I was trembling and striking at a box of matches on a small plain south of the Yangtze River, but I always exerted excessive force because I felt feeble. Finally, not only did I break off the match, but I also scattered all the matches on the ground. I had to pick up the matchsticks under my feet again.
I am Meng Fanliao. I am 24 years old and now one of the so-called new divisions, Lieutenant and Deputy Company Commander.
I struck the matches weakly and forcefully. This time, I let the whole empty matchbox pop out of my hand. Then I grabbed back the matchbox on the ground with the speed of snatching.
"Fanla! You donkey! Can't you even light a match? !"
I remembered the official prestige which had been repeatedly offended. With a match and a matchbox in my hand, I stared angrily at the man I was speaking to — Ma Lyuer from the fourth squad, second platoon, a Hebei country bumpkin, glared, and swung his Hanyang rifle, which was about to break in the middle. Now I don't want to say who he was going to hit.
"I am your company commander!" I defended my authority that has fallen with the sticks of matches.
This kind of protest is a bit out of context and immediately refuted, "Deputy! The main one is burning!"
I am an educated person, and I think this kind of debate is a bit boring, so I decided to focus on lighting matches. I often think that others are boring, while I am even more bored myself — I have started to compete with matches again.
Before leaving me alone, Ma Lyuer shouted again, "Can't you get a light from the company commander? — Wow-oh, you donkey!"
The last sentence was at the target he was about to hit, very Beijing opera tune like. After yelling, Ma Lyuer rushed with his Hanyang rifle, which was used as a shovel due to running out of bullets. Now I can say what he was going to hit. Ha-ha — a Japanese 97 type Medium tank, rolling, turning, roaring, turret rotating, synchronous machine gun with the same axis as the main gun roared, the tank looked like a giant beetle rushing into the ant colony. It's more like playing than being trapped and still fighting, because the Chinese soldiers attached to it like ants were really useless. They chopped with shovels, pried with sticks, knocked on the hatch cover with hand grenades, thinking it will open inside, shot at the armor and ricocheted into oneself, and jumped and cursed.
I knelt on one knee outside this mess, the company commander was burning beside me. Except for the living, the entire company burned on the ground that had already been scorched by Japanese artillery after hasty resistance.
I knelt between the sea of fire and the tank, with a homemade Molotov Cocktail beside me. I held a match and a matchbox. It seemed that I wanted to strike a match, but it seemed that I was thinking. In fact, it was just the simplest four words: I was scared silly.
He successfully made a huge noise on the armored vehicle with the rifle butt, at the cost of not knowing where the stock had flown. This is a persistent person who noticed a gap in the front of the vehicle, so he bent down and lowered his head to look, as if peering through a crack in the door.
That's the firing hole for the front machine gun. In a sudden roar, he flew out quietly and elegantly.
This really made me look stunned, but I have this characteristic — I don't forget to curse someone else even I hang myself. I shouted to see him off, "Idiot! For the last time!"
But I still remember the hint from him. I looked at the matchbox in my hand and threw it; looked at the match in my hand and threw it. I grabbed the Molotov Cocktail, crawled to the nearest body that burned the fiercest — in fact, it was completely a flame. That's funny, why should I waste my time with a box of damp matches?
"Commander, I need a light."
The company commander did not express any opinion, so I lit the fire. When I lit the fire, my stomach roared with hunger. I took a sniff and felt guilty for my physiological reaction in the scorched aroma. At this moment, I heard a barrage of machine guns from my back, carrying the sound of the main gun firing, which was completely different from the firing of the Japanese tank just now. I turned back with the already ignited Molotov Cocktail.
There were no more humans attached to the tank. It made a small radius turn in the dead bodies, and the newly fired turret turned towards me. I didn't know whose broken rifle fell from air and shattered my confusion. The bullets from the type 38 rifles were fired from the rear of the side. I took a look and saw that the Japanese squad which was separated from the tank by us was forming a scattered line and slowly approaching.
I made a stand, raised the Molotov Cocktail and began to sprint. The 97 type tank that was close by now looked incredibly large, with its muzzle facing me like a poisonous eye. The type 38 rifles rang again. It was a volley shot. The bottle fell from my hand and I fell down.
The tank moved away with the inattention of a man walking, and the Japanese squad, though still holding their scattered line, walked with the same inattention. As one of them passed me, he thrust his bayonet into my thigh and twisted it.
I died. So I didn't move.
They left and disappeared on the scorching horizon — since there were no more Chinese standing on the scorched soil here.
The entire battlefield was burning, white phosphorus and gasoline were burning, weapons and ammunition were burning, bodies were burning, even soil and craters were burning. When I opened my eyes, I only looked at the burning bottle next to me. It had already broken, and the burning liquid was flowing on the ground, passing by my side, igniting the matches I couldn't ignite one by one.
I stared blankly at the tiny flames that lit up one after another in the sea of fire. They didn't belong to me, they never belonged to me.
It is always like this. A group of rude people who you don't like and never like you, repeatedly frustrate your hopes, and in the end, they and your hopes become a bubble in the quicksand. After four years of defeat and thousands of kilometers of retreat, my company had finally and completely destroyed.
My name is Meng Fanliao, which means ending all the troubles. My father is probably very troubled, and he wants to use my name to get rid of his troubles. I never let go of my troubles, indeed it have caused me a lot of worries since I was young. Moreover, like those rude people who just died, they always shouted "Fanla, Fanla", some didn't recognize words, and some just tried to make things easy.
