Chapter 7 The Great Glacier

I stood up at attention and answered him in the class president’s accent, “No, no, why me again? It’s my turn to talk to that scoundrel, Ramtso. Equality is the principle of socialism.” The second squad leader said, “I’m not sure if I’m the right person to talk to you, but I’m sure you’re the right person.”

The second squad leader said, “Comrade Xiaohu, why are you the only one who talks too much? I told you not to talk like me, I’m the squad leader, I told you to talk, don’t talk about absolute egalitarianism.”

I looked around a few comrades, they are all sitting in a serious manner waiting for me to speak, Ga wa took advantage of the squad leader did not pay attention to, but also spit out his tongue at me, these a few pieces of material, too unrighteous. Now I can only find myself a step down: “Reporting to the squad leader, what are we discussing today? You haven’t said it yet, how can we speak if you don’t say it?”

At this time the instructor walked over, instructor Li Jian is in his thirties, medium build, is a very gentlemanly person, is more than ten years of veterans, he treats officers and soldiers very well, nothing to stand on, walked over to everyone and said, “Comrades are in a meeting? I’ve come to listen too.”

The second squad leader hurriedly saluted the instructor, who waved his hand and said you guys continue, don’t let me affect your discussion.

The second squad leader’s level is very low, see the instructor is next to look particularly nervous, and do not know what to say, he may think that singing is relatively simple, so he said to the soldiers, “Comrades, we sing a revolutionary song to inspire the fighting spirit, in or out?”

The soldiers replied in unison, “Swell.” The instructor almost burst out laughing at the side, and hurriedly pretended to cough twice to cover up.

The second squad leader, however, did not hear what is ridiculous, a serious face, put his hands up, make music conductor action: “Comrades, I first start ah, two ah well Erlangshan, ready, sing.”

“ErYaMan ErLangShan, even if you high ten thousand feet, the liberation army iron man, determined to break through, not afraid of the wind to blow, not afraid of the snow to drift, to the highway, to build that Tibet.” The sky’s snow is falling more and more, more than a dozen soldiers chorus echoed in the Kunlun Mountains flying snow in the sky, I do not know is the vast mountains flying snow set off the military song of the majestic, or the military people’s songs embellished the Kunlun Mountains of the desolate loneliness, and for a time even another tent in the several engineers are attracted to the song, forget about the plateau reaction, in the song and look at the endless peaks of the distant thoughts.

Finally the instructor gave a few words to everyone: “I, like all of you, am also for the first time in the Kunlun Mountains, the conditions here are indeed very hard, the environment is very harsh, and we are facing the most severe test. But my comrade brother, we are not ordinary troops ah, our company’s title is “Spiked Heroes Company”, this honor is the six company’s predecessors with life and blood in exchange for, we can not in any case to this flag, now the Party Central Committee, Chairman Mao gave us this glorious task, is a huge trust in our six companies, we must carry on the courage to fight against all odds, and we will continue to be the first time in the Kunlun Mountains. We must carry forward the revolutionary soldier’s style of not fearing hardship or death to successfully complete this mission. Comrades, do you have any determination?”

We all replied, “Yes.”

The instructor nodded with satisfaction and continued, “Take an early rest today, our squad will cross the big glacier tomorrow, we should get ready in advance, okay, dismissed.”

On the morning of the third day into the mountains, the squad arrived at the Great Glacier, legend has it that there is an extremely low-lying small basin in this vicinity, and the destination of our trip is that basin. Since it was a classified mission, we couldn’t get a local guide to show us the way (in fact, no one knew the way), so we had to look for our destination in the messy grass-like contour lines with the help of a crudely made military map.

The big glacier is composed of three parts, the drop is very great, the slope is very steep, the highest altitude of more than six thousand meters, the snow does not melt for ten thousand years, the middle section of the longest, all of the mirror surface like slippery ice, ice thickness reached hundreds of meters, the lowest and lower than the average elevation of the Tibetan Plateau, like cracks deep into the earth, where the earth’s gas warmer to form a rare green plant belt, in the lowest place, the plateau! If you want to go deeper into the Kunlun Mountains, you have to pass through the valley under the big glacier.

The engineer had warned everyone before the departure, marching under the glacier can not make any too much noise, or cause avalanches at the top of the mountain, you will have to be buried alive in the bottom.

The people do not even dare to breathe a breath, the result is halfway or an accident, in this process from the glacier up and down to the valley, there is an engineer from Beijing lost his footing and fell off the glacier, we are in the oasis below the glacier, we found the body of his fall to the ground. Female geological prospector Luo Ning and he is a colleague of the unit, see this tragic situation, can not help but want to let out a loud cry.

A geologist named Wang hurriedly covered her mouth with his hand and whispered, “Don’t cry out.”

Luo Ning buried her head deeply in Wang Gong’s arms, sobbing painfully. The instructor led the way by removing his hat and bidding a silent farewell to his companion’s remains, and then the two of us, Ga Wa and I, gathered his body together and buried it in a bag. This engineer had been with us for less than three days, and I only knew that he was from Beijing, and it wasn’t even close to knowing his name, so he died without a word.

The big man with the engineer shovel gently digging the ground soil, digging not a few times, suddenly from the pit he dug, flew out of a big blue fireball, the head is the size of a basketball, hovering in mid-air two circles, all of a sudden rushed into the crowd, the members of the squad hastily dodged one after another.

The fireball fell to the ground, the blue flame gradually extinguished, it turned out to be a strange little ladybug, the whole body is like a red transparent crystal, wings are crystal clear, you can through its transparent armor, vaguely see the inside of the translucent viscera, which seems to be hidden flames in the flow, it looks indescribably mysterious and bizarre.

