Only one night had passed, and Antonio received his letter of appointment.

  It was approved by the commander of the military sub-district and the commander-in-chief of the army.

  He now concurrently held four additional positions: deputy commander of the electricity, garage, sentry, and intelligence departments.

  The first three departments were insignificant.

  But the intelligence department carried a lot of weight; it could report directly to the army's commander-in-chief. If the Minister of Defense came for an inspection, he would usually inquire about the military sub-district's intelligence department as well.

  When Antonio walked into the intelligence department again, no one dared to ignore him anymore. Everyone stood neatly and properly, saluting him.

  Colonel Garrison reported to Antonio that although they were short one person, the work could still proceed normally.

  "State the recent work plans and progress."

  "..." Colonel Garrison hesitated for a moment: "Yes! Commander."

  "Progress on the investigation of the Rio Sangreza River arms smuggling case, involving 76 Soviet PPSh-41 submachine guns and 24 Soviet RPD light machine guns. Since this case is favorable to our side and the main suspect holds a third-country passport, we are currently conducting a joint operation with the police. The temporary principle is 'only track, don't solve the case.' The warehouse has been located in the East Mountain caves of the temporary capital. Report complete, awaiting commander's instructions!"

  Garrison handed over the case files. Antonio only flipped through them casually before handing them back.

  "Continue close monitoring."

  "Yes!"

  "Security screening for the C-906 classified meeting. The area within 5 kilometers involves 211 households, 398 males, 446 females, among whom 338 are elderly and children, and 506 are young adults. It has entered a state of full monitoring, and the security situation is overall controllable. We are currently in the stage of screening the floating population before clearing the site. Please instruct, Commander."

  "Report the floating population data to me when the time comes."

  "Yes!"

  Antonio didn't find the internal tasks of the Security Bureau boring at all.

  A few days ago, he was still a brigade commander and couldn't access these ongoing classified missions at all. He could only follow deployment orders and execute them resolutely.

  But now, through the 17 ongoing classified missions, he mapped out a security situation map of the temporary capital Port Sol for the next 15 days in his mind.

  "In the next 15 days, this country will have three high-level security consultation meetings, one of which is scheduled to be attended by the President himself."

  "Smuggling on the Rio Sangreza River is becoming increasingly rampant, but because one case involves smuggling arms from the other side to our side, the police and military are currently just watching and waiting, not yet performing arrests or confiscations." Antonio quietly pondered this sentence.

  What kind of consultation meeting could reach the level of a secret meeting with the President?

  Undoubtedly, it was people from the other side.

  The two banks of the Rio Sangreza River were secretly negotiating for peace.

  Antonio knew what was going on now.

  ……

  Elena also knew what was going on.

  Commander Barda got into a military vehicle and zoomed away.

  Juana was spreading word everywhere that her second uncle went to the county town for a meeting. But seeing the accountant finally post the delayed hiring announcement and saying the superiors told her to post it, this probably proved that Roan had already seen Leo, and Leo really had the ability to restrain Barda.

  Elena felt a sense of relief.

  At least now she didn't have to worry about being reported by Sienna and forcibly sent to a labor reform camp by Barda.

  In the afternoon by the roadside, Elena finally saw Roan returning from the county town. Since Roan again forgot to ask Leo if he knew Elena.

  When the two saw each other now, they both had a look as if they were seeing an alien.

  Roan was thinking:

  "Who are you, and why do you know Leo..."

  Elena was thinking:

  "Who are you to Leo, and why were you two able to bring down Barda..."

  Sienna, pushing past them, looked first at Roan and then at Elena, mocking: "What, have you two fallen for each other?"

  Sienna didn't mind Roan being with Elena at all now. This man had no merits other than being tall and handsome.

  Poor and rustic!

  In the distance, Elias was walking over, and Sienna quickly ran away.

  Roan: "..."

  Elena: "..."

  Elias was now as soft as a noodle, his whole body reeking of cow dung. Elena felt the man even had cow dung stuck to his nose hairs and signaled Roan to start running with her.

  The two followed to the camp office before the panting Roan asked Elena: "You told me to run here, what for?"

  "To register for the driver's license exam. Aren't you signing up?"

  Roan shook his head while laughing. He didn't expect Elena was serious about taking the driver's license exam; he had never seen a woman who could drive.

  But in her previous life, Elena was assigned to a labor reform farm and was responsible for repairing tractors. After getting out of the labor reform prison and doing business, she bought her own car. Taking a driver's license exam was a piece of cake for her.

  "If you don't sign up, do you want to be a farmer for the rest of your life?"

  Roan shook his head.

  How could he explain his "lack of drive" to Elena? He just couldn't explain it.

  Roan accompanied Elena into the office to finish the registration before slowly walking home with her.

  On the way, he briefly mentioned meeting Leo at the psychiatric hospital. He didn't mention Bruno at all.

  Elena was also completely shocked; Leo was actually a psychiatric patient...

  They reached the edge of the village when a middle-aged woman in her forties or fifties rushed toward the military camp with a panicked expression, shouting as she ran.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  "Ben, quickly tell your uncle, his wife is having a difficult labor, her life is in danger!"

