Chapter 9: The First Shot of the Anti-Japanese Hero

  Dolan's home is on the banks of the Ruili River.

  A mule cart is traveling on a dirt road, with lush green rice fields on both sides.

  "What a true beauty!" Dong Li Mao gazed out at the fields of rice paddies, sighing in admiration.

  "Yes, the rice produced here was once a tribute to the imperial court, and the Dai people lived happily on this fertile land for generations. But war broke the peace of this beautiful place." The beautiful face of Dao Lanxiang was still covered with a thin layer of ash, as if the beauty of the countryside had been shrouded in the smoke of gunfire.

  "In two months, this place will fall, and I wonder what this beautiful scene will become by then?" Dong Li Mao thought that the war would soon cover up all the beauty here, and a sense of desolation rose in his heart.

  "Fallen? Didn't our army win in Myanmar? How can we fall?" Dao Lanxiang tilted her head, her eyes puzzled as she stared at Dong Limao and asked.

  "That's just a temporary victory, but the little devils won't be occupying this place for long. By August 1945, they'll be announcing their unconditional surrender and slinking back to their Japanese island with their tails between their legs." Dong Limao said with certainty.

  Dolan Xiang stretched out his hand, and with the palm of his hand, he touched Dong Li Mao's forehead, then withdrew his hand and touched his own forehead: "Dong Lian Chang, you don't have a fever, why are you talking nonsense?"

  "Lan Xiang, I'm not talking nonsense, this is true. I'm just a descendant of my great-grandfather Dong Jiacheng, but I really am not him. I've traveled through time and space to get here... Ah, I don't know how to explain it clearly even if I want to, you won't believe me anyway."

  "Dong Lian Chang..." Knife Lan Xiang had just shouted out Dong Lian Chang when Dong Li Mao cut her off.

  "From now on, just call me Brother Dong, I won't be calling you Nurse Knife anymore, call me Commander Dong, it sounds awkward to my ears."

  Dolan Xiang smiled slightly, and Dong Li Mao especially liked her smile, the enchanting two small dimples, always made him unable to look away.

  "Alright then, from now on I'll call you Brother Dong." Dao Lanxiang pointed to a lush bamboo forest not far ahead and several banyan trees with luxuriant foliage surrounding it, saying: "Brother Dong, that's my home over there."

  Dong Li Mao looked in the direction of Jian Lan Xiang's pointing finger, under the golden sunlight, the emerald green phoenix tail bamboo seemed to be lightly dancing in the gentle breeze.

  "Are those bamboo shoots, phoenix tail bamboo?" asked Dong Li Mao.

  "Uh-huh, because the top of the bamboo resembles a phoenix's tail, so we Dai people gave this kind of bamboo a nice name."

  "It's indeed a nation rich in imagination and romance." Dong Li Mao had once gone to Xishuangbanna, Yunnan with his classmates, so he knew a bit about the Dai ethnic minority.

  "This sentence was also said by Li Yuanyuan, a sister who lives in my house." Dao Lanxiang said surprisingly.

  "Oh, really?" Dong Li Mao asked: "Who is she again?"

  "She is the head of those people living in my house, others all call her Li Zhǎng, and it seems everyone is afraid of her, but I am not. She is not only not scary at all, but also extremely beautiful, especially when wearing our Dai ethnic minority girls' costumes, you can't tell she's a Han Chinese woman at all." Dao Lanxiang seemed very happy to talk about this woman named Li Yuanyuan.

  "Do all the people living in your house wear ethnic costumes like you?" asked Dong Li Mao.

  "Yes, when they came to my home, they were wearing Dai ethnic costumes."

  Dong Li Mao now believed even more that these people were spies as Jian Lan Xiang had said.

  "Dong Ge, look, isn't it Zhu Paichang and the others who have arrived?" asked Dao Lanxiang suddenly, pointing to the road behind.

  "It should be them." Dong Li Mao also saw it, a truck was approaching towards them.

  Before long, the truck drove up to the cart, and Zhu Yongsheng's head stuck out of the passenger window: "Lian Zhang..."

  Dong Li Mao let Yan Hong stop the mule cart and get down from the wooden board, Knife Lan Xiang also jumped down and stood by the side of the road.

  A truck stopped beside them, Zhu Yongsheng got out of the passenger seat, he already had a gun box on his body, with a twenty-shot inside, and held an armed belt in his hand, with a small gun in the holster on the belt. He walked to Dong Limao's front, stood at attention and saluted: "Report to the company commander, brothers have completed the task you assigned." Then he handed the armed belt in his hand to Dong Limao: "This is a US-made pistol I specially selected for the company commander."

