Chapter 330: Chapter 322: Postwar Reactions
Sisi washed up and then went to bed to sleep. This past month, her nerves had been tightly wound, never having slept a full night’s rest, so as soon as she lay down, she drifted into dreamland.
Sisi lay prone on the hillside alone, waiting for Shangguan Qing’s orders, and also waiting for Tian Xinhua to come to retrieve her. But after firing her last bullet, and still no sign of them, it was not until Sisi could no longer wait and began descending the slope that she discovered the entire company had sacrificed themselves. Intestines, severed hands, severed feet, skulls, blood everywhere—the hillside was strewn with limbs and remains. Sisi, weeping, turned over corpse after corpse.
"Feifei, Zhang Jie, Brother Gangzi, Brother Qinghua, Brother He, Mianhua... sob sob, what’s happened to you all? Brother Xin Hua, where are you? Didn’t you say you were coming to get me? Brother Xin Hua...."
Sisi cried incessantly, her face smeared with tears, her body convulsing. Seeing this, Niu Erniu hurriedly embraced her, gently patting her back while humming a lullaby.
Niu Erniu’s singing was very soft, and before long, Sisi calmed down, occasionally sobbing. Niu Erniu kept holding Sisi, just being there for her, and when Sisi would have another nightmare, she would hum the lullaby once again.
Sisi slept in very late the next day, her head throbbing intensely and feeling groggy. Last night, she had been overturning corpses on the battlefield in her dreams, feeling suffocated by a sea of bodies. Fortunately, there was always someone humming a lullaby in the distance. This lullaby seemed to have a soothing effect; whenever she felt like she was suffocating, the song would arise and bring her relief.
Sisi’s mental state was extremely poor. Mr. Yun let her rest at the Yun Mansion and prescribed her a soothing and peaceful medicinal decoction. Zhang Mingliu and the Old Man also came to see her. Granny Zhao, on the other hand, was uninformed, still thinking it was just Mr. Yun missing his granddaughter after a month without seeing her.
In just three days, Sisi had lost a considerable amount of weight, her complexion also terribly pale, so much so that everyone felt distressed at the sight. But they were experienced enough to know this was a necessary process. Sisi could only tough it out on her own—no one else could help her.
Shangguan came to see Sisi. She was completely unaffected, eating and sleeping as normal, her complexion looking great. Sisi couldn’t help but admire her; of the three of them, two had collapsed. They say Zhang Jie is also not doing well, but Shangguan here hasn’t had a single issue—an impressive person indeed!
"Feifei, you’re amazing!" Sisi gave a thumbs up.
Shangguan, without pausing her eating and talking, lightly said while chewing on dried meat, "You’ll get used to it!"
Sisi was shocked. What did she mean, "You’ll get used to it"? Wasn’t this Shangguan’s first time on the battlefield?
"I was like you when I first killed someone at the age of 15," Shangguan explained seldomly, adding a longer sentence, then continued to ignore Sisi, burying her head in her dried meat.
Such an amazing person!
Sisi was full of admiration, but weren’t you here to visit a patient, sister? Why are you continuously eating dried meat?
Shangguan: Knowing you had dried meat here is the reason I came to see you.
Sisi rested for a week and was more or less recovered, her mental state was not bad, but she had become much thinner, the meat she had painstakingly gained was gone, her chin sharp, turning into a frail figure like Lin Meimei, swaying in the breeze.
Zhu Yunxiu and Mo Liu were both shocked at the sight of Sisi. A month ago, Sisi and Shangguan had suddenly disappeared without a trace, with no clue as to what they were off to do. Zhu Yunxiu had a hint of a guess, but since Sisi and Shangguan didn’t say anything, she wisely chose not to ask.
Zhang Mingliu had requested sick leave on behalf of Shangguan and Sisi, but Mo Liu, the silly boy, really believed it. He ran to Yun Mansion several times looking for Sisi, but Mr. Yun fobbed him off, saying Sisi went out of town to recuperate.
As soon as Mo Liu saw Sisi’s frail appearance, tears instantly flowed out: "Sisi, how did you get so seriously sick? We both went to recuperate, so why did Shangguan Feifei get fatter—it must be because she ate all the good food!"
Sisi: .......
Sisi found it both amusing and touching. She whispered a few words into Mo Liu’s ear; Mo Liu’s eyes suddenly widened, and his mouth fell open, perfectly embodying what it means to be dumbfounded.
"Sisi...Si...Sisi, you...you...you...really...real...real..."
He couldn’t continue after "really"; his upper and lower lips kept moving but no sound came out. Watching this, Shangguan felt an urge to act mischievously and suddenly ’smack’, slapped Mo Liu under his chin, which made his teeth bite into his tongue. Mo Liu sucked in a breath of cold air, his eyes red and teary, casting an accusing glance at Shangguan.
Sisi and Zhu Yunxiu watched, smiling gleefully; they loved seeing Shangguan bullying Mo Liu. What is a Queen attacking? What is a pure White submissive? It’s this couple!
A sharp voice rang out, "Oh, Miss He finally shows herself! And here I was, waiting to join Mr. He on the battlefield for our country. What a letdown!"
The speaker was Liu Xuelian. Ever since she was provoked by Sisi a month ago to foolishly say she would go to the battlefield, she had been regretting it, tossing and turning all night, trying to figure out how to avoid going to the battlefield without losing face the next day at school.
And then, after anxiously waiting until the last minute, when she arrived in the classroom, Song Mengshi told her the good news: He Sisi was going to take a month of sick leave.
"Xuelian, I think He Sisi is definitely scared of going to the battlefield, which is why she’s pretending to be sick. Otherwise, how could she go from healthy yesterday to sick today, unless she has a heart disease!"
Liu Xuelian was inwardly thrilled, "Yeah, I was actually looking forward to going to the frontline with her today. Who knew that Mr. He would bail out at the last moment. Tsk tsk, what a pity!"
If it weren’t in the classroom, Liu Xuelian would have danced a ’loyalty’ dance on the spot to celebrate. Haha, He Sisi, you really got sick at just the right time. It would be best if you never got better and never returned to school!
The two excited people selectively forgot the other person who had taken sick leave—Shangguan Feifei.
With He Sisi not at school, Liu Xuelian and Song Mengshi’s moods were brighter than ever. Nobody was prettier than them, nobody had more new clothes than them, nobody could beat them... Oh, the sky is so blue, the flowers are so red, it’s just too beautiful!
Sisi sneered: Granny is about to come back and crush you!
So today, when Liu Xuelian and Song Mengshi saw Sisi, they felt a lump in their throats, finally remembering that a month had passed.
Seeing Sisi looking haggard, Liu Xuelian actually believed that she was sick and was secretly pleased. Recalling the humiliation from a month ago, she couldn’t help but throw jabs.
Mo Liu and Zhu Yunxiu were so angry they wanted to curse her out, but were held back by Sisi. After a month of war’s baptism, Sisi’s thoughts had undergone a lot of change. She might have had the patience to play around with little bugs like Liu Xuelian before, but now, whenever she thought of the soldiers who had sacrificed at the front, an anger surged within her.