On the grasslands, the men of Fifth Squad basked in the sun as they repaired the road.
"Listen to that. This exercise is really making some noise..." Old Ma tapped stones into place as he laid the road, sighing at the commotion from the exercise area not far away.
"No matter how big the commotion is, it has nothing to do with us," Li Meng said from the side.
He fancied himself an artist and was always saying depressing things.
Old Wei shot him a glance. "Oh, cut it out. If they really sent us into the exercise, we'd probably be written off the moment we got there. We'd puke from writing all the self-criticisms after we got back."
"Sounds like you've written some before?"
"I took part in an exercise once. Fired two shots, then they smoked me." Old Wei shook his head. "Our squad leader was impressive. Back when he joined an exercise, I think he took out more than ten people. The regiment even commended him."
Old Ma pressed down the corners of his mouth and waved his hands repeatedly. "That was all in the past. Why keep bringing it up? If I joined an exercise now, I'd be one of the ones smoked the second I got there."
Xu Sanduo smiled. "Wang Yan, the squad leader, and the platoon leader all joined too. They're all really good. They definitely won't get smoked."
"Hey, you can't say that for certain." Xue Lin took over. "Wang Yan really is awesome, but war doesn't work like that. Listen to all that noise. Ever since the exercise started, the artillery hasn't really stopped. One barrage takes out a whole bunch of people. No matter how good he is, he'd still get smoked."
Xu Sanduo gave a simple-minded grin and said