Kuzma's Wife Cheated with His Own Father?

Kuzma was absolutely a demolitions genius. If he went off to join Al-Qaeda in the Middle East, they'd surely treasure him like a gem; his technique for planting roadside bombs was fast and steady. In ten minutes, without running over, the two bombs set before the walls on the north and south sides were fully installed. At the stairwell, Kuzma connected the cable wire to the PM4 hand-crank detonator. He raised a hand to wipe the sweat seeping from his bruised, swollen forehead, wincing and baring his teeth in pain. Then he stood, backed off a few steps, and, bowing and scraping before Chen Ge, said, "Sir, it's ready. I can guarantee it'll go off without a hitch. If it doesn't blow, I'll haul the explosives crate out there and set it off myself!" Kuzma: ??? Suka—I really ought to sew this mouth of mine shut. Why can't I ever stop running it?! Chen Ge glanced at the detonator, then at the dog tag that had slipped out from Kuzma's chest. Its serial number was actually 520. "What did you go to prison for?" Kuzma's expression darkened. He was silent for a few seconds, then, swallowing his shame, forced out the reason for his imprisonment—one too humiliating to speak. "This February I went to the hospital for a checkup, and the doctor told me... I have AZF gene deficiency." Chen Ge: ??? Archer: ??? Night Cat: ??? Barrier detachment member: ??? Watching drama unfold and drinking in the gossip is human nature, no matter where you're from. Everyone fixed burning stares on Kuzma, holding their breath and pricking up their ears. AZF gene deficiency, also called azoospermia, means congenital sterility—but a man's sexual function is the same as any normal man's. If Kuzma was already married with children, then you could be certain—he'd been cuckolded. Kuzma hung his head, tears dripping down, and, choking up, said, "I'm 28 this year. I married at 20. I have two sons and a daughter. I love them so much!" "I didn't want to look into it. I was ready to carry this secret to my grave. But I was in so much pain—do any of you understand how I feel?" Kuzma wanted a little comfort, but among everyone present, who could understand him? Nobody wanted to understand! Not in the least! Chen Ge pressed him. "Cut the crap and keep going. So then you went and got tested?" Kuzma nodded, his gaze turning melancholy and bleak. This was a typical Slavic trait—deep, striking features and melancholy eyes that made him look born to a bitter fate. "Right. I agonized for two months, but in the end I couldn't stop myself from secretly getting a DNA test! The moment the results came out, I went mad—I truly lost my mind—because the DNA match between the three children and me was 25%!" Hearing this, everyone's eyes went wide and round. They sucked in a sharp breath, feeling their brains could barely keep up. Anyone with an education would know what that match rate meant... half-siblings—same father, different mothers! Suka blyat, his wife didn't cheat with his own father, did she? Was it really that mind-blowing? Under everyone's stunned, half-doubting stares, Kuzma confirmed their guess. "I secretly investigated for half a month and uncovered a truth that shattered me, one I couldn't accept: my wife, that bitch, had been sleeping with my father, that bastard, before we were even married. My two sons are... they're my younger brothers. My daughter is my younger sister. In my fury, I took an axe to those two pieces of trash, hacked off their legs, and fed them to the dogs. For that, I got twelve years." Chen Ge and the others looked at one another, deeply shaken, all of them beginning to feel some pity for this poor bastard. With something like this happening to him, it would have been abnormal not to lose his mind. If his wife had cheated with old Wang next door, or a classmate, or a coworker, Kuzma—in a good enough frame of mind—could have turned a blind eye and gone on living. After all, since he was congenitally sterile, even children not his own by blood could be raised as his own. But she absolutely could not have cheated with his own father! Archer sighed. He wanted to offer a few words of comfort, then felt there was no point. Kuzma didn't have long to live. Dead was better—no more troubles. Night Cat, who was good at comforting people, stepped up and patted Kuzma on the shoulder. With heartfelt earnestness, he said, "Buddy, you... all right, fine—you've really got it rough. If it were me, I'd have mowed them down with an AK first, then chopped them to bits and dumped them in a cesspit. But what's done is done, and you've got to take it in stride. Why not look at it another way—you've gained two little brothers and a little sister. Isn't that nice?" ??? Kuzma looked as if he'd