Chapter 45: Medicine

The first step upon waking was for Chen Lai to retrieve his weapon.

He declined Uliya’s offer to help him sponge-bathe, using a towel himself to wipe his face and neck instead. Then, he began to dress: pulling on his pale yellow tunic, cinching his web belt tightly around his waist, strapping on his Model 39 pack, and finally placing his steel helmet upon his head.

Putting on this entire uniform was no simple task. The web belt required pouches for ammunition and hand grenades, while the Model 39 pack needed to hold field boot cleaning kits and personal toiletries. Yet Chen Lai dressed with remarkable speed, driven by pure muscle memory.

Within two minutes, he looked like a completely different person. Aside from his still-pale complexion, he was once again a fully equipped and battle-ready soldier.

"Oh, Comrade Commissar, why must you be in such a rush? With such strenuous activity, your wounds are going to tear open again!"

Uliya wanted to stop him, but looking into his calm, steady eyes, she lacked the courage to block his movements, leaving her only with words to try and hold him back.

"Uliya," Chen Lai looked at her, "if I were to lie here and the Pro森s arrived, how do you think they would treat me?"

Uliya fell silent. The Pro森 beasts had a standardized procedure for Rosa’s wounded soldiers: either execution on the spot, or handing them over to the Emperor’s Guard, who would cast them into concentration camps for forced labor until they died.

"Therefore," Chen Lai straightened his collar, adjusting his warrant officer's shoulder boards.

"Rather than lying in a hospital bed waiting to die, I'd rather pick up a rifle and die in battle... Where is Comrade Kortchagin staying?" He walked to the door, pulled open the slightly sagging wooden door, and asked.

"At Julie's house—the only place in the village with a courtyard of crabapple trees. It's the temporary committee office; Kortchagin and several secretaries are in there."

Hearing this, Chen Lai nodded and stepped out of the courtyard. His fairly thick military boots crunched rhythmically against the snow.

Kashi was a tiny village with a very small population. The wealthiest resident, Julie, owned a two-story house with both front and back yards, while most of the other villagers lived in single-story cottages, at most keeping some chickens and ducks in their backyards.

Today, the sun was exceptionally generous, hanging high in the sky and casting an even, warm glow across the snowfield, creating a glare of overloaded saturation.

Chen Lai walked heavily through the snow, making his way step by step toward Julie's house. He felt a chilling pain where the cold wind brushed against his shoulders, much like a draft whistling through an empty cave.

Quite a few villagers were packing their belongings. Large and small flatbed carts stood parked in the courtyards, hitched to horses or donkeys. These beasts of burden breathed heavily, blowing plumes of white mist from their nostrils as they restlessly pawed the ground.

*This is Rosa,* Chen Lai thought. A federation built upon a frozen wasteland, where major cities served as core strongholds gathering talent, and villages provided agricultural goods and manpower, supplying necessary soldiers in times of war.

"Under the guidance of our great leader Stolt, our resistance against the shameless aggression of the Pro森s will surely succeed! Their conspiracy to enslave the Rosa people shall never prevail!"

The village loudspeaker was broadcasting a dispatch written by the Rosa Central Propaganda Committee, its high-pitched female voice carrying a great distance across the snow-covered plains.

Listening as he walked, Chen Lai felt that this broadcast hit all the right notes. That soaring, powerful tone belonged exclusively to working-class women—this was a "feminine voice" holding up half the sky. By comparison, what utter trash were the things that came later.

Encouraged by the broadcast propaganda, Chen Lai's stride grew increasingly vigorous. He entered Julie's courtyard, found the door bearing the sign "Kashi Temporary Committee," and knocked firmly.

"Who is it?" a male voice asked from inside.

"It's me. I'm looking for Comrade Kortchagin. I'm a warrant officer from the Donetsk Front, the dying officer you pulled from the snow," Chen Lai answered clearly, and the door was opened immediately.

The man before him had a lean face. His complexion was far from rosy; instead, it bore the anxious strain of one carrying the heavy burden of countless concerns. Only his eyes left the deepest impression—like a hawk's, like a bear's. When he scrutinized you, you had better have a clear conscience.

"I am Kortchagin, Comrade Warrant Officer. It is truly wonderful that you've woken up! We are currently preparing to evacuate; since you're awake, you can ride on a flatbed cart, and we'll push you to the rear."

Kortchagin looked genuinely delighted. Chen Lai waking up was perhaps the only good news he had heard in quite some time.

Although Kortchagin firmly believed that their socialist motherland Rosa, under the leadership of the Iron Leader, would ultimately achieve victory, they were undoubtedly facing setbacks at present. The Pro森 offensive was as swift as lightning, and the coordinated assault of their bombers and tanks possessed terrifying momentum. Caught off guard, the Rosa army had suffered continuous defeats and was now forced to fall back toward the Great River Defense Line.

"That's how it is, Comrade Kortchagin." Chen Lai shook his hand warmly, their matching uniforms instantly bridging the distance between them: "I've come to retrieve my weapon..."

"Ah, yes, your sidearm! I almost forgot!" Kortchagin slapped his forehead and invited him inside. Only then did Chen Lai notice a man and a woman sitting in the room, their hands clasped tightly together with expressions that suggested a parting of life and death.

"Here is your sidearm, Comrade Warrant Officer. The grenades are in the chest on the cart outside—handle with care." Kortchagin handed over a slender, orange-hued rifle. Its optical sight was as clean as new, clearly having been meticulously maintained.

"Good." Chen Lai nodded, then looked toward the young man and woman in the room. "What are they doing here? Why are they so upset?"

Following his gaze, Kortchagin understood and said in a somewhat somber tone, "Julie is staying behind to execute a liaison mission, while Seryozha is a secretary and must come with us. A couple who only confirmed their relationship less than a month ago is now being torn apart by war. How could they not be emotional?"

"What kind of mission is she undertaking?"

"To contact the partisans, report the situation in the Pro森-occupied zones to General Pskov, and at the same time deliver the new medicine developed by the Rear Scientific Committee to Comrade Pskov."

"Such a mission—why would they have a female comrade do it?" Chen Lai asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Comrade Warrant Officer, you don't understand the current situation. The army is short of men, and frontline intelligence work also requires personnel. The men must go fight as soldiers, leaving us no choice but to let female comrades handle intelligence work, even if they suffer terribly in the occupied zones."

Kortchagin phrased it tactfully, but Chen Lai grasped the full weight of his words.

"What does that medicine look like? May I see it?"

"Of course. I hear this medicine can effectively help frontline soldiers combat the Pro森s. It was developed by Comrade Herzog, Chairman of the Rear Scientific Committee."

As he spoke, Kortchagin handed over a small vial. Its packaging was airtight and marked distinctively with hazardous material warning symbols.

[Charge Potion (Rare): A secret medicine capable of helping half-breeds take a step further toward the 50% critical threshold. Injecting it will cause you to gradually lose your qualification to remain human. Value: 20,000 Credits]