The Courtyard House: The Little Red Devil Returning from the Peninsula

At night, Zhao Weiguo waited until Chen An was sound asleep before moving.

The shed was dark, with only a sliver of moonlight letting in through a hole in the roof. A wind was blowing outside, rustling the thatch on the roof, and occasionally a blade of grass would fall and land silently on the haystack.

Chen An curled up on the haystack, his breathing long and heavy. He was exhausted from dragging the wounded during the day, and after turning over twice, he stopped moving. His hand was still clutching the bullet casing from earlier that day, gripping it tightly, his knuckles white, and he hadn't loosened his grip even in his sleep.

Zhao Weiguo sat in the corner of the shed, leaning against a wooden pillar.

The system interface lit up in front of me.

[Kill experience requirements met. Points Shop unlocked.]

He stared at that line of text for three breaths before turning the page.

The shop list unfolded; there weren't many items, but every single one made his fingers itch.

Medical supplies: Sulfonamide powder, 10 grams per packet, 50 points. Bandage roll, 20 points. Tourniquet, 15 points. Small bottle of iodine, 30 points.

Weapons: Rifle parts pack, 100 points. Grenade fuse kit, 80 points. Mortar firing pin, 120 points. Barrel blank, 200 points.

Supply items: Battle map (this area), 30 points. Dry rations (3 days' supply), 25 points. First aid kit (containing sulfonamide, iodine, and gauze), 200 points. Winter coat, 40 points.

He first swiped the sulfanilamide powder.

A pack costs fifty points, and he currently has three hundred and forty-seven. Not much, but enough. When he took stock of the spoils yesterday, he didn't find much in the first-aid kit: a few rolls of bandages, half a bottle of iodine, and only two small packets of sulfanilamide powder—not enough for a seriously wounded soldier for three days.

He redeemed five packets.

The sulfanilamide powder appeared on the haystack beside him, wrapped in oil paper, about the size of a palm, with a red cross printed on the outside. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand; the weight and packaging were correct. He opened it and smelled it; the medicinal odor was strong, indicating it was genuine.

He stacked five packets of sulfanilamide powder together, tied them tightly with a strip of cloth, and stuffed them under his pillow.

This needs to be given to the medic. We can't say where it came from; we'll just say it was found in the Japanese army's medicine chest. We did find a few boxes of medicine yesterday when we were counting the spoils, but they weren't very noticeable mixed in.

He glanced at the weapons category again.

A gun barrel blank, worth two hundred points. He couldn't afford it right now, but it caught his eye. With the blank and that machine tool, he could machine a gun barrel. The barrel was the skeleton of the gun; with the skeleton, everything else could be pieced together.

He kept this in mind and continued flipping through the pages.

Just then, another line appeared on the system interface.

[Accumulated experience points: 327. Physical enhancement activated.]

Before he could react, his chest felt hot.

It was heat seeping from his very bones. It was as if someone had lit a fire in his heart, and the flames traveled along his veins to his limbs, to his fingertips, to his toes, and to the back of his head.

His fingers also started to feel numb. It spread from his fingertips to his wrists, from his wrists to his forearms, from his forearms to his upper arms, and all the way up to his shoulders, a feeling somewhat like the numbness in your legs after squatting for a long time.

He gritted his teeth and remained silent.

The heat flowed through my body and then began to recede. When it reached my chest, the muscles there twitched twice, as if something was pushing against them.

Then comes acid.

The pain throbbed from his very bones, so intense he wanted to rip his arm off and soak it in cold water. His shoulders were shaking, his knees were shaking, even his chin was trembling. His teeth were chattering, and he covered his mouth with his hand, afraid of waking Chen An.

Chen An rolled over.

Zhao Weiguo froze.

Chen An's breathing became shallow again, and after turning over, he fell into a deep sleep once more. The spent cartridge in his hand loosened slightly and rolled into a crevice in the haystack.

Zhao Weiguo breathed a sigh of relief.

The soreness gradually subsided, receding like a tide from his limbs back to his chest before finally dissipating. He moved his fingers; they were no longer trembling, but his knuckles were tighter than before. When he clenched his fist, he could feel a difference in strength, and he even felt as if he had grown a little taller.

He looked down at his hands.

The calluses on his palms were still the same, but when he clenched his fist, the muscles beneath the skin tightened even more. He tried to make a fist, and his knuckles made a slight clicking sound.

He pulled a piece of iron from the haystack.

The iron bar, about the thickness of a twig, was picked up from the ruins during the day and used to pok at fires. He held both ends of the iron bar and slowly bent it toward the middle.

The iron bar bent.

The iron bar was as soft as noodles in his hands. He stopped when it was bent at ninety degrees, afraid of breaking it and making a sound.

He looked at the bent iron bar without saying a word.

He had to use a lot of force to bend this iron bar yesterday, but today he bent it easily. He turned the iron bar over and looked at it. There was a thin layer of rust on the surface of the iron bar. The rust had fallen off where it was bent, revealing the shiny iron inside.

He stuffed the iron bar back under the haystack and stepped on it.

The system interface is still lit up.

[Tactical simulation range expanded. Current coverage: 300 meters.]

He glanced at the number. It used to be 100 meters, now it's 300 meters. Three hundred meters is enough to cover an entire ambush position. Yesterday at Hulukou, his furthest firing point was positioned 280 meters away, right at the edge of the simulation range. If he had had 300 meters of coverage back then, he could have adjusted the firepower configuration even more precisely.

He flipped back to the online store page and looked at the gun barrel blank.

Half of the Eighth Route Army's guns were captured, and the other half were pieced together; if the barrel broke, the gun had to be scrapped. If they could make their own barrels, things would be different.

He kept that number in mind.

Two hundred points. Based on the kill count at Hulukou, I should be able to get that many points after participating in two or three more battles.

He closed the system interface and opened his eyes.

The shed was still dark, but moonlight shone through a hole and fell on Chen An's face. Chen An was sleeping soundly, with drool at the corner of his mouth, bits of grass stuck to his face, and bloodstains from earlier in the day still on his sleeves, unwashed.

Zhao Weiguo took out the sulfanilamide powder from under the pillow, weighed it in his hand, and then stuffed it back in.

He'll hand them over to the medic tomorrow. Five packs, enough for half a month. He hasn't decided what to do after that. System points don't come for free; you have to get kills to accumulate them. He'd accumulated over three hundred in the battle of Hulu Pass, but who knows when the next battle will be.

He leaned against the wooden pillar, looking down at his hands.

The moonlight shone on the back of my hand, palm up, and the calluses seemed to be a few inches thicker than yesterday.

Chen An rolled over again, muttering something unintelligible. A spent cartridge rolled out from a crack in the haystack and landed on the ground with a soft clink.

Zhao Weiguo bent down, picked up the spent cartridge, and put it back into Chen An's hand.

Chen An's fingers twitched, and he instinctively clenched them.

Zhao Weiguo pulled the iron bar out from under the haystack, straightened it, and put it back in its original place. There was a bend mark on the iron bar, which he stomped on to flatten it.

Then he closed his eyes, leaned against the pillar, and slowly fell asleep.