Chapter 45: Desperate Survival
The four hills formed naturally are as orderly as if they were artificially deliberate. In the middle is the shape of a pot bottom, because there is no water channel, and the rain rains all year round, forming a small natural lake. The water is so clear that you can see fish jumping in the lake. There were traces of trees around the lake, which had become dry trunks because of the war. If there is no war, this is definitely a great place for recreational fishing. Now because of the proximity to the prisoner of war camp, whether they were executed, died of illness, or died, they were all rolled down the mountain. Some were rolled to the edge of the lake and half-submerged in water; Some were blocked by rocky branches and hung halfway up the mountainside. When the rainy season arrives in autumn, the corpses are washed away by the rain, rotting faster and stinking more!
The light rain fell overnight, and it was another autumn rain and a cold season. Liang Guocheng was thrown down the mountain, tumbling all the way, blocked by a large rock, which was so large that he was drowning in water that he was almost completely immersed in the water all night. Dawn in the north is the coldest time of the night. After a night of cold autumn rain, he miraculously woke up again. He felt that something moved twice on his eyelids, and there was a smell of heat in a pigsty, and he reached out and chased it, and something furry came running like a dog. It was a wild dog eating human flesh and licking his eyelids, and it just so happened that he woke up and inadvertently chased the wild dog away. He felt that his body was very cold, and he shivered, and touched the cold rain under his body.
He wanted to get his body out of the water and move it to the side to warm him up. Ever since he was wounded, his body was barely on his own, and he fumbled to grasp something, touching something that felt like a human hand. He tried to open his eyes to see what was going on, but he couldn't open the two eyelids that looked like they were growing together. He wiped the rain from his eyelid with his hand, and when he was thrown down and rolled down, a finger-thick branch happened to be stuck in the frame of his eye. He cried out in pain, and his body shook several times in a row like a sheep's horn. He was a soldier and knew that if there was a foreign body in his body, he was more likely to become inflamed. His left index finger and thumb were crossed and pressed against the upper and lower eyelids, and his right hand pulled out the flesh and blood. He fainted again in pain.
The rain seemed to be getting heavier and heavier, and the raindrops crackled on the rocks. Liang Guocheng lay in a puddle, letting the cold rain drip on his eyelids, flowing down his cheeks like a stream into his mouth and into his throat. He greedily sucked hard with his mouth, and felt that he had never drunk such a wonderful thing in his life. Like his mother's * when he was a child, it was his mother's milk that flowed in his mouth, sweet, cool, and nourishing his heart and lungs. His sensations quickly spread throughout his brain, and he wanted to hold on to this happiness and stop time here. He moved and felt a sharp carbuncle in pain. The beautiful things disappeared without a trace in an instant, and the body shivered in the cold rain. He wanted to know what this place was, and what the danger was in his environment. He couldn't open his eyes even if he wanted to, so he raised his hand to bypass the injured eye, rubbed it, and slowly opened it. He saw himself lying in a puddle behind a rock in the middle of the mountain, with a lake below, and two bodies beside him, one of which was already white bones; The other one just began to rot. In the distance, two wild dogs howled and bit for the carcass.
He began to organize his thoughts, and although he had passed out for a long time yesterday, he still remembered some vaguely. From Company Commander Zhang and others being deceived into getting tattoos, to being tattooed himself. It felt like he must have fainted, and the guards thought he was dead and threw him here! This in turn allowed him to get out of the prisoner of war camp and increase his hope of returning to his homeland. He turned his head to look at the freshly decomposed corpse, as if he had seen the man there. I suddenly remembered the Korean people's fighters who were shot dead, the two child-like faces, and when they were tied up and held in front of everyone, they stared at two helpless eyes on their white faces like dead people. A wild dog came up silently, and he picked up a rock and threw it at it, not wanting the wild dog to eat the child's flesh.
