Courtyard House: Home Alone

He turned and walked toward the airport gate, behind him a series of explosions, the flames illuminating half the sky. Two Type 94 trucks parked on the roadside were overturned by the blast wave, their fuel tanks exploding and setting the surrounding tents ablaze.

"Three hours." He glanced at his watch, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Still early."

Faint explosions could be heard in the distance; Sun Dazhu and his men were clearing the last outposts according to plan. Lin Yifan calibrated his bearings, then flashed towards the area where the gunfire was most intense.

Using his lightness skill to its fullest extent, the frozen ridges of the field receded rapidly beneath his feet. His mental energy remained focused on the area ahead. Twenty minutes later, he heard the familiar bursts of submachine gun fire—it was Sun Dazhu and his men clearing the last outpost.

Lin Yifan slowed his pace and circled around from the flank. Behind the mound, Sun Dazhu was leading his men to suppress a pillbox, with a 40-gun sniper lying beside him, his gun barrels aimed at the pillbox's firing ports.

"Young Master!" Sun Dazhu was the first to spot him, his missing right hand suddenly rising and then falling heavily. "You...you're really back!"

Lin Yifan leaped onto the mound, the hem of his wool coat still damp with airport snow: "I talked for three hours."

"Command center..."

"It's gone!" Lin Yifan said calmly.

Sun Dazhu opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The surrounding soldiers also stopped firing and stared blankly at him. The Japanese soldiers in the pillbox took the opportunity to fire a burst of bullets, which whizzed overhead, but no one dodged.

"Let's finish this battle first." Lin Yifan took out the officer's sword from his spatial storage and tossed it to Sun Dazhu. "It's the Japanese major general brigade commander's sword; keep it for Brother Stone."

Sun Dazhu caught the sword in a flurry, the gold thread on the tassel trembling in the wind. He glanced down at the chrysanthemum pattern on the scabbard, then suddenly grinned, raising the sword high in his missing finger right hand: "Brothers! I've taken the head of that Japanese brigade commander! Let's give it our all, take down this pillbox, and go home for a drink!"

Morale soared like fire. The 40th gun blast blasted down the gate of the pillbox, and assault rifles swarmed in. Three minutes later, the last Japanese soldier fell from the top-floor window and landed in the icy trench.

"Dazhu," he jumped down from the pillbox, his overcoat billowing and then falling, "let the brothers rest for ten minutes and eat some dry rations. Then..."

He took out the deployment map he had seized from Sato, spread it out on the frozen ground, and drew a circle on the railway line from Nanyuan to Fengtai to Huangcun with a pencil: "Let's follow this line and fight all the way to Lugou Bridge."

Before sunrise, I want to let the Japanese devils around Beiping know that their 'forbidden zone' was drawn by me.

Meanwhile, Chen Dashan had already divided the team into two, one following Shi Tou and the other following Sun Dazhu. The trucks following behind had already made three trips to Beiping, truly achieving the goal of bringing back every last grain of rice, not even letting go of the half-bricks dismantled from the pillbox.

Meanwhile, telegrams requesting reinforcements from the Japanese 47th Division, 110th Division, and Mongolian Cavalry Brigade, which were tasked with blockading the outskirts of Beiping, flew to the garrison headquarters like snowflakes.

A group of operations staff officers in the headquarters, holding telegrams, surrounded the deputy chief of staff. The deputy chief of staff waved to the communications officer and said, "Immediately report to General Headquarters the truthful situation regarding the disappearance of His Excellency the Commander, the Chief of Staff, and several division commanders, the theft of the armory and supply depots, and the current situation in North China. Please make the final decision."

The communications officer accepted the order and left, while the deputy chief of staff slumped in his chair, staring blankly at the huge North China operational map on the wall.

Three days ago, the area was filled with small red flags representing the "Imperial Army-controlled zone," but now the area in front of Nanyuan Airport seems to have had all the markings erased by an invisible hand, leaving only a glaring blank space, and the area is still expanding.

"Sir," a major said tremblingly, handing over a newly received telegram, "the cavalry brigade stationed in Mongolia reports that they were attacked by unidentified armed forces south of Zhangjiakou, losing four outposts and suffering... the loss of two companies."

The deputy chief of staff didn't answer, but mechanically asked, "Enemy unit number?"

"At night...it's impossible to see anything at night. The enemy...they're wearing all sorts of clothes, and their weapons are a jumbled mess, but...but their fighting ability is extremely strong, and..."

The major swallowed hard. "And they seem to have some kind of portable artillery; our bunkers and pillboxes can't withstand a single shell from them."

"Portable artillery?" The deputy chief of staff's pupils finally focused slightly. He slowly turned his head, staring at the major's face. "You mean, like a mortar?"

"No, it's not a mortar."

Fine beads of sweat appeared on the major's forehead. "More...more powerful than a mortar. According to the surviving soldiers, the shell had a trail of flame, and it penetrated directly into the bunker before exploding. The brick and stone fortifications couldn't stop it at all."

The deputy chief of staff tapped his fingers unconsciously on the table, making a monotonous tapping sound: "Organize this information and send it to headquarters, saying that we believe 'Ghost' has returned to Beiping."

We hope headquarters will provide tactical guidance as soon as possible; every minute of delay will result in the fall of more strongholds and the deaths of more Imperial warriors.

Before the words were finished, another communications officer stumbled into the command post, his face ashen: "Sir! Nanyuan Airport... Nanyuan Airport, we just received a telegram from Nanyuan Airport, sent directly by their regiment, saying... saying that the brigade command post was attacked, and Brigade Commander Sato was killed!"

The deputy chief of staff's fingers froze in mid-air, the tapping abruptly ceasing. He slowly stood up, his military boots scraping the ground with a harsh screech, and walked step by step to the window.

The heavy blackout curtains were suddenly pulled open, and the hazy morning light poured in, illuminating the slight twitching at the corner of his eye.

"Brigade Commander Sato..." he murmured to himself, his voice as soft as a falling leaf, "An eight-thousand-strong brigade, eight thousand men..."

He suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse and unlike his own, "Immediately notify all troops that can still be contacted to abandon the strongholds besieging Beiping and retreat towards the Shicheng, Tianjin, and Zhangjiakou line."

"Sir?" The major's eyes widened. "The blockade outside Beiping..."

"A blockade?" The deputy chief of staff turned around, a grimace tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You think there's still a blockade? Even right next to you or me, 'Ghost's' people could appear at any moment."

He walked to the wall, ripped off the North China campaign map, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it in a corner: "Eight thousand men, overnight. Sato wasn't a fool; his brigade was the elite of the garrison. And what happened? The command post was destroyed, the armory was looted, and the soldiers couldn't even see where the enemy was."

The deputy chief of staff suddenly grabbed the major's shoulder, his nails almost digging into his flesh: "Tell me, how are we supposed to fight this? Use the spirit of Bushido to block those flying shells? Use a picture of His Majesty the Emperor to block that elusive 'ghost'?"

The major's face turned bright red, but he couldn't utter a single word.