Lying, sitting, standing, and curling up, we don't even need to be like patients in the important area of vet Hao's hospital. Anyway, he doesn't look like a doctor either. The simple stove knocked together by iron shelves has already heated up that mess, making the hospital more like a kitchen. Bean is helping vet Hao deliver bowls of batter to the wounded soldiers in the room, but what we're thinking about is just fooling around.
Kang Ya begins to play tricks: "I'll show you a unique skill — eating noodles!"
He reaches out to the bowl which Bean is about to bring into the house, but is rudely slapped by vet Hao with a spoon. We laugh, it's not really funny, but we laugh.
Dragon is very unhappy, he hasn't even found a foothold in this dilapidated place. "Silly happy. Poor shit. Always coughing. Poor to death." He angrily curses, and without hesitation, lays down on the bloodstained operating bed of vet Hao. "I'll show you how to sleep and snore."
Yi has already taken the cold seat before playing. "Let me sing a song for you, then." He sings coyly and uninterestingly, "Butterflies fly away and my heart is also gone. Who will come on this lonely night? Wipe tears from my cheeks, just greedy for a little dependence, greedy for a little love…"
It's hard to say how a Major in our military uniform would torture a group of boors' ears by singing such a song in his reedy tones, even though he is really sad. Dragon who has not yet snored fiercely hits the bed board, causing it to break apart and fall off. He picks up one and throws it at Yi. If I haven't pulled him fast, Yi will have a hole on his head.
Yi's face is between iron blue and pale, while Dragon still unforgivingly shouts, "I got goose bumps from your fucking howling! Pick it up!"
Yi trembles with anger. But facing Dragon, as far as I know about Yi, he is also frightened. Dragon seems to be endless, but relying on his kindness to me, or rather some kind of sympathy, I make a joke and say: "Ladies and gentlemen, brothers from all over the nation, Mr. Meng will play a magic hand to revive my wounds — I will take medicine, take sulfonamide." I reach out my hand, holding two hard-earned sulfonamide pills in my palm and a water ladle in my other hand.
Dragon pooh, he lays down again, "shameless thing."
Because he got the medicine for me, he has a smile on his face. A group of fools clap their hands. Sulfonamide cannot cure my injury, it's all like a clown's farce. I casually put the medicine in my mouth, drink water, and see myself from the ladle, a haggard, embarrassed, and fallen man. I see that I played dead under the Japanese tank; I see that I took off my pants in front of people just for a bundle of noodles and said: "Not only a patriotic officer at war, but a patriotic officer who fights against Japs at war!" How shameless could a person be? I am almost scared by myself; I see that after Zui left, I swept through her property within a few minutes.
Fools are clapping, praising, all over the nation, with southern and northern tones.
"Do you have my portion?"
"Awesome! He can even get that!"
"Fantastic! Fanla is a formidable man!"
"He is really fucking shrewd!"
Yi looks at me silently with jealousy, because no one has ever praised him like this. Dragon slaps his big toe at me, clattering. I look at my medication.
This is my medicine, which earned by shamelessness. This is my leg, which doesn't want to be taken away by Japanese.
I swallow the medicine and drink water. "I feel much better now!" I solemnly announce, and then there is another burst of fragmented applause. I look at my rabble friends, I sway and sit down, and then I slap myself hard in the face, making them silent.
I show off, I confess, I don't know if I'm showing off or confessing, "I stole money, bought the medicine. I stole money from a little girl!"
The reaction of those bastards is what I expected, doubling their applause, stamping their feet, and shouting things like "both wealth and lust" and "shameless".
"I should have patted my chest and told her, 'Don't worry, I'll get your brother back.' Don't be so happy like a chamber pot, Yaoma. Her brother is from your Sichuan regiment, a company commander surnamed Chen. I reassured her, and then, stole all her money."
Useless. Those bastards continue to stamp their feet and whistle. Tonight's meal makes them more energetic than ever before, making my confession a complete show off. As a matter of fact — I don't know as well.
I have to shout back to make them hear: "Yaoma! Do you idiot recognize a company commander surnamed Chen? He's thin, quite white, in his twenties!"
Yaoma licks his still shiny lips and says: "The Sichuan regiment was completely wiped out. All dead. I don't know any company commander. Hey, I know you, you idiot. Hey, you're talking about yourself, aren't you? Call our little girl in brother and sister style, you shifty bastard."
It's "good, good" again, and stomping and whistling. I have to try my best to overwhelm them, "I'm a jerk!"
Dragon roars back: "What are you shouting for? You tiger?"