Now that they are all dead, and looking for the best, I think I have finally gotten rid of the damn name "Fanla", which means "annoyed".
More than a month later, as I was walking in a small town called Chanda on the edge of Yunnan, I suddenly heard a Shanxi guy shouting behind me, "Fanla! Fanla!"
I stopped because I couldn't get rid of the damn name "Fanla" and was shocked and disappointed to the point of being terrifying. To protest, I slowly looked around, but in fact, I knew who the person calling me was. I gave people a false impression of being dull and sluggish now. Never trust and completely give up enthusiasm are foxholes dug by people like me for the purpose of extending their lives. In fact, I am one of the few people who react extremely fast or even too fast in this era.
I am standing at the entrance of the alley. This entire alley of Chanda has now been designated as a military zone, and under the terrifying name, it is actually a concentration area for routed troops. The scattered Dukes were concentrated here to avoid causing trouble to the local area.
Although the hasty sandbag fortification at the entrance of the alley and the few sentinels behind the fortification are both like non-existent, still indicating that we are still considered soldiers. I am still wearing the clothes I wore when I pretended to die, which is also my only clothing. It is even dirtier and tattered, and it is evident that some parts have been lost during the month of fleeing. I am playing with a box of matches in my hand, but it is no longer the box I threw in the escape spot.
The person who was calling me pats me on the shoulder again. Kang Ya, Shanxi people, whose clothing buttons have all come off, so he has to free up one hand to cover the lower hem of his clothes all the time. This is for his identity, not for the sake of decency — even a soldier can leave it open, but Kang Ya is a Warrant Officer, he is an official.
Kang Ya, with a relatively recognizable appearance and an absolutely rough mind, life is something he suppose to be absent-minded about. In this world, his willingness to be like retard is a way of self-protection. His biggest characteristic is that he always asks anyone for anything, no matter when and where. It doesn't matter if he can't get something, and it's lucky when he get something. He didn't even take toilet paper with him, so he decided to squat there and ask for it. He always shamelessly does this because he vaguely understands from his heart that life won't let people like him take greater advantage.
What Kang Ya said is something we can guess even when we fall asleep: "Anything to eat?"
I roll my eyes and slowly lift Kang Ya's elbow to his mouth. Kang Ya is not discouraged to take his hand away: "Gotta cigarette?"
I begin to search myself and, in Kang Ya's anticipation, hand him a match. Kang Ya casually take it over and begin to clear his ears, "Do you have any buttons?"
This is Kang Ya's unique skill, he will keep asking until you have to give something to him to let he go. So I look at the few buttons left on my clothes, and Kang Ya understand that it is a tacit agreement, then he reaches out and takes one away. At the same time, he finds that a sentry behind the sandbags has dropped a cigarette butt, half left! He plans to pick up the cigarette butt as soon as it landed, but the person who threw it was very disrespectful and stamped it out before Kang Ya's fingers touch it.
I don't smoke, I don't have the desire that Kang Ya has, so I stand to look. A soldier in uniform with full supplies and a platoon leader with no soldiers, no guns, no bullets and only one button. They are facing each other like statues, bowing and standing, which is quite interesting. Kang Ya soon feels less interesting, because the sentry pulls the bolt, we can clearly hear the bullet loaded, and the statues come to life. Kang Ya relentlessly picks up the cigarette butt, and wisely turns to me, "Got a light?"
I hold a box of matches in my hand, and I hesitate for a moment. Kang Ya immediately take it away, but the phosphorus surface of that thing had almost gone and soaked in my sweaty hands, making it impossible to ignite. Kang Ya gives up after several futile strokes and throws away my matches. "Your matches never strike. — Do you have a needle or thread?"
I immediately pick up the match, a bit like a cripple picking up his own cane — even though I am already a cripple and don't have one. We will no longer be angry for not being understood, so I answered him calmly, "Vet Hao has."
"Where the hell is vet?"
I resentfully say, "He is asking if there is anything to eat."
Kang Ya is almost immune to this kind of blow, "Go together?"
Anyway, except for an uninteresting cigarette butt, I didn't find anything else this morning — so let's go together.
Kang Ya and I turn around and enter the gate of the shelter, or rather the alleyway entrance of the entire closed dirty alley. The alley is very long, dark and dilapidated, filled with dilapidated soldiers scattered in any corners of the alley, any courtyards, under broken walls, or even above broken walls, gathered or not gathered. Kang Ya and I walk through them. I drag my entire left leg like a newly castrated eunuch.
A defeated army is not as good as a bandit gang, while a wandering army is a thief troop. Without clothing and food, one immediately falls into a strange circle of seeking clothing and food. Four weeks after my entire company was wiped out, I, along with many others like me, wandered to this small county on the Yunnan border. The convention is to hand over defeated soldiers like us to the local authorities, and the convention is that the local authorities hand over wandering soldiers like us to the God. Therefore, when we seek clothing and food, we can only look through the heavens.
Most of the people we pass by have indifferent and bewildered eyes, putting their injured limbs across the entire alley, using all their energy to create the last bit of trouble for others, and then screaming and cursing when kicked by others — by contrast, my lifeless demeanor can be considered full of vitality. While a few people are clustered together, making an undirected effort in the void. Bula is one of them.