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

The last two hours in Vulture Valley felt like being cut with a dull knife.

Knowing you were about to retreat, the enemy slowed their offensive, but the pressure didn't lessen at all. Sniper fire and artillery fire kept watch, and small groups of infantry constantly probed, tugging at your nerves to retreat. The reconnaissance battalion, taking turns providing cover, withdrew from the blood-soaked valley, each step landing beside the uncollected bodies of their comrades. No one spoke; only heavy breathing and the clatter of weapons filled the air.

He Yuzhu was walking in the middle of the column when he suddenly caught sight of the body of Third Platoon Leader Zhang Tiezhu, leaning against the rock wall—the man who had been laughing yesterday, saying he'd go home to get married after this battle, now had a hole in his chest, his eyes staring at the sky. He paused, reaching out to close those eyes, but as his fingers touched the cold skin, a low, urgent growl came from behind him: "Battalion Commander! Move along!"

He withdrew his hand and continued walking. Something inside him felt like it had been sanded raw.

After regrouping with the support troops and withdrawing to the second-line assembly point, He Yuzhu finally felt the tension that had been building up for almost two days snap. He collapsed into the bunker, his eyelids too heavy to lift, his ears still ringing with the sound of artillery fire.

I don't know how long I slept.

When he woke up, it was still dark outside, and he couldn't tell if it was evening or dawn. His throat was parched, so he grabbed the water bottle and took a few gulps. Only after the cold water went down his esophagus did he feel his soul return to its place.

Old Geng lifted the tarpaulin and crawled in, his face showing a complex expression: "Battalion Commander, you're awake? The division headquarters notified us to rest and replenish our supplies on the spot." He paused, "Also... a few reporters have come to interview our battalion."

"A reporter?" He Yuzhu wiped his face, his brows furrowing. With the war in such a state, they still have the leisure for this?

"There are war correspondents coming from headquarters. One of them, a woman surnamed Qin, specifically requested to come here," Old Geng said in a low voice. "Commander Song relayed a message, instructing us to cooperate appropriately. After all, it's for propaganda purposes."

He Yuzhu suppressed his initial agitation, which turned into a deeper weariness. He understood what Commander Song meant—the fiercer the battle, the more heroic stories were needed to sustain their spirits. But when he thought of the soldiers in the medical station who were missing limbs, and the brothers in Gukou who had closed their eyes forever, he felt that any heroic stories were too light to bear the weight of the situation.

"Understood." His voice was hoarse. "You make the arrangements. I'll go to the clinic first."

The assembly point was pieced together from several partially collapsed villages and shelters, and the air was thick with the smells of disinfectant, blood, and firewood smoke. He Yuzhu walked to the entrance of the makeshift medical station converted from an ancestral hall and heard suppressed groans and the medic's short, curt instructions from inside.

He lifted the straw curtain and went inside.

The light was dim, and straw was spread on the ground, with wounded soldiers lying side by side. The smell of medicine and festering wounds filled the air. He saw Wu Dayong—his left arm was wrapped up like a dumpling and hung in front of his chest, but he was still in good spirits, talking quietly to a soldier next to him whose leg was in a splint.

Upon seeing He Yuzhu, Wu Dayong tried to sit up, but He Yuzhu gestured for him to stay seated.

"How is it?"

"It's nothing, Battalion Commander, just a piece of flesh scraped off, the bone is fine." Wu Dayong grinned, but the smile was forced. "It's just that... twenty-seven of the men who came back with me are missing."

He Yuzhu's throat moved, but he didn't reply. He just patted Wu Dayong's uninjured right shoulder.

He looked at them one by one. Some he knew, some he didn't, some were lightly wounded, some were seriously wounded and unconscious. One soldier, no more than seventeen or eighteen years old, had thick bandages wrapped around his head, his face was as white as paper, his lips were cracked, and he was still unconsciously twitching.

He Yuzhu squatted down, took the broken enamel bowl, poured some warm water, found a barely clean chopstick, broke off one end to expose the soft core, dipped it in water, and carefully applied it to the young soldier's lips.

Just then, the light at the doorway dimmed.

Someone came in. Not the medic. It was a new face—wearing a faded military uniform, unarmed, with a dark camera hanging around his neck. It was a woman, with short, shoulder-length hair, her face showing signs of fatigue from a long journey, but her eyes were bright, and she was looking at him.

He Yuzhu paused for a moment, his brows furrowing again. He didn't speak, and continued to dip his brush in water.

The female reporter approached, her footsteps very light. "Excuse me, are you Battalion Commander He Weiguo?"

"It's me." He didn't even look up.

"Hello, I'm Qin Huairu, a war correspondent from Xinhua News Agency." Her voice was clear, with the gentleness characteristic of an intellectual. "I've heard your battalion's battle in Vulture Valley was truly remarkable. I'd like to interview you and your soldiers."

"There's nothing worth interviewing about," He Yuzhu said curtly. "That's just how war is. This is a military area; please, reporters, do not wander around unnecessarily."

Those were blunt words. Qin Huairu paused for a moment, but didn't leave. Instead, she squatted down a little further away, looking at the unconscious young soldier and then at the bowl of water in He Yuzhu's hand. "I just wanted to record the truth. The soldiers are working very hard, and you commanders have it tough too."

He Yuzhu finally raised his head and looked at her directly.

The female reporter was young, but her eyes were stubborn—unlike many others he had met. It wasn't just pure enthusiasm or curiosity; there was something deeper in them, as if she was determined to see something clearly.

"The truth is, people are dying, people are losing their lives." He Yuzhu's voice lowered, but became even more somber. "You're holding that thing," he pointed to the camera, "Can it capture which way bullets come from? Can it capture the sound of cannon fire that shakes a person's internal organs to the bone? Or can it capture the color of intestines spilling out?"

