Chapter 2 Nowhere to Hide
"Crack, crack"
The fiercely burning pine branches made a series of crisp sounds like groans, and the dark red flames quickly melted the surrounding snow. Similarly, the radiating heat from the flames made Lu Cheng, who was guarding on the side, feel the happiness of being alive for the first time in several days.
Taking off the gloves that had long been in disrepair, Lu Cheng put his hands close to the fire, feeling the long-lost warmth. He felt that the blood hidden under his flesh seemed to have melted, and his whole body was warm. He just wanted to be happy like this forever.
After roasting for a while and feeling his body warm, Lu Cheng remembered his lunch. He still had some reindeer jerky that he had found on the Finnish sniper, so it was just right to take it out and eat it hot.
Dragging the marching bag behind him, Lu Cheng searched through it, but he didn't find the hidden reindeer jerky. Instead, he found a hardcover diary, which was the diary of his predecessor.
When touching the diary, Lu Cheng's hand stopped, and a very strange feeling rose from the bottom of his heart. He didn't know what it would feel like if he looked through this diary. Was he reading someone else's history, or looking back on his own past?
Giving up the idea of continuing to look for dried meat, Lu Cheng took out the diary, placed it on his curled knees, and slowly opened the title page.
"Yuri Arkhipovich Kulyokov," this is the name of the diary owner, and also Lu Cheng's current name, a standard Russian name.
The diary was started a year ago, when Lu Cheng's predecessor had just joined the 163rd Division of the Ninth Army of the Leningrad Military Region. Page by page, it recorded some trivial things that happened in the barracks.
Lu Cheng still had some memories of his past life in his mind. Yuri had a good background. His hometown was Kingisepp, a city not far from St. Petersburg. His father, Arkhip Sr., was born into a leatherworker family. In 1913, he joined the revolution because he was dissatisfied with the exploitation of the nobles. He participated in the February Revolution and the Great October Revolution. He was a senior Bolshevik soldier and served in the equally senior First Cavalry Army as a regiment commander. Unfortunately, in 1921, in the war against the White Bandit Army, Arkhip Sr. died.
Sometimes Lu Cheng thought that if this cheap old man was still alive, he could probably go home and live a peaceful life as a son of a noble family. As a regiment commander in 1921, he should be a division commander by now, right? Don't worry about the "Great Purge". That was the First Cavalry Army. Count the senior Soviet generals who were purged. How many of them were from the First Cavalry Army?
As the descendant of a revolutionary martyr, Yuri, who lost his mother at a young age, was sent to a Leningrad nursery. At the age of 18, he was recommended by the "Leningrad Volunteer Association for Supporting the Army and Navy" to enter the Pskov Military School. He graduated a year ago and joined the army as a second lieutenant.
Second lieutenant is Yuri's military rank, and platoon leader is his position, but he is now just a platoon leader without any soldiers, and his subordinates are probably buried in the snow by now.
I’m a little worried!
Closing the notebook in his hand, Lu Cheng sighed. As a grassroots officer, he didn't know what fate he would face even if he successfully escaped back to the Soviet Union this time. But then again, what else could he do if he didn't go back? Stay in Finland? That would be courting death. The Finns would not have any good feelings towards a Russian of East Slavic descent. Travel thousands of miles and run back to China? Don't be ridiculous. Not to mention whether he could go back, even if he did, with his current body, he could no longer be a Chinese.
He is no longer a yellow-skinned, black-eyed Chinese man, but a blond-haired, blue-eyed Russian. His name is no longer Lu Cheng, but Yuri, Yuri Arkhipovich Kulyokov.
The fire in front of him was obviously much smaller. Lu Cheng collected his thoughts, rubbed his hands, stood up, and prepared to pick up two more dead branches.
Almost at the moment he stood up, Lu Cheng shuddered violently. He noticed something unusual out of the corner of his eye. A small pile of snow about ten meters away on the left seemed to move.
There was no wind at this time, so the snow piles would not move. The first thought that flashed through Lu Cheng's mind was - snipers! Damn, Finnish snipers that seemed to be everywhere.
Lu Cheng suddenly fell to the ground, lowering his hands as low as possible. He felt the blood rushing up and his head swelling. He knew that if there really was a sniper hiding there and he was hostile to him, he would have one foot in the grave.
The 98k that he picked up was lying at his feet, but Lu Cheng didn't dare to move at all. At such a close distance, if the opponent aimed at him, he would have no room to fight back.
“Plop, plop.”
His heart was beating so fast that Lu Cheng himself seemed to be able to hear the sound. But the strange thing was that as time passed, the damn sniper never fired a shot.
After lying in the snow for nearly five minutes, the initial panic turned into surprise. Lu Cheng couldn't help but raise his head and look in the direction of the snow pile.
