Because the curtains were hung, Song Ran slept two hours longer than the previous day and woke up at almost eight o'clock.
She opened her eyes hazily and saw the light from outside shining through the edge of the curtains. She remembered him standing on the table to help her hang the curtains yesterday.
She was in a daze for a while before she remembered to check her watch. It was only a quarter before the agreed time of eight o'clock. She immediately got up, changed her clothes, and opened the curtains. The bright sunlight poured in, making her squint.
The phone on the table rang. Li Zan sent a message, saying that he had something urgent to do in the morning and asked if the time could be changed to 2:30 in the afternoon.
Song Ran replied yes.
Suddenly she had a free morning, and she had nothing else to do, so she sorted out her notes, manuscripts, and various materials. Perhaps because she had an appointment in the afternoon, she had trouble concentrating, so she ran out to get some water and washed her hair.
It was called washing hair, but it was just soaking the hair, rubbing it with soap and then washing it again - clean water was too scarce. Then I simply wiped my body with a wet towel.
Only after she cleaned herself up did she feel a little relieved and went back to work.
After logging onto Twitter, Song Ran discovered that the photo she posted yesterday of a little brother and sister picking up bread crumbs on the ruins had attracted widespread attention. Last night, Garo's international charity organization came to pick up the little brother and sister, and also picked up dozens of homeless orphans.
The charity organization found Song Ran. She went over to see that the children were well taken care of, washed clean, and changed into new clothes. In the photo, the little brother and sister were happily eating bread and drinking milk.
Song Ran couldn't help but smile faintly, feeling relieved.
After finishing her work, it was only 10:30 in the morning. Time suddenly passed very slowly. She had nothing to do, so she went downstairs with her camera and walked around the neighborhood.
Walking around the dormitory and teaching buildings, I found that there were many more students in the auditorium. I didn’t know when they came in, and they were making banners and drawing boards on the campus.
When Song Ran went over to ask, he found out that many teachers and students who had originally studied in Ale City and had fled to the south due to the war had returned to cheer for the army and mobilize the civilians; some were even preparing to attend classes - they believed that Ale City would definitely be recovered.
After leaving the campus and entering the street, Song Ran was attracted by the shouting at the corner of the street. She chased after it and saw that it was a student parade. Yesterday, she saw many college students from all over the country pouring into the street. It turned out that they were all here to march and preach. They held loudspeakers, held signs, shouted slogans, waved national flags, and called on local residents to support the government forces and jointly defend the city of Ale.
The students' passionate slogans echoed on the ancient street. Song Ran roughly understood the terms such as "defend", "history" and "suffering", and his blood boiled.
She followed the marching students and found that the city's air-raid shelters had already been labeled with new signs and trenches had been dug; many civilians walking on the streets were carrying guns.
The smell of an impending war grew stronger and stronger; she seemed to be able to smell gunpowder in the air.
At noon, she had a quick meal on the roadside and found that there were no scattered government soldiers anywhere. They must have all gone to gather. The locals all looked solemn, patiently waiting for something.
Song Ran was alone outside and feared that something unexpected might happen, so he returned to school early. He was also worried that the situation might change and Li Zan might not come in the afternoon.
I returned to the dormitory at 1:15 in the afternoon. There were no messages on my phone, so the appointment with him probably had not been cancelled.
She was afraid that she would feel sleepy and lack energy in the afternoon, so she climbed into bed and took a nap; but she did not sleep well, because she was worried that he would not be able to come, and because she could hear the hurried shouts of the Eastern students from time to time outside the window.
She tossed and turned until 2:20, and the alarm rang. There was no news of the accident on her phone. Song Ran got up, wiped her face with a wet towel, dressed up briefly, tied her hair into a ponytail, and hurried downstairs. As soon as she walked out of the dormitory building, she heard the sound of a motorcycle. Li Zan drove over.
The sun is shining and the sky is blue.
She stopped where she was, waiting for him calmly.
