Siheyuan (traditional courtyard house): Starting with the Korean War, returning home to take charge

"Company commander, there's something running over there."

The sentry's voice boomed from the walkie-talkie, trembling at the end. Zhao Guodong grabbed his binoculars, and through the lens, he saw a dozen white figures moving at an incredible speed across the snow-covered plain. Each step seemed to cover more than two meters, and the snow exploded beneath their feet as if someone had planted explosives.

Zhao Guodong swallowed hard, pressing the microphone to his lips. "Command center, someone has crossed the border. At least twelve, and they're moving abnormally—too fast. Requesting reinforcements."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone. "What's wrong?"

"Inhuman speed."

When He Yuzhu was dragged from his cot by the ringing of the telephone, he was only wearing one military boot. Yang Xiaobing's voice came through the receiver, urgent and harsh. "Soviet biological warfare soldiers have crossed the border, towards Tacheng, twelve men. The border guard company's rifles can't penetrate them. Zhao Guodong requests electromagnetic rifle support. The special forces team is forty kilometers from the incident site."

He Yuzhu stepped into his boot with one foot, the shoelaces undone, and stood up. "Have the border defense company hold them off. Tell them not to engage in a direct confrontation, but to use the terrain to their advantage. The bio-warrior's effects only last six hours; if we drag this out until dawn, their bodies will break down on their own. The electromagnetic rifles are with the special forces; they can only be used once the personnel arrive."

"Zhao Guodong said they broke through the first barbed wire. Three soldiers were wounded; bullets hit those people, but they didn't fall."

He Yuzhu grabbed the military cap from the table, tucking the brim under his arm. "I'll be at the forward command post in twenty minutes. Once your men arrive, concentrate fire on their heads. Take one down first, then move on to the next. Aim the electromagnetic warheads at the head or spine; they can't penetrate the torso."

"clear."

He Yuzhu hung up the phone and rushed out of the room. The night wind, at minus twenty-six degrees Celsius, rushed into his collar like a knife. The old Jeep was already running, white smoke billowing from the exhaust pipe across the snow. He jumped into the driver's seat and floored the accelerator. The tires scraped against the snow a couple of times before gaining momentum, and the car lurched forward. A layer of frost had formed on the windshield, which he wiped with his sleeve to create a narrow crack. The lights from the dashboard reflected on the glass, blurring the boundary between the white snowfield and the dark horizon.

The radio crackled with reports from the front lines. Zhao Guodong shouted, "Twelve o'clock, two hundred meters away, they're charging! Open fire!"

Then came a burst of gunfire. The muffled thud of ordinary rifles, interspersed with occasional screams. Someone shouted, "Shoot him in the head! Shoot him in the head! The body is useless!"

He Yuzhu's fingers tightened on the steering wheel. The car was already going eighty kilometers per hour when the undercarriage scraped against a rock under the snow, and the car jolted violently. He remembered the day he delivered food, He Nianhua had mentioned wanting to design a Martian greenhouse, and the boy had drawn a crooked star on the insulated container. If the front lines couldn't hold out, that boy might not even be safe growing vegetables on Earth in the future.

There was a brief silence on the radio. Then Zhao Guodong's voice rang out again, brimming with barely suppressed excitement. "One stopped! Hit in the head! He's down! The others retreated! They retreated!"

He Yuzhu gripped the microphone. "Zhao Guodong, are you sure they've left?"

"Confirmed. They've retreated to the other side of the border; their patrol car is waiting to pick them up. But one person is lying on the ground; they didn't take him with them. Another has a broken leg and is crawling; our people are chasing after him."

"Don't chase them across the border. Bring the one with the broken leg back."

When He Yuzhu arrived at the forward command post, Yang Xiaobing had already spread the map on the table. The distance from the border to the outpost was marked in red, with arrows pointing to the other side of the border. "Five were killed, and one was captured alive. The prisoner was still alive when he was dragged back, but his right knee and below were completely shattered. The special forces said the wound from the electromagnetic projectile was so large that bone fragments were exposed. We had two lightly wounded, but no casualties." Yang Xiaobing's voice was calm, as if he were reading a list, without any excitement.

He Yuzhu didn't speak, but walked to the window. An armored vehicle was parked in the yard, and two soldiers were dragging a body bag out of it. The body bag left a deep groove in the snow, its surface soaked with blood and covered with a layer of dark red ice. The prisoner was dead. He saw Yang Xiaobing run out, squat down, unzip his jacket, glance inside, then stand up and shake his head towards the window.

Yang Xiaobing returned to the room and took off his blood-stained gloves. "The side effects of Hero No. 3. I lost blood too quickly after my leg was broken, and with the hypothermia, I didn't make it to the hospital. The translator said that before he died, he only said four words—'Give me a quick death.'"

