An 80s female translator was spoiled rotten by a rough and jealous man.

Chapter 265 Pride!

The third day of the supply disruption.

Summer in subtropical jungles always arrives early and is very humid, and banyan forests are always the most damp places.

Thick aerial roots dangled from the branches and embedded themselves in the soft humus, where puddles of water accumulated. The bark was covered with moss, damp and slippery to the touch, and had a musty smell.

Huo Qingshan knelt on one knee in the pile of decaying leaves, gently parting the damp layer of fallen leaves with his fingers, his movements very light.

He paused briefly when his fingertip touched the metal casing, and then gently rubbed his fingertip against the surface of the mine to check the tightness of the safety bolt.

"Raise the tripwire by ten centimeters." The man turned to the side and gestured to a scout to his left and behind.

Behind him, half a squad of reconnaissance soldiers spread out in a fan shape. Each soldier was ten meters apart, combing the edge of the banyan grove like a comb.

Huo Qingshan pulled a spool of nylon thread from his tactical vest, twisted the end between his index finger and thumb, wrapped it twice around the tripwire device on the mine body, and tied a sailor's knot. He bit off the excess half of the thread with his teeth and spat it aside.

He tied the other end of the tripwire between two chinaberry trees, making sure it was tight and the line was taut. After tying it, the man used a dagger to make three shallow cuts on the tree trunk; the cuts were fresh, and sap slowly seeped out.

Thin moonlight filtered through the gaps in the tree canopy, illuminating this area. On the surface, it looked no different from any other woodland—piles of fallen leaves and dense shrubs. But beneath the humus lay deadly traps; the carefully laid tripwires were almost invisible in the darkness, like spider silk.

……

In the backup station less than a kilometer away, Meng Youyou sat hunched over her workbench, her bottom still on the stool for six hours. The last time she took off her headphones and left the radio station for more than a minute was to go to the toilet.

Meng Youyou's fingertips gently rested on the radio's tuning knob, and her right fingertips could clearly feel the subtle protrusions of the metal scale.

"...Final verification by artillery commander, repeat, final verification." The rough, hoarse voice of the Y Army communications officer came through the headset, accompanied by the scratching sound of a pencil on paper. "Artillery commander, attention, prepare to receive..."

The LCD screen of the electronic stopwatch glowed a pale green light in the dimly lit break room. The numbers kept jumping: 117.43, 117.44, 117.45... Her breathing unconsciously softened, almost to the point of holding her breath.

118.00.

With a gentle flick of her finger, Meng Youyou silently slid the knob from B to F, the metal contacts making an almost inaudible "click" sound.

The audio in the communication was successfully resumed: "...Benchmark point 9, elevation correction +15, wind speed level 4, northwest wind..."

Meng Youyou was highly focused, and her left hand, which had been gripping the ballpoint pen and waiting in ambush, immediately sprang into action, the pen tip smoothly gliding across the paper, leaving a line of clear and neat numbers.

240 seconds. The stopwatch vibrated slightly again.

This time, Meng Youyou didn't even blink or hesitate at all. She precisely turned the knob to D mode, and the metal contact surface made a slight "click" sound.

"...angle of fire correction 273 mils, charge level three, fuse delay 0.5 seconds."

The pen tip continued to move, and the numbers were completely recorded below the previous line. Meng Youyou's lips unconsciously tightened—this mil correction value was absolutely crucial; only when the gun position entered the final calibration stage would a three-digit precise adjustment occur.

After the communication in her earpiece ended, she looked down at her notebook:

Benchmark point 9
Elevation +15
273 mils
Meng Youyou felt like she was going to die!

In the short five minutes that just passed, it felt like she had fought a great battle all by herself. Afterwards, her forehead was covered in sweat, and her palms, which were still stuck to the surface of the radio, were so damp that sweat droplets gathered and trickled down the metal wall.

The tape in the tape recorder next to her was still spinning steadily. After catching her breath, Meng Youyou took a full turn to realize that she had turned on the tape recorder.

