How Dare We of Our Kind Cherish Our Lives

The reality was not as Lu Boda had described. Before any orders came down from headquarters, the Japanese battalion stationed here had already begun urgently assembling in the dark, shouting and cursing the moment they heard the explosions.

Through his scope, using the faint moonlight, Wang Yan saw the Japanese rushing out of every barracks. Some carried machine guns, some dragged cannons, others shouldered mortars, while still others loaded ammunition onto trucks. The trucks and motorcycles parked nearby started up one after another. In roughly ten minutes, more than a thousand Japanese soldiers had fully equipped themselves and formed ranks on the parade ground, standing beside the trucks and motorcycles. A lieutenant colonel and a major stood together, listening to reports from their junior officers.

Assembling within ten minutes, fully supplied with ammunition, and ready to deploy at any time—this showed that the Japanese military's discipline and training were indeed quite good. But as the saying went, they only had this one batch of soldiers. After two more years, once Japan opened up the Pacific front, the quality of its troops would begin to decline.

Cutting the power would not affect the military, because they had military radios and field telephones of their own. This was a Japanese battalion, so all the necessary equipment had been issued to them. They must already have been contacting their superiors and waiting for orders.

In the distance came the occasional shouts of Japanese soldiers. Farther away were the dense sounds of gunfire and artillery. Below him came dissatisfied curses from the apartments. Wang Yan lay motionless on the rooftop, continuously scanning the military camp through his scope.

He did not aim at anyone, much less harbor killing intent. No matter how strong a person's intuition was, being targeted for a long time by