The guys looked at each other, all want to ask what kind of bug is this? But no one could give an answer, probably a species yet to be discovered, Wang Gong curiously leaned over, pushed the deep myopia glasses mounted on the bridge of his nose, excitedly pinched the ladybug like a red flame with his two fingers, and cautiously looked at it carefully, however, just at this moment, the place where his fingers and the ladybug came into contact with each other was set ablaze by a blue flame, and in an instant, the majestic flames engulfed his whole body.

Wang Gong’s whole body was engulfed by the blue flame, his skin was instantly covered with a layer of large blisters, and then burned, the myopic glasses on the bridge of his nose burned out of shape and fell to the ground, and he also fell to the ground twisting and struggling in pain.

We want to save him is too late, he was burned by the fire demon screams resounded through the valley, heard everyone shudder, and it looks like a moment will not be gagged.

Some people want to use a shovel to shovel earth to extinguish the flame on his body, but his whole body burn area has reached 100%, belongs to the depth of burns, even if temporarily put out the fire on his body, in this lack of medicine deep in the Kunlun Mountains, I am afraid that can’t last more than an hour or two, that is not to let him live and suffer it?

This scene of a living person being burned by fire was too cruel, Luo Ning didn’t dare to look at it anymore and turned her head away, her expression froze, covering her ears and opening her mouth, it wasn’t clear whether she wanted to cry or shout. The youngest Xiao Lin was also terrified, hiding behind the big man, his whole body shaking into a ball.

The second squad leader pulled out his pistol to help him end his suffering, he really couldn’t bear to see him suffer so much, and if he continued to let him shout, he would have to cause an avalanche.

The instructor held down the hand of the second squad leader who was drawing the bolt, and whispered to him, “You can’t shoot, use the bayonet, let me do it.”

There were tens of thousands of tons of snow hanging above the big glacier at the top of the mountain, and any little noise could trigger disastrous consequences. The only thing we could do to help Wang Gong now was to give him a bayonet to the pit of his heart and let him die in pain.

Without delay, the instructor took the bayoneted Type 5-6 semi-automatic rifle from a soldier, gently said I’m sorry, comrade brother, and closed his eyes and plunged the bayonet into Wang Gong’s heart, who finally stopped his heart-breaking howls and fell to the ground without moving again, while the flames on his body continued to burn.

The instructor just wanted to pull the bayonet out of his heart, the demonic blue flames snapped on, and even traveled down the bayonet and up the body of the rifle.

The speed of the flame conduction was so fast that it didn’t even take a blink of an eye, and before people could see what was happening, the instructor’s entire body was already engulfed in blue flames.

The instructor was also struggling and screaming in agony just like Wang Gong, everyone usually knew the instructor too well, he was definitely a tough guy, despite his weak appearance, his endurance and perseverance were good enough to meet the standards of the best professional soldiers, he didn’t know how excruciating the pain of being burned by that kind of monstrous flames was, which caused him to let out this kind of sorrowful cry.

The second squad leader raised his pistol with tears in his eyes, and now he can’t care whether it will cause an avalanche or not, he really can’t bear to watch the instructor suffer any more, and just at the moment when he was about to pull the trigger, the instructor whose whole body was on fire suddenly opened his mouth and said: “I order …… none of you to shoot! …… Quickly take the comrades out of here ……”

The pain on the instructor’s body was unbearable, but his sanity remained clear, he realized that his screams might cause an avalanche, in order to no longer make a sound, he reversed his red-hot bayonet and plunged it into his heart. After a long, long time, his body was burned into a pile of fine ashes.

The remaining members of the squad watched this magnificent and tragic scene in agony, each one clenching their fists tightly and gritting their teeth, trying to hold back the tears that were welling up in their eyes, some of them biting their own lips.

The valley was quiet without half a sound, the blue sky overhead was reflected on the ice surface of the big glacier, giving people the illusion that there seemed to be two identical skies in the world, it was impossible to tell which one was on top and which one was on the bottom, the magnificent beauty like a fairyland, but full of weird and horrible atmosphere.

There were two piles of ashes on the ground, just a few minutes ago, they were both alive and well, but now they had turned into tiny piles of ashes, burned to the point that there were not even crumbs of bones left. If someone hadn’t witnessed what was going on, who would have believed that such a thing could happen in the world.

Suddenly from the ashes left after Wang Gong was incinerated, a blue fireball flew out, it hovered in mid-air facing the crowd, seemingly choosing its next target, its speed was strangely incomparable, and no one was sure that they could escape within its range of attack. A slight vibration sound came from the air, it should be the sound made by this weird ladybug shaking its wings in flight.

Now the squad had lost three people, all the most important members, the instructor who was the leader, and two engineers had been sacrificed, the remaining two engineers, one was the surveyor Luo Ning, and the other one was Mr. Liu from Shanghai Geological Exploration Institute, it seemed that this mission could not be accomplished.

The instructor was gone, leaving the soldiers with less of a backbone in their hearts, but almost everyone had the same thought in their minds when faced with this demonic blue fireball: “I’d rather be buried alive by an avalanche than be burned alive to ashes by this damn thing.”

A few soldiers who couldn’t stay calm had already raised their guns to aim at the ladybugs in the mid-air, and the second squad leader suddenly took a step forward and said to everyone: “Comrades, the instructor has been sacrificed, and now I am the captain! I order all of you to go back alive, right?”

I realized what the second squad leader was trying to do, he wanted to sacrifice himself to buy some precious time for the others to evacuate. I took his arm and choked, “No, you’re not a member of the Party, why should you go? If you want to go, I’ll go.”

The second squad leader pushed my hand away, “You Xiao Hu, you’re not even a member of the regiment, I told you not to talk like me, how come you don’t listen.” Before the words fell, he had already rushed toward the fireball hanging in the air without looking back.