Just minutes before, Meng Youyou had sifted through a deluge of dizzying samples to deduce a frequency hopping pattern—a completely unverified "newborn," inexperienced and still fresh from the start. She was about to use this pattern to test its reliability when, unexpectedly, she stumbled upon the most crucial communication—the enemy artillery calibration team was reporting their final artillery correction data to the Y Army's artillery command post.

This unexpected "chance encounter" caught her completely off guard.

No drills, just real combat.

Meng Youyou felt as if she were facing a formidable enemy. She felt like a lone warrior, and the fate of the entire front line rested on her fingertips and pen.

The small metal knobs on the radio, the light ballpoint pen in her hand—she often felt she lacked the strength to control them.

In those brief yet incredibly long five minutes, Meng Youyou truly understood what the old man Yang Jianze had told her—"You can't afford to make the slightest mistake!"
From the first day she arrived in the war zone, Meng Youyou's heart was always in suspense, neither high nor low. She had to think things through thrice before doing anything, and dared not relax for even a moment, for fear of making mistakes, for fear of holding others back, and for fear of losing someone else's life because of her own mistakes.

She came to the front lines alone, burdened with a sin, wanting to atone for it. Little did she know that every day after arriving there, she might bear even greater sins because of her own words and actions.

Just like now, this feeling of tension to the point of losing my breath reached its peak.

Meng Youyou's fingertips hovered above the tuning knob, trying her best to keep it from shaking. The dense markings on the metal ring gleamed faintly in the dim light. She was forced to transform into a bomb disposal novice and face the challenge head-on. Facing the tangled red, yellow, blue, and green fuses, she held her breath and focused all her energy.

Each turn of the knob is like cutting a fuse connected to a bomb—cut it correctly, and the circuit remains connected; cut it incorrectly, and the intelligence is cut off.

If she has made a mistake somewhere—is there actually a problem with the unverified frequency hopping pattern?
Or perhaps she made a mistake at some point in the process? She accidentally entered the decoy channel.

Or perhaps she didn't keep up with the other person's frequency switching? She missed a second or two of the content, but those two seconds were the most important part.

She truly became the eternal sinner of the entire reinforced regiment, unforgivable.

But thankfully, thankfully... everything turned out alright.

A command issued by the enemy using frequency hopping technology must undergo rigorous verification through multiple stages, including voiceprint continuity verification, frequency hopping interval time reverse calculation verification, and environmental sound topology analysis, before it can be considered valid intelligence.

There are still several steps to go before a truly effective intelligence report can be submitted.

But even with the static still emanating from her headphones, Meng Youyou felt as if the world had fallen silent. Sitting in the small listening room, she couldn't help but feel her eyes welling up with tears, and her nose started to sting. She was happy and excited.

It was because she had just listened to the audio in real time and, based on her knowledge and experience, determined that the continuity of the voiceprint, the duration of each frequency hop, and the ambient sounds in the audio all met the standards.

Meng Youyou quietly blew her nose a few times, and then continued to devote herself to the subsequent verification work.

Fifteen minutes later.

Meng Youyou clutched the notebook filled with verification procedures in both hands, her lips trembled, and she finally let out a soft sob.

This feeling of fulfilling one's mission after putting in so much effort filled Meng Youyou with a strong sense of pride; it was the first time in her life she had felt so proud of herself.

After the initial pride, a flood of complex emotions overwhelmed her.

Over the past day and night, Meng Youyou felt like a skinny camel carrying a heavy haystack across the Gobi Desert. Several times she felt she was about to be crushed, about to collapse, about to suffocate, about to be unable to walk, but the haystacks kept being added to her back, each one seeming like the final straw that could break her.

But she couldn't stop; she had to keep going. There were invisible whips lashing at her relentlessly. She dared not stop for a moment. She had to keep going; she couldn't take the wrong path. She watched the moon slowly sink in the west. She had to reach her destination before sunrise.

Why should the lives of so many people be tied to her alone?
Why only give her 24 hours?
Why? On the verge of collapse, Meng Youyou wanted to ask this question countless times.

No one knows how she got through that day and night!
Right now, Meng Youyou covered her face and buried her face in her arms on the table, bursting into tears.