Chapter 49
Because the curtains were hung, Song Ran slept two hours longer than the previous day and woke up almost eight o'clock.
She opened her eyes dimly and saw the skylight shining on the edge of the curtains. She remembered his figure standing on the table to help her hang the curtains yesterday.
She was in a daze for a while before she remembered to look at her watch. It was only a quarter of an hour away from the agreed eight o'clock. She immediately got up, changed her clothes, opened the curtains, and the bright sunlight poured in, making her squint her eyes.
The cell phone on the table dinged. Li Zan sent a message saying that he had something to do in the morning and could he change the time to 2:30 pm.
Song Ran replied yes.
When she suddenly had a free morning, she had nothing else to do, so she organized notes, manuscripts and various materials. Perhaps because she had an appointment in the afternoon, she had difficulty concentrating, so she ran out to fetch water and wash her hair on the way.
It was said that I was washing my hair, but I just soaked my hair, rubbed it with soap and then washed it - clean water was too scarce. Then he took a wet towel and wiped his body briefly.
After cleaning herself up, she felt a little more at ease and went back to work.
Logging into 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, Garro's international charity organization came to pick up the little brother and sister, and also picked up dozens of homeless orphans.
Charity organization@了songran. She went over and saw that the children were well placed, washed, and had new clothes. In the photo, the little brother and sister were happily eating bread and drinking milk.
Song Ran couldn't help but smile slightly and breathed a sigh of relief.
After finishing the work at hand, it was only half past ten in the morning. Time suddenly passed very slowly, and she had nothing to do, so she took her camera downstairs and walked around the neighborhood.
Walking around the dormitory and teaching buildings, I found that there were many more students in the auditorium. I don’t know when they poured in and made banners, slogans and drawing boards on campus.
Song Ran went to ask and found out that many teachers and students who originally studied in Alara City and fled to the south due to the war have come back to cheer for the army and mobilize the civilians; some are even preparing to attend classes - they I believe that the city of Aara will be recovered.
After leaving the campus and going to the street, Song Ran was attracted by the shouts at the corner of the street. He chased after him and saw that it was a student demonstration. Yesterday, she saw many college students coming from all over the street one after another. It turned out that they were all here to parade 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 Aare.
The impassioned slogans of the students echoed on the ancient streets. Song Ran roughly understood terms such as "defending", "history" and "suffering", and his blood began to surge.
She followed the students on the march and found that new signs had been posted on the city's air raid shelters and trenches had been dug; many civilians walking on the streets were carrying guns.
The smell of an impending war was getting stronger and stronger, and she seemed to be able to smell gunpowder smoke in the air.
At noon, she had some food on the roadside and found that there were no scattered government soldiers anywhere. They must have all gathered together. The locals all looked solemn, waiting patiently for something.
Song Ran was afraid of an accident when she was out alone, so she returned to school early. She was also worried that the situation had changed and Li Zan might not come in the afternoon.
It was a quarter past one in the afternoon when I returned to the dormitory. There was no message on my phone. The agreement with him should not have been cancelled.
She was afraid that she would be sleepy and lacked energy in the afternoon, so she climbed into bed and took a nap; but she didn't sleep well. Firstly, she was worried that he would not be able to come. Secondly, there were urgent shouts from Dongguo students outside the window from time to time.
It was 2:20 in a daze, and the alarm clock rang. There was no news of the accident on the phone. Song Ran got up and wiped her face with a wet towel, then simply packed up and tied a ponytail, and hurried downstairs. As soon as she walked out of the dormitory building, she heard the sound of a motorcycle and Li Zan drove over.
The sun is shining brightly and the sky is blue.
She stopped where she was, waiting for him with peace of mind.
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 his helmet, climbed onto the back seat of his motorcycle with ease, and grabbed his waist.
On campus, Li Zan was slow and avoided the students coming and going. Some students saw his military uniform and greeted him warmly, saying "Well done" and so on. Li Zan responded with a smile and drove away from the campus. The motorcycle accelerated and headed southwest.
There were still students marching in twos and threes on the street. Students who had finished marching shouted slogans loudly. Song Ran stuck his head out and faced the wind and asked him: "Does it feel like there's going to be a war?"
"It's almost time." Li Zan said, "If you go out again, be with the Dongguo reporters and don't act without authorization."
"...Oh." She asked carefully, "Then if you take me out, it won't delay your business, right?"
"No." He smiled lightly, "Didn't I say yesterday that I would gather at night."
She felt more at ease, raised her head and was about to say something, when a student ran across the road in front of her, and Li Zan stopped the car. Song Ran leaned forward suddenly, her chin hit his shoulder, and her helmet knocked against his.
Clang.
Her heart thumped. Fortunately, she was wearing a helmet, otherwise she would have hit the side of his face.
"..."
Li Zan didn't show too much attention, but he felt a soft feeling pressing on his back, making him not know how to deal with it.
