Chapter 73

Lin Tu couldn't make out who the person was at first, but looking more carefully, she realized it was Luo Te.

She remembered that not long ago, he had been dressed like a gentleman; now, somehow, he was limping, covered in grime, and looking like a beggar.

Luo Te was practically a brother-in-arms to David. The two of them pulled him into a secluded spot and pressed him for details. After all, Luo Te was a man with a name in the Government Army's territory, with some savings and assets to his name. There was no way he should have fallen this far.

Only after questioning him did they learn the truth. Luo Te had planned to start a new life in the Rebel Army's territory. He had sold off most of his property and spent a fortune to buy a house nearby with decent facilities.

When war broke out, it had been lunchtime. He happened to be out eating with his son, celebrating the move, and so they had escaped the initial blast. When he rushed home, all he saw was rubble. A shell from the north had struck his home—a house he'd lived in for less than a day—square on.

As mentioned earlier, it had been a fine house, with mostly solid wood furniture. The shell had not only destroyed the structure, but its vicious flames had also fed on the wooden furniture, licking away everything inside until nothing remained.

Luo Te and his son had lost everything and were forced to wander the streets. For two whole days, they hadn't had a drop to eat or drink.

"Please, just give me something to eat. Even a little bit is enough."

David sighed, turned away, and fumbled around on his person somewhere, pulling out a half-melted chocolate bar and a tightly compressed pack of hardtack biscuits. He handed them to Luo Te. "You know this is all I keep for emergencies."

Lin Tu also dug two coarse grain cakes out of her bag—they'd been her rations for the past couple of days, but they'd been too tough to chew, so she'd saved them.

"Thank you so much! Thank you!" Luo Te quickly tucked the food into his clothes and glanced warily around them. His eyes, sunken from a night of exhaustion, glistened with tears. "My son caught a chill last night and got sick. If we don't eat something soon, he'll die! These past days, I've begged everyone I could, but no one was willing to help. I even got beaten. Only you two..."

His voice, parched from lack of water, came out as shrill as a trumpet, sending an involuntary shiver down the spine.

Lin Tu and David exchanged a look, both seeing the sorrow reflected in the other's eyes.

"Let's go see your son," Lin Tu said.

Luo Te and his son were staying in the local hospital. Because there were too many patients, they'd only been assigned a mattress in the main hall.

Walking into the hospital, surrounded by groaning patients, with stench and horrifying scenes flooding every sense, Lin Tu felt as though she were stepping into hell itself. She spotted little Luo Te lying in the corner at once—the bespectacled boy was wrapped in a padded coat and a blanket, his cheeks flushed bright red. Though he was better off than most around him, he was still in rough shape.

Lin Tu crouched down beside him. She didn't need to look closely to know his cold had taken a severe turn.

"Dad... are you going out to pick someone up again? It's so early—you should sleep a little more..." he mumbled deliriously. "Dad, maybe you shouldn't go. Mom would worry if she came home and saw you gone. Someday I'll join the Government Army and make money to support..."

Luo Te lunged over and clamped a hand over his mouth. "Delirious. He's just delirious. His mother's been dead for years." His voice was tinged with both bitterness and embarrassment—they were in Rebel Army territory now, and words like that could get them branded as spies.

The hand over his mouth brought little Luo Te back to wakefulness.

"Dad..." Seeing Luo Te, he smiled with relief. But when his gaze shifted to Lin Tu and David, the smile froze. In his mind, his father had done nothing wrong. If he hadn't taken this job, if he hadn't gotten involved with Carrot, David, and the others, they would never have fallen to this state, and his father wouldn't be begging on his knees for food—and getting beaten for it.

"Dad, did you go begging again?" little Luo Te asked. "I told you, stop worrying about me."

Lin Tu crouched beside him. She fished something out of her pocket, shielded it from view, and slipped it under his blanket.

It was small, hard, and cold. Little Luo Te blinked in surprise.

Lin Tu didn't linger. She pulled her Rebel Army badge from her pocket and clipped it to her chest, then straightened up, looking down at the barely-conscious boy on the mattress.

"Get some rest." Though her words were kind, there was no warmth in her demeanor. She stood there cold and rigid, and with her gold-rimmed glasses paired with the ominous Rebel Army insignia, she seemed to transform into a different person, radiating an inexplicable pressure.

Seeing a Rebel Army soldier there, the people around them lowered their heads and fell silent, even the patients' groans quieting down.

Luo Te's face went pale too—he hadn't expected Lin Tu to actually join the Rebel Army. His mind flashed back to that evening. He had begged Carrot for help, pleading with his old sponsor for even a scrap of food—medicine was out of the question; in these times, drugs cost as much as a house—but Carrot had thrown him out and even had his men beat him as a warning.

