He Yuyang: The tough eldest brother of the courtyard house

The tent at the aid station looked like a crumpled gray cloth, pounding and rattling in the downpour. When He Yuyang lifted the curtain and entered, a strong stench of blood mixed with the dampness of the rain hit him, making him cough involuntarily. A kerosene lamp hung on a wooden pole in the center of the tent, casting a dim yellow light. A dozen wounded soldiers lay on straw mats, their groans rising and falling like strings dampened by the rain vibrating in the dark night.

"Deputy Brigade Commander! What brings you here?" Army doctor Lao Zhou was using tweezers to remove shrapnel from a wounded soldier. When he saw him come in, his blood-stained hands paused. "It's raining heavily outside. You should stay in the command post."

He Yuyang didn't speak, his gaze sweeping over the makeshift beds—in the innermost corner, three wounded soldiers were covered with the same tattered military blanket, their faces as white as paper, their lips an unnatural purple, clearly from excessive blood loss. In yesterday's stalemate, almost the entire Third Battalion had been deployed, and when they finally withdrew, less than half could walk on their own.

"The blood plasma is gone?" He crouched down and touched the forehead of one of the wounded soldiers; it was frighteningly hot.

Old Zhou sighed, tossing the tweezers into the enamel tray with a harsh clanging sound: "The last two bags were used up this morning. The supply lines at the rear have been bombed three times, and the medicine can't get through..." He pointed to the three seriously wounded soldiers, his voice extremely low, "These three probably... won't make it through the night."

He Yuyang's hand tightened suddenly. He recognized the wounded soldier; it was Wang Tiedan, a greenhorn from the Second Company, only sixteen years old. During the last ambush, he had captured American canned food and secretly slipped half of it to Wang Tiedan, blushing as he said, "Deputy Brigade Commander, you're closer to me than my own brother."

The rain outside the tent intensified, the wind whipping the canvas with raindrops, like countless hands tearing at it. He Yuyang stood up, walked to the corner of the tent, and pretended to tidy up the wind-blown canvas, but his fingers were secretly pressed against his waist—there was an inconspicuous cloth bag there, with a layer of waterproof oil paper sewn inside, and wrapped in the oil paper were more than a dozen empty medicine bottles that he had specially prepared.

The spiritual spring water in the space is limitless. He has kept this secret for more than ten years. From the eight-year-old child when he transmigrated to the current deputy brigade commander of the Volunteer Army, the spiritual spring water has saved his life and helped him regulate the health of his family members. But never before has it made him feel both fortunate and apprehensive.

"Old Zhou," he suddenly spoke, his voice unusually clear in the rain, "I have a batch of medicine here, a 'special supply' given to me by my superiors before I left. They said it was newly developed by the country and can quickly stop bleeding and reduce fever."

Old Zhou's eyes lit up, and he almost dropped the enamel plate in his hand: "Really? What medicine is so effective? Even stronger than imported penicillin?"

"It's hard to say." He Yuyang deliberately spoke vaguely, taking out two medicine bottles from his cloth bag. The bottles were modified from glucose bottles discarded by the US military and filled with clear spiritual spring water. "The higher-ups instructed that they should not be used unless absolutely necessary, saying that... it's still in the experimental stage."

He didn't dare take out too much at once. While he was taking a break in the downpour to relieve himself in the back mountain, he had already taken out twenty bottles of spiritual spring water from his spatial storage and hidden them in a secluded spot outside the tent, intending to bring them in in several trips. This spiritual spring water was too effective; if he took out too much at once, it would inevitably arouse suspicion.

Old Zhou took the medicine bottle, examined it under the light, then unscrewed the cap and smelled it. He frowned. "This...it looks like plain water, and it doesn't even have a smell?"

"Don't worry about it, just try it and you'll see." He Yuyang pressed down on his hand as he was about to screw on the cap, and pointed to Wang Tiedan at the very back, "Give it to him first, intravenous injection, half a bottle is enough."

Old Zhou hesitated for a moment. In his more than ten years of practicing medicine, he had never seen such a "simple" miracle drug, but seeing Wang Tiedan's increasingly weak breathing, he finally gritted his teeth and said, "Let's try anything! Xiao Li, get the syringe!"

Nurse Li deftly drew half a bottle of spiritual spring water and carefully inserted it into Wang Tiedan's vein. Everyone held their breath; only the sound of rain and the suppressed groans of the wounded soldiers remained in the tent. He Yuyang clenched his fists, his palms sweating—he knew the effects of the spiritual spring water, but he feared that the wounds on this foreign battlefield were different from those he had seen before.

One minute, two minutes...

Wang Tiedan suddenly coughed, making a gurgling sound in his throat. Old Zhou quickly went over, shone a flashlight into his pupils, and felt his pulse. His eyes widened in surprise: "The pulse... the pulse is stronger! The temperature seems to have gone down a bit too!"

Xiao Li exclaimed in surprise, "The wound! His wound has stopped bleeding!"