  Ben was a ten-year-old boy playing with water by the field ridge. Hearing this, he bolted toward the military camp.

  Elena and Roan shouted at the same time:

  "Daniel's wife?"

  Daniel's family was a very warm large family in the village. during the war, they donated all their family's food to the army, and the whole family lived by digging wild vegetables.

  Although the war was over, they were very kind to the young men of the support army from out of town.

  They were even kinder to Roan and his two siblings. Sometimes when Roan was busy on the mountain or couldn't get back from the county town, Daniel's wife would bring a bowl of hot rice to Sofia.

  She had been doing this for three consecutive years.

  Elena and Roan ran toward Daniel's house together. Reaching the door, they saw people carrying Daniel's wife out on a door panel, preparing to lift her onto a bullock cart.

  The woman was covered with a quilt, struggling and wailing on the door panel, bleeding from her lower body.

  Elena cried out in anxiety: "No, the bullock cart is too slow! The person will be in danger before reaching the hospital!"

  "Then what should we do?" Daniel's father was a fair-skinned and plump 50-year-old man, already starting to wipe away tears.

  Roan also shouted: "Go drive the tractor! Use the tractor to send her."

  "Only Barda knows how to drive the tractor, and Barda was called away by a military vehicle." Daniel's sister, a girl a year or two older than Elena, also started crying.

  In an instant, five or six people in this family were crying at the same time, as if the woman in labor was already dead.

  "I can drive! I’ll drive the tractor! You use the bullock cart to take her to the roadside, I'll drive the tractor to pick her up." Elena shouted as she ran, heading back toward the military camp again, leaving Roan stunned.

  She could drive a tractor?

  Roan helped the people lift the pregnant woman onto the bullock cart and pulled it to the side of the main road. After a short while, Elena drove the tractor out with a clatter-clatter-clatter. In the back of the large trailer stood the anxious Daniel.

  People had no time to think about why a girl could drive a tractor now. Everyone lifted the pregnant woman onto the trailer; some comforted her, some were responsible for helping the delivery, and some fed her rice water.

  Beldora was reached quickly. Everyone was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but unexpectedly, when Daniel jumped off the vehicle to look, there was no one in the small military hospital.

  After asking at the nearby food shops, they found out that a military vehicle had called all these people to the county for a meeting today.

  The five or six people on the tractor, including Daniel's parents and sister, all started wailing together again.

  "Don't be afraid, there is a car over there!"

  Elena spotted a sedan parked under a tree in front of a food shop. Sedans were rare in this era; the owner had covered it with a tarp. If Elena hadn't been sharp-eyed, she would have missed this chance.

  She and Daniel went into the shop to find the owner, with Roan and several villagers following closely behind.

  The owner was sitting in the shop eating porridge. He was a man in his early forties, carrying a briefcase, wearing rare leather shoes, and a white shirt tucked into his waist. He already had the cadre style from Elena's memory four or five years later.

  "Is the car yours? Are you a cadre visiting the countryside?" When Elena got anxious, she spoke like bullets.

  The cadre had already seen they were looking for a car to save someone. He took out the keys and said: "The car is mine, but I don't know how to drive. The driver took a bullock cart back to his hometown and won't be back for at least two hours."

  "Two hours? What to do, what to do!"

  Daniel was so anxious he was stomping his feet, almost falling to the ground.

  Roan had to hold up this friend who was five years older than him.

  "Don't panic, I can drive..." Elena said as she turned to Daniel, her gaze sweeping across the crowd. Everyone fell silent.

  "Give me the keys, saving a life is more important."

  "You can drive?" The cadre froze for a moment, looking at everyone, but no one refuted. Everyone had seen Elena drive the tractor; who would doubt if she could drive a car?

  She must be able to!

  Socialist cadres cannot sit by and watch someone die. This cadre was very conscious; he stopped eating his porridge and stuffed the keys into Elena's hand.

  "Fine, go go go, let's go back to the county together."

  The cadre sat in the passenger seat, the pregnant woman lay in the back row, and the back seat could only squeeze in two more people.

  It was Daniel and his sister.

  At first, the cadre was afraid Elena couldn't drive. Seeing a pit or a stone on the road, he would remind her worriedly:

  "Careful! Careful!"

  But after just a short while, he found that Elena drove both fast and steady.

  There were no cars on the road in this era, and the military district built the roads flat and wide. Except for occasional small pits that required slowing down, Elena could drive the car at 90 kilometers per hour.

  So for the 60-plus kilometer journey, she only took 40 minutes to deliver the pregnant woman steadily to the entrance of the county hospital.

  Daniel's sister shouted while crying:

  "Doctor, come quickly and save a life!"

  Fortunately, socialist doctors also used a hundred-meter sprint speed to save lives, not to mention this hospital was still under the jurisdiction of the military district.

  They were military doctors!

  In less than two minutes, two doctors and five or six nurses rushed out together, lifting the person while feeding medicine and giving injections.

  It was just like going onto a battlefield.