Bullet Marks

Bullet Marks is the breakout work of the online military-fiction writer Fenwu Yaoji (real name Dong Qun). It was first serialized on Qidian in 2006, after which China Friendship Publishing Company released it in print as five separate volumes, beginning with Bullet Marks: Top-Secret Sharpened Soldiers. In 2012, Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House brought out a newly revised edition, Bullet Marks (Three-Volume Complete Edition) (Newly Revised Perfect Collector's Edition). The novel is built around a fictional "Fifth Category Special Unit": this unit is not a special-forces outfit in the ordinary sense, nor a field-army reconnaissance company; it has a real table of organization but no public unit designation. Primeval jungle, highland desert, ice and snow, and desolate wasteland are the battlefields where its soldiers square off against death, and saltwater crocodiles, Bengal tigers, venomous snakes, wild boars, and forest pythons are constant companions. The protagonist, Zhan Xiage, is a lone, defiant young man who is admitted to this mysterious unit outside the normal rules because of his exceptional gifts; in a field base surrounded by venomous snakes and fierce beasts, tempered by blood and fire beyond ordinary imagination, he grows into the youngest "third fang" in the ranks. He later leads his team into the Blue Shield international special-forces military competition, where elite units from many countries gather, and on an island vacation is accidentally caught up in a coup in an island nation, ultimately establishing an independent armed force between jungle and desert. Through dense combat scenes and meticulous detail on military tactics and wilderness survival, the novel shapes a virile, blazing brotherhood-in-arms portrait of soldiers, and carries the plain conviction of "defending home and country" throughout.