Chapter 6

In the train station, people are coming and going. Those who come back are in a hurry, and those who leave are also in a hurry.

The adjutant stood nearby.

Xue Shangyang took out a letter from his arms, which he had written long ago.

Twisting the surface of the letter back and forth, he looked at Yang Ye and whispered, "Zhao Zhao, you must keep this letter well. In today's situation, if the war doesn't break out, it's fine. If it does, take this letter to Shanghai to find Uncle Li. He is an old friend of my father. After seeing this letter, he will definitely keep you safe."

"What about you?" Yang Ye looked at him, his heart as nervous as the beating drum.

Xue Shangyang was unable to answer for a moment. He raised his hand and stroked Yang Ye's forehead. The red scar, which was hidden by the broken hair, was from half a year ago when there was a riot in the city. She was knocked down by the fleeing refugees and her head hit the wheel of a wooden cart that was thrown away. The wound was very deep. The doctor said that if it had deviated half an inch more, it would have hurt her eyes. It took seven stitches to heal the skin and flesh. After the scab formed, this pink flesh mark appeared.

"My biggest wish is that you can be safe." Xue Shangyang chuckled and looked at her carefully. He wanted to remember her appearance and everything about her in his mind. His eyes were full of nostalgia, and he was reluctant to let her go. "Zhao Zhao, promise me that you will not try to be the center of attention in everything, and you must protect yourself."

"Okay." Yang Ye's eyes turned red and he held back his tears.

"If I can't come back..." Xue Shangyang suddenly paused, as if he remembered something, and quickly let go of Yang Ye's wrist. He took a deep breath, and his voice was a little hoarse when he recovered. "If I can't come back, you can find someone else to marry. Someone will take care of you. I'll feel more at ease than you being alone."

"Xue Shangyang, what do you mean?" Yang Ye pushed him hard in anger, his voice choked with sobs. "What are you thinking? How do you view me? When a husband leaves home, his wife is always asked to wait for him to return. But you want me to tear this house apart. Xue Shangyang, do you have any conscience?"

The train whistled loudly before it started. The adjutant saw the thick smoke billowing from the locomotive. He trotted over and stood beside Xue Shangyang, urging him, "Commander, it's time to get on the train!"

Xue Shangyang stared at Yang Ye, his gaze so deep that it seemed as if he wanted to carve her into his bones. He wanted to say something, but in the end he remained silent and turned to walk towards the train.

The dark green military uniform and his turning movement drew an arc in front of Yang Ye, revealing the wooden rifle on his waist.

Just before the train started, Yang Ye ran over and shouted at Xue Shangyang who was standing at the door, "Xue Shangyang, come back alive. If you die outside, I will follow my mother's example and be buried with you in Beiping City."

The train was speeding up. At the door of the last carriage, she saw the familiar figure turning around. As the distance between them grew farther and farther, she couldn't see clearly whether Xue Shangyang answered or not.

The crowd on the platform gradually left, leaving only a few porters still packing the luggage and pushing the cart. Yang Ye stood there, the letter in her hand wrinkled. She thought of the last night before going to sleep, when she was half asleep and heard Xue Shangyang whisper in her ear, "Zhao Zhao, live well, live for yourself."

The sound of artillery roared in the distance, and even in the city, the explosions coming from outside could be heard. Filled with worry and panic, Yang Ye survived that spring and received another letter from Xue Shangyang.

He said in the letter that they won the battle and seized a lot of weapons.

"I've been thinking over and over what you said to me before I left for a long time. Zhao Zhao, I understand your feelings, but I also want you to put yourself first. I promised you that I would never abandon you, and I swore in front of your father that I would protect your safety. Now thinking about it, I feel a surge of guilt."

At the end of the letter, he wrote, "The current war situation may have far exceeded our previous expectations. The involvement of other countries will prolong the war. Zhao Zhao, I hope you will be safe."

The bright moon had risen outside the window, and she looked down to see the jade ring on her ring finger.

The war broke out the year after the letter was received.

The whole country was caught in the vortex of that fierce and terrifying war. Many cities fell and people lived in fear day by day. The smell of blood in the air seemed to have never dissipated since the day it came.

A month before the bombs ripped through Peking, Yang Ye fled. She fled to Hebei, then from Hebei to Xiangtan, from Xiangtan to Nanjing, and finally to Chongqing, nearly catching a plane to Honolulu. In those war-torn, famine-stricken years, she had no means of survival, so she could only hide, not only for herself but also to fulfill Xue Shangyang's wish.

"I will live well and try my best to survive, but you also have to promise me that you will come home after the war. I will wait for you at home."

This was the last sentence Yang Ye wrote in the letter he sent to him. Yang Ye didn't know whether Xue Shangyang would see it, so he just assumed that he had seen it.

*

She went to a small town in the south and settled down there. A kind mother-in-law took her in.

Ye was the only one left in her mother-in-law's house. All the others, young and old, men and women, had gone to the front line. No matter how her mother-in-law tried to persuade them, none of them would stay.

This small town is very quiet. Although enemy outposts can be seen from dozens of kilometers away, compared to other cities still in the midst of war, at least here there is no need to worry about sudden artillery shells falling.

That morning, she was washing clothes by the river with her mother-in-law, and her mother-in-law asked her how old she was.

Yang Ye wiped the sweat from his face and looked up at the sun to count.

