Through the quiet jungle, a group of men marched at a brisk pace. Yet no one seemed particularly tense; they were all chatting and shooting the breeze.
Suddenly, a group of more than twenty routed soldiers appeared ahead.
The cannon fodder watched cheerfully as Wang Yan stepped forward and raised an arm in greeting.
"Brothers, what unit are you from?"
"Oh, a Sichuan Army regiment? So are we."
"Hey, you say you've had it rough? Look at our hundred-odd men—look what's become of us. That one's wearing a Japanese jacket, that one's got Japanese boots on, and that one's wearing a Japanese watch. Yeah, all our rifles are Type 38 Rifles. Come on, brothers, have a smoke. Japanese cigarettes."
"That's right, we fought the Japanese. Thinking back on it, it really brings tears to the eyes. We flew over from Zenda, but while we were flying along just fine, Japanese fighters shot us down. Good thing that foreign pilot was skilled—he managed to bring us down safely. But we were still rattled half to death when we ran into a small Japanese squad.
"At the time, we only had the pilot's little pistol. It was really dangerous... Later, we figured there had to be reinforcements nearby, so we set an ambush..."
Not far away, the cannon fodder lounged on the ground, smoking as they cursed and split the cigarettes among themselves. There were few cigarettes but many people, so each person only got a couple of drags. Whoever smoked too much was bound to get cursed out.
They roughhoused and laughed as they watched Wang Yan sweet-talk the others.
Long Wenzhang watched Wang Yan talk with animated gestures, getting along remarkably well with those men.
He could not help turning to Fan La, who had a cigarette dangling from his