Durin's Diary

Chapter 903 Two Heroes

The demon army is back.

Looking at the flag in the distance, Lao Liang took out the last cigarette from his pocket. It had been sitting in Lao Liang's shirt pocket for a long time and was quite wrinkled.

"Old Liang, aren't you afraid?" His assistant asked in a trembling voice, peering through binoculars at the densely packed monsters in the distance.

"What's there to be afraid of? I've been fighting here for twenty-one years. Both the fearless and the cowardly have died before me. People who aren't afraid are a menace. If I die, so be it, I'll just face the heavens." Old Liang, with a stubble on his face, said nonchalantly, and used a match from a small platform near the machine gun position to light his cigarette.

These cigarettes won't do; if left out for too long, they'll smell of sweat. But lately, there's been no delivery capacity to send cigarettes to the soldiers on the front lines.

The soldiers understood that bullets were more suitable for their needs than cigarettes. After all, cigarettes could be smoked both in life and death, but if bullets ran out, they would only have the sticks in their hands to fight the monsters hand-to-hand.

That would be such a loss.

"See that? That's the spirit of a veteran." The young company commander, who happened to be passing by the trench, smiled upon hearing this. He opened his cigarette case, took out a cigarette, and said, "I don't have many left. Here, Xiao Liu."

"Company commander, I don't smoke," the young machine gunner's assistant said awkwardly.

“You’re living like a woman, get a beating!” The company commander glared at him. “Get out of here and get a beating. I have something to say to Lao Liang.”

After driving away the young soldiers, the company commander leaned against the edge of the trench. He looked at the demon army in the distance and said, "According to the old rules, this should only be the vanguard. The majority of the demon army should arrive in one to three days."

"That would be for the best. There was a big operation in the north before, and Mr. Yan and his men thought there was no war in the south, so they went back to prepare. Who would have thought that the demon army would suddenly appear at this time?" Old Liang looked at the demon army in the distance. Those terrifying creatures were not afraid of death. Bullets were useless against them, shattering their organs in the heart area or smashing their heads.

Looking from here, it's at least six or seven hundred meters away.
Asking young soldiers to hit them from a distance is asking too much, since these are not stationary targets on the training field.

"You mean..." "I don't want my guess to come true, because it means that the alien gods have begun to unite. Although it is hard to imagine, the military strategy says that if you discard all reasonable illusions, what remains, the most unreasonable one, will be the truth."

The young company commander nodded: "You're right, the telegram has been sent out, hopefully the reinforcements will arrive soon."

“Maybe there won’t be any support. There will definitely be a fierce battle in the North. My brother and children sent me letters saying they won’t be able to come home for the next month. This means that all the bases and training camps in the North will be closed to all but one.” Old Liang took another puff of his cigarette. He pondered, “The worst-case scenario is that we have to deal with this invasion of the demon army ourselves. Anyway, we did that twenty years ago.”

That year was after the Little Old Master retired. Chang Tang was facing enemies on all sides. A young Zhulong wanted to come to the south, but was politely refused by the general in the south—because the north was facing a more dangerous war.

At that time, Lao Liang was a first-year soldier. The enemy army besieged Zhennanguan for three months, and almost all the veterans died. Lao Liang died along with the machine gunner veteran. Later, as the fighting continued, Lao Liang became the oldest soldier in the entire trench.

"I heard that the general of Zhennanguan and his family died in battle that year," the young company commander said in a low voice.

"Yes, the general refused the young Zhulong's offer to come here to die. To gain the soldiers' trust, he transferred his family members from all over the country until we repelled the demon army's invasion." Old Liang sighed as he said this.

Everyone had their complaints, but seeing the general's entire family on the list of the dead, what was there to complain about? If the general could die, why couldn't the soldiers die too? What was there to complain about?

So that year, everyone risked their lives, not for their own survival, but to find a way to live for their elders, fellow villagers, and relatives in their homeland.

Until the demon army finally retreated, and every survivor was like a vengeful ghost. "Then what should we do..." the young company commander hesitated.

"What, worried about your girlfriends at the medical station?" Old Liang asked with a smile.

The somewhat young company commander in front of him seemed just like his former company commander—just as young, and just as having a female medic girlfriend. He hoped the commander wouldn't die in the same night raid by the demon army's red-skinned women.

The red-skinned demon who killed the company commander back then didn't get away with it either—after being captured alive, Old Liang personally dug out her heart to prove to the new recruits that these demons, like humans, could die and were very easy to kill.

Old Liang didn't want to do this, but he had no choice. In this killing field, everyone wanted to survive, and he had to tell these young soldiers that the demon army was terrifying, but the bullets in your gun barrels and bayonets could take their lives just as easily.

But very few of those young people survived to the end; too many died in front of Lao Liang.

Old Liang hadn't received much formal education. His family had always been villagers outside the city of Daliang in the north. Long ago, his family used to herd livestock outside Zhennan Pass, but now only monsters lived there.

Generation after generation of their family came to Zhennanguan simply because they didn't want to run anymore—having fled all the way north from the distant coast to Daliang City, too many people didn't want to run anymore; if they were to die, they wanted to die somewhere closer to their homeland.

Just then, the melodious sound of a bugle could be heard from afar.

Old Liang spat out the last cigarette butt from his mouth and stood up—memories from twenty years ago were awakened by the sound of the bugle.

"Sound the alarm! The main force is right behind the enemy!" Old Liang shouted as he approached the machine gun. He pulled back the bolt, then looked at the still bewildered young company commander: "What are you standing there for?!"

“But…but now we need to sound the alarm!” As he said this, the young company commander’s face turned ashen as he looked into the distance—because as the fog dissipated, more and more military formations appeared on the plain overlooked from the small hill in front of the acropolis.

"I'll go and sound the alarm right away!" He stumbled and ran towards the alarm location, which was situated on higher ground.

Old Liang couldn't wait any longer, so he took a short burst of fire.

The trenches immediately resounded—the soldiers, whether they were eighteen-year veterans or three-month recruits, were all stirred up by the sound of the machine gun.

Silly boy, it's much better for you to fire a shot into the sky than to slip and fall halfway down the road.

Watching the young company commander scream as he tumbled down the slope, Lao Liang smiled helplessly. Then he looked at the young man carrying the ammunition box and said, "Go to the quartermaster and get a few gun barrels. Go now."

The demon army understood the threat posed by the machine gun; once their location was confirmed, the spell would surely cover them.

Old Liang is not afraid of death; for him, his death is already 21 years too late.

But the young man in front of me isn't married yet; he shouldn't die.

(End of this chapter)