Chapter 77

This search lasted for eight days. Not only did the Japanese troops searching the mountains lose hope, but even Shinsan Yumi had lost confidence, believing that the small team had already escaped the encirclement before it was fully formed.

By the riverbank at dawn, a group of Japanese soldiers patrolled the surging river. A piece of human feces was rolling in the water about thirty meters from them, being chased and eaten by a group of fish. It didn't roll far before it dispersed and mixed into the river.

A Japanese soldier, looking at the occasional splashes not far away, said, "The supplies in China are abundant. If we use a ladle, we could really scoop up the fish in the river."

"Yeah, fortunately, this place already belongs to the Great Japanese Empire..."

Another Japanese soldier took a deep breath of the fresh air and said enjoyably.

After eight days of fruitless searching, Shinsan Yumi had already concluded that the small team had disappeared. The previous attack was just a signal, a show of defiance.

He stayed up all night, and as soon as it was light, he led most of the soldiers in the camp toward the cliff he had always suspected. He believed that this place was very likely where the Soviet team had hidden their supplies. People could escape, but those supplies couldn't be carried away. If he couldn't find the people, finding that batch of gas shells would also mean a successful end to this massive operation, wouldn't it?

More than an hour later, he led his team back to the shale cliff, which was over five hundred meters long and about thirty meters high. This was the mark left by a landslide, where the rain had washed away the soil, leaving the cliff exposed.

He examined the cliff inch by inch, looking for any suspicious signs.

He walked back and forth along the cliff, climbed to the top, and searched carefully, but found no suspicious traces.

It's impossible! Only here, where there is almost no soil, could footprints disappear. This is the best place to hide supplies. How could there be no traces?

He continued searching along the bottom, and suddenly, a patch of dry moss caught his attention.

"Hmm?"

He squatted down and gently picked up the patch of moss. The moss was dry due to lack of moisture. There were several square meters of similarly dry moss on this rock, extending to the dry leaves on the ground, some of which had already fallen off.

When his eyes fell on the gap left by the fallen moss, a surge of joy filled his mind, thinking he had found the location of the hidden supplies.

"No! This is the sunny side, how could there be moss? The soil under the moss is black, not the slightly yellow soil near the rock, clearly an artificial act."

"Got it! So cunning!"

He carefully removed the dry moss and dug into the dry soil with his hands, his face filled with excitement. After ten days of searching, he finally had a result today. This was clearly an artificial disguise. The soil must have been moist or watered, or the moss soaked, which made him overlook this place due to its green color.

He didn't immediately dismantle all the disguises but slowly retreated, ordered the soldiers to aim their guns at the position, and had the communication soldier call all the search teams to gather here.

Time slowly passed, and with more and more Japanese soldiers arriving, it was nearing noon.

Shinsan Yumi called over a squad of engineers, pointed to the position, and ordered them to search carefully to avoid any traps. He then ordered everyone to retreat from the cliff and set up defensive positions around it to prevent the Soviet team from being hidden inside.

After making these arrangements, he himself retreated about three hundred meters away, stood next to a large tree, and observed with binoculars.

The Japanese soldiers carefully removed all the dry moss and cleared the dry leaves around the ground to expose the rock. They then cautiously dug out the soil and slowly moved the large rock plates.

When the first rock plate, about one meter long, two feet wide, and more than an inch thick, was successfully removed, Shinsan Yumi confirmed that this was a disguised cave entrance.

As more rock plates were removed, a cave entrance about one meter high and one meter wide appeared.

"Found it!"

The Japanese soldiers, who had been searching the mountains for days without success, were all elated, raising their guns and aiming at the cave entrance, waiting for someone to emerge.

Shinsan Yumi understood that this was an artificial cave entrance, or an enlarged one, and its size was just right for entry and exit.

"Cunning fellows!"

Shinsan Yumi sincerely praised, holding his binoculars and eagerly watching the cave entrance.

The Japanese soldiers carefully removed the surrounding small rocks, pressed the large rock plate underneath, and then turned to speak to their comrades behind them.

A moment later, a soldier raised a red and green flag, signaling to Shinsan Yumi that the cave entrance had been cleared and that the cave was deep.

Seeing the cave entrance cleared, Shinsan Yumi ordered the soldiers to use flag signals to enter the cave carefully.

Upon receiving the order to enter, a soldier pressed the large rock plate again with his hand, held a flashlight in the other hand, and slowly crawled into the cave.

As his body slowly disappeared into the cave, everything seemed normal.

The soldier carefully observed the surroundings in the light of the flashlight, using his knees and the other hand to move forward slowly.