Everyone looked down and saw that the bleeding from the penetrating wound in Wang Tiedan's abdomen had actually stopped, and the edges of the wound were even turning a faint pink, as if it were healing quickly.

"Amazing! This medicine is truly miraculous!" Old Zhou's voice trembled with excitement. He grabbed another medicine bottle and ran towards another seriously wounded patient. "Quick! Give it to Xiao Zhang too!"

He Yuyang quietly breathed a sigh of relief; his back was already soaked with cold sweat. He walked to the tent entrance, pretending to watch the rain, and took the opportunity to slip two more medicine bottles from a hidden spot outside, concealing them in his cloth bag. Through the rain, distant artillery shells occasionally exploded, illuminating his tense profile—the risk was worthwhile, even if it meant being discovered.

Over the next two hours, He Yuyang used the excuse of "going outside to get the remaining medicine" to retrieve spiritual spring water from his space in five separate trips. Old Zhou and the nurses were extremely busy. With each bottle of medicine used, the condition of one of the seriously wounded soldiers improved significantly: those who were previously unconscious opened their eyes, those with high fevers had their body temperatures drop, and even those wounded soldiers with broken bones said that "the pain is not so excruciating anymore."

The atmosphere inside the tent gradually livened up. A veteran with a broken leg grabbed He Yuyang's hand, tears mingling with blood streaming down his face: "Deputy Brigade Commander, this medicine...is it really from the country? Our new China...does it really have such good medicine?"

He Yuyang squatted down, patted the back of his hand, and said in a gentle but firm voice, "Of course it was given by the country. The comrades in the rear have been studying it day and night, just so that we can bleed less and win more battles on the front lines." He didn't say that it was an "experimental drug," but only that "the country had prepared it long ago, just waiting for us to use it where it was most needed."

The veterans' eyes lit up as they listened. On this battlefield where medicine was scarce, this bottle of medicine, which resembled "plain water," suddenly became something more reassuring than guns and cannons—it represented the concerns from the rear, the strength of the nation, and the new China they were fighting for, a China that was slowly improving.

As dawn approached, the rain finally subsided. Of the twenty bottles of spiritual spring water, only three remained. Of the dozen or so critically wounded soldiers who had been on the verge of death, twelve had miraculously survived. Old Zhou slumped onto the straw, staring at the empty medicine bottles, muttering, "Unbelievable, truly unbelievable… This medicine is even more effective than imported ones. From now on, many more of our soldiers' lives will be saved…"

He Yuyang handed the last three bottles of medicine to Lao Zhou and instructed him, "Use these three bottles sparingly, and save them for the seriously wounded who really can't hold on any longer. As for the rest... I'll apply to my superiors again to see if we can get another batch."

He couldn't say "the medicine is gone." He could only pin his hopes on his "superiors," using "applications" to buy time, hoping to find another opportunity to retrieve it from the space later.

Old Zhou nodded repeatedly, carefully putting the medicine bottle into his personal medicine box as if it were a priceless treasure: "Deputy Brigade Commander, you'd better urge them to make it more widespread! If this medicine could be made more readily available, our ambulance station's mortality rate could be reduced by half!"

He Yuyang hummed in agreement and turned to leave the tent. In the morning mist, the distant mountains and forests were a dark, almost black, green, and the air was filled with the mixed smell of earth and gunpowder. He walked to the place where he had hidden the medicine yesterday, pretending to rummage through the soil, and took the opportunity to hide the ten bottles of spiritual spring water he had just taken out of his spatial storage, making a concealed mark with a twig.

After finishing all this, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and headed towards the command post. On the way, he encountered several patrolling soldiers who all stood at attention and saluted him, their eyes filled with admiration—the commotion at the aid station last night had already spread far and wide, with everyone saying, "The miraculous medicine brought by the deputy brigade commander saved many brothers."

He Yuyang returned the gifts one by one, but felt no pride in his heart. He knew that the ones who should truly be thanked were not him, nor this ethereal "national secret research and development," but this life-giving spring, the compatriots who worked tirelessly in the rear to support the front lines, and the new China that, even in the face of devastation, always kept the lives of its soldiers in mind.

He touched the cloth pouch at his waist; it was empty, yet the coolness of the spiritual spring water seemed to linger. He would keep this secret forever, ensuring that this "miracle drug" would forever bear the mark of his "motherland"—because he knew that more than an individual's "miracle," soldiers needed to believe that behind them was a powerful and warm enough motherland, supporting their lives and hopes.

The rising sun peeked over the mountain valley, gilding the still-smoke-filled battlefield with a golden hue. He Yuyang gazed eastward, towards the direction of his homeland, towards Nanluoguxiang, towards the direction where his family and neighbors waited amidst the rising smoke from their chimneys. He clenched his fist and silently recited in his heart:

"Wait a little longer, until we drive the jackals away and this land returns to peace. Then, without this sacred spring water, our soldiers can return home safely."

The wind swept through the trenches, carrying warmth from afar, and lifted the hem of his military overcoat, making it flutter gently in the morning light like a small flag.