Chapter 1: Survival
How terrible is it to lie in a snow cave and endure temperatures of over 40 degrees below zero?
This is hard to explain, because unless you are there in person, it is difficult to experience the feeling of almost not feeling alive.
I had stopped shivering, and my whole body had lost all feeling, not to mention my fingers and toes. Even opening my mouth had become extremely difficult, as if my nerve center could no longer control my body. Although my eyes were wide open, my vision was always blurry. The misty snow forest was like being in a strange space. I couldn't see the cedar trees clearly, not to mention the snipers who might be hiding anywhere.
Snowflakes as big as goose feathers kept falling. The pool of scarlet, steaming blood beside his hand had frozen more than ten minutes ago, but was now covered by the snow again. Along with the corpse with half of its head missing, it disappeared under the knee-deep snow.
"Bang!"
Another dull gunshot rang out, nearly an hour after the previous one. It was the previous gunshot that took the life of the guy next to him, leaving him forever in this jungle like a piece of frozen meat.
Covering his mouth with thick cotton gloves, Lu Cheng wrinkled his frozen stiff forehead and forced himself to continue lurking motionlessly. He knew that the Finnish sniper hiding somewhere in the jungle should be unable to hold back any longer, and this shot was a test from the opponent.
Time passed by minute by minute, but to the frozen Lu Cheng, it felt like a century.
“Crunch, crunch!”
The sound of heavy objects crushing the snow finally rang in his ears. Lu Cheng, who was buried under the snow, did not react for a long time. The slowness of his brain made him have an illusion. He actually felt hot and itchy all over. He wished he could jump up and strip himself naked.
The "crunching" sound was getting closer and closer, and finally stopped somewhere nearby. Lu Cheng finally reacted. He could even hear the other person's breathing.
"Rustle, rustle."
The snow around him suddenly started to stir, and the hand on his body was pulled away. It was obvious that someone was turning over a corpse.
Can't wait any longer!
With this thought in mind, Lu Cheng suddenly bent over and jumped up. This jumping action could only be performed in his mind. Lu Cheng's limbs had long lost sensation. He used all his strength, but just rolled on the spot, turned himself out of the snow, and lay on the ground with his back facing the sky.
Finally I can see what this damn sniper looks like.
Lying on his back in the snow, Lu Cheng stared with wide eyes at the guy standing less than a meter away from him.
This was a short fellow, wearing a white cloak over a thick brown military coat, a velvet hat on his head, and a thick mask on his face, through which only a pair of exposed eyes and two eyebrows covered with frost could be seen.
The sniper was obviously startled by Lu Cheng's sudden turn over. He took a step back and wanted to raise the rifle in his hand, but unexpectedly, this guy was tripped by something and fell on his back abruptly.
Lu Cheng watched the other person suddenly disappear in front of his eyes, without any intention of moving. He just lay there with his back facing the sky, thinking to himself that maybe he was really going to die this time. He just didn't know if he would have the chance to be reborn again after dying gloriously this time, and whether he could return to the time and space he was familiar with, just like when he was reborn in this era and this country.
The heavy snow was still falling, and the snowflakes landed on my naked face, but I didn't feel any coolness at all.
It was a bit strange that the Finn who fell never stood up again. It felt like he had passed away inexplicably.
"Did this guy leave?" Lu Cheng couldn't figure out what had happened. He tilted his head and looked towards the place where the sniper had just stood.
Because of the viewing angle, Lu Cheng couldn't see much. He only saw a pair of felt boots covered in snow standing upright next to him. The boots were wrapped with thick fur, and he didn't know what animal's fur it was.
I never thought that the enemy would let me go in a life-and-death battle. There was something strange about this. But no matter how strange it was, no one wanted to die for no reason. The desire to survive at the moment of death was often greater than any force.
Lu Cheng struggled with all his might and rolled over on the snow, turning himself from lying on his back to lying prone.
The owner of the combat boots was the Finnish sniper. At this moment, he was lying in the snow, motionless, as if he was already dead.
The experience of escaping death gave Lu Cheng an instant boost of strength. He gritted his teeth and crawled to the sniper, trying hard to strip off his clothes like a Shiba Inu that had found rotten meat. At this moment, the body was not yet completely stiff, so the clothes should still be able to be stripped off. If he waited a little longer, until his body was completely stiff, it would be impossible to strip off these life-saving clothes.