He braked in front of her, handed her a helmet, smiled slightly, and said, "Just right."
"Just right." She also said in unison.
The two looked at each other in silence for a moment, then chuckled together.
Song Ran put on a helmet, climbed onto the back of his motorcycle with ease, and grabbed his waist.
On campus, Li Zan was not driving fast, avoiding students passing by. Some students saw his military uniform and greeted him enthusiastically, saying things like "good job". Li Zan smiled in response, then drove away from the campus, speeding up his motorcycle and heading southwest.
There were still groups of students who had just finished their march on the street, shouting slogans. Song Ran stuck his head out and asked him in the wind, "Do you feel like there's going to be a war?"
"It's almost time." Li Zan said, "If you go out again, stay with the Dongguo reporter and don't act on your own."
"...Oh." She asked carefully, "Then taking me out won't interfere with your business, right?"
"No." He smiled faintly, "Didn't I say yesterday that I would gather at night?"
She felt relieved and raised her head to say something, but a student ran across the road and Li Zan stopped the car. Song Ran leaned forward suddenly, his chin hit his shoulder, and his helmet hit him.
Clang.
Her heart pounded. Fortunately, she was wearing a helmet, otherwise she would have hit his cheek.
"… "
Li Zan did not show excessive attention, but he felt a soft feeling pressing on his back, making him not know what to do.
The student ran over and he started again, she leaned back and the soft touch relaxed and disappeared.
Song Ran lowered his head, straightened his helmet, and asked, "You said yesterday that you were taking a break recently?"
Li Zan said: "In the last station in Su Rui City, a teammate was slightly injured. There happened to be a battle to be fought later, so the whole team rested for a while."
It had been three months since he came to the East Country. Half of the originally scheduled six months had passed without him noticing.
Song Ran raised his voice again and asked, "How are your comrades recovering?" and added, "I saw you went to the hospital recently."
"It's just a minor injury, but I've recovered." As they got closer to the suburbs and there were fewer people around, he inadvertently sped up.
She shrank back in the strong wind, thinking about something. He glanced back at her quickly and asked, "Why do you say recently?"
"What?" She leaned her head over again, tilting her ear toward him.
He tilted his head back, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead: "You only saw me in the hospital yesterday, why did you say 'recently'?"
Song Ran didn't say that he witnessed him saving Pei Xiaonan that day, and said vaguely: "Oh, I see you seem to be very familiar with the doctors and nurses there."
Li Zan said, "You can interview Doctors Without Borders more often. You can write many stories about her. It's rare for a Chinese to come here to work as a doctor."
When he said "rare", he was referring to the significance of Pei Xiaonan's story to the book she was going to write.
Song Ran didn't think of that and muttered to himself, "... Yeah. I also think she's quite rare."
The wind was so strong that he couldn't hear clearly: "What?"
"It's okay," she said loudly, "I will do the interview well."
After walking for less than an hour, the two arrived at the southwestern part of Ale City and came to the foot of a huge hill near the suburbs.
The city of Ale is surrounded by desert wasteland, but there is abundant water resources within the city. It was gathered into a town thousands of years ago and later developed into a megacity comparable in size to the capital Gama.
Ale has a flat terrain with no mountains or ridges. Because of this, several wars in history had no terrain advantage to rely on, and the soldiers had to charge forward under artillery fire.
Only this small hill in the southwest suburbs became a combat high ground during the war and was later named Matumangang after a general in history.
Li Zan stopped the car at the foot of the hill. Song Ran looked over and saw that there was no tree on the hillside, only green grass all over the hill. There were countless black squares buried in the grass, and it was unclear what they were. On the top of the hill, there stood a huge statue of a medieval fighting woman holding a long sword.
The two walked up along the winding path.
Li Zan asked, "Do you know where this is?"
"I know." Song Ran had stayed in Ale City for a few months before and had heard about the history of Matumangang, but he had never been there.