Suddenly, he felt the rock plate tilt forward, and at the same time, he heard a crack as a wooden stick broke. His heart and soul were shattered. Just as he was about to retreat desperately, he felt a powerful suction force pulling his body into the cave, followed by a surge of explosive force that tore his body apart, along with his consciousness.

Boom!

A deafening explosion shook the earth, and the entire cliff seemed to be hit by a giant aerial bomb, bulging from the bottom and then shattering into pieces that scattered in all directions with the shockwave.

The dozen or so engineers at the cave entrance didn't even have time to react. They only saw their comrade's feet rise as he was pulled into the cave, and then he was torn apart by the violent force.

As the ground trembled and the sound of the explosion filled his ears, Shinsan Yumi, in shock, threw himself behind a tree, covering his head with his hands like a turtle, crouching behind the large tree.

The soldiers around him reacted quickly, quickly lying down in positions where they could hide, covering their heads as the ground shook.

The Japanese soldiers who were building defensive positions a hundred or two hundred meters from the cave entrance only had time to lower their heads and hide their bodies. The sound of whistling rocks, like cannonballs, and the sound of breaking branches filled the air, followed by cries of pain.

Rocks rained down on the defensive positions, leaving the Japanese soldiers who couldn't find cover bloodied and mangled, with most of them dead and only a few still able to cry out, but no one paid attention to them in the dust.

Shinsan Yumi was lucky not to be hit by any flying rocks. One reason was that he was far enough away that heavier rocks couldn't reach him, and the other was that the tree he had chosen was over a meter and a half in diameter, thick enough for three people to hug, so the rocks were all blocked.

In the midst of the cracking and splashing sounds, he grabbed the gas mask next to him and put it on without hesitation. This place could have gas shells, and a single mistake could be fatal.

The violent shaking lasted for about ten seconds. By the time he put on the gas mask, the rocks had stopped falling, and the surroundings were filled with dust and the cries of the injured.

In the dust, the forest was littered with broken branches and trees, and the ground was covered with shattered rocks and mangled bodies. The original green and other colors had all turned to a dull gray, covered in dust.

Shinsan Yumi, trembling, slowly got up and looked around in the dust, unable to see clearly or even find the direction of the cliff.

Through the glass of his gas mask, he saw soldiers with bloody heads and eyes full of fear.

Even the soldiers who had been lucky enough to avoid being hit by rocks now understood what their superior was wearing. The moment they realized it, their faces turned pale, and they forgot to cover their mouths and noses, forgetting all the anti-gas training they had received, standing in the falling dust, waiting for their fate.

The mountain wind slowly blew the dust away, gradually revealing the light.

Seeing the soldiers' resentful and helpless eyes, Shinsan Yumi suddenly felt ashamed, realizing he had been too selfish and had forgotten about the soldiers around him.

A wave of shame and anger surged within him, and he tore off his gas mask, making a gesture to share the fate of the soldiers.

When he took off the mask and tried to breathe, he was surprised to find no burning sensation in his respiratory tract, meaning there was no gas in the dust.

"Damn!"

He was furious and threw away the gas mask, ordering, "Treat the wounded, assess the damage!!" He then led the way through the dust toward the cliff.

As he stepped over broken branches and rocks, through the minced flesh and groans of pain, he arrived near the cliff. The sight of the debris and the collapsed slope, at least several dozen meters high and three to four hundred meters long, made Shinsan Yumi's back go cold.

If it weren't for the precaution of retreating the troops and setting up defensive positions to prevent the enemy from making a desperate move, this explosion would have wiped out most of the search team. The sky was filled with flying debris!

"Damn!"

Shinsan Yumi kicked a piece of debris away, his eyes bloodshot with anger.

Since he first encountered this small team in Jiamusi, he had never accurately gauged their moves. This time, the losses were severe. Although the exact losses were not yet determined, the soldiers on the opposite side of the cliff had no chance of survival. Within a range of three to four hundred meters, the debris was enough to kill all the soldiers who couldn't find cover behind trees. This didn't include the more than a hundred soldiers who had been killed in previous attacks.

"I will make you suffer all the tortures in the world! I will make you cry in pain for three days! No! Five days!!!"

Shinsan Yumi raised his hand to the sky in anger.

While Shinsan Yumi was venting his anger, Dong Ku and his group listened to the sounds around them after the vibration stopped. With only one flashlight, they all held back their excitement, estimating how many casualties the twenty or so boxes of grenades, a dozen boxes of artillery shells, and two boxes of NT explosives had caused. Was it more than a hundred, or more than two hundred...

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