I Am Extraordinary Alone
Chapter 358 - 356 Want to Change the Title of the Book

Chapter 358: Chapter 356 Want to Change the Title of the Book

Leng Kai carried his bag and walked out of the military hospital’s main entrance, his face still wrapped in gauze.

A few days prior, he had been unfortunately captured during a mission, but fortunately, he had been trained to resist interrogation. He was also in good physical shape and, moreover, the Council had sent a second squad to rescue him in time. Thus, after resting for just two or three days, he checked himself out of the hospital.

While he was lying in the hospital bed, the Council had sent a few people to visit him. They presented him with a Medal for Exemplary Service and granted him a month’s long leave. Leng Kai decided to use this leave to go back to his home country and visit his family and also to check in on some old comrades from his time in the Yin Country’s army.

After taking a civilian airflight in the Sethiyan Federation and 20 hours of flying, Leng Kai finally returned to his motherland, Yin Country.

Since being selected to join the United Council Army four years ago, he had rarely had the time to come back, communicating with his family mostly through AR video calls.

Four years had passed in the blink of an eye, and he wondered how much Bai Feng City, his hometown, had developed now.

Thinking this, Leng Kai shook his head with a faint smile. After all, how much could have changed in just four years?

His mother, upon hearing that he was returning to the country today, had sent a text wanting to pick him up from the airport, but Leng Kai had refused. He didn’t want his mother to see his injuries, and besides, his first stop was not his hometown Bai Feng City, but rather Fuyang County, which was thousands of kilometers away.

There was no airport in Fuyang County, just a small county town with a population of 200,000. He disembarked at Namba City airport and, after spending a simple night in a nearby guesthouse, took an early morning long-distance minibus towards the hilly outskirts.

It wasn’t the peak travel season, so the long-distance minibus wasn’t crowded. Leng Kai napped by the window at the back of the bus. After traveling for more than 40 kilometers, the electrically charged road came to an end, and the surrounding scenery gradually became both desolate and majestic.

Mist twined around the tops of the high mountains while stretches of green grassland spread for miles without end. The bus drove onto a bumpy cement road, as if traveling through time from the 22nd century back to the 1990s.

Along the way, there were locals slowly driving their ox carts by the road, old men carrying their loads and puffing on dry pipes, and from time to time, you could see small houses in the fields with people bustling in and out, a sight he couldn’t quite understand, which made it all the more curious.

Around noon, Leng Kai took out some bread from his backpack and ate half, then drank half a bottle of mineral water.

At that moment, his father called.

"Kai, when are you coming back?" his father asked.

"I’ve got some things to handle, I’ll be back in a couple of days," Leng Kai replied.

"Everything going smoothly out there? Recently, there’s been fighting in Heisai State, I saw in the news that the United Council sent troops there," his father said, a bit worried.

"Yes, I just came from there; the mission is already complete," Leng Kai said with a smile.

As he spoke, he took a photo of the Medal for Exemplary Service and sent it over.

"Ha, good boy, you’ve brought honor to our family! You’re not wounded, are you?!" his father asked again.

"No, I was with the main force. I just got blasted while stationed in the city, but I’m fine," Leng Kai reassured with a smile.

"Good, good... I’ll tell your mother to buy some nutritious stuff for you to eat," his father said.

"Don’t worry about it, Dad, I’ve brought you some liquor from the Federation, two bottles of whiskey. When I get back, we’ll have a couple of rounds between us," Leng Kai said.

"Heh, great! Just don’t let your mom find out about it..." his father said in a low voice.

"Alright, gotta go now, Dad," Leng Kai said.

"Eh, take care of yourself out there. Hanging up now," said his father.

He hung up the phone, and by then, the bus had entered Fuyang County.

The small county town wasn’t very populous but was quite lively with streets lined with small shops. Far from the capital Fengrao City and away from the economic centers, the pace and habits of life in Fuyang still remained in the last century.