The student ran over and he started moving again. She leaned back and the soft touch relaxed.
Song Ran lowered his head, straightened his helmet, and asked, "You said yesterday that you guys are taking a rest recently?"
Li Zan said: "At the last station in Su Rui City, a teammate was slightly injured. There happens to be a battle behind us, so the whole team needs to repair."
Speaking of which, he has been in Dongguo for three months. The originally scheduled six months had passed halfway without even realizing it.
Song Ran raised her voice and asked, "How are your comrades recovering?" He added, "I see you have all gone to the hospital recently."
"The minor injuries have all recovered." As he approached the outskirts, the crowds dwindled, and he inadvertently accelerated.
The strong wind blew, and she shrank back, thinking about something in her mind. He glanced back at her quickly and asked in a loud voice: "Why do you say recently?"
"What?" She stretched her head over again, tilting her ears towards him.
He turned his head behind him, his eyes still focused on the road ahead: "You saw me in the hospital just yesterday, why did you say 'recently'?"
Song Ran didn't say that she witnessed him rescuing Pei Xiaonan that day, but said vaguely: "Oh, I think you are familiar with the doctors and nurses there."
Li Zan said: "That Doctors Without Borders, you can interview her more, enough for you to write many stories. It is quite rare for a Chinese to come here to be a doctor."
What he meant by "rare" was that Pei Xiaonan's story was important to the book she wanted to write.
Song Ran: "Yes. I also think she is quite rare."
The wind was strong and he didn't hear clearly: "What?"
"It's okay." She said loudly, "I will conduct a good interview."
After walking for less than an hour, the two arrived at the southwest area of Alara City and came to the foot of a huge mountain near the suburbs.
The city of Aare is surrounded by desert wasteland, but there is sufficient water in the city. It was gathered into towns thousands of years ago, and later developed into a megacity comparable in size to the capital Gamma.
The terrain of Aare is flat, with no mountains or ridges. Because of this, several wars in history did not have terrain advantages to rely on, and they all relied on soldiers to charge forward despite artillery fire.
Only this small hill in the southwest suburbs became a combat highland during the war and was later named Matumangan after a historical general.
Li Zan stopped the car at the foot of the hill. Song Ran took a look. There was not a single tree on the hillside, only green grass all over the mountain. There were countless black squares buried in the grass, and it was hard to see what they were. On the top of the slope, there is a huge statue of a medieval fighting woman holding a sword.
The two of them walked up the winding path.
Li Zan asked: "Do you know where this place is?"
"I know." Song Ran had stayed in Alara City for a few months before and had heard about the history of Matumanggang, but he had never been here.
The two of them walked to the top of the hill facing the sun, and then they discovered that there were several groups of soldiers above. Firearms, ammunition, and various types of military equipment are very complete.
Rows of soldiers raised their guns alertly, and Song Ran hesitated.
Li Zan said: "Don't be afraid. They already saw us when we appeared at the foot of the mountain."
"Oh." She slowed down and followed him.
Facing the incoming visitors, the soldiers had sharp eyes and did not welcome them.
The captain of the guard was a twenty-eighty-nine-year-old Dongguo officer with a beard and a serious expression. When he saw Li Zan's military uniform, his expression softened slightly, but he also said directly: "There have been too many foreign reporters coming 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 and said: "Yes."
The officer actually stretched out his palm towards her in an upright manner. Song Ran was flattered and hurriedly handed it over to shake his hand.
The hands of soldiers are very powerful.
He asked neatly: "Madam, may I help you?"
Song Ran blushed and said she wanted to know the history here.
The officer nodded and led the two of them past the guard line and up the slope.
The altitude of the hill is not too high, but it overlooks the flat terrain of Aara.
The weather is very good today, the sun is shining brightly, the vision is clear, and we can clearly see the devastation of the war on 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 aggressive war a few centuries ago. At that time, the Eastern Kingdom was facing the crisis of national annihilation and genocide. Aara is the capital of the ancient Eastern Kingdom. The anti-encirclement and suppression campaign lasted for a full year, resulting in millions of casualties. The Battle of Matumanggang was the most brutal. Soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country sacrificed their lives here one after another.
Now, the sky is blue and the grass is green. Looking around, the rain of bullets and blood dripping from hundreds of years ago have long since disappeared.
Standing on a high place, overlooking the hillside, Song Ran quickly saw the scene that he had not been able to see clearly when he was walking up the path - stone tablets lying quietly among the vast green grass.
Unlike the stele erected for the dead in China, the stone stele here lies flat on the ground, like a bed of rest. Piece after piece, neatly spread over the entire hill.
It turns out that the former battlefield of Matumanggang has turned into a huge cemetery over the centuries. People who died in the Patriotic War hundreds of years ago rest here and will forever protect their homeland.
