The Life of a Son-in-Law in a Courtyard House

After successfully finding the first set of remains of a martyr, Yang Dalin gained confidence.

Yang Dalin carefully packed the remains and belongings into the bag he had received from Staff Officer Shi.

Store it in the space.

Continue searching along the base of the cliff.

The road ahead was really difficult to walk on. Yang Dalin was carrying a machete and had to cut down some bushes and small trees to clear the way.

Occasionally, you'll encounter small rivers and have to build bridges over them.

There's no space to help.

Yang Dalin can't expect to go very far in a day.

Finally, in the afternoon, he found another body.

The first step is still to salute, and then collect the surrounding stones and soil into the space.

Gradually, they pieced together the remains.

By evening, they had gathered both sets of remains and their belongings.

Yang Dalin could have continued searching that night.

However, I'm worried that the soldiers upstairs might be getting impatient.

Yang Dalin used a grappling hook and rope to climb up the cliff and made a mark on it.

This will make it easier to continue searching for the other two sets of remains along this mark tomorrow.

Yang Dalin, carrying his luggage and two bags, appeared in front of three of our soldiers.

Three soldiers ran over, looked excitedly at the bag in Yang Dalin's hand, and asked, "Comrade, have you found the remains of two martyrs?"

"Yes, I've found two. So, squad leader, go tell those two from North Korea that we won't be going down the mountain tonight."

Let them go down the mountain on their own.

Otherwise we'll have to go back into the mountains tomorrow morning, which will take too much time on the way.

We brought all the food and drinks.

It's not so cold when we light a fire at night.

I feel that before it gets dark, we can quickly build two simple shelters.

We'll make do for the night, taking turns on guard duty. We'll try to find them all the next day, and then I'll head back.

The class monitor asked hesitantly, "Will they agree?"

Yang Dalin laughed and said, "Don't worry, if they don't agree, we can let them live with us in the mountains."

"Okay, I'll go and tell them."

If you had told us earlier, we could have set up the shelter in three afternoons.

There's no need to wait for you to come back before we can set it up.

"It's okay, I'm strong, I'll finish in no time."

"Squad leader, take your gun and hurry back, or it'll get dark and you won't be able to see the road."

"OK."

The squad leader went to inform those two North Korean bastards.

Yang Dalin put the bag down.

I looked around.

Actually, the place where he let these three soldiers rest during the day was a good place.

It was in a depression under a large rock, and it was sheltered from the wind.

With a little simple work, such as surrounding the place with stones on three sides, a shelter can be quickly established.

The three soldiers rested here during the day and collected a lot of firewood.

Yang Dalin told the two soldiers to continue gathering some more durable firewood, while he went to the other side.

They quickly returned carrying two long logs.

Yang Dalin used a dagger to cut the wood in half and placed it on both sides of the depression.

I made several more trips and collected several pieces of wood to use as pillars.

Then he and two soldiers went around picking up stones.

Of course, if the stones were too big for two soldiers to move, Yang Dalin would move them.

Before the class monitor returned.

The simple shelter built with stones is now complete.

It gets colder in the mountains at night, so Yang Dalin set up a makeshift stove in the shelter and lit a fire to keep warm.

There was a fire outside to light the surroundings and scare away wild animals.

That evening, Yang Dalin planned to take turns keeping watch with them.

When the squad leader returned alone, he said, "You've worked hard during the day. The three of us can take turns keeping watch at night."

Yang Dalin thought for a moment and decided not to continue arguing with them.

That evening, Yang Dalin had some delicious food in his backpack, plus he had caught a small roe deer.

The food was quite good for the four of them.

After the meal, everyone slept fully clothed, with the remains of the two soldiers placed at the very back.

At night, when people are warming themselves by the fire, the officers on duty will add more firewood as needed.

It's not so cold when you sleep upside down.

Nothing happened that night.

The next morning, Yang Dalin told them to stay behind.

They wanted to go with Yang Dalin, but he refused.

He set off ahead of time.

Having learned of Yang Dalin's abilities, the squad leader didn't insist on following him.

I just told him to be careful.

Yang Dalin quickly arrived at the spot he had marked yesterday.

They then used ropes to descend the cliff.

Having learned from yesterday's experience, Yang Dalin searched much faster today.

However, the morning passed without Yang Dalin finding anything.

I ate some of the prepared food stored in my space for lunch.

Yang Dalin rested for less than half an hour before continuing his search at an accelerated pace.

As Yang Dalin was about to walk past a patch of strangely shaped rocks, he turned back to look at it again.

He stored some of the stones that were blocking his way into his spatial storage.

Finally, he discovered that next to a large rock, several other rocks, as if stacked by human hands, were blocking a space.

Yang Dalin stored the stones into his spatial storage.

Behind the large rock and the stones that had been built up, there was a small depression containing two sets of remains.

The two sets of remains were placed close together.

Yang Dalin could clearly see the two sets of remains; all four leg bones were broken.

Of the four hand bones, three should also be broken.

Only one person's hand bones were considered to be in good condition.

Because the unbroken hand bone rested on the shoulder blade of another skeleton.

Their bodies were not torn apart by wild animals.

It must be because of those stones.

His clothes were already tattered and worn, with only a few scraps of cloth remaining.

There are many of their belongings beneath the skeletons.

Yang Dalin gently removed the pieces of their tattered clothes with his hands.

A whistle made from a bullet casing was found on the sternum of the skeleton that had only lost one hand.

The characters "Hua" and "Ning" are indeed engraved on it.

These should be Uncle Chu's remains.

Yang Dalin searched again and found Uncle Chu's old broken fountain pen, the watch he had seized, and a small notebook.

Next to Uncle Chu's remains was a small stone, which looked like one corner had been polished.

Yang Dalin then released the large rock that had been blocking their way.

Sure enough, there were some traditional Chinese characters on the side of the large rock closest to the remains, with the characters for "Chu" and "Niu" side by side at the top.

The other soldier's surname should be Niu. Yang Dalin knew that it must have been a name that Uncle Chu's comrade had told him before he came: Niu Youcai.

Below the character "Chu," vertically carved are the words "Magnolia and Child, take good care of yourselves, wishing for victory, and wishing the country prosperity and strength."

The character "强" was already very blurry, and the last stroke was not finished. Yang Dalin analyzed it and determined that the last character was "强".

It's likely that Uncle Chu was already past his prime by this point.

What Uncle Chu carved on the stone was to wish Yulan and the children a good life, to hope for victory in the war, and to bless the country with prosperity and strength.

Yang Dalin's eyes welled up with tears when he saw them. He straightened up and solemnly saluted them.

Yang Dalin analyzed the situation at the time.