been struck by lightning. His eyes brimmed with disbelief as he stared at Night Cat, tears gushing down his face, and he wailed in fury. Was that even fucking human speech? Chen Ge burst out laughing, and Archer and the others couldn't help laughing out loud too. Suddenly, Chen Ge heard dense footsteps at the annex's tunnel entrance. He turned serious at once, pressed the PTT, and ordered, "Attention all—the Ukrainian military's here. Prepare for battle!" Bang, bang, bang—the smoke rounds fired from the rocket launchers burst apart, and within mere seconds the area centered on the Laboratory Building was blanketed in smoke. Octopus, Bull, and the others directed the veterans and K-soldiers to open fire blind and hurl grenades with all their might. The Ukrainian military split into two teams. The first team—Norman Battalion B Company plus International Legion 1st Infantry Battalion C Company, 142 men in all, led by Lynx and Titan—charged quickly out of the tunnel entrance, swung around toward the northwest, and attacked the north side of the Laboratory Building. The second team was Ukrainian military 93rd Brigade 2nd Battalion, 124 men, led by Siren, looping around to the south side of the Laboratory Building. Blast the walls, and storm the building! But they were up against Chen Ge—a cunning, vicious sneak who had already foreseen their tactics and had Kuzma prepare a "surprise" for them on both flanks. Anyone who often fought building-defense battles knew that heavy and light machine guns were mounted at the building's front and rear windows, their firepower terrifying. For attackers to charge in head-on was simply to throw their lives away. Attacking from both sides of the building had become the only choice—and the most workable plan. Chen Ge said to Night Cat, "Tell the people in the rooms on the north and south sides to pull back to the stairwell—we don't want any friendly fire!" Night Cat relayed the order over the walkie-talkie, while Chen Ge grabbed the PM4 hand-crank detonator and held it in his hand. This detonator was small—about the size of a water cup. Inside its body were a step-up gear set and a miniature permanent-magnet generator. To detonate it, you press the handle, and the rack drives the gears to spin at high speed; the coils cut through the magnetic field, generating an instantaneous high-voltage pulse current that triggers the electric detonator. On the north side of the building, smoke hung thick, and the rain fell harder—it had gone from a light rain to a moderate one. The rain sped the smoke's dispersal, and the foreign volunteers quickened their advance as well. Lynx and Titan each led a group forward—one from the northwest, one from due north—advancing on the north wall at the same time, bodies kept low. The engineers shouldered the explosives crates, and the rocket gunners carried AT4s. The plan was to blast the wall open, put a volley of rockets into the gap, then charge inside. The tactics were sound. Unfortunately, their luck was bad. Drawing ever closer to the north wall—and with the smoke too dense, their nerves wound too tight, and the environment working against them—they failed to notice anything amiss about the piles of broken bricks and rubble ahead. Such heaps of shattered brick and stone were all too common on the outskirts of Bakhmut's city district—practically everywhere you looked. When they were only twenty meters from the bomb, Lynx—a retired lieutenant of the US Army Rangers, with eight years of combat experience—felt his heart suddenly race. A powerful sense of danger swept over him; sensing the threat sharply, he instantly raised his hand, clenched it into a fist, and signaled a halt. "Stop! Take cover!" Everyone halted at once and dropped prone into cover, heads up to scan above and all around, fingers hooked tight against their trigger guards. Titan came running over, rifle in hand, and asked between heavy breaths, "Lynx, what's wrong?" "Listen closely—hasn't the firepower of those Wagner mercenaries in the building weakened?" Before Titan could answer, he went on in a low voice, "And they're not even setting up any guns to defend the second- and third-floor corridor windows—that clearly defies all common sense! I don't believe the commander of these Wagner mercenaries would make such a low-level mistake." The fire from the building had indeed weakened. Only the room right beside the stairwell was still shooting; every other veteran and K-soldier had cleared out of their rooms and pulled back to the stairwell, to keep from being caught in the blast when Kuzma's planted bombs brought the walls down. Titan's pupils contracted sharply. The two men exchanged a look and roared almost in unison. "Fall back, now!" Everyone, fall back—now!