Leng Kai got off the minibus, called a ride from the station, and headed for the only army hospital in Fuyang, a gray building guarded by a peeling concrete wall and two soldiers standing guard at the entrance.

Leng Kai walked into the hospital as if he knew the place well and made his way to the 24-hour care building. He took an old-fashioned elevator up to the seventh floor, where at the end of the hallway, a woman in her sixties was sitting on a bench looking at her phone.

Leng Kai approached, and the sound of his footsteps caught the woman’s attention. She looked up and, seeing Leng Kai, seemed to find a pillar of strength.

"Aunt Chen," Leng Kai said.

"Kai, you’ve really been through a lot, coming to visit my little Dongzi again," Aunt Chen said with a bitter smile.

"How has he been...lately?" Leng Kai asked.

Aunt Chen shook her head.

He walked to the door and looked inside. A man in his early twenties with a shaved head lay on the hospital bed, a gastric tube and a respirator attached to him, his eyes tightly shut, as two nurses helped him with muscle massage.

"Auntie...don’t give up, Dongzi can wake up," Leng Kai said.

"I don’t know...I don’t know..." Aunt Chen started to say, her voice beginning to tremble.

Leng Kai placed his hands on her shoulders and said, "You must have faith, Aunt Chen."

A nurse came out of the ward and upon seeing Leng Kai, asked, "Are you a family member?"

Leng Kai nodded.

"The expenses are about to run out. Please top up this week," the nurse reminded.

"Okay, I will," Leng Kai replied.

Aunt Chen lowered her head, silent.

Once the nurse had walked away, Leng Kai said, "Auntie, take good care of Dongzi, and leave the rest to me."

Aunt Chen nodded her head and wiped away her tears, "You’re so busy and yet you’ve made a special trip to see Dongzi; Auntie will go buy you something to eat."

"Sure thing," Leng Kai nodded.

Watching Aunt Chen leave, Leng Kai entered the ward, hung his backpack at the end of the bed, and then pulled up a chair to sit beside it.

His comrade He Dong’s complexion looked alright, the sounds from the life-support equipment ticking steadily as he lay motionless on the hospital bed.

The air conditioning kept the room at 24 degrees, and Leng Kai felt rather chilly. The bedding on the right side of the hospital bed was sunken in; he lifted it slightly to look and saw that He Dong’s right arm and leg had both been amputated.

"Dongzi, brother’s come to see you,"

Leng Kai said smilingly.

"Time flies, and it’s already been six years. You ought to get up now," he continued.

He sighed deeply, hands crossed, and fell into memories.

He Dong had been in the same unit as him back then, stationed west of their homeland’s border. Rival troops from Indira had come to provoke and attack, and both sides—over ninety men—in the cold, dry river valley had fought with primitive cold weapons in the dark for half the night.

Back then, Leng Kai and Dongzi had stood back to back, his own face slashed by a long knife—it hurt terribly. But far from worrying, Dongzi had only teased him for being such a wuss.

Just as the melee was drawing to a close, the retreating Indira army incredibly pulled out two grenades and hurled them into the midst of the Yin Border Guards.

When the first grenade exploded, it took down four men. They were far enough from the blast to escape with only shrapnel wounds.

The second grenade, as luck would have it, rolled right to Leng Kai’s feet.

It was too dark to see anything, and after the first loud bang, everyone was on high alert, him included, trying to locate the source of the explosion.

Dongzi’s helmet-mounted light landed on Leng Kai’s feet, and all he managed to shout was "Son of a bitch!" before he shoved Leng Kai out with the force of a raging bull, about five or six meters away.

He stumbled and fell to the ground, the words "son of a—" still on his lips, as he watched a dark red flame flare up with a violent explosion in the darkness, Dongzi being thrown over three meters away.

No response from Dongzi, as he still lay in deep sleep. Leng Kai turned to look out the window; brilliant sunshine filtered through tinted glass, yet the sky was a gloomy hue.

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