And she was actually standing on the top of this huge tomb.
The desolate wind blew, and a sad but solemn emotion tightly wrapped Song Ran.
She couldn't help walking down the hillside, stepping among the green grass that covered her ankles, and saw that each tombstone had a name and age engraved on it.
Five or six hundred years ago, many of the young people born in 1413 were only seventeen or eighteen years old.
The officer stood by the cemetery and said, "I don't know whether their bones were buried in the hills or whether their bones were piled up in the hills."
Song Ran walked back and when he went up the steps, he suddenly saw one of the tombstones. The black tombstone was engraved with gold in the language of the Eastern Kingdom and wrote a long paragraph.
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, please wake me up and I will get up and keep fighting."
Song Ran was speechless for a moment. Her chest heaved and she took a deep breath. Looking up at the sky, I saw the huge bronze statue on the top of the mountain. The medieval female warrior was waving a long sword, looking at death, shouting, and sprinting forward.
The bronze statue reflects the blue sky like the sea, an invisible thing, thick, rich, and weighing heavily on people's hearts.
Song Ran was holding a camera and taking pictures. On the side, Li Zan asked the officer: "I heard that a group of soldiers have been stationed at Matumangan since the beginning of the war to prevent extremist organizations from occupying this land. Is that 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 bones of heroes. If this is your hometown, will you allow it?"
Li Zan smiled faintly and shook his head.
Feng Danyunqing made a small movement, but a 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, thanked and said goodbye.
When leaving, Song Ran asked the officer: "Do you think the defense battle will be won? Will the Eastern Conference win?"
The officer said firmly: "She will survive."
Song Ran followed Li Zan down the mountain.
The afternoon sun was scorching the path, and the ground temperature was a bit high, but her heart was particularly calm, as if a pair of invisible hands were soothing her.
She looked at the city of Ararat in the distance and asked Li Zan: "Do you think you will win?"
Li Zan said: "Until the war is over, everything will be uncertain."
She became inexplicably nervous: "What if we lose?"
"Then wait until next time, recharge your batteries, and make a comeback. However, civilians will have to continue to suffer."
"Are you acting with them?"
"No. It should not be too long after the war breaks out." Li Zan said, "Our battlefield is in the extremist organization stronghold in the northwest suburbs."
Song Ran lowered his head and walked beside him: "You have been here for three months, right?"
"right."
"Have you ever been hurt?" She whispered.
Li Zan paused for a moment, his expression unnatural, and said, "I haven't been seriously injured."
"A serious injury is..."
"Broken arms and legs require major surgery." After saying that, he noticed something, turned to look at her, and smiled lightly, "Our fighting method is different from the government army, and the injury rate is not high. Don't worry."
As soon as the words "Don't worry" were spoken, both of them fell silent.
Song Ran casually picked up a leaf of green grass on the side of the road and said, "You don't seem to have told me why you have to come here. Although I can think of the general reason, we didn't talk about it in detail at that time."
Li Zan knew what she wanted to hear, but couldn't answer at this juncture.
He raised the corner of his mouth and smiled casually: "There is no special reason. I am just too annoyed by terrorist attacks and it makes them unhappy."
Song Ran followed his intention and smiled: "I'm about the same. I'm writing a book or something."
While talking, Song Ran had already reached the foot of the hill, and looked back at the huge tomb again.
At this time, several wandering teenagers walked by singing songs.
The melancholy and gentle tune was exactly the folk song Song Ran had heard countless times in the Eastern Kingdom. But this time the teenagers sang in English, and she suddenly understood the lyrics:
"They say time heals all sorrow,
They say you can always forget in the future;
But the smiles and tears over the years,
But it always makes my heart hurt like a knife! ” (Note 1)
Li Zan handed her the helmet and said, "That child sang this song when we were debugging bombs in Hapo City."
"I just thought of it." Song Ran wore a helmet, sat on the motorcycle, and whispered behind him, "Thank you for bringing me here today."
Li Zan raised his chin slightly, fastened his helmet straps, and did not answer. Instead, he said: "When the war 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 was safe. Absolutely safe.”
"I know." Song Ran said, "I will be with their national reporters, and I will be in the rear where the military is stronger. But you..." She lowered her voice and felt a sudden pain in her heart.
Li Zan was silent for a while, and seemed to be still buckling. Only a light voice came from the front: "Don't worry about me. After the war, I will move to the next location. If you don't see me then , don’t think wildly, I should have left and gone to other places. ... There is no need to look for me."
Song Ran didn't believe what he said at all.
But so what if you don’t believe it, in this precarious city.
Knowing...he didn't want her to worry. He already had too much on his shoulders.
She sat behind him and suddenly realized that his back was actually quite thin and he was still very young. Her eyes were red, but he never looked back at her and started the motorcycle.
The strong wind blew over and quickly evaporated the mist in her eyes, leaving no trace.