I Enlisted Three Times, and My Former Unit Blacklisted Me

Yang Chen, who has enlisted three times, meets the biggest nightmare of his military career in boot camp: Guo Yifei. The two battle from the climbing frame to the obstacle course, argue over whose name goes on the lesson plans and how the cafeteria’s braised pork should be divided, and bet that the loser has to shout “I’m a pig” in front of the whole battalion.

Guo Yifei tangles his leg rope the wrong way, Yang Chen steps on his untied shoelace, Xu Wannian secretly takes bets, and the old mess-hall squad leader brings out an electronic scale to weigh the braised pork.

A strip of old tape travels from an Amazonian culvert to a highland border company. A pencil stub signs the lesson-plan authorization forms for the entire brigade. Then, through an absurd twist of fate, an inconspicuous Chinese comma becomes the official separator in documents jointly signed by two people across the brigade.

Later, Anderson takes the reversed leg-rope technique back to North Carolina, and the Ranger mess-hall menu gains a new dish: “Comma-Style Braised Pork.”

The laser-engraved comma on a joint unit insignia is listed as a recommended standard for official documents at multinational exercises, while the wooden comma carved from scrap ammunition-crate planks by the highland border company still stands beside the parade ground.

Someone asks Yang Chen how it all happened. He thinks for a moment. “It all started the day I lost a bet and had to shout ‘pig.’”