The two walked to the top of the hill facing the sun, and only then did they discover that there were several teams of soldiers on top, with a full range of guns, ammunition and other military equipment.
Rows of soldiers raised their guns vigilantly, and Song Ran hesitated for a moment.
Li Zan said, "Don't be afraid. They saw us when we appeared at the foot of the mountain."
"Oh." She slowed down and followed him.
The soldiers looked at the incoming visitors with sharp eyes and were not welcoming.
The captain of the guards was a 28- or 29-year-old Dongguo officer with a beard and a serious expression. When he saw Li Zan's military uniform, his expression softened a little, but he also said directly: "There are too many foreign reporters coming here recently. We will not accept interviews."
Li Zan said: "She is Song Ran."
The officer raised his thick eyebrows, looked at Song Ran, looked her up and down, and asked, "Candy?"
Song Ran smiled shyly: "Yes."
The officer actually stretched out his hand towards her in a proper manner. Song Ran was flattered and quickly extended it to shake hands with him.
The hands of soldiers are very powerful.
He asked briskly, "Ma'am, may I help you?"
Song Ran blushed and said that she wanted to know about the history of this place.
The officer nodded and led the two men past the guard line and to the top of the hill.
The hill is not very high, but it overlooks the flat city of Ale.
The weather is very good today, the sun is shining, the view is clear, and you can clearly see the devastation that the war has caused to the entire ancient city.
The officer was not very fluent in English, but he patiently and repeatedly told Song Ran that their country had suffered an invasion war several centuries ago. At that time, the Eastern Kingdom was facing the crisis of national extinction and genocide. Ale City was the capital of the ancient Eastern Kingdom. The anti-encirclement and suppression campaign lasted for a full year, with millions of casualties, especially the Battle of Matumangang, where soldiers who dedicated themselves to the country died one after another.
Today, the sky is blue and the grass is green. Looking around, the gunfire and bloodshed of hundreds of years ago are no longer seen.
Standing on a high place and overlooking the hillside, Song Ran soon saw the scene that he had not been able to see clearly when he walked up the path just now—stone tablets lying quietly among the vast green grass.
Unlike the tombstones erected for the dead in China, the stone tablets here lie flat on the ground, like a bed of rest. One after another, neatly laid out, they cover the entire hill.
It turns out that the former Matumangang battlefield has turned into a huge cemetery after several centuries. People who died in the Patriotic War hundreds of years ago rest here, forever guarding their homeland.
And she was standing on top of this huge tomb.
The desolate wind was blowing, and a sad yet solemn emotion enveloped Song Ran tightly.
She couldn't help but walk down the hillside, stepping on the ankle-deep green grass, and saw a name and age engraved on each tombstone.
Five or six hundred years ago, many young people born in 1413 died at the age of seventeen or eighteen.
The officer stood at the edge of the cemetery and said, "I don't know whether the hill buried their bones or their bones formed the hill."
Song Ran walked back and when he went up the stairs, he suddenly saw one of the tombstones. There was a long passage written in the language of the Eastern Country in gold engraved on the black tombstone.
She asked, "What is this, an epitaph?"
The officer came down, looked down, and said:
"Don't bury me too deep, brother. If someone invades my country, wake me up and I'll get up and keep fighting."
Song Ran was speechless for a moment, her chest heaving as she took a deep breath. She looked up at the sky and saw the huge bronze statue on the top of the mountain. The medieval female warrior was waving a sword, looking ready to die, shouting and rushing forward.
The bronze statue reflects the sky as blue as the sea, and something invisible is heavy, rich, and weighs heavily on people's hearts.
Song Ran was holding up a camera and taking pictures. Li Zan asked the officer, "I heard that a group of soldiers have been stationed at Matumangang since the beginning of the war to prevent the extremist organization from occupying this land. Is it you?"
Song Ran looked over.
The originally serious officer actually smiled and gestured with his fingers: "We are the ninth batch."
Song Ran naturally knew what this meant.
The officer said, "They want to blow up this hill and destroy the remains of the hero. If this is your hometown, would you allow it?"