  Dong Li Mao reached out and took it, pulling the pistol out of its holster. This was still his first time touching a real gun, and his hand trembled slightly as he pointed the muzzle at Zhu Yongsheng.

  Zhu Yongsheng was so frightened that he hastily moved his head: "Company Commander, there are bullets inside..." But for some reason, no matter where Zhu Yongsheng's head moved, the muzzle of Dong Li Mao's gun always pointed in that direction: "Com...pany Com...mander... be careful not to misfire!"

  Dong Li Mao only then realized he was too tense, so he pointed the gun at the sky, and under the sunlight, the black shiny body of the gun reflected a dark blue light. He imitated what he saw in movies and TV shows, using his left hand to pull the gun body, with a "click" sound, a bullet popped out from the barrel and fell on the ground. He inserted his right index finger into the trigger groove, his finger trembled, and pulled the trigger. Suddenly, a crisp explosion sounded, startling him, causing his right hand, which was raised to the sky, to involuntarily shrink back.

  "Haha......good gun! Very loud!" Dong Li Mao's soul was still unsettled, he flipped it over twice, then pointed the muzzle at his own face, and sniffed the smell of gunpowder from the barrel.

  "Steady, be careful." Zhu Yongsheng hastily stepped forward and pressed down the muzzle of the gun pointing at Dong Limao.

  "Zhu Pai Zhang, this gun is not bad, I like it! Haha……I also have a gun now, I want to use this gun to kill more devils!" Dong Li Mao was overjoyed and couldn't close his mouth. He still clearly remembered the toy guns he played with when he was young, but no matter how realistic those toy guns were made, they were still fake after all. Who would have thought that the first real gun he got to hold was an American-made one from World War II? How could he not be thrilled?

  "Get on the bus." Zhu Yongsheng said, looking at Dong Li Mao playing with guns as if he didn't recognize him.

  "Oh." Dong Li Mao was still in the excitement of having a handgun, and for the first time in his life, he fired a shot, although not at the chest of the little Japanese devil, but into the sky, and he couldn't help but laugh with excitement.

  He looked up at the truck and asked, "Is the driver Wang Jiagui?"

  "It's two o'clock." Zhu Yongsheng replied.

  Dong Li Mao uttered an "oh" and walked to the front of the car. Wang Jia Gui stuck his head out and chuckled foolishly, saying: "Comrade Lian, the British army's trucks are much better than the old sedan my dad used to drive. They run like a ** stallion, haha..."

  "Second, you come down and let me try." Dong Li Mao beckoned Wang Jia Gui to get off the car.

  Wang Jiagui looked at Zhu Yongsheng with a puzzled expression, then opened the door and jumped out of the car, still holding a long gun with a scope.

  "Is this a sniper rifle?" Dong Li Mao looked at Wang Jia Gui's gun with curiosity and asked.

  "If I had such a good gun before the Donggua campaign, maybe more brothers would have survived..." Wang Jiagui stroked the polished gun body with both hands, and two tears fell from his eyes.

  Dong Li Mao's excitement from firing his first shot was washed away by Wang Jia Gui's two tears: "Second Brother, use your gun well, it will come in handy someday. Kill more devils, not for anything else, but for our fallen brothers." After finishing speaking, he stepped into the driver's cabin.

  "Lang Xiang, you get on too!" Dong Li Mao shouted at Lang Xiang.

  "Commander Lian, perhaps we should let Er Tiao take over for now. Your injury..."

  "You're afraid I don't know how to drive, let me tell you, I have a driver's license..." As he said this, Dong Li Mao suddenly remembered his current identity as Tai Ye Ye and explained himself: "In the past when I was in school, I learned how to drive." He had heard from Tai Nai Nai that Tai Ye Ye used to be a university student, so what he said wasn't wrong, he indeed started learning how to drive in high school.

  Dao Lanxiang sat in the front passenger seat, Zhu Yongsheng and Wang Jiagui climbed into the rear compartment covered with military green canvas, Dong Li Mao started the car and drove it very skillfully, passing by a horse-drawn carriage.

  The car had traveled less than one or two hundred meters when Dong Li Mao saw a jeep speeding out of the bamboo forest across from them.

  "Is that the car of those people living in your house?" Dong Li Mao asked Dao Lan Xiang with a tilted head.

  (Favorites! Fresh flowers!)