In a forest, a soldier was walking with a rifle. When he walked to a creek and met another soldier holding a rifle, the two started talking.
The two people talked for a while, and it was getting dark. The soldier who walked out of the woods earlier went back empty-handed. That was Li Fushun, and the one who just held the rifle on guard was Shang Zhen.
Hu Biao and the rest of them were not able to catch up with the two companies immediately, and they did not know where the two companies had gone.
When it was getting dark, they could only rest in a forest after marching for a day.
Like the content of the conversation between Hu Biao and the veterans, not only did Shang Zhen have no right to participate, but even the veterans who did not meet the qualifications were wise enough not to get involved.
Li Fushun came here to deliver flowers to Shang Zhen.
Because Hu Biao decided to let Shang Zhen be on duty tonight. For this reason, Hu Biao specifically told Li Fushun, don't take his place tonight!
Li Fushun understood Hu Biao's intentions.
Now that Shang Zhen has chosen to be a soldier, everything that veterans like them have experienced, Shang Zhen will have to experience sooner or later, and being on guard duty is one of them.
So when Shang Zhen heard his third brother Li Yongshun ask him if he was worried about being on guard duty, Shang Zhen looked at the flower trap handed to him by Li Fushun, shook his head and said, not afraid.
Li Fushun did not talk about Lu Dajiao's death today, nor did he talk about the battles in the past few days.
However, he didn't want to bother and told Shang Zhen some precautions on sentry duty.
For example, although sentries cannot sleep when they are on duty at night, they cannot be so nervous that the trees and grass become soldiers.
For another example, you can set up some small traps in front of your outpost to prevent enemies from approaching in the dark.
For another example, when using the flower mechanism, you must not pull the trigger to the end all at once, and you must not burn out the bullets in the drum instantly.
There was no word in what Li Fushun said that told Shang Zhen to be careful, but the words between the lines reflected his uneasiness as an older brother.
Finally, Shang Zhen said, Third brother, please go back. I am not a child. I have killed several Japanese! Oh, by the way, give me your kettle and I'll give it to you tomorrow morning.
Li Fushun thought Shang Zhen was thirsty, so he handed him the military kettle he was carrying before walking back.
Shang Zhen saw Li Fushun's back disappearing into the woods. When he silently glanced at the last trace of red on the mountains to the west, he jumped up while sitting on a rock.
He walked towards the edge of the woods, not forgetting to carry the flower machine on his back and pick up the kettle.
However, Shang Zhen did not walk out of the woods. He took out the bayonet hanging on his waist and began to chop down the dead branches on the tree.
This forest is a poplar forest. I don’t know how old the poplar trees are. Many of the trees are dead. Even the old trees have green crowns, but there are also a lot of dead branches on them.
Shang Zhen chopped and smashed with his bayonet and soon got a lot of dead branches.
He took off his leggings and tied the two leggings together with a live buckle. Then he tied up the dead branches with ropes and carried them into the woods. He quickly disappeared in the woods.
In such a situation, it was as if he was trying to light a fire to cook.
But after a while, Shang Zhen came back, and he got a big armful of branches and tied them with leggings and carried them back.
Shang Zhen carried branches back and forth three times in total. Based on the number of branches, he could roast a suckling pig!
It was getting dark at this time, and the sound of "gurgling" watering came from the creek in the woods.
Then a hazy figure stood up, it was still Shang Zhen, and his night sentry duty began.
Shang Zhen has been running around for a whole day.
The encounter with the Japanese army, the death of Lu Dajiao, the excitement, shock, and sadness have all passed, and all he has left now is fatigue.
By this time, he no longer had the energy to practice aiming the gun, not to mention it was dark everywhere. Should he use the rifle to aim at the stars?
After all, manpower has its limits. I don’t know when I will be able to practice the shooting skills of a hundred steps, the iron feet of running like the wind, and the decisive decision-making skills like company commander Hu Biao.
He and Li Fushun also said similar words before it got dark.
Li Fushun said that if you can persist with the team until now and run dozens of miles a day, you are already very good. You are better than when I first joined the army.
It's over, and added to him, just believe in fate, as long as you don't die, you can become the strongest!
Shang Zhen thought at that time that he, the third brother, didn't know whether he was comforting himself or beating himself up.
But what Shang Zhen is thinking now is, so tired! But he knew he was a sentry, so naturally he couldn't sleep, so he gritted his teeth and persisted!
