The Beautiful Boss's Personal Bodyguard-Chapter 417 - 416

Ye Tian raised his hand with a sympathetic intention to pat his shoulder for comfort, but noticing the vigilant look of the bodyguard beside him, Ye Tian retracted his hand. These bodyguards weren’t the vegetarian type; their guns were loaded with real bullets. It wasn’t worth taking the risk.

He then casually scratched the back of his head with his uplifted hand and said, "Don’t worry about it, you guys have more than just me up your sleeve. If all else fails, just call on the National Security Bureau. That Major General I saw the other day looked pretty badass, pulling him in will definitely be useful."

"Hmph, nothing but a smooth talker. On the battlefield, it would be good enough if he doesn’t wet himself."

"Then let him berate the enemy by pointing at their noses, curse them until they lose."

"Hey, are you even maintaining any form of decency anymore!"

The old man, in a fluster, reached out to strike someone, and Ye Tian hurriedly dodged, so in the end, the slap didn’t land on him.

"Alright, old man, then I’ll take a trip over to Tibet first thing tomorrow. You said it yourself, I get to pick the best soldiers."

"Didn’t I give you the files already? Those soldiers are the cream of the crop selected from various units."

Ye Tian waved his hand and blinked, "That’s where you’re clueless. What grassroots officer would willingly hand over their top soldiers? If they all go, who will be the face of their units, who will create their glory?"

The General Staff didn’t respond and extended his foldable walking stick, stood up, and stamped his foot.

"Just keep the files with you. Use them if you want, leave them if you don’t. I’ll send someone to pick you up for wherever you’re going tomorrow."

"Tibet. Mutuo. I’ll treat that as the first stop for now."

The General Staff nodded in agreement, then slipped into the red flag sedan parked nearby. Watching the car drive away, Ye Tian leaned back on the bench, hands supporting the back of his head, gazing at the sky.

He sat on the bench for an entire afternoon.

Nobody knew what the man, who was gazing up at the sky, was thinking in his heart.

...

The next day, Ye Tian was taken to the military airport, but this time, he wasn’t sharing the ride with people but with a pile of vegetables.

"Buddy, does Mutuo rely on airplanes for transporting food?"

The cigarette-dangling pilot spoke in a carefree tone, "Bullshit! This is for headquarters. Mutuo’s food supply depends on trucks, once every seven days. By the time the new vegetables arrive, the old ones are already rotten. Transportation is a mess, old drivers are too old, new drivers are too green. These days, who’s still willing to be a truck soldier, especially in that godforsaken place. Pity our brothers stationed there, swelled up with hunger and still have to patrol in the blizzards. Speaking about who has it the hardest, it’s definitely Mutuo. They say soldiers are just fools who endure hardships, but when it really comes down to it, not many are willing to go; they’re all there for the country."

"Old Niu, smoking again? Is this a place to smoke? Put it out right away!"

The pilot licked his lips and smiled, then took a few quick drags before reluctantly stubbing the cigarette out. Turning back to Ye Tian, he asked, "Hey buddy, where are you headed?"

Ye Tian replied with frustration, "I’m on my way to Mutuo."

Mutuo, a town comparable to the northernmost Mohe, called a city but more akin to a small inland village. Here, there’s less people and more permafrost, with Aonra Snow Mountain draped in white snow in the distance.

Ye Tian took a military vehicle from Lhasa and traveled for an entire day, finally arriving in the town of Mutuo. To actually reach the supply station on Ural Zhuo Mountain would take until tomorrow. The nights in Tibet are feared more than live bullets; no one dares to challenge the authority of the night.

The driver was a man from Inner Mongolia who had been a truck soldier here for ten years, a transport expert of the company, always ranking within the top three in the military region’s competitions. He had been offered several promotions, a nod of his head would have taken him to Lhasa or even Chengdu Military Region as an officer, but every time he gently shook his head and said there’d be other chances, to let other brothers take the opportunity first. One after another, until the company commander presented the final chance, telling him it was his last due to age limits. After this, forget it.

When he tried again to defer for others, the entire battalion stood outside his dorm in minus thirty-degree weather, stubbornly for half the night, until he, shirtless, drove them all back. Of course, in the end, he didn’t leave. That night, he wept with the battalion commander for hours saying, "If I go, who will treat the trucks’ sicknesses? Who will brave those mountain roads? I can’t trust those roads without me. I ought to at least train one or two kids who can navigate them."

Ye Tian didn’t know these stories, they were all recounted by old Tashi, the butter tea seller in town. Tashi, in Tibetan, means a good, kind person. Not just anyone earns that title, but this old Tashi told Ye Tian that his driver, he’s the Tashi among the Han people, we call him Han Tashi. I’m the Tibetan Tashi, he’s the Han Tashi; Han and Tibetan, we’re one family, all Tashis.

Watching the old man clumsily speaking Mandarin, Gesturing ceaselessly between the two with his withered old hands, something deep within Ye Tian was profoundly moved. "Han and Tibetan, we’re one family, all Tashis." Such an ordinary phrase, even slightly grammatically flawed, but who cares about that? That our Tibetan brothers could utter "Han and Tibetan, we’re one family," and call an ordinary driver Tashi, could there be a deeper bond?

Ye Tian was convinced his trip here was not in vain; the most unpretentious places are where you find the best soldiers.

After finishing the butter tea at the stall, Ye Tian returned to the small hotel to see the old soldier draining water from the vehicle, the steaming water quickly freezing into lumps within ten minutes. Ye Tian went over to help.

"Master, how many years have you been driving here?"

Lying on a plank under the vehicle, the old soldier was inspecting the bottom of the car. Hearing Ye Tian’s question, he chuckled, "Heh, how many years, let’s see... it’s been a while. When I first came here, there was nothing over there."

Following the direction the old soldier was pointing, there was a hill where one could vaguely make out the branching trees, clearly mature woods. Vegetation in Tibet doesn’t grow easily; aside from some alpine meadows and other grassy vegetation, tall trees often die as seedlings due to freezing, or are blown away by strong winds. One wonders how many years of careful nurturing it took for these trees to reach their current size.