167: Chapter 167 The Captain's Crime

Gu Yuanshan's hands, which had been clasped behind his back, finally slumped.

Those hands were shaking uncontrollably.

It wasn't out of fear, but rather an abscess of fifty-two years of suppressed emotions that Jiang Feng was now brutally lancing, tearing away the skin and flesh.

He gritted his teeth hard, several cracked syllables squeezing out of his throat.

"Who gave you the nerve to decide our life and death?"

Jiang Feng didn't even lift an eyelid. "Just by the fact that you dared to give me that magnetic field interference meter and let me clear the mines for you."

Gu Yuanshan's entire body swayed.

For the first time, the old captain, who had kept his footing firm for half a lifetime, failed to stand steady.

Jiang Feng didn't stop, specifically poking where it hurt most; he was well-practiced at this.

"You even lent me your lifeblood. Do you really think I'm stupid enough not to know your little scheme?"

"This move you made was a guaranteed win with no losses."

"If I died down there, perfect. Dead men tell no tales. Your brothers could continue surveying, continue cleaning their guns, and peacefully go on being 'living' people."

"That mess underground would be treated as if it never happened."

The muscles on Gu Yuanshan's face tightened like iron, his jaw set like two blocks of dead meat.

Jiang Feng took a step closer, his presence full of pressure.

"In case this outsider's life was tough enough to actually pull the thing out, you could use the chaos to employ force and seize the soil of reshaping."

"To achieve that ethereal dream of yours."

Jiang Feng spread his hands as if delivering the final verdict on this farce.

"You've wasted fifty-two years here, waiting for exactly such an unlucky bastard like me who could clear the path for you."

Gu Yuanshan's knees suddenly buckled.

The hundred-odd pound frame of bones completely lost its spirit.

The eleven veterans behind him could no longer hold their guns steady; the iron-black barrels lowered in unison, pointing toward the ground.

Two rifles clattered against the gravel, making a piercing sound.

But no one lowered their head, and no one bent down to pick them up.

The wicked wind of Wuyin Town scurried along the ground, chilling one's bones.

Supporting his fleshless shell, Gu Yuanshan felt such a strain for the first time.

"You're right."

The weight of those three words was heavier than the sound of those eleven rifles hitting the ground.

"From the third year after entering the town, I knew it clearly."

Jiang Feng stood in place, acting as a listener.

The old captain's gaze fixed intently on the ground, as if wanting to dig up all the old accounts from fifty-two years ago through the cracks in the earth.

"That year, in the middle of the night, I walked to the edge of the abandoned well and took a single look down."

"Just that one look."

"I saw something hanging on the jagged stones of the well wall."

Gu Yuanshan gasped for breath.

"It was a section of a military-green sleeve. The thread at the cuff was from the batch of winter clothes we were issued."

"Inside the sleeve, there was still half a hand attached."

His voice cracked on the spot. "There was a scar on that wrist! It was Old Zhou's! Before entering the mountains, a piece of shrapnel hit him at the shooting range. I saw the medic give him seven stitches with my own eyes!"

At the back of the formation, the round-faced veteran Demolitionist's back suddenly twitched.

He looked down numbly at his left wrist.

Beneath his sleeve, a seven-centimeter-long scar of flesh still lay there flat and smooth.

Gu Yuanshan didn't dare look back at him.

"I ran right then and there."

"I ran back to the station in one breath. When I pushed open the door, my legs were weak."

"Old Zhou was sitting on the threshold, holding an enamel mug and drinking hot water. He even asked me why I was running around blindly."

Gu Yuanshan let out a tragic laugh. "From 그날 on, I could never get over that hurdle."

"Our entire team of twelve people all died down there."

"On the afternoon of August 17th, 1974, the mine's magnetic field went haywire. Thirty seconds. Just thirty seconds, and it was a total collapse."

"In a thirty-meter deep pit, we didn't even have time to leave a single scream."

The old captain suddenly looked up. He didn't cry, but his eyes were bloodshot as he locked onto Jiang Feng.

"It was my poor command! It was my death order!"

Gu Yuanshan pounded his chest punch after punch, the force so heavy it seemed like he would break his ribs.

"The higher-ups only wanted peripheral data, but I was greedy for credit! I wanted to go fifty meters deeper to get a core sample. I wanted to get a Collective First-Class Merit for our team!"

"I just shouted one sentence: 'Let's explore a bit further'!"

"Eleven brothers, not one said a word of complaint. They all followed me straight into the underworld!"

Gu Yuanshan clenched his hands tightly, the veins bulging on his withered hands.

"It was me! I dragged the whole team to be buried with me!"

As soon as these words came out, the rhythm of the phalanx of the dead behind him fell into total chaos.

It wasn't a rebellion; it was that those eleven shriveled mouths all wanted to speak, yet were forced to hold it back.

Old Zhou, the Demolitionist, stepped forward in a hurry. Just as he opened his mouth, his arm was firmly grabbed by a comrade beside him.

From beginning to end, Gu Yuanshan never turned around.

"For these fifty-odd years, I don't know what kind of wicked thing has been keeping us alive."

"But I didn't dare say a damn word!"

He panted heavily. "I signed a military order to seal off the mine. Every day I forced them to train, clean guns, and march, living exactly as we did in '74!"

"I had to lie to them."

"As long as the rules didn't break, the brothers would think they were still alive. As long as they felt they were still breathing, I could repay a little less of my debt as their captain."

Gu Yuanshan's shoulders slumped completely.

"I lied to a group of dead people for fifty-two years."

"And I lied to myself for fifty-two years as well."

The abandoned well square fell into absolute silence.

Zhou Sui, lying in the mud, gave up struggling. She lay there like a dead fish, watching this group of dead veterans who were even crazier than her.

Xun Bai sat up straight in his grand tutor's chair. At some point, he had tucked the battery-less calculator back into his sleeve, his gaze nailed to the Survey Team.

Jiang Feng stood three steps away, coldly watching this tough man personally rip out his own heart and hang it out to dry in the wind.

He didn't speak, nor would he offer any 'chicken soup for the soul.'

Some blood debts and messy accounts can only be settled by the one carrying the debt. Outsiders have no right to interfere.

Gu Yuanshan remained silent for a long time.

So long that the surrounding gloom and mist dissipated slightly.

The veteran finally, slowly, turned around.

He faced the eleven brothers who had followed him for over half a century.

Eleven grey, withered faces turned in unison to meet their captain.

No one had red eyes, and no one drew a gun. There was only a kind of openness from having seen through life and death.

Old Zhou, the Demolitionist, split his dry lips in a grin, his voice still as loud as a bell.

"Captain, why bother worrying about all that?"

"This old history from fifty-odd years ago..."

"The brothers have known for a long time."