"I'm already over 40 this year," she said.

The mother-in-law's hands froze while she was washing clothes, and she leaned over to look at Yang Ye carefully with her slightly presbyopic eyes. After seeing clearly, the mother-in-law smiled and said she was talking nonsense. She looked at most twenty-five or twenty-six, so how could she be forty?

Yang Ye thought her mother-in-law's eyesight was not good, and with the strong sun, she might be blurry. But seeing her mother-in-law's serious expression, it didn't seem like she was joking.

As she changed the water for the third time, she saw her own reflection in the river. The mud on her face had washed clean, revealing her once smooth, bright skin. For years, she had been hiding, smearing a thick layer of mud on her body and face, wherever her clothes couldn't fully cover her, to survive. Her clothes were tattered, her hair unkempt, and her face dirty, like a beggar wandering the streets.

Over time, Yang Ye grew accustomed to her own slovenliness, believing it was just the way it was supposed to be, with no real difference between washing and not washing. So when she saw how clean she looked now, she was a little frightened, clutching the pile of wet clothes in the basin. She looked exactly the same as when she'd escaped from Peking. She hadn't aged at all in all these years.

Yang Ye looked at herself nervously. Her deeper fear made her dare not tell her mother-in-law directly. She could only explain in a panic that she had slipped up and said that she was almost 27 years old this year.

The mother-in-law didn't take it seriously. She rubbed the clothes in her hands and then talked to her about another one.

It was a hot summer outside the window. Yang Ye, who was taking a nap, turned over with a satisfied smile on his face.

The room was cool, the air conditioner timer hadn't yet expired, and the humidifier was emitting a thin mist with a faint scent of lavender. The sound of bicycle bells and the cries of children, steamed by the summer heat, filled the air from the street. She slept peacefully and soundly.

The peaceful dream suddenly darkened, the air thick with mud and swirling dust and sand. The terrifying sound of wooden cannons filled her ears, and a dense barrage of shells pelted her.

Yang Ye ran forward in fear. She ran for a long time, but the sound of the wooden box behind her continued. Suddenly, a grenade fell from the sky, landing at the door of the earthen-tiled house next to her. The grenade exploded, instantly shattering the roof tiles, and the fragments all came crashing down on her.

The sudden change left Yang Ye no time to react. Her subconscious told her that she had to leave now, but her feet were out of control. Before she could react, another grenade fell from the sky, this time in front of her.

The flash of the grenade exploding in front of her eyes and the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke blew her away on the spot.

"Boss, boss," Xiao Xiao called her beside the bed.

Yang Ye's face and neck were covered in sweat, his body was shaking slightly, and he occasionally uttered a few mumblings from his throat that sounded like calls for help and struggle.

"Boss" Xiao Xiao pushed her down.

"Who?!" Yang Ye woke up in shock, still holding onto the air-conditioning quilt.

"I" Xiao Xiao came over and patted her back gently.

His chest heaved rapidly and Yang Ye was breathing heavily, as if he had not yet completely recovered from the nightmare.

Stroking her chest up and down, she tried her best to calm her still wildly beating heart.

Xiao Xiao sat on the armrest of the sofa, "Boss, you have a nightmare again"

"Yeah." After finally recovering from the shock, Yang Ye grabbed a handful of his loose hair, feeling helpless.

In the past month, she had been easily reminded of past events. Anything that had happened before, even slightly unexpected or bad, would become a nightmare, tormenting her endlessly.

She had dreamed countless times of the scene of Xue Shangyang getting on the train without looking back, and the scene that day when she received the notice of Xue Shangyang's death at her doorstep.

Every time she dreamed of it, she felt bitter and uncomfortable.

"What happened this time?" Xiao Xiao asked.

Yang Ye sat up and leaned against the sofa. "I dreamed that a grenade exploded in front of me."

Xiao Xiao then asked: "And then?"

"Then, then you woke me up." When Yang Ye saw her, his heart had not completely calmed down, but it was much better than before.

"Not now, it's you at that time. How were you after the grenade exploded? Were you seriously injured?" Xiao Xiao was nervous. She was one of the few people who knew Yang Ye's secret.

Yang Ye pressed his eyebrows together and spoke weakly, "My legs were injured in the explosion and I was in the hospital for more than a month."

Fortunately, a piece of flying iron plate blocked the explosion for her, otherwise, she might not have been able to withstand it.

"Does it hurt?"

Yang Ye didn't care, "I've forgotten it a long time ago"

What if it hurts? What if it doesn’t hurt? What’s the point of remembering these unimportant things after so many years?

Sitting up, she felt a little more refreshed. She felt a strange heat coming from her. Seeing the door open, she asked Xiao Xiao, "Why did you open the door?"

"Oh, someone is here for an interview," Xiao Xiao said.

"Where are the people?"

Xiao Xiao pointed to the yard beside the door and said, "There."

Looking in the direction of her finger, the man came in from the door. The sunlight shone on him, and the surface of his layered brown hair was left with a beautiful circle of marks by the sunlight.

He walked slowly closer and stood in front of Yang Ye across the sofa.

Same as decades ago.

For a moment, even Yang Ye herself was in a trance. She stared at that all-too-familiar face, her eyes wide in disbelief.

He smiled and said, "Hello, my name is Zhou Yiheng"