Chapter 45 arrived a step too late.

Three years later.

In a small village on the outskirts of Shanghai, the afternoon sun shines obliquely on the mottled earthen wall by the courtyard, creating a scene of tranquility and peace.

In the center of the courtyard, beside a well, a woman finished drawing water from it, pulled up her coarse cloth trousers, squatted down, and scooped up water to wash her face. Beneath her neat short hair was skin already tanned dark by the sun. Her sleeves were rolled up, revealing several scars of varying depths on her arms.

"Squeak."

Hearing the noise, the door behind them opened, and a middle-aged woman in her fifties came out, laughing and saying, "Little Ding, which battlefield have you come back from today?"

"No, it's just Jianping, about ten kilometers away. I've been fighting for two days." The woman finished washing her face, looked up, and her eyes were surprisingly clear and bright. It was Ning Yao. There was just a small scar on her forehead.

"Tsk tsk tsk, it's all their own people fighting each other, I really don't understand." Saying that, he glanced at Ning Yao, shook his head, and deliberately said, "But there are still people who join in, I've never seen them before. Be careful they don't die on some battlefield one day."

Ning Yao smiled and said, "That's impossible, I'm very shrewd." She knew that Aunt Liu was concerned about her; she had a sharp tongue but a soft heart.

He simply stood up, spun around, and said, "Well, this time we're all safe and sound."

The last time she came back, she was hit in the back by a rock blown by a shell, and she was bleeding profusely. When she returned, her entire back was covered in blood. It terrified Sister Liu.

When Sister Liu saw her straighten up, there wasn't a single trace of red blood on her dark yellow clothes.

Only then did she relax, pouting, "I don't care if you lose an arm or a leg. A real shrewd person wouldn't go to such a dangerous place." But she couldn't help asking one last question: "So, are you going again?"

Ning Yao shook her head, "I'm not going, I'm going back to the city."

"We should have gone back to the city long ago!" Sister Liu laughed. "Then let's have something good to eat today."

"good."

Ning Yao smiled and replied, then returned to her own little house.

The door was not locked, but simply ajar.

She pushed open the door, and sunlight streamed into the room. The dust motes dancing in the air were clearly visible.

She closed the door, opened the window, shook the blankets, and without even changing her clothes, lay down on the bed and fell asleep. She hadn't slept for over thirty hours.

When I woke up again, it was already dark.

When she opened her eyes, the room was dimly lit, with a sliver of yellow light filtering through from other rooms outside the window. Insects chirped and dogs barked, but to her ears, it was still too quiet, so quiet that she felt momentarily disoriented. She thought she was still crouching on the edge of a battlefield amidst the raging gunfire.

It took her a while to come to her senses. Oh, you're back.

Ning Yao sat up, wiped her face, and got up to go out.

Sister Liu has already prepared the dishes for tonight.

"You're up? Go wash your hands and eat."

Ning Yao: "Mm."

She came to this village last October. At that time, most of the men in the village had been conscripted into the army, leaving only the elderly and the young. When she arrived, she happened to see Sister Liu lying by the gate, having fallen and hurt her back.

She helped the person up and took care of them for a few days, after which Liu's wife considered her family.

Aunt Liu is a talkative person, which Ning Yao wasn't used to at first. But every time she went out and came back, it felt really good to have someone worry about her and care for her, so Ning Yao gradually got used to it.

However, it's already August, and next month will be September.

Every September, she would make a trip to Beijing.

Three years ago, after learning from the newspaper that everyone at Jianghe Daily had been executed, she changed her appearance and went to Beijing with a completely new identity and image.

Unfortunately, by the time she arrived, everything had already been settled; some had been sentenced, others had been killed.

Some people couldn't stand by and watch, so they risked their lives to secretly collect their bodies and bury them together on a small hillside outside Beijing.

When Ning Yao went to that small hill, it was still under martial law. She couldn't even get close; she could only look at the mound of earth from afar.

Later, she took the camera to the battlefield.

In the first year, Sun He'an stayed by her side, telling her what to pay attention to on the battlefield and how to protect herself. As a result, she grew rapidly.

She thought they could stay like this forever, the best working partners, but she never expected that Brother Sun would propose to her.

She still remembered that time when the two of them were hit by stray bullets on the edge of the battlefield and both suffered considerable injuries. She fared better, losing a lot of blood but mostly superficial wounds, while Sun He'an almost lost the use of his entire right leg.

With sheer brute force, she pulled Sun He'an off the battlefield and took him to the hospital.

He woke up in his hospital bed and, after learning from the doctor that his leg had been saved, proposed to her.

Ning Yao was stunned. Her first thought was that Sun He'an was repaying her by offering himself to her.

But Sun He'an said no.

He said a lot, but Ning Yao couldn't remember any of it at this point. After all, no matter what he said, she wouldn't agree.

From the age of ten, she never imagined that she would be with anyone other than Ning Yiwen in her life.

It used to be a habit, but later it became a liking.

The next day.

As dawn broke, the moon's shadow still lingered in the west.

Ning Yao got up, took out all the loose money from her small cloth bag, placed it on Liu's stove, and then quietly left the village alone.

She had grown accustomed to her solitary life over the past few years, and that farewells no longer required a goodbye.

