Just as he kicked the door open, he saw the tobacco leaves strewn about in the courtyard, drying haphazardly, tools scattered in disarray, and dust flying everywhere. The color of yellow earth seemed to cover everything.
But he saw no sign of any enemy.
He saw only a gaunt woman desperately trying to hide two girls behind her, eyes wide, staring blankly at Huai Shi, terror in her eyes.
"I-I apologize..." he swallowed hard, "got the wrong place."
He was about to turn around when a teammate kicked him aside. Immediately after, he heard the roar of automatic rifles, a series of loud bangs, the faint sound of screams, and the sound of blood spurting.
He didn't even have time to look back.
In the distance, it seemed someone was shouting something. Something whizzed through the air, followed by another loud explosion.
In the end, there was no sound at all—only total silence and a sharp ringing in his ears.
From out of nowhere, an RPG turned everything into rubble.
Huai Shi instinctively lay flat on the ground, crawling forward until someone pulled him up and yelled something into his ear, which he couldn't make out. He just obeyed the squad leaders' commands, firing blindly ahead.
He didn't realize his magazine was empty.
Then he saw the bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies...
Women, children, the elderly, and more children... tall or short, fat or thin... some whole, others torn apart.
It all happened too quickly, so quickly he couldn't react.
He didn't even find the enemies the instructor was talking about before the fight seemed to be over. Then he was dragged by angry teammates to the square and beaten.
Amid intense dizziness and confusion, the instructor walked up. The middle-aged man with the mustache looked down at him and, after a while, gestured to someone behind him.
Someone dragged two enemies who were still struggling to the front.
Then Huai Shi was helped up by the instructor, who gently patted the dust off him. The instructor placed his sidearm in Huai Shi's hands and said something about the shrieking children on the ground.
Huai Shi didn't catch it, looking around blankly to see the cold faces of his squadmates.
He saw the mess of bodies dragged into the square, piled into a mountain. The blood that gathered formed a river.
The instructor said something, and he still couldn't make it out. Consequently, the barrels of his squadmates' guns slowly lifted, aimed at him, and he froze.
The instructor spoke to him one last time.
This time Huai Shi finally heard him clearly. He said, "Fire."
Subconsciously, Huai Shi pulled the trigger at the enemies.
Once, twice, three, four times...
Quickly, the magazine emptied. The two enemies on the ground turned into a mess of flesh, motionless, with blood bubbles continually forming and popping from the bullet wounds, blackening the pale yellow earth.
In the last moment, Huai Shi finally saw his own face reflected off the corpses.
From the lifeless eyes of the two little girls.
「.」
Huai Shi opened his eyes in the room.
Huai Shi began to convulse violently. He yelled furiously at Raven, and then he started to vomit.
Leaning over, sprawled on the ground, he vomited until tears streamed down his face.
The first thing he felt was fear, followed by pain, then regret, and finally only anger and disgust—a profound anger and disgust for himself.
He had actually opened fire.
On two little girls who had no ability to resist...
"Damn it..."
He covered his face exhaustedly, almost wanting to cry, "Damn it..."
Even when he burned Red Gloves to death, he hadn't felt a twinge of anything. But it was in this meaningless record that he felt such profound fear of death and such deep aversion to the act of killing.
There were never any enemies there, only the elderly who had lost their sons in the war, women who had lost their husbands, and children who had lost their fathers...
It was just a senseless slaughter.
He had actually opened fire.
Even though he knew it was just a record and being killed meant nothing, he had actually opened fire... at two children who could hardly be considered enemies.
Because of fear, terror, confusion, or perhaps... weakness.
What on earth had Red Gloves done!
And what had he done?
"It seems I was too eager for quick results; the choice of practical training wasn't quite right," Raven said, looking at him sympathetically. "This is my fault, not yours. Rest for tonight. I will adjust the new..."
"No, just give me a few minutes—"
Huai Shi interrupted her, "Just a few minutes."
Silence fell. Soon, he had calmed down, gone to the washroom, cleaned the mucus and saliva from his face, and returned to the hall.
He said calmly, "Let's do it again."