He stared at her: "Reporter Qin, if you want to find heroic deeds, go film those who can still stand. Or film the positions we defended—every stone there has a story to tell. Don't film these things here."

After he finished speaking, he stopped looking at her and continued what he was doing, as if that was the most important thing in the world.

Qin Huairu remained silent for a long while.

The only sounds in the medical station were the occasional gasps of the wounded and the faint rustling of wind outside. She didn't take out her notebook or raise her camera; she simply looked at He Yuzhu's large, muddy hands as he carefully held the chopsticks dipped in water, and then at the face of the excessively young soldier whose fate was uncertain.

"Battalion Commander He," she spoke again, her voice even softer, yet each word clear, "war... is not just about the bugle call to charge and the positions held. Nor is it just about the colors and sounds you mentioned."

Her gaze swept across the dimly lit medical clinic, over every face, whether in pain or numb, before finally settling on He Yuzhu and the bowl in his hand.

"It also has the loss of its brothers, the heartbreak of the survivors; the sleepless nights when it was in so much pain that it bit its crotch and dared not shout; and the officers feeding water to the unconscious soldiers, afraid that they would be thirsty."

She paused. "These are also part of the war. They may not be 'heroic,' but they are real. If we only record the charges and positions, then the war... is being downplayed."

"My mission is to bring back the complete picture of the war. Whether it's the bright side or... like this."

He Yuzhu stopped dipping his brush in water completely.

He looked down at the slightly rippling water in the bowl—a little bit of indistinct sediment at the bottom. What the female reporter said was different from what he had thought, and what many others wanted to publicize.

He didn't respond, unsure how to respond. A place in his heart, thick with blood and fire, seemed to have a crack pried open by those words, letting in a bit of air that made him uncomfortable, yet undeniably uncomfortable.

Qin Huairu didn't expect him to answer. She slowly stood up, took one last look at him and the young soldier, and softly said, "Excuse me," before turning around, lifting the straw curtain, and walking out.

She didn't press the shutter button even once throughout the entire process.

He Yuzhu squatted there for a long time, until the water in the bowl had cooled completely, and the young soldier's lips seemed to have become a little moist. He put down the bowl, stood up, and felt his knees go numb.

Stepping out of the medical station, it was already dusk, the setting sun casting a dark gold hue over the ruins of the shattered village. He saw Qin Huairu's thin figure in the distance, talking to several soldiers resting against the wall, their bodies wrapped in bandages—he held a small notebook in his hand, occasionally jotting down a few notes, but mostly just listening.

Old Geng wandered over again at some point, followed his gaze, and clicked his tongue: "This reporter Qin is quite patient. He spent the whole afternoon wandering around the camp, chatting with everyone. He took a few photos of the distant view of the position and weapons repair, but I don't think he took any inside the medical station."

He Yuzhu hummed in agreement.

He walked back to the bunker, leaned against the cold earthen wall, and closed his eyes. Qin Huairu's words, "the complete picture of war," swirled in his mind. Complete? What is complete? Those of them, caught up in the action, each only saw a fragment—a bloody, scorching, and icy fragment.

Perhaps outsiders can piece together a different shape?

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of these tangled thoughts. His consciousness sank into the system.

Points: 5,168,398. Finally, I've crossed the five million mark.

[Total points reached 5,000,000; Intermediate Technology Preview Permission activated. Preview now?]

"Preview".

A few concise categories and descriptions came to mind:

[Intermediate Individual Combat System]: This includes more advanced individual weapons (such as early assault rifle concepts and lightweight machine guns), individual protection (prototypes of bulletproof plates), and optimized solutions for individual carrying equipment and field rations.

[Intermediate Battlefield Reconnaissance and Communication]: Includes more reliable field radios (introduction to FM technology), portable battlefield listening equipment, and simple night observation equipment (entry-level active infrared technology), etc.

[Intermediate Field Engineering and Logistics]: This involves more efficient field fortification techniques, simple pontoon bridges and obstacle courses, and optimization of frontline material storage and distribution.

[Intermediate Tactical Command and Intelligence Analysis]: Includes company and battalion-level combined arms tactical simulation cases, in-depth analysis of enemy organization and tactical characteristics, and key points of basic psychological warfare and counter-psychological warfare.

Instead of providing readily available, game-changing weapons, the system offered a comprehensive knowledge framework and supporting technologies, emphasizing "systematization" and "sustainability." Looking at these categories, He Yuzhu gradually understood—the system was guiding him towards a more comprehensive approach, closer to modern warfare thinking.

This felt much more weighty to him than simply giving him a few divine artifacts.

Redeeming these modules requires a massive amount of points, and much of it involves knowledge acquisition, which takes time to digest and requires real-world industrial or material support. It can't be rushed.

He exited the system preview.

Outside, darkness had fallen and the starlight was faint. In the distance, Qin Huairu was probably still by a campfire, listening to the soldiers recount their experiences, etched with the smoke of battle, in accents from all over the country—experiences that included the steel explosion in Vulture Valley and a bowl of lukewarm water that had gone cold in the medical station.

He Yuzhu suddenly felt that recording these voices might not be entirely a bad thing.

He pulled out the battle map he had always carried with him in Vulture Valley—its edges were soaked with sweat, and the defensive lines, firing points, and retreat routes marked on it in pencil were now a thing of the past. He spread the map on his lap and, in the dim light filtering in from the entrance to the bunker, began to mark the terrain around the new assembly point on the back with a red pen.

The scratching sound of a pencil cutting through paper was especially clear in the quiet night.