No matter how long it is to go home, as long as you have determination and faith, every step forward is close to home. He stood up with his hands on the stone so that he could see his surroundings and find a way out. He found that his wounded leg could not stand at all, and he could barely walk in the prisoner of war camp thanks to the crutches given to him by Company Commander Zhang and the support of his comrades. He thought of Company Commander Zhang and a few of them, and at that time he could see that they were not voluntary, and he didn't know whether they were dead or alive; Or was it really sent to Taiwan? Thinking of Company Commander Zhang, he suddenly thought of the tattoo on his own arm. He leaned his back against the stone and rolled up his sleeves to look at his arms. The prisoner of war camp has only been ten days in total, and it is no longer the feeling of healthy black and shiny muscles in the sun. I have obviously lost a lot of weight, my muscles have loosened a lot, and I have a sickly whiteness that is rare in young people. In particular, a tattoo made him nauseous, and now he felt pain and itching; Redness and swelling around the area. He tried to rub it hard with the rain, trying to rub the tattoo off, but the handwriting became clear. He tilted his head to take a closer look, his left arm was 'killing pigs and plucking hair', and his right arm was 'killing the Communist Party and suppressing the Communist Party' His head buzzed suddenly. This was the slogan used by the Kuomintang regime to insult its leaders during the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. If he is returning to his homeland now, and he is not willing to get a tattoo, can the organization believe it? These incomprehensions also flashed through my mind. Nothing can change the longing of the fighters who went abroad to fight in their hometowns, not to mention that he still has so many comrades-in-arms to prove it!
The rain was heavy again, and the sound of the mountains and rivers flowing down became louder and louder. The lake is also rising faster, and it looks like it's coming to the edge of the rocks. If you don't go up the mountain soon, the lake will flood up quickly! He had an injury in one leg and could only climb up, and he couldn't switch his legs normally, so he could only slowly climb up sideways. Probably because of the war, there was no way up the mountain at all. The waterways that are a little better are washed by the mountains and rivers, but today it rained heavily, and if you climb up from the waterway, you may be washed into the lake. He had to choose a place to climb on a prominent mountain, at least not like the waterways where the rain poured down from head to toe. He climbed up with difficulty, almost three steps forward and two steps back. A large protruding rock in front of you blocked the way. Climbing up from this protruding place, his body was suspended in the air at the most protruding ground, and he was too weak to climb like this. He watched left and right, and large protruding rocks blocked the rain, creating two channels on either side of the rock. Because of the large area of rainwater, it gathered into two waterways, and the water was rushing and carrying stones washed down from the mountain. If you want to open the waterway, you can only go down and return to the original point and find a new way.
He was so weak now, hungry and panicked, and the cold rain made him feel cold to the bone. If you don't go up as soon as possible, find something to eat, build a fire to dry your clothes, and soon you will freeze and starve to death! He noticed that the right side of the water was slightly smaller, and he climbed to the right. When he was actually in the water, he gasped a few times. The water was so big and so fast that it flowed like a small river, and people crawled through it, not knowing whether they could breathe or not. He looked back at the road and rolled in. Mountains and rivers spread over his entire body, and they were unstable, generally large and generally small. He crawled sideways in the water, and he had to raise his head to breathe, and if he looked up and breathed a little carelessly, he would just come over and pour a lot of water into his mouth, but he couldn't breathe enough to drink a few sips of mountain water. He struggled to use both hands and one leg at the same time, and every step he climbed had to put in more effort than ordinary people. One did not grasp steadily, and was washed down the waterway by the mountains and rivers for a few meters, and he desperately grabbed with both hands, and inadvertently grabbed an old tree root before stopping. Thinking that he had fought for his life to climb up, he was rushed down in an instant. If he was not injured or a prisoner of war, he would have gone up with his body and his hands and feet with a few breaths. The current body looks like a man in his twenties, but like an old man in an old state, with fever, cough, unable to stand without crutches, and a sick man who has no strength in his limbs. He felt aggrieved in his heart, and he couldn't find anyone or something to complain about; Because joining the army is voluntary, you can't blame a certain enemy for being injured on the battlefield. He burst into tears, his shoulders twitching up and down while crying, 'Sometimes Hou Nan'er doesn't flick when he has tears, but he hasn't reached the sad place' How accurate it is! The crying made him release the resentment he had held in his heart, and slowly the crying turned into sobbing, and finally stopped sobbing. He raised his head and wiped away his tears, feeling much better when he cried. However, the difficulties in front of him have not diminished at all, and there may be unexpected difficulties waiting for him to overcome. He re-observed the route up the mountain and found a small wooden stick to put in his mouth, so that his nose would not choke when his mouth was ventilated! The effort is back on the way up the mountain.