Any illusion he'd held about the Rebel Army had shattered, and just now, little Luo Te had said those words...

"Don't worry, I won't say anything. And I'd advise you to keep your mouths shut too," Lin Tu said, her eyes meaningful as they rested on little Luo Te.

With that, she left with David.

Luo Te and his son exchanged a glance, confused and tense.

"Dad, all the people in the Rebel Army are crazy. Even if someone was a good person before, joining them turns them evil..." Little Luo Te spoke with lingering fear. But as he said it, he pulled out what Lin Tu had just slipped under his blanket—and froze.

His hand jerked back down as a flood of emotions crossed his face: joy, shock, confusion, guilt.

"What is it?"

"It's medicine..."

Luo Te couldn't believe it. He had his son show him a corner.

It was a clean white cardboard box with a familiar red figure emblem. The drug name beside it was in a script he didn't recognize—supplies left over from some foreign country, perhaps. But the packaging, the color scheme, and the short English phrase at the bottom reading "cold remedy"—what else could it be but cold medicine?

Luo Te turned his back to the crowd, took the box, and with trembling fingers pried open the packaging. Inside was a folded sheet of instructions and a blister pack of pale blue oval pills—all ten intact.

There was hope... his son had hope!

Luo Te felt the pressure of two days suddenly find an outlet. He wanted to howl at the sky. Clutching the medicine, he buried his head deep in his arms, trembling uncontrollably.

"Dad, it's okay," little Luo Te said, his own nose stinging. He pressed a hand gently on his father's shoulder. "There are still good people in this world. We misjudged her. I'll thank her. I'll repay her."

.

After slipping the medicine into little Luo Te's blanket, Lin Tu hurried out of the hospital.

She couldn't stand the suffocating misery inside. She couldn't help everyone, but maybe she could at least do her small part for one of them.

"I'll go find some acquaintances first." Once they reached the garrison, David peeled off before Lin Tu could say another word.

She'd wanted him to come with her and use the Rebel Army's cover to sniff out some information, but he left in a hurry, as if he had something important to attend to. So Lin Tu entered the garrison alone.

"Halt! Who goes there!" Since the war started, security at the garrison had clearly tightened. The gate guard who hadn't been there last time stopped Lin Tu.

Lin Tu flashed her badge. "046581."

"Oh, a newbie," the guard said. He was in his twenties, with a thuggish air, and looked Lin Tu up and down with ill intent. Lin Tu stared right back at him. After a tense standoff, the guard licked his finger, flipped open the roster, and asked, "How many military merits you got?"

"Fifteen," Lin Tu replied.

The guard's flipping hand paused, and he raised his head impatiently. "Fifteen? What are you here for? Think you're a real Rebel Army soldier now? Scraped together a few odd jobs and you come wandering in here. These days, we only keep people who can actually fight. You? You think you earned those fifteen merits by killing Government troops?"

Lin Tu thought: That's actually exactly how I got them.

"Then what do I need to do to get in?" Knowing this man wouldn't believe any explanation, Lin Tu went straight to the point.

"Finish your missions," the guard sneered. "In times like this, we can't let freeloaders like you waltz in. Unless you're here to turn in a mission... but," he snorted, "that's assuming you even live to finish one."

Lin Tu didn't argue. She turned and walked away.

Her entry into the Rebel Army garrison had taken less than a minute. As she swiped her badge and left, she ran through the mission requirements in her head—find a man named Na Wei at a shelter with a brown roof and yellow walls on Charlie Street 7, No. 13, and collect supplies worth one ounce of gold, roughly the value of two sacks of flour. Wait—something clicked. That place sounded oddly familiar.

Just as she was about to grasp the thought, she saw Luo Te approaching. They'd run into each other so quickly that he must have followed her out the moment she left the hospital.

Luo Te hunched over, his face full of gratitude. "Thank you so much, Miss Lin. You saved my son's life."

"Is he alright?" Lin Tu asked, out of politeness.

"I gave him the... he's sleeping now. He ate a little something too. He should be better in a couple of days." Out in the open, he didn't dare say it outright, so he mumbled. But that only deepened his gratitude. "If there's anything I can do for you, just say the word. I swear, Luo Te will go through fire and water for you."

Lin Tu hadn't expected any reward, nor did she want Luo Te to risk his life for her. But since he'd come to her, and he was a wily old fox who'd navigated both the Government Army and the Rebel Army, Lin Tu did have some questions for him.

"Tell me about the internal structures of the Rebel Army and the Government Army. Which positions handle logistics, which handle judging criminals, and... which handle guarding the prisons?"

Trials? Prisons? Luo Te froze, a stray thought flickering through his mind. He shook his head to dispel it and answered at once.