As long as they don't say goodbye, they might still have one last look before each other. The next life is long, and perhaps they will have another chance to meet.

A few days after Ning Yao left.

One morning, a strange man came to Sister Liu's yard.

"Excuse me, is anyone home?" The man stood at the gate of the courtyard, raising his hand to knock on the dilapidated gate. His deep, resonant voice carried into Liu's wife's room.

"Who is it?" Aunt Liu got up, put on her coat, and went out of the room. When she saw the man standing at the gate of the courtyard, she was dumbfounded.

She had never seen such a handsome young man in the surrounding area.

The man was tall and carried a small box. He wore ordinary clothes, the kind of black long gown that ordinary scholars would wear. But his face was so handsome that it made his clothes seem extraordinary; even the mud spots on the hem of his clothes seemed like embellishments.

"Who...who are you?" Aunt Liu stammered.

The man smiled and asked very politely, "Excuse me, is there a person here named Ding Xunwen?"

"Oh, you're looking for Xiao Ding? He's gone. He's gone to town." The voice was pleasant, Liu's wife thought absentmindedly.

"Gone?" The man's eyes, as bright as stars, dimmed instantly. He murmured to himself, "Is it too late after all..."

The man's dejected state stunned Liu's wife, who inwardly cried out, "Oh God!"

"Um..." Aunt Liu racked her brains and couldn't help but ask, "Xiao Ding has been living here for a year now, why didn't you come a few days earlier?"

Upon hearing this, the man's brow twitched slightly. "Then could you show me where she's been living for the past year?"

Sister Liu nodded: "Of course," she pointed to a small house on the side of the main house behind her, "Look, she used to live in there."

The man looked in the direction her index finger was pointing, a hint of heartache flashing in his eyes. The house was very small, even smaller than the kitchen in their old yard.

He strode forward and followed Sister Liu to the front of the house: "May I go in directly?"

Sister Liu pushed the door open and said, "Of course you can, there's nothing in here."

The room contained only a bed and a small stool, nothing else. However, the room itself was very small, and there wasn't even enough space to put a table.

The man entered the house, and a faint, almost imperceptible fruity scent, unique to him, wafted into his nostrils. He looked at every inch of the room with an almost greedy gaze.

"Ning... how is Xiao Ding doing here?"

Liu's wife was standing at the door. Upon hearing this, she casually replied, "This Xiao Ding is a very good person. He's also very strong and a master at chopping wood and doing other chores."

Upon hearing this, the man felt a sharp pain in his heart. Back when she was at home, he had never let her do any chores.

Not to mention chopping wood.

After Liu finished speaking, seeing that the man hadn't replied for a long time, she asked curiously, "Are you her friend?"

“I am her husband.”

Sister Liu's eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

That girl, Xiao Ding, is so rough around the edges. She loves running off to the battlefield, and when she comes back, she can't even wash her own blanket properly.

She actually has such a... good-looking husband.

"Haha, Xiao Ding is so lucky," Sister Liu laughed.

Ning Yiwen turned around, smiled, and thanked her, "Thank you for taking care of Ning... Xiao Ding." As she spoke, she took out a few silver coins from her sleeve, "This is to thank you."

Sister Liu was stunned for a moment, then quickly waved her hand, "This is unacceptable, this is unacceptable."

She took out the money Ning Yao had left behind a few days ago from her pocket. "That girl already gave me quite a lot when she left, I can't take any more of yours."

Sister Liu didn't want to accept the money, but Ning Yiwen insisted on it in the end.

As soon as Ning Yiwen left the courtyard, several men gathered around him.

"Yiwen, still haven't found it?"

"Brother Wen, how is it?"

...

However, Ning Yiwen abandoned his gentlemanly demeanor from before when he was with Sister Liu, completely ignoring what the others were saying and heading straight towards Shanghai.

"Ning Yiwen, that's enough!" one of the men shouted, unable to bear Ning Yiwen's coldness any longer.

Ning Yiwen stopped in his tracks. He turned around, his gaze sweeping over the group of people.

Seeing the sudden joy on their faces, he remained unmoved and coldly said, "Don't follow me anymore."

"Brother Wen, please don't do this," Lin Wang, dressed in a light brown short-sleeved shirt, pleaded.

Ning Yiwen glanced at him, then turned to the others, “Back then, you couldn’t save Elder Chen, saying it was to reduce casualties. Fine, I accept that. But then you secretly let Yu Kuo impersonate me and surrender. I can’t accept that! I can’t and will never lead you again. Don’t waste any more time with me.”

Having said that, he ignored the reactions of others and turned to leave.

The people behind him stood frozen in place, watching his resolute figure with sorrowful expressions.

Lin Wang muttered to himself, "Could it really be that we were wrong?"

The man who had just shouted was now completely silent, his head hanging low, filled with resentment. "This was Yu Kuo's idea. What does it have to do with us? Why should we be blamed in the end?"

"How about we make a last-ditch effort?" Chen Yue, the youngest but most intelligent of the three, suggested.

"What?"

"Isn't Brother Yiwen always looking for Miss Ningyao? If we find Miss Ningyao first..." Before he could finish speaking, the other two understood.

Lin Wang slapped his thigh. "This can be done! Let's go, we have so many brothers, let's go together!"