"Actually, I don't know whether he was stabbed to death or not. It was pitch dark." Shang Zhen answered vaguely while chewing corn.

"Look--" The cook became more talkative after hearing what Shang Shi said, but he had just said two words when they heard a faint roar coming from outside.

"Plane!" Ma Erhuzi and the gang stopped arguing and ran out.

Shang Zhen ignored him and was already chewing the third ear of corn.

It's not like he hasn't seen planes before, whether they were from the Northeast Army or the Japanese Army, so he had to solve his stomach problem first.

But then he heard the sound of the plane getting louder and louder. At the same time, he heard Ma Erhuzi shouting outside: "Xiaoer, come out quickly!"

Shang Zhen also felt something was wrong, so he ran out while biting his corn.

When he walked out of the house, he saw that the plane in the sky had become very big. It was flying from their village, and it had already started to dive!

Shang Zhen shuddered and spat out the half-eaten ear of corn in his mouth. He glanced around and ran directly behind a big tree in the yard.

It was a big elm tree, and no one knew how many years it was. The thickness of its trunk was incomparable to others, but it was at least thicker than Shang Zhen's waist!

"Brother Huzi, come here quickly!" Shang Zhen did not forget to call Ma Erhuzi.

Just when Ma Erhuzi and the other two hid behind the trunk of the big elm tree, they heard the "dong dong dong" sound of machine gun fire amid the roar of the overflying plane.

It was not the ground troops of their battalion who shot at the Japanese planes, but the Japanese planes who started strafing.

With a "crack", a branch above Shang Zhen and the others' heads, which was almost as thick as their forearms, broke and fell down.

Shang Zhen instinctively squatted down and covered his head with his hands. When he turned around, he saw that the thatched house behind him that served as a canteen was smashed and smoking.

But this was not the end. When Shang Zhen looked up again, he saw the bird-like plane passing over his head. Then, a black object fell out of the belly of the plane. It was a bomb!

I'm not afraid of anything except airplane poop!

At this moment, Ma Erhuzi instinctively lay down, but Shang Zhen reached out and grabbed the tree trunk, and with the force, he hid directly on the other side of the big elm tree!

A moment later, Shang Zhen heard a deafening bang, and then the branches of the old elm tree above his head fell like raindrops, which were blown away by the blast.

Shang Zhen shook his head and felt that he was fine, then he looked outside. At this time, he saw a huge mushroom-shaped black cloud rising behind the cafeteria, and the air was full of bricks, tiles, wood and other things that were blown away.

Fortunately, the bomb dropped by the Japanese plane did not hit the cafeteria. If it had hit the cafeteria, Shang Zhen felt that he would not be able to escape.

"Brother Huzi, are you okay?" Shang Zhen didn't care that there were things flying around him, and he hurried to see Ma Erhuzi.

At this time, Ma Erhuzi also got up from the ground, but when he looked at Shang Zhen, he shouted loudly: "What did you say? I can't hear you clearly!"

Oh no, Brother Huzi must have been deafened by the bomb, Shang Zhen thought.

Loading...