Oh shit!
Lu Cheng couldn't help spitting when he saw it. The snow pile was indeed moving, but it was definitely not a sniper, but a stoat with cunning eyes. The little guy squatted on the thick snow, only using his two hind legs to stand on the ground, looking over here, his little red nose twitching, as if mocking Lu Cheng's cowardice.
I'm going to beat you to death, you beast, Lu Cheng cursed inwardly, turned over and sat up in the snow, grabbed the 98k, held it horizontally and wanted to hit the little guy.
The weasel obviously didn't sense the danger and had no intention of running away. When it saw Lu Cheng standing up, it pounced down and rushed towards him on all fours.
There was no gunshot. Lu Cheng kept holding the gun horizontally, his eyes fixed on the scope, standing motionless, as if he was petrified.
Just within the field of view of the sight, in the distance behind the white weasel, something like a tank turret stood between two coniferous pines covered with snow. It was estimated that its location was about several hundred meters away from Lu Cheng's current location.
Giving up the idea of shooting the weasel, Lu Cheng quickly covered the fire with the snow, put his backpack and rifle on his back, then hid his body, and with the cover of the pine trees in the forest, he sneaked towards the tank silently.
In the past two weeks, Lu Cheng had gotten used to the Finnish tactics. The guerrilla warfare of these guys was too cunning. There were Finnish soldiers lurking everywhere in the snowy plains and the vast jungles. Soviet tanks, armored vehicles, trucks, and even every Soviet soldier's body could be bait for them to hunt the enemy. Before this, Lu Cheng had been the prey for more than a week. Now, he didn't want to be the target of hunting again.
The distance of about 600 to 700 meters was not very far, but Lu Cheng was very careful. When he bypassed a pine tree that was as thick as a man's embrace and finally sneaked to a distance of only a few dozen meters from the tank, he suddenly found that he had walked out of the damn Saviki Forest. The tank stopped at the bottom of a slope, but the scene in front of him frightened Lu Cheng. As a time traveler, Lu Cheng could swear that the scene he saw would definitely be unforgettable for him.
It was indeed a tank. Judging from the model, it should be a Soviet T35 heavy tank. However, the tank had been burned and covered with a thick layer of snow. Starting from the damn tank, it stretched northwestward to a snowy field about the size of three or four football fields. There were corpses lying in various positions. Most of these corpses were human corpses, and there were also a considerable number of war horses. At first glance, this place did not look like a battlefield at all, but rather a slaughterhouse.
Lu Cheng swallowed his saliva. He knew that at least a large part of the main force of a Soviet regiment was annihilated here. Logically, he should go down to check the unit number so as to provide a reference for the troops that would arrive later. But Lu Cheng really didn't dare to leave the cover of the forest and rush into the battlefield rashly. He had reason to believe that somewhere around the battlefield, there must be a small Finnish unit lurking there.
The Finns had always fought like this, using small forces to lure the Soviets into attacking, and then using their relatively superior forces to destroy them. If their forces could not lure the Soviets in a limited area, they would resort to cunning guerrilla warfare.
The sight of corpses scattered all over the ground was terrifying, but the Finns who were probably hiding not far away were even more terrifying.
Lu Cheng retracted his head, not daring to move forward. He wrapped his rolled-up white cloak back on and crawled towards the edge of the jungle on the south side.
“Woof woof.”
Lu Cheng had just crawled out about ten meters when he heard one or two faint dog barks coming from behind. The sound was very light, a bit like an illusion.
Lu Cheng stopped crawling, turned his head slightly, pricked up his ears and listened carefully. To him, the sound of barking dogs was too scary. It was the psychological shadow left to him by Finland's elite Hämeenlinna war dog troops.
"Woof woof. Aww."
The sound of dog barking came from the jungle again. Compared with the last time, this time the barking was obviously much clearer. The worst thing was that the barking was a bit noisy, and it was obviously not a war dog.
Lu Cheng suddenly thought of something. He looked at the 98k on his back, and then at the coat he was wearing, which he had taken from the dead sniper. His scalp suddenly exploded, and he no longer cared about hiding his whereabouts. He jumped up from the snow and ran desperately towards the snowfield outside the jungle.
Running in knee-deep snow was not an easy task. Lu Cheng was exhausted after running only two or three hundred meters. In panic, he looked back and saw four sturdy Lapphunds rushing out of the jungle like lightning. Behind them, seven or eight "white cloaks" on skis were chasing them, two of them set up their guns while skiing and were aiming at him.
"It's over!"
Lu Cheng was completely hopeless. His legs, which felt like they were filled with lead, could no longer move. The little energy he had left disappeared in an instant. Seeing the four hounds rushing towards him fiercely, Lu Cheng felt his mind go blank and he passed out in a daze.
