"White Olive Tree" - Jiuyue
Chapter 1
The day Song Ran met Li Zan was a very ordinary day.
On June 3, Ale City, located in the north-central part of the East Country, looked the same as any other day. At eight o'clock in the morning, Song Ran opened the window of the hotel. Downstairs, a north-south street led directly to the elementary school at the end. The shops on both sides of the road were short and flat, and the high and low residential houses were hidden behind the trees.
Looking around, the streets were dusty, with no one to clean up the paper scraps and fallen leaves, but the sky was blue and the sun was shining brightly.
In the restaurant downstairs, a young mother in a headscarf and a black robe sat at the table with her little son to eat breakfast; the shop owner stood behind the stall, cutting grilled meat with one hand and flipping flatbread with the other. The aroma of grilled meat, boiled beans and flatbreads wafted through the street. In the repair shop across the street, several middle-aged men pushed their motorcycles in front of the shop door early, talking to the repairman in a flurry of words in the Eastern language that Song Ran couldn't understand. A whistle sounded not far away, and the bus stopped by the roadside. A group of elementary school students in school uniforms got off the bus and ran towards the school. The bus driver rolled down the window and talked to the police patrolling on the roadside.
Everything seemed the same as every day before, but also a little different.
The local restaurant is still open, but KFC has already closed; the dental clinic is opening, but the mobile phone store has been closed for more than a week. On the door is a new model of a Chinese mobile phone brand, the poster is tattered, and the paper is shaking in the morning breeze. A stray dog is curled up in a pile of torn newspapers in the corner. The glass window of the clothing store next door is also covered with a layer of dust, and two mannequins can be vaguely seen in the window, one wearing a black robe and headscarf to cover her face, and the other wearing a white shirt and flowery skirt.
The morning breeze swept through the fallen leaves and paper scraps, but could not blow away the still skirt in the window.
Song Ran sighed for no reason, and a faint melancholy in her heart was like a piece of dusty glass. This was her last day in this country. Today her overseas assignment ended and she was about to return. It took 4 hours to drive from Ale City to the capital Gama, and the flight back home was at 11 o'clock at night.
She was leaning against the window, browsing the internet with her phone. It was afternoon in China, and netizens were discussing topics like celebrity cheating and the most beautiful tofu beauty.
It’s 8:30 a.m. local time, and it’s almost time to pack up.
She had just folded the tripod when the floor beneath her feet suddenly shook, as if there was an earthquake. But it wasn't an earthquake! She grabbed the camera, turned on the switch and rushed to the window, and there was a loud thunder explosion in the sky.
But the world outside the window was normal, and people on the street looked up like a group of confused geese. Soon there was another loud noise, one after another - it was a cannonball.
The war has begun.
The streets were suddenly in an uproar, people were shouting and running around.
Song Ran rushed to the rooftop with her camera tripod and communication equipment on her back. She looked out over the wasteland outside the city. She could not see any troops. But the roar of artillery fire continued. It was Haru City, dozens of kilometers northeast of Ale City, where one of her male colleagues was stationed.
The cell phone signal was cut off. The first step in the war was to destroy the communication base station.
Song Ran set up the equipment and activated the satellite phone. When he got through, he said, "Government troops and anti-government forces have started a war outside Haru City. What's the situation over there?"
Song Ran changed the camera angle and steadied her breath. "I am now on the rooftop of a hotel in the northeastern suburb of Ale City, an important town in the central part of the East Country. I can hear clear gunfire coming from the direction of Haru City. The building below is still shaking, and the camera is unstable. In the Ale area where I am located, there were cars and pedestrians downstairs a minute ago, but now the street is empty. Opposite the direction I pointed is a primary school, and you can see..." She zoomed in on the picture, "Teachers evacuated students from the teaching building to the playground. The number of students studying here has dropped sharply from more than 300 a few months ago to more than 100 now. Many families have already moved to the south, near the capital Gama..."
When she finished her report, the gunfire from the other side disappeared. She didn't know whether the fighting had stopped or turned into a war of guns and bullets.
Song Ran waited on the rooftop for ten minutes but found nothing new.
