Courtyard Houses: Longevity Since the War of Resistance

The pressure is on my shoulders, like that of a prisoner in a labor camp.

The Jiangnan region, including Zhejiang and Shanghai, was heavily fortified with the R army, and was accessible by road, rail, water, and air.

The support is fast. I'm just one person. If I wiped out the Japanese in an entire city, that would be too terrifying and could easily cause misunderstandings at headquarters, making them think that someone in the higher-ups has connections.

I don't want to end up like Aunt Fan, crushed to death by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Then I had no choice but to gamble. I knelt down and bowed to all four directions, praying in my heart: May our ancestors bless us, may the system be powerful, and may we draw something that can break the deadlock.

"System, use skill to draw an opportunity."

[Ding! Congratulations, host, you have drawn the skill: One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones (Ultimate)]

[Skill Description: Can create three clones that are identical to the original body. Duration: 24 hours. Cooldown: 72 hours.]

One Qi transforms into Three Pure Ones!

Three clones possessing all my abilities, for 24 hours straight!

One person doing four jobs – a skill that cattle and horses love most.

Kneeling really works; a man's knees are worth gold. You only realize how little you have when you need it. Would it be better if I kowtowed a few times?

When I drew the "One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones" spell, my plan instantly took shape.

Concentrate and gather your energy.

My body trembled slightly, and the scene before me distorted. Three people who looked exactly like me stood there. The four of us exchanged glances, and without saying a word, we understood each other perfectly.

"Go to Xuzhou."

"Go to Pizhou."

"Go to Suqian."

"I'm going to the airport."

As soon as the words were spoken, the four figures disappeared in four different directions.

At the same time, in northern Jiangsu.

The headquarters of the Central China Vanguard Column was filled with smoke, and the newly translated telegram was passed around among the commanders.

Column Commander Lao Chen stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe. "Headquarters orders that all nine regiments of my column be mobilized to simultaneously attack the nine cities of Xushi, Pishi, Sushi, Huaishi, Sishi, Shushi, Baoshi, Yangshi, and Taishi."

The room was so quiet you could hear someone breathing.

The operations staff looked at each other, their faces clearly saying the same thing: they'd gone mad.

The chief of staff adjusted his glasses and traced a line on the map: "Old Chen, these nine cities. Xuzhou is a railway hub, Huai'an is a vital waterway and land route, and Yangzhou is heavily guarded. If we send out nine regiments, each to attack one city, we'll be at a significant numerical disadvantage. The Japanese reinforcements will be quick; this battle is practically suicide."

"Isn't this order from headquarters too risky?"

Old Chen slammed the telegram on the table. "Execute the order! Headquarters has made it clear that someone will help! All regiments, depart immediately. Once you arrive at the location, do not hesitate, do not wait, immediately organize the attack!"

"yes!"

Military orders are absolute, and the nine regiments of the column sprang into action.

Nine armies, like nine sharp arrows, shot in nine directions. The soldiers were all on edge, knowing that today they were about to fight the toughest battle since the start of the war.

The regiment responsible for Xushi was the first to arrive at the battlefield, reaching three miles outside the west gate by five in the morning. Regimental Commander He Dayong lay prone behind an earthen slope, peering through his binoculars. The city wall was eerily quiet; there wasn't a soul in sight. Surprisingly, the two heavy iron-clad city gates of Xushi's west gate were open.

"This is weird," He Dayong said, putting down his binoculars.

"Could it be a ruse?" Political Commissar Wang Mingli asked in a low voice.

"The Japanese know the Empty City Stratagem. They have the brains of a prime minister, and they can't care about anything else," He Dayong glanced at his pocket watch. "Notify all battalions to prepare for a full-scale attack!"

Beep be ...

"Charge!!"

The soldiers roared and charged toward the city gate, but the expected hail of bullets did not materialize. It was only when the vanguard rushed into the gatehouse that they saw what was inside.

There were about twenty Japanese soldiers, and their deaths were varied: some were blown to pieces with their intestines blown out, and others were shot in the back with blood gushing out.

On the brick wall inside the city gate, someone dipped their brush in blood and wrote a line: "There are still Japanese devils inside the city. Proceed with caution." The blood was still wet.

"Battalion commanders!" He Dayong roared.

"Here!" Battalion Commander Wang Dafa, Battalion Commander Sun Chao, and Battalion Commander Pei Ju ran forward.

"First Battalion advances from the center, Second Battalion advances along the city wall from the left, Third Battalion from the right. Move quickly!"

