Traveling Back to the 1960s: The Entire Internet Teaches Me How to Build Missiles

Ye Ling glared at him sternly:

"Don't do anything rash! This isn't just about us capturing a pilot; it's a diplomatic incident. It could make the newspapers, and you don't want to bring shame upon us."

Director Xu shrank back slightly. "I'll just proceed with the normal interrogation procedure, okay?"

Ye Ling then hummed in agreement and said to Zhou Yunxiao, "I'll report this matter as soon as possible and ask the higher-ups to send over an English translator. You'll temporarily fill in for me, and also keep an eye on Comrade Rufeng to make sure he doesn't make any mistakes!"

The last three words were pronounced with particular emphasis, making Xu Rufeng feel somewhat ashamed.

With Ye Ling's imperial sword, Zhou Yunxiao followed Xu Rufeng to interrogate Robert Hale, who was being held in solitary confinement.

After taking a hot bath and having a good meal, Hale finally looked radiant.

He was wearing an ill-fitting military uniform, his military cap was askew, his face was somewhat pale, he had freckles, black hair and blue eyes, and when he smiled, some crow's feet appeared at the corners of his eyes.

When the enemy came over to ask him questions, he answered them in a very "cooperative" manner.

"Why did you fly a U-2 spy plane into our airspace to gather intelligence and engage in espionage?"

After Zhou Yunxiao finished translating, Hale suddenly waved his hands in defense of himself.

"I did not spy; I am a peace advocate. I did not know what a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was. I was just flying a weather reconnaissance plane to collect data for the meteorological department. The original plan was to fly from Peshawar to Ulaanbaatar, but we encountered extreme weather interference en route, which caused the compass to malfunction."

"Then the plane lost its way, and by the time I fixed the compass, I realized it had penetrated thousands of kilometers into your airspace, and then it was shot down by your missiles..."

Upon hearing this, Director Xu flew into a rage, slamming his fist on the table and standing up. "I think you're going to refuse a polite offer and then drink a forfeit! You actually have the nerve to make up a story about the plane getting lost to fool people? Do you think we're fools?!"

Even someone like Zhou Yunxiao, who had never been interrogated before, could tell that Hale was lying.

This is definitely a prepared statement from the CIA.

Faced with Xu Rufeng's fury, Hale merely shrank back and stammered, "I am a peaceful person. My plane got lost. I have no ill intentions towards the Eastern Kingdom..."

Zhou Yunxiao reluctantly translated it, which only fueled Director Xu's rage.

But remembering Ye Ling's warning, he couldn't really do anything to the foreigners, so he pushed back his chair and stormed off, saying, "I'm going out for some fresh air!"

In the small interrogation room, only Zhou Yunxiao and a colleague responsible for taking interrogation notes remained.

Looking at Hale's innocent expression, Zhou Yunxiao stood up, dragged the chair over, and slammed it down in front of him with a 'bang'.

Hale, startled, covered his head, thinking the enemy was about to torture him, and hurriedly mumbled:

"You are a great nation, you should abide by the Geneva Conventions, and you must not mistreat or humiliate prisoners, let alone use torture to extract confessions!"

Seeing how scared he looked, Zhou Yunxiao rolled his eyes at him and then sat down.

Seeing that the other party meant no harm, Hale breathed a sigh of relief and nervously sized up the young man.

The young man was wearing a brown-green military uniform. He had a tall and strong build and handsome features. He was more dashing and heroic than I had imagined an Easterner to be. He was just a little too thin. I guessed he wasn't as strong as Dalura.

Talulah was Hale's wife, and the thought of his beloved, who was thousands of miles away across the vast Pacific Ocean, made him look sluggish.

Do you smoke?

Zhou Yunxiao reached into his pocket and asked him.

Hale nodded quickly, "Yes, yes!"

So he took out a cigarette from his pocket. It wasn't the luxurious Zhonghua brand or Daqianmen brand, but a cigarette he made himself using materials he found on the Gobi Desert.

Hale had never seen such a strangely shaped cigarette before; it didn't even have a filter.

But in the current environment, being able to smoke a cigarette is a rare treat, so he eagerly took it and put it in his mouth.

Zhou Yunxiao took out a box of Pegasus brand matches from his pocket, took out a long-handled match, and struck it lightly. The flame hissed up between his hands, and then he lit it for Hale.