The sky was as blue as a washed sapphire, the sun was even brighter, and the world was so strange as if nothing had happened.
The notice from above was that Song Ran should return to China as usual. But the war broke out suddenly and the transportation lines might be completely blocked. It would not be easy to go back.
The car she rented was returned last night. The driver who was supposed to take her to Gamma today had to take a family of six south, breaking the contract. At this special moment, she couldn't blame the other party.
Around 9:30, Song Ran contacted a journalist friend in the United States and learned that they had a car and could take her with them. But they were in Surui, more than ten kilometers northwest of Alesi, and set off south at 10:30 in the morning.
At this time, the streets of Ale were crowded with people driving cars and motorcycles, carrying boxes and bags with their families, fleeing. The roads out of the city were blocked. The sound of horns, curses, shouts, and children crying was endless. Song Ran ran through more than a dozen streets under the scorching sun, looking for a motorcycle in the city, but transportation was hard to come by at that time.
On the way back, her eyes became wet several times. It was impossible not to be afraid.
When she returned to the hotel, the driver who had broken the contract was waiting for her in the lobby. He brought her a motorcycle.
At 10 o'clock in the morning, Song Ran changed into a black suit, put on a hat and a mask, tied the equipment box and suitcase to the back seat, and rode a motorcycle alone to the northwest of Su Rui City. The motorcycle was a men's motorcycle, heavy and difficult to control. She often fell when she first came, but now she is familiar with it.
The road was vast and the sky was high, with occasional escape vehicles passing by heading south.
She drove very fast and arrived at the outskirts of Shurui in about a quarter of an hour. The streets and houses were deserted, and the wind blew garbage everywhere, making it look like a ghost town in broad daylight.
Just after walking down a street, he heard faint gunshots in the distance. Song Ran's palms were soaked with sweat, and he hurried to the other side of the city.
She turned a corner in the empty alley and soon rushed onto the wide, deserted main road. When she accelerated again, seven or eight camouflaged figures suddenly appeared from all directions, from the alley corners in front of her, on the rooftops, behind the cars, and all around. They were fully armed and holding guns and yelled at her:
"Back up!"
"Stop!"
Song Ran braked urgently. Under the influence of inertia, the car slid forward rapidly, and the tires scraped against the ground with a harsh friction sound. There was an iron box in the middle of the road, and a wire was exposed from the box, with a small piece of metal at the end of the wire.
The motorcycle braked to a stop, and Song Ran put his left foot down, stepping squarely on the metal sheet. In an instant, the iron box lit up, and the red numbers began to count down -
It's a bomb.
There was deathly silence all around.
Song Ran's heart shrank into a point.
She stood there with one foot on the metal sheet and the other on the motorcycle pedal, motionless, the sweat on her face rolling down her neck like beans.
Every second was stretched to an infinite length by fear, but the group of people showed no sign of coming to rescue.
After a few seconds of silence, a voice shouted at her: "Stay put!"
As soon as he finished speaking, someone else shouted, "A-Zan!"
Song Ran couldn't tell what language azan was. Then he saw a man in gray-green camouflage jump out of a second-floor window and descend quickly on a drainage pipe. He was wearing a helmet and a mask, standing on the side of the road and observing her from a distance - her all-black outfit was suspicious.
Song Ran's voice trembled like a twisted silk thread: "Help! Please!"
The man stood still for a second, then walked towards her. Someone called out again to stop her: "A-Zan!"
He turned and gestured to his companions.
The timer on the iron box is counting down rapidly - 00:09:10
The man approached with a gun in hand. His eyes were dark and bright, alert as an eagle. He walked slowly and solemnly. When he was about ten meters away from her, he stared at her masked face for a while, narrowed his eyes, and asked, "Chinese?"
Song Ran almost cried and shouted, "Yes! I'm a reporter!"
Now, his companions appeared from behind the obstacles one after another.
He walked closer to look at the bomb, then looked at the metal piece she was standing on, and said, "You stepped really well."
"… "
Song Ran didn't know how to answer him with this tone which was three parts teasing and seven parts gentleness, but he felt a little relaxed.