The troops stormed into the city, and the streets were deathly silent. The First Battalion advanced along the main road, and after walking only two hundred meters, the scouts spotted the sandbag fortifications. "Take cover!" the scouts shouted.

But the expected gunshots did not ring out.

After a few seconds, Wang Dafa crouched down and reached forward: "What's going on?"

The reconnaissance platoon leader pointed to the crossroads ahead, his voice a little strange: "Battalion Commander, look."

Wang Dafa looked in the direction the finger was pointing and saw a sandbag fortification at the intersection, but strangely it was a bit dark and looked like it was falling apart.

"Second platoon, flank to the left! Third platoon, provide cover!" Wang Dafa ordered.

The soldiers crept along the wall, and when they got close, they could see that the fortification had been completely destroyed. The ground was blasted into craters, and Japanese corpses were scattered around the craters.

One petal, two petals, three petals, each petal is different.

"Damn it..." Wang Dafa swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue.

"Check the battlefield!" Wang Dafa suppressed the strange feeling in his heart. "Watch out for booby traps!"

"It's a hand grenade," Li Yuan from the reconnaissance company said, crouching down to examine it. "Judging from the distribution of the fragments, there are at least seven or eight."

At the same time, the Second Battalion also noticed something amiss. They had advanced less than 500 meters when they smelled a strong, pungent odor of cooked meat in the air.

"Be on guard!" Sun Chao waved his hand, signaling the troops to disperse.

Before me lay a destroyed camp, or rather, ruins, with three rows of barracks completely collapsed.

"Yang Gong, go in and take a look."

"Battalion Commander, come in quickly!" Yang Gong shouted from the camp's parade ground as he went in to scout.

When Sun Chao went over to take a look, he was overjoyed, ecstatic, and blinked wildly. The barracks on the east and west sides of the courtyard had all collapsed. Soldiers dug out fifty or sixty Japanese soldiers' corpses from the ruins, some killed by being smashed, some burned, and their charred fingers curled up. There were also more than thirty Japanese soldiers' corpses lying neatly in three rows on the parade ground.

Each of them was shot between the eyebrows; the bullets entered from the front, and the back of their heads exploded with fist-sized holes.

"They were wounded first, then shot again." Yang Gong squatted down to examine a body with a bullet wound in the leg, his voice hoarse. "Someone dragged them over, laid them out one by one, and then shot them dead one by one."

"Who did it?" Sun Chao asked.

No one could answer. New information was discovered in the warehouse behind the camp. The warehouse door was wide open, and the food and ammunition inside were intact, but all eight Japanese soldiers guarding the warehouse were dead, their heads severed cleanly at the root. What kind of weapon was that, so sharp?

The first and second battalions had already discovered it, so the third battalion naturally couldn't be left behind. About a hundred puppet soldiers surrendered voluntarily, their eyes filled with terror. Pei Ju stood in front of them: "Tell me, what's going on in the city?"

"Sir... sir..." Fatty Qian swallowed hard. "I'll tell you everything. It happened last night, around three in the morning. First, there was a loud bang from the west gate, the whole city tower shook, and then chaos broke out in the city. There were gunshots everywhere, but strangely, we couldn't tell who was shooting whom!"

He took a breath and continued, "The Japanese command post was the first to be attacked. The phone kept ringing, saying that the regimental headquarters had been attacked and several battalion commanders were dead. But by the time reinforcements arrived, the command post was empty, and the ground was littered with corpses."

"And then?" Pei Ju asked.

"Then everything went into chaos..." Fatty Qian's voice trembled.

"The warehouse in the south of the city is even more eerie," a puppet soldier added. "The eight Japanese soldiers guarding the warehouse—no, eight Japanese men—all of them were headless. Someone saw a dark figure jump down from the warehouse roof, and all eight heads were swept off in a flash. It really happened, just a flash of light!"

"A beam of light?" Pei Ju frowned.

"Yes, yes, yes!" The puppet soldier nodded frantically. "It was so fast we couldn't see it! We were just across the street when we saw a black shadow flash by, and then eight Japanese soldiers fell down, their heads rolling all over the ground. By the time we ran over to look, the shadow was long gone."

"Sir, there really are ghosts! Please take us in!" Fatty Qian cried.

Pei Ju stared at the terrified puppet soldiers, remained silent for a few seconds, and then said, "Keep them under control for now."

After the puppet troops were led away, the company commander leaned over and whispered, "Battalion commander, this is strange..."