The desire to survive brought endless strength, and the dead sniper's coat was quickly stripped off. The Finnish military coat was very thick and filled with cotton wool. Although it was heavy, it was also very warm. The only regret was that there was a hole at the hem of the coat, and the area was covered with frozen blood. It turned out that the sniper had been injured a long time ago, and the wound was on his thigh. This guy probably died of excessive bleeding and cold.
He wrapped the thick military coat around himself, took off the fur wrapped around the other person's calves and wrapped it around his own calves. Then Lu Cheng lay back in the snow hole where he had been hiding just now, curled up into a ball, and tried his best to recover his strength.
After curling up in the snow for a while, Lu Cheng felt his body temperature recover a little and his lost strength seemed to be replenished. He then dragged over the sniper's leftover backpack. After fleeing in this damn jungle for nearly a week, Lu Cheng no longer had any supplies on him. He needed food now.
There were gains. In the marching bag there were not only fried noodles and macaroni as military rations, but Lu Cheng also unexpectedly found a bag of dried meat. He wolfed down two pieces, and it tasted like reindeer meat.
With something to fill his stomach and a thick cotton coat wrapped around him, Lu Cheng's strength was finally fully restored. The world with heavy snow didn't seem so unbearably cold anymore.
After lying in the snow for nearly half an hour, until his body recovered some strength, Lu Cheng climbed up wrapped in his coat and returned to the Finnish sniper.
At this moment, the sniper's body had been buried by the snow. On the ground, only an uneven human outline could be seen. A 98k Mauser rifle with a scope was hanging on the snow and standing upright next to the body.
Lu Cheng reached out and grasped the barrel, holding the rifle in his hand, brushed off the snow hanging on the gun, and looked at it carefully.
The rifle was well maintained and looked like new. There were some cloth strips tied on the gun body as camouflage. There were a few letters engraved near the buttstock, which was probably the name of the sniper. Lu Cheng tried to spell it out and it looked like Marty Levisto.
Lu Cheng's weapon was lost when he was surrounded before. Now with this 98k, he finally felt more secure. He had been a soldier for more than ten years in his previous life, so using weapons was naturally no problem for him.
After searching the sniper's body again and taking everything he could, Lu Cheng put on the mask that originally belonged to the sniper and set off. This place was not safe for him, and he had to continue walking eastward to meet up with his own troops who might come to reinforce him.
Entering the Arctic world at the end of December is like a kingdom of ice and snow. The vast Saviki Forest is covered in white snow. If you don’t know how to identify the direction, you will easily get lost in this place.
Lu Cheng stopped under a dead coniferous pine tree , gasped and looked back the way he came. In the snow, the winding footprints extended all the way into the depths of the forest until they were completely obscured by the shadows of the trees.
The air exhaled from the mouth condensed into mist in front of the face. The extremely low temperature made one wonder whether the mist would freeze into ice in an instant.
This should be the outskirts of the Saviki Forest. Two weeks ago, Lu Cheng's troops entered the jungle from here and were besieged by the Finnish army in the outskirts of Suomusalmi village.
The regiment that Lu Cheng belonged to chose to break out, but the commander, who was a Cossack, had a rough command style and lacked experience. In addition, most of the soldiers in the regiment came from the Kuban grassland and lacked experience in snowfield warfare. This breakout was quite a failure. The regiment headquarters was counterattacked by the Finns during the breakout, and the entire regiment was dispersed. Lu Cheng fled into the forest with a dozen surviving soldiers. In the following week or so, they not only had to face hunger, injuries, and cold harassment, but also had to avoid pursuit from Finnish snipers and small forces. Of course, the most terrifying part of the nightmare was the tracking from the Finnish Army's Hämeenlinna War Dog Unit. In just a few days, Lu Cheng became the only survivor in a temporary team of more than a dozen people.
Now, after several days of circling, hiding and trekking, Lu Cheng is finally about to walk out of the hellish Savki Forest. If he walks another ten kilometers, he should be able to enter the Soviet border, and perhaps it will be safe there.
Walking in knee-deep snow is very physically demanding, and Lu Cheng cannot let himself sweat, because once his underwear is soaked by sweat, when he stops to rest, rapid hypothermia will kill him. Therefore, he must stop and rest for a while after walking for a while.
The dead pine trees were covered with dead branches. The branches were oily and easily ignited. He made a fire to warm himself. Although he knew it was unwise to light a fire at this time and would easily expose himself, the temptation of the warmth was hard for Lu Cheng to refuse.