Li Zan smiled faintly and shook his head.
It was a light movement, but a hint of fierce determination flashed in his eyes.
Song Ran's heart moved slightly.
Li Zan turned his head, looked at her, and smiled slowly: "What's wrong?"
She smiled and shook her head: "Nothing."
They stayed on the hill for about an hour, then said thank you and left.
When they parted, Song Ran asked the officer, "Do you think the defense battle will be won? Will the East Kingdom win?"
The officer said confidently: "She will survive."
Song Ran followed Li Zan down the mountain.
The afternoon sun was scorching the path and the ground was a little hot, but her heart was exceptionally calm, as if an invisible hand was soothing her.
She looked at the city of Ale in the distance and asked Li Zan, "Do you think we can win?"
Li Zan said: "Until the war is over, nothing can be predicted."
She became inexplicably nervous: "What if I lose?"
"Then we'll wait until next time, gather our strength, and make a comeback. However, the civilians will continue to suffer."
"Are you acting with them?"
"No. It should be after the war breaks out, not too long after." Li Zan said, "Our battlefield is in the stronghold of the extremist organization in the northwest suburbs."
Song Ran lowered his head and walked beside him: "You have been here for three months, right?"
"right."
"Have you been hurt?" she asked softly.
Li Zan paused, his expression unnatural, and said, "I haven't been seriously injured."
"Serious injuries are..."
"Broken arms and legs require major surgery." After saying that, he realized something, turned his head to look at her, and smiled faintly, "Our fighting style is different from that of the government army, so the injury rate is not high. Don't worry."
Once the words "Don't worry" were spoken, both of them were silent.
Song Ran picked up a piece of green grass by the roadside and said, "You didn't seem to tell me why you had to come here. Although I can think of the general reason, we didn't discuss it in detail at that time."
Li Zan paused for a moment before smiling casually: "There's no special reason. I'm just too annoyed by terrorist attacks and I don't like them."
Song Ran smiled and said, "I am almost the same, for writing books or something."
As they were talking, they had already reached the foot of the hill, and Song Ran looked back at the huge tomb again.
At this time, a few wandering teenagers walked by singing.
The sad and gentle tune was exactly the folk song that Song Ran had heard countless times in the East Country. However, this time the boys sang in English, and she suddenly understood the lyrics:
"They say time heals all sorrows,
They say you can always forget in the future;
But the smiles and tears of these years,
But it always makes my heart ache like a knife cutting it!" (Note 1)
Li Zan handed her the helmet and said, "That child sang this song when we were defusing the bomb in Harpo City."
"I just thought of that." Song Ran, wearing a helmet and sitting on the motorcycle, whispered behind him, "Thank you for bringing me here today."
Li Zan raised his chin slightly, fastened the strap of his helmet, and did not answer. Instead, he said, "When the war really breaks out, you must pay attention to safety. Don't rush out of the front line. Don't wander around in other places. At that time, no area will be absolutely safe."
"I know." Song Ran said, "I will be with their own reporters, and I will be in the rear where the military is stronger. But you..." She lowered her voice, and her heart suddenly ached.
Li Zan remained silent for a while, as if he was still fastening his belt buckle. Only a light voice came from the front: "As for me, don't worry. After the war, I will move to the next location. If you don't see me then, don't think too much, it must be that I left and went to other places. ... There is no need to look for me."
Song Ran didn't believe what he said at all.
But... what can I do if I don't believe it? In this precarious city.
She sat behind him and suddenly realized that his back was actually quite thin and he was still very young. Her eyes turned red, but he never looked back at her and started the motorcycle.
A strong wind blew over and quickly evaporated the mist in her eyes, leaving no trace.
The author has something to say: Note 1: This little song is excerpted from George Orwell's novel "1984"
Original text: "they sye that time 'eals all things, they sye you can always fet; but the □□iles an' the tears acrorss the years, they twist'eartstrings yet!"