He Yuzhu turned around. "Six. Five were killed, plus this prisoner, six. Six of them died while they were alive. There are six left on the other side, dragging their wounds back. The effects of Hero No. 3 have worn off, those six won't live more than three months." He paused. "The bodies won't be returned."

Yang Xiaobing looked up. "Director He, according to the rules of engagement—"

"The regulations don't cover this. They were experimental subjects, not prisoners of war. The Soviets sent them here with no intention of taking them back. Take the bodies back to the research institute and have Qian Zhiyuan and Zhao Chunjiang perform autopsies. We need to know exactly what Hero No. 3 modified in them. The Soviets used us as targets to test their weapons, so we'll use their soldiers as specimens for reverse engineering."

Yang Xiaobing stood there, his lips moved slightly, but he didn't speak. After a few seconds, he nodded. "I'll go arrange for thermal insulation. It's below minus twenty degrees Celsius; if it freezes solid, it's impossible to perform the dissection."

He Yuzhu pushed open the door and went out. The body bag was still in the courtyard, the zipper half-open, revealing a grayish-white face inside. The pupils were dilated, and the thin layer of ice above the gray eyeballs reflected the white light of the searchlight. He squatted down and stared at the face for a while. Around thirty years old, with high cheekbones and frostbitten dead skin on his lips. Before being injected with Hero No. 3, he was just an ordinary soldier.

He Yuzhu stood up and said to the translator beside him, "Write down his name. Take his fingerprints and photos. If we find out who it is, notify his family. Regardless of whether the Soviets acknowledge it or not, we need to know who we killed."

The translator paused, taken aback. "Director He, will the Soviet side want this body?"

"Let them come and ask for it. Ask them through diplomatic channels." He Yuzhu walked back into the house. "By the time they ask for it, we will have finished researching everything we needed to research."

As dawn broke, the convoy set off. Three armored vehicles led the way, followed by He Yuzhu's jeep. The body bag was placed in the second vehicle, its temperature maintained at four degrees Celsius. Yang Xiaobing sat in the passenger seat, clutching a combat report he had just finished writing; the ink on the paper was still wet.

"Director He, Lin Jianguo called from the ecological module. He said the wheat is filling out and will be harvested in forty days." Yang Xiaobing put down the report and looked out the window. "He also said he wants to participate in the autopsy. He wants to measure the muscle fibers and bone strength of that bio-soldier to provide data for the exoskeleton."

He Yuzhu nodded. "Have him work with Qian Zhiyuan on it. Produce a complete report, in triplicate. Send one copy to the Academy of Military Sciences, keep one on file, and give one to me."

Outside the car window, three Soviet patrol vehicles were parked on the other side of the border. The antennas on the roofs swayed in the wind, and the reflections from the binoculars flickered. They neither approached nor left.

He Yuzhu looked away and stepped on the gas.

In the rearview mirror, the bloodstains on the snowfield had been covered by fresh snow. But the footprints were still there, row upon row, each step unusually far apart, like craters made by a giant. He stared at the rearview mirror for three seconds, then turned on the radio. The radio emitted static; there was no signal at all.

He turned off the radio, took out his notebook from his pocket, and wrote a line on the last page: Hero No. 3. Effect lasts six hours. Six dead (five killed, one captured). Bodies transported back to the research institute. Autopsy.

As he closed the notebook, the pen tip pierced the paper, and ink smeared onto the next page, leaving a black dot. He stuffed the notebook back into his pocket and glanced at the combat report on the passenger seat. The cover read "Report on the Border Crossing Incident at the Tacheng Border," and the date below was today.

Yang Xiaobing rolled down the car window a crack, letting in a gust of cold wind that smelled of snow. He didn't say anything, took a cigarette from his pocket, put it in his mouth, but didn't light it.

The convoy drove through the last stretch of washboard road and turned onto the asphalt road leading to the Seongsan Research Institute. Outside the car windows, the snow was dwindling, and the gray concrete buildings were becoming more and more numerous. The smells of the city seeped in through the cracks in the car windows—coal smoke, fried dough sticks, bus exhaust fumes—different from the pure cold of the border region.

He Yuzhu slowed down and drove to the front of the convoy. Melted snow dripped down the edge of the windshield, the wipers swaying left and right, cutting and piecing together the outside world. He mentally reviewed the next few things: after the body arrived, X-rays and CT scans would be done, then samples would be taken and sent to the pathology department. The superconducting ring winding progress on Qian Zhiyuan's side couldn't be stopped. The muscle fiber data Lin Jianguo needed would be given to him within three days.

These events spun the story of the dead Soviet soldier into fragments of data, stuffing them into different folders. He Yuzhu gripped the steering wheel; the three Soviet patrol vehicles in the rearview mirror were long gone. But he knew they were still parked on the other side of the border, their binoculars still pointed in this direction, still watching.