He knelt on one knee and removed the outer shell of the iron box, revealing the complicated wires inside. Song Ran couldn't help but gasp. He heard it, and seeing that she was still supporting herself with one foot, he asked softly, "Can you hold on?"
Song Ran could only nod.
He didn't believe it, so he stood up and said, "Get out of the car first."
Song Ran whispered: "... I dare not."
"It's okay. I'll hold you." He comforted her, holding the motorcycle with his left hand. She felt his strength instantly. He held her arm with his right hand. Song Ran instinctively grabbed him quickly. The man's arms were muscular and firm.
He urged: "Don't shift your center of gravity, step down with your right foot."
Song Ran used the strength of his arm to successfully get off the motorcycle. During this time, her feet were sore and numb, and sweat was dripping under her clothes. One of his companions came over and pushed the motorcycle away. The others pushed an abandoned car nearby as a cover.
He said, "Keep your weight on your left foot, don't move."
"Yeah." Song Ran glanced at the timer—
00:08:17
He squatted down again and began to sort out the wires.
It was almost noon, and the sun was scorching. In the desert, the temperature felt close to 50 degrees. Dense beads of sweat flowed from Song Ran's brows into her eyes, stimulating her to shudder slightly. This shudder scared herself to death.
"Hold on." He smiled faintly, "If you move, I'll be a hero."
Song Ran said: "Yeah."
He knelt on one leg, lowered his head to check the line, and occasionally cut a few wires. Perhaps his easy-going temperament had a calming effect, and Song Ran calmed down a little. But time passed extremely slowly, and after waiting for a long time, she couldn't help but look at the remaining time.
As the timer broke through 00:03:00, she started to panic again.
He continued to dismantle the bomb in an orderly manner. When the timer showed 00:02:00, he sighed and said helplessly, "It's too late."
Song Ran was shocked.
He said this, but his hands did not stop.
His companion realized the seriousness of the situation and shouted again: "A-Zan!"
Song Ran's eyes were wet with tears, and her tears and sweat flowed into her mask, soaking her cheeks. She sniffed quietly.
This time he raised his head, and the pair of clear black eyes above the mask smiled at her, comforting her: "Don't be afraid. I won't abandon you."
The sunlight fell on his eyelashes, sparkling and dancing. His voice was as clear as spring water.
Song Ran stopped crying and nodded hesitantly.
He lowered his head and continued to dismantle it.
But she could feel that the situation was becoming more serious.
"Go away." She said softly, "You are a good person, I don't want to... drag you to death with me."
Without even looking up, he asked, "How fast can you run?"
"ah?"
"How far can you run in five seconds?" He said it in a nonchalant tone, frowning as he dismantled the wires without looking up.
Song Ran didn't react.
He said, "There's one and a half minutes left. I can only remove the gravity sensor in 30 seconds so that it won't explode immediately when you move your foot away. But the timer will speed up ten times, and the remaining minute will be shortened to about five seconds." He asked, "How far can you run?"
Five seconds
Song Ran was confused: "10 meters? 20 meters? I don't know."
"Tsk." He said with a look of regret, "It's not enough."
“Maybe 30 meters!” she said. “I didn’t run very hard.”
He said, "Try it today?"
“…Okay.” She nodded.
00:01:10
"Ten seconds. Get ready," he said, his eyes fixed on the line, his hands working non-stop.
Song Ran took a deep breath.
7,6,
He whispered: "5, 4, 3..."
He overcame many difficulties and finally picked out the last thread.
Song Ran's whole body tensed up.
"1." He cut the wire, the red counter accelerated wildly, he stood up, grabbed her hand, and sprinted out.
The hot air and dust made a gust of wind around her ears, but she could neither hear nor see, and she was being pulled by him to run desperately.
The sound of the wind, the dust, the sweat, the heartbeat, all of them were gone. At that moment, it was as if time and space no longer existed, and only the summer sun burned my eyes like a glass mirror.
She didn't know how short five seconds was, nor did she know how long five seconds was.
At the end, he pulled her into his arms and protected her, then fell to the ground. The man's body covered her like a barrier. The next moment, with a loud explosion, sand, dirt, and debris fell from the sky like rain.