Only when a person calms down can he realize how disturbed his thoughts are.
Shang Zhen thought about many things.
He remembered his naughty nature when he was a child, and how he was unwilling to learn the carpentry trade from his father. And because he was the youngest in the family, his parents always spoiled her, so much so that he was now eighteen but had accomplished nothing. .
He also remembered that when he was fifteen or sixteen, he saw a girl from a neighboring village who was so attracted to him that it kept him awake all night.
He also recalled the sudden timidity he felt last year for some unknown reason, and the stinging pain in his heart when he saw someone close to him die.
There are too many things in this life that are unclear.
Even those who study may not understand the true meaning of life after reading thousands of books, not to mention that Shang Zhen is only literate.
If he couldn't figure it out, he stopped thinking. At this time, fatigue hit him and Shang Zhen felt sleepy.
I can't sleep! Shang Zhen reminded himself that he stood up silently in the darkness and looked at the stars in the sky.
There are not many stars in the sky today, there are foggy clouds.
Even without scientific knowledge, Shang Zhen knew that the wind was blowing and the clouds were torn apart by the wind.
Sure enough, a small wind slowly began to blow between heaven and earth.
Although the wind was not strong, because their company's camp was in the woods, when the wind hit, there would be the sound of leaves rustling and the occasional snapping of dead branches.
Shang Zhen couldn't help but think of Li Fushun's instructions to him, not to fall asleep, but not to fight with all the trees and grass.
He listened carefully to the sounds in the woods at night. He was actually a little scared to be alone in such a dark night.
But Shang Zhen thought again, the woods in the dark night are no different from the woods in the daytime, it's just that he can't see it, so what does he have to fear?
He enlightened himself in this way, and gradually he became less afraid.
However, the mind can be adjusted, but physical sleepiness cannot be adjusted.
Gradually, Shang Zhen became sleepy again.
For a new soldier, especially Shang Zhen who is not very strong, this kind of physical difficulty is irresistible.
Finally he leaned against the big tree and his head drooped.
It's just that he woke up again after a while.
Shang Zhen couldn't help but let out a long breath because he felt the urge to urinate.
Shang Zhen did not move around in the woods. He stood next to a tree and poured his own liquid, still a child's urine, on the trunk.
Shang Zhen is cautious by nature, and since he is asked to serve as a sentinel, he must do his duty.
He refused to walk in the woods to relieve his sleepiness, because he was afraid that his movement would cause noise. What if the enemy came?
And the reason why he peeed against the roots of the tree was because he was afraid that the sound of his peeing would be heard by someone in the dark.
This is a cautious character. Maybe he won't be like this after he becomes a veteran.
After Shang Zhen finished relieving himself, he still felt sleepy.
Shang Zhen felt that he still couldn't overcome the sleepiness, but since he didn't plan to sleep, he had his own way to deal with it.
In the darkness, he touched the kettle on his body.
That kettle was what Li Wushun left for him before he left.
Shang Zhen opened the lid and poured the water into his mouth.
He was so good at drinking that after a while, he drank the whole bottle of water.
But it's not over yet. Shang Zhen took the military kettle and walked forward carefully. After only taking a few steps, he knelt down and put the kettle into the stream.
Yes, the sentry post chosen by Shang Zhen is right by the creek.
When a fight breaks out, will the creek help him defend? Of course not, Shang Zhen only wanted to drink water for convenience.
Why does he want to drink water?
That's because people who drink too much water have to pee.
Peeing while a person is asleep is called bedwetting or bedwetting.
Generally speaking, adults do not pee while asleep. At that time, they will wake up to pee because they are holding back urine. This is called waking up at night.
And Shang Zhen used this method to prevent himself from falling asleep!
He persisted in his inner belief and refused to fall asleep, but physically he became sleepy again.
But he drank so much water, and there was nothing wrong with his kidneys. The moment his head hung down, he felt the urge to urinate.
He is not a child, so he can only use his urine to irrigate the tree next to the mountain.
After "irrigating" the tree, he forced himself to go to the stream to fill his kettle.
In this windy and starless night in the mountains and forests, Shang Zhen, who was on duty for the first time, kept doing this over and over again until the eastern sky began to light up slightly.
And this is also the darkness before dawn, which is when the sky is darkest.
But at this moment, Shang Zhen heard a strange noise in the woods ahead.