Pei Ju lit a cigarette. "Don't listen to their nonsense. They're just scaring themselves."

"Then let's..."

"Keep pushing forward." Pei Ju exhaled a smoke ring. "Accelerate the approach to the city center."

At 7:00 a.m., the three battalions met at the central building, where the Japanese soldiers clearly realized that this was the last battle.

When the First Battalion launched its attack from the front, the heavy machine guns on the second floor opened fire. At the same time, three groups of Japanese soldiers, each numbering about forty or fifty, rushed out from several alleys around the area and attacked the attacking troops from the flanks.

"Second Battalion on the left flank, Third Battalion on the right flank, hold them off!" Zhao Dayong roared.

Street fighting broke out instantly.

The Second Battalion ran right into a group of Japanese soldiers at the left-wing street corner. The two sides exchanged fire at each other less than thirty meters apart, bullets hitting the blue brick wall and sending sparks flying. Sun Chao personally led a platoon to flank from the side by scaling the wall. Just as they jumped into the courtyard, they came face to face with five Japanese soldiers who had slipped in through the back door.

"beat!"

Pei Ju divided the Third Battalion on the right flank into three groups: one group drew the enemy's attention from the front, while the other two groups attacked through the walls of the houses on both sides, trapping the Japanese soldiers in the alley.

Wang Dafa organized two assaults from the front, but they were both pushed back by heavy machine guns. The third time, he ordered the demolition team to dig through the walls of the houses on the side, all the way to the base of the Drum Tower.

"Do we have enough explosives?" Zhao Dayong asked.

"enough!"

The demolition team worked amidst a hail of bullets. Two soldiers were hit and fell, but a third took the explosive charge and continued crawling forward. Finally, they reached the base of the wall, placed the explosives, and lit the fuse.

"Retreat! Retreat now!"

The soldiers had just retreated when a deafening explosion occurred!

A large hole was blown in the southeast corner of the wall, and two load-bearing columns broke. The entire building tilted to the southeast, and the second-floor floorboards emitted a teeth-grinding cracking sound.

"Charge!"

The soldiers of the First Battalion roared and charged into the Drum Tower. In the hall on the first floor, about thirty Japanese soldiers were fighting like cornered beasts, but the tilted building made it difficult for them to even stand.

The battle quickly devolved into a close-quarters melee. The heavy machine gun on the second floor was still firing, but its aim was no longer accurate. A sniper from the Third Battalion fired a steady shot from the opposite rooftop, and the machine gunner's head tilted to the side.

At 8 a.m., the Chinese flag on the roof was torn down and thrown off the building.

The red flag is raised.

Xu Shi won the battle in three hours.

He Dayong entered the building. "How many casualties?"

Wang Dafa wiped the blood from his face: "Twenty-one dead, thirty-seven seriously wounded."

He Dayong nodded and walked to the window. The entire city of Xu could be seen; on the streets, troops were clearing out the remaining enemy forces.

He turned around and looked at the soldiers in the hall, all of them covered in blood, but their eyes were frighteningly bright.

"Clean up the battlefield."

"yes!"

The soldiers dispersed, and He Dayong stood alone by the window, looking at the ancient city that had just changed hands, his doubts growing heavier.

Who exactly helped? And where are they now?

Different scenarios, yet the same victories occurred in Pi City and Su City, leaving the Fourth and Sixth Regiments puzzled.

At nine o'clock in the morning, thirty miles outside Huai City, Si City, and Shu City, the three clones stood up at the same time and patted the dirt off their buttocks.

Meanwhile, my true form is standing in front of the Japanese aircraft base in Zhejiang Province.

Current Host: Li Feng

[Remaining lifespan]: 58769 years

[Skills]: Immortal Body, Ageless Body, King of Melee, God of Guns, God of Transformation, Cloud Ladder Leap, King of Throwing, Thirteen Ghost Needles, Keen Eye, Illusion Boy, Intimate of the Earth, Darwin, Limitless Tracking Across Heaven and Earth, Lighter (Right index finger is like a lighter, requires replenishment), Power King, Dragon Head (Left index finger is like a faucet, requires replenishment), One Breath Transforms into Three Pure Ones, Four-Dimensional Space (Nob's Nen ability), Laundry Technique (washing speed increased by 100%), Defecation Master (points to someone and they defecate, once a day, seven times a day), Tathagata's Divine Foot (a giant footprint falling from the sky), Mechanic (learns to use any machine), Magic Crystal Arrow (Frost ultimate move).

Little devils, you're going to lose your air support from now on.