Xu Cheng had let the remaining thirteen soldiers leave without killing them off, he was deliberately letting them go back to spread the story and scare any troops that would come in the future.
Those soldiers had already decided to be deserters when they opened the hood and found no one inside the tank.
Desertion is way better than dying here without knowing why! They missed the taste of hot dogs and the smell of bread back home, and someone had to go back and report the situation here.
Therefore, the thirteen soldiers found an excuse for themselves as they escaped together in pickup trucks.
Xu Cheng went and changed into the soldier's clothes and found a pack of cigarettes on one of the dead bodies before sitting alone in front of the main camp and smoking it.
When there were seven or eight trucks rumbling over, Xu Cheng knew without looking up that it was Chekhov and the others.