So everything calms down. Although I still have a stiff face, Kang Ya almost pulls the corner of my mouth to the ear with his thumbs. My eyelids are almost even leveled with the corners of my mouth by his index fingers, making me look like a sad and angry clown.
I am played with my face by Kang Ya in such an ugly situation. That's it. You've done a lot of evil, but you're always forgiven, and occasionally you get angry. You think: is that okay? But that's all right. In the end, you just think that someone has done more evil than you, such as the officials who throw us in the battlefields with nothing — you have already surrendered, that's all.
The scumbags are teasing me about my ugliness, but a voice makes them slowly stop. It is vet Hao, who has just come out of the room, tapping an empty bowl with a spoon. The old man is very calm. He has been watching us, but that kind of calm does not make us peaceful.
After receiving enough attention, vet Hao speaks: "Let's talk about something. We're going to be reorganized, soon after."
Bula quickly retorts: "Bullshit." It fully represents our attitude in the first place.
Vet Hao doesn't laugh because we are always planning to subvert his seriousness. "I can't outspeak you guys. I won't talk nonsense about this kind of thing, I can still be considered as the only doctor in this place."
Kang Ya scoffs, "vet!"
He is kicked by Dragon who is lying down. It's not everyone that is completely uninterested in what Hao is about to say.
Old Hao smiles bitterly and says: "You are the one who are sick and I am the one who is coming to cure. Even if I am a gynecologist, I have to accept my fate. Not to speak eloquently. Today, an officer came to me, saying he wanted to understand the health of the scattered soldiers. He said he would come again, and he also said there would be a war."
Silence. I shudder.
I always see the group of donkeys like Ma Lyuer charging foolishly towards a tank, and the most magnificent scene I have ever seen in my life also makes me shiver with fear.
"I don't want to go north anymore." I freeze for a moment and realize that everyone is staring at me, so I realize that I was speaking on my own just now.
Vet Hao explains: "Who said north? South. It's going south, Burma."
Silence. In silence, Shepigu go to touch the forehead of vet Hao and is beaten by the spoon. The old man has a good heart, but it doesn't hinder his nasty tongue and ruthless hands.
Shepigu licks his hand as if slaver can relieve the pain. "Vet, if you're also sick, I'll make bone soup for you."
Yaoma agrees: "That's right. Burma, that's the Expeditionary Army, own clique. The British help, the Americans pay for guns, everything is available, everything is prepared. Such a rich and fat job, how can it be your or my turn?"
Bula chimes in: "Vet should sleep. Vet is tired and confused."
Yi expresses doubts in his way: "They have won another big battle. The British are all convinced."
I can't bear Yi's words not conveying their meaning, so I explain to everyone: "Yi means that such a big victory has nothing to do with miscellaneous troops like us."
Yi glances at me and wants to say that he doesn't mean it that way, but he happens to mean it that way.
Vet Hao doesn't intend to be pushed down by our miscellaneous troops, "probably to replenish our troops. If we are replenished into the troops, it must mean that there were heavy casualties in the front. If the casualties are severe, it must be a victory that wasn't so big. 'The enemy army will be wiped out in a few months', the Japs say like this, so do we, but we can't believe it."
We are silent, and the old man has been thinking about it since the afternoon, and what he said is also the most rational. That's why we are silent.
"It's just a whole pile of cannon fodder! Only the wooden head with mushrooms out of it will go!" Dragon exclaims, his words accompanied by a huge commotion as he wakes up and leaves us, kicking the stool and pushing the table in anger along his way out.
We stare at each other, and this time no one of us is drowsy or laughing and cursing. We cannot make a decision as simply as Dragon did, because he has been disappointed for eleven years since he was expelled and entered the internal area in 1931. We are old but not as old as him. The expeditionary army is our pride, even though works as cannon fodder but still well-equipped cannon fodder. Being cannon fodder or retting mushrooms is a serious issue.
After stunning for a while, Yi says: "I'm going. I'm going to take the army back from Burma to Shanghai. I'm going to revenge for my father."
Then he crouches on the ground crying. We remain silent. I begin to feel that his marching route is a bit bizarre, and his words are quite over-confident. The main reason is that I don't want to remain silent. Such silence is like a knife cut, so I break the silence and say harshly, "There's something wrong with your marching route. If we go down to Burma, we'll soon reach the sea, not Shanghai."
Yi retorts angrily and sharply: "I know that!"
"I will definitely not go. I have died once," I declare, and I leave. I'm just trying to cover up my dragging left leg. And they look at me to cover up my left leg — before this, I have always been extremely comfortable dragging it, and have thought with pleasure out of suffering that Master Meng dragged out his own style.