Helme took a deep drag, then coughed violently the next second, her neck turning red from the choking, but she still couldn't bear to spit the cigarette out of her mouth.

Zhou Yunxiao smiled, "This is our 'Haloxylon ammodendron' brand tobacco, a specialty of Northwest China. It's very strong, and since it doesn't have a filter, it's especially harsh when you smoke it..."

Hale coughed for a long time before he got used to the smell of the saxaul smoke. As the yellowish-white smoke billowed from his nostrils, his tense nerves relaxed a little.

Zhou Yunxiao sat opposite him, chatting with him as if he were an old friend.

Hale also enjoyed the current interrogation atmosphere, so he responded with a few words here and there.

The two seemed to have hit it off immediately and found a lot of common topics. In fact, it was the viewers in the live stream who helped keep Hale's topic from "falling to the ground".

Hale had a great time chatting with them. They talked about everything from the Big Bang and the origin of humankind to Socrates and Plato, and then leisurely explored the Eastern philosophers Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi, searching for the meaning of time and life.

When Zhou Yunxiao finally asked, "What was your purpose in piloting the U-2 reconnaissance plane into the East?" Hale remained stubbornly defiant.

"I'm a peace advocate, my plane is lost..."

boom!

I chatted with Hale for ages, thinking I could get him to lower his guard and confess, but he was still completely unmoved.

Zhou Yunxiao stood up, and the chair he was sitting on crashed to the ground.

Director Xu, who was getting some fresh air outside, rushed in and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that nothing had broken out.

"Fine, you wait!"

It was rare for Zhou Yunxiao to be so offended by the foreigner. He turned around and snatched the hardcover notebook with a red star from the comrade who was taking the interrogation record next to him.

With a snap.

He arranged the chair and sat back down.

Xu Rufeng leaned against the door with his arms crossed, watching the two of them with great interest.

Hale looked at the young man with unease.

Zhou Yunxiao weighed the notebook in his hand, a forced smile on his face. "This notebook looks pretty thick, doesn't it?"

Hale nodded, then shrank back. "If you're going to use it to hit someone, could you please not hit them in the face?"

"whispering sound."

Zhou Yunxiao shook his head. "If beating you up would be useful, that would be great. You know about the battles at Chosin Reservoir, right? My superior was the commander of one of those battles, and he had some of these notes. Do you know what they were used for?"

Helner shook his head listlessly.

"It's called the casualty register, and it's specifically used to record the names, hometowns, and ranks of fallen soldiers."

Zhou Yunxiao stared at him seriously. "The records of just one company can fill half a notebook. And my superior said that when he returned from Chosin Reservoir, he had accumulated a lot of notebooks, probably several hundred, which would be twenty meters high if stacked up!"

Hale lowered his head nervously.

"So now you understand why the onlookers outside were glaring at you with gritted teeth when you were brought back, right? Because they hated executioners like you!"

As he spoke, Zhou Yunxiao forcefully pulled Hale, chair and all, forward until they were almost face-to-face, and said in a low voice:

"In order to win those battles against you, we incurred tens of billions of dollars in foreign debt, and many people couldn't even afford to eat."

"You must have searched the village where you hid when you fled, right? The young men there were so hungry they couldn't get out of bed, and you couldn't find a single grain of food in any of their bowls, pots, or jars, could you?"

"Even young women who are eighteen or nineteen years old can't find a decent pair of pants to wear and have to share one with their mothers. This is the situation we're facing, and all these difficulties are thanks to you!"

At this point, Zhou Yunxiao cracked his neck. "So you can understand what kind of anger I'm holding back as I question you."

He knew Hale must be staring at him very nervously, perhaps even with a hint of shame.

Zhou Yunxiao deliberately made himself appear unfocused, while lightly hefting the brick-like notebook in his hand.

"Why are we developing missiles and advanced weapons behind closed doors? Is it so we can fight another Battle of Chosin Reservoir?"

"Wrong! We just want to live in peace, we don't want to be blackmailed by you anymore, we're fed up with living in fear... But what about you self-proclaimed peace messengers? You fly around in reconnaissance planes every day, trying to find our bases and launch a surgical strike!"

"If that day ever comes, even if I'm just an intellectual, if I'm blinded by rage, I'd still dare to carry a bomb and fight you to the death... Damn it!"