Chapter 51 Pacing Back and Forth

They had to calculate distances, compute trajectories, determine enemy positions, and seize fleeting opportunities in battle!
Even more, they had to... be on guard against sniper fire from any direction!
Wang Ba paced back and forth through the "pile of corpses" in the space between the two opposing arrays.
He looked like a cold Reaper, inspecting his own domain.
He noticed a "fallen" soldier whose posture was far from standard, and who was actually turning his head in secret to observe the battlefield situation.
Wang Ba walked over, saying nothing at all.
He raised his foot and brought it down heavily, stomping straight onto that soldier's face!
"A 'corpse' must look like a 'corpse'!" he said coldly. "If I catch anyone moving again, it won't be as simple as licking clean a bone!"
That single kick caused every "corpse" lying on the ground to stiffen all over with terror!
They closed their eyes and dared not make the slightest movement.
Across the entire drill ground, nothing remained except the gunfire of the living and the... silence of the dead.
And the living were turning into the dead at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Fifteen hundred against fifteen hundred.
Soon, it became one thousand against one thousand.
Then five hundred against five hundred!
The scales of victory were swinging wildly!
Every single second, someone was "killed in action"!
Every single second, someone paid the price for a wrong decision!
Everyone's nerves were stretched to their absolute limit!
The confrontation had already lasted for a full two hours.
On the drill ground, the living were now fewer than the "corpses."
Both sides had fewer than two hundred men remaining.
Hiding behind their respective bunkers, they gasped heavily for breath, their eyes bloodshot.
Each person had only one or two paint pouches left on their body.
Their ammunition was also nearly depleted.
The battle had reached a stalemate.
No one dared to poke their head out lightly anymore.
Because everyone knew that under such a desperate endgame, any single mistake would be fatal!
In the western position, a squad consisting of a dozen veteran scoundrels had gathered together.
At their head was none other than Wu Neng, the man who had once been sent flying by Wang Ba's kick.
At this moment, not a shred of rascalness remained on Wu Neng's face; in its place was the cold and ferocious calm of a wolf.
"Damn it, going on like this is getting us nowhere!" whispered a soldier whose face was smeared with camouflage paint. "Those motherfuckers on the other side are hiding like tortoises! We can't hit them at all!"
"We're running low on ammo," another soldier said, inspecting his ammo pouch with a solemn expression.
Wu Neng's gaze swept over the vast expanse of colorful "corpses" in the center of the drill ground.
His brain was spinning at top speed.
A direct slugfest would only result in mutual destruction.
By then, neither side would likely have more than a few men left, so how could anyone claim victory?
He had to think of a way!
A way to settle the outcome with a single blow!
Suddenly, his gaze landed on the commander's platform.
It landed on Wang Ba, who—from the very beginning until now—had been sitting leisurely in his chair as if none of this concerned him at all!
A wild notion suddenly leaped out from his mind!
He remembered Wang Ba's demonstration of blindfolded assembly.
He remembered Wang Ba using the sound of tapping to distinguish the rhythm of the parts.
He remembered how Wang Ba had used a whip and roaring shouts yesterday to hammer every single fundamental of shooting deep into their bones!
Use your brain!
The lord and the instructors had constantly emphasized to them that they must use their brains!
Yet what the hell did using your brain actually mean?!
Did it mean hiding behind a bunker and taking potshots like a coward?
No!
Definitely not!
Wu Neng's breathing suddenly turned rapid!
He understood!
He finally understood!
"Everyone, listen to me!" Wu Neng's voice carried an unquestionable decisiveness!
The surrounding veteran scoundrels all looked toward him.
"Pool all your remaining ammunition together! Give it to five men!" Wu Neng's eyes flashed with a startling light!
"What?" The others were momentarily stunned. "Hand it all over? Then what will we use?"
"We won't use guns!" Wu Neng's mouth split into a cruel grin. "We'll use our legs!"
He pointed toward the opposite position, which had likewise fallen into dead silence.
"They think we're playing a game of patience with them! A game of marksmanship!"
"They're wrong!"
"From the very beginning, this war was never about whose marksmanship is more accurate!"
Wu Neng tapped his own head.
"It's about who the hell is crazier! Who refuses to play by the rules!"
"Pick ten men! Follow me!" Wu Neng abruptly stood up. "We're going to charge their position!"
"Charge?!" Everyone thought they had misheard. "Wu Neng, have you lost your mind?! That's walking straight to your death!"
A distance of two hundred paces!
With not a single decent piece of cover in between!
Charging out there like this—wasn't that just acting as live targets?!
"That's right! It is walking to our death!" Wu Neng's face bore a near-manic excitement. "The ten of us are going out there to die!"
"But! Our deaths will draw every single one of their positions out into the open for me!"
"As for the remaining five! Your task is not to cover us!"
"Your task is to watch clearly! Note down the exact firing position of every single one of them!"
"Use every bullet you have left, and after we die, pick them off one by one for me!"
"Trade ten lives for over a hundred of theirs!"
Wu Neng looked at the soldiers holding the ammunition, speaking each word with deliberate weight: "Is this deal worth it?!"
The minds of the five selected soldiers went *buzz*!
As they looked at Wu Neng's crazed face, a chill surged straight from the soles of their feet up to their crowns!
What... what kind of tactic was this!
How utterly... vicious!
Using the lives of their own comrades as bait!
And guaranteed, fatal bait at that!
"What? Too scared?" Wu Neng sneered. "If you're too scared, you can wait to go lick the bones in the latrine tonight!"
The expressions of the ten soldiers chosen for the "suicide squad" shifted back and forth.
Finally, one soldier grit his teeth to the breaking point and slammed the gun in his hand fiercely against the ground!
"Damn it! Let's do this!"
"Death is coming either way! If we charge, at least we die like real men!"
"That's right! Sleep in the outhouse? I'd rather 'die' right here and now!"
The desire to survive and the terror of punishment completely overwhelmed everything else!
"Good!" Wu Neng nodded with satisfaction.
He turned around and looked toward the five "marksmen" clutching all the remaining ammunition.
"The lives of your brothers are in your hands now."
"Don't you dare let us die in vain!"
Those five marksmen felt as though the air guns in their hands weighed a thousand pounds each.
Their hands were trembling slightly.
This was no longer a game.
This was a real war waged with "lives" as the stake!
"Everyone! Get ready!" Wu Neng took a deep breath.
He looked toward the opposite position, a fire of sacrificial resolve burning within his eyes!
"For meat!"
"For a bed!"
"Charge!!!"
With a roar!
Wu Neng was the very first to leap out from behind the bunker!
Following closely behind him came the second, and the third!