Chapter 66
"Qiu Jin, I'm back." Chen Shengqing stretched out his intact right hand and hugged the woman tightly in his arms. His voice was very hoarse, but Yang Qiu Jin felt it was like the sound of nature.
"It's good that you're back. They all said you were dead, but I didn't believe it. I believed you would come back, and you did." Tears welled up in her eyes and then fell silently. Yang Qiujin hugged the man tightly and smelled the unique scent of pine trees. The joy of regaining what she had lost made her sob and cry.
Chen Shengqing felt heartbroken when he heard her crying. He reached out and gently patted her back, whispering, "It's my fault. I scared you. Don't cry. I feel bad for you."
With so many people watching, Yang Qiujin knew she couldn't keep crying like this. She let go of Chen Shengqing, wiped the tears from her face, and touched his bandaged and plastered legs. "How did you get hurt so badly? Does it hurt? Come down, doesn't your foot hurt?"
"It's nothing serious. It doesn't hurt that much anymore." Chen Shengqing said lightly, brushing off his injury with one sentence. His deep eyes looked at Yang Qiujin intently and passionately, "Qiujin, do you know? I miss you every day when I'm in the Soviet Union."
He had never told Yang Qiujin in person that he missed her like he did today.
Yang Qiujin recalled what the black-faced soldier had said before, that he had painted her portrait, and her face flushed, "How come you've become so sweet after coming back from the Soviet Union? There are so many people watching us, how can you..."
Can say it.
Chen Shengqing's handsome face was full of smiles. "I narrowly escaped death in the Soviet Union, and I regretted many times that I didn't tell you what I wanted to say. Now that I'm back, I want to tell you everything I couldn't say before."
A sweet feeling suddenly rose in her heart. Yang Qiujin couldn't help but curl her lips and quickly kissed Chen Shengqing's handsome face. "I like it very much."
Chen Shengqing's lips curled up as well, and he stared at her intently, wanting to kiss her back.
"Ahem." A deliberate coughing sound came from behind, "Can you two consider our feelings? A short absence is better than a new marriage. You should go home and do some things."
Yang Qiujin's cheeks turned red as shrimps and she quickly left Chen Shengqing's arms.
Chen Shengqing looked at the coughing man unhappily, "Comrade Qiu, your mission is complete, you can leave now."
"Hey? No, please. We came all the way from Heilongjiang Province to escort you to the border. You have to treat us to a meal and treat us well for two days before we leave." Qiu Yongliang deliberately provoked trouble. "Besides, E Yiran is a female comrade who came thousands of miles to pick you up. Are you so cruel to let her go home? After all, she is your savior."
E Yiran, lesbian?
Yang Qiujin sensed something was wrong and looked at Chen Shengqing, "Savior?"
Chen Shengqing nodded: "She saved me in the primeval forest at the northern border. If it weren't for her, I might have frozen to death at the border."
Yang Qiujin's heart ached when she heard this. "Where is she? Why are you in the border forest?"
"It's a long story, let's go into the military compound and talk about it first."
As Chen Shengqing spoke, he opened the back door of the car, and a female comrade in a robe and fur coat got out of the car. When she saw Yang Qiujin for the first time, she asked with a look of disappointment on her face, "Are you Comrade Chen's wife?"
"Yes, I am his wife. Hello, Comrade E Yiran, thank you for saving my husband." Yang Qiujin extended her hand to her.
As a woman, Yang Qiujin intuitively felt that there was something wrong with the demeanor of the female comrade in front of her. The look in her eyes was full of surprise and a hint of jealousy.
"Hello, Comrade Yang, you are so beautiful." E Yiran held her hand, symbolically shaking it, and praised her with envy on his face, "You and Comrade Chen are really a perfect match. You are so beautiful, as beautiful as the characters in the picture magazines."
Yang Qiujin was born with picturesque eyebrows and delicate features. Because it was winter and she seldom got sun, her skin was now white and clean, like a peeled egg. Even though she was wearing an old-fashioned and heavy military coat, one could still see her slim figure and bright and elegant figure.
E Yiran looked at her calmly and thought sadly, no wonder Comrade Chen was in a coma and was still chanting his wife's name even with a high fever. Just looking at Comrade Yang's looks and figure, if she were a man, she would not forget her.
While she was looking at Yang Qiujin, Yang Qiujin was also looking at her.
E Yiran has a round face, very pretty and lovely looks, and fair skin, but her face is a little chapped and red. She is taller than Han girls. She is only eighteen years old, but she is already about 1.8 meters tall. Her appearance and figure carry the unique physical advantages of the Oroqen people. She gives people a very powerful feeling when she stands there.
Yang Qiujin couldn't explain how she felt, but her woman's intuition told her that the girl from the ethnic minority in front of her liked her husband.
She was very curious about what had happened between this girl and her husband, but now was obviously not the time to ask.
Yang Qiujin said politely: "Thank you for your compliment. You are very cute. You and other comrades have worked hard to escort my husband all the way here. Let's go inside the army and talk. Don't stand here and freeze."
The troops have a special guesthouse for external visitors. This guesthouse is usually not open to the public. It is only open when superiors or special people from other organizations come to the troops.
At that moment, several jeeps drove into the military guesthouse. Because Chen Shengqing's legs and feet were injured, two soldiers got out of the jeep, made a simple stretcher, and carried Chen Shengqing back to his home.
The Chen family had already prepared the meal. Li Xiu'e and a few others were about to go out to look for Yang Qiujin when they suddenly saw two soldiers carrying Chen Shengqing into the yard. Everyone thought they were seeing things and stood there in a daze.
It was not until two soldiers carried Chen Shengqing into the house and he called out "Mom" that everyone came to their senses. Chen Shengqing was back alive!
"Shengqing, is it really you? Mom is not dreaming, is she?" Li Xiu'e looked at Chen Shengqing in disbelief, tears falling from her eyes, crying heartbreakingly, "Aren't you dead? How did you come back? Are you blaming mom for not finding your body and bringing you home?"
Chen Shengqing was distressed by her crying. With red eyes, he reached out and held her hand and said, "Mom, please look carefully. I'm back. I'm not dead. Touch me carefully to see if I'm warm."
Li Xiu'e reached out her hand tremblingly and carefully touched his face. She was shocked when she felt the warmth on his face. "It's hot."
After a while, he reacted and exclaimed, "Son, you are not dead, you are back alive!"
She held Chen Shengqing's hand, crying and laughing, "How did you get hurt like this? Do you know that they all said you were dead? Mom's world has fallen..."
Chen Tianyou also reached out his hand in disbelief, and touched Chen Shengqing here and there. After confirming that Chen Shengqing in front of him was really alive, he threw himself into Chen Shengqing's arms and cried aggrievedly: "Dad, it's great that you're not dead. Wuwuwu, Li Goudan and the others said that you were dead. I will be a fatherless child in the future. I feel so sad. I always hoped that what they said was false. Now you're back, it's really great, wuwuwu..."
The grandfather and grandson cried together, and Yang Qiuyue beside them also wiped her tears silently.
Compared to Liu Xiu'e and the others' excitement about getting their lost brother back, Yang Qiuyue was happy for her sister. Her brother-in-law was back alive, so her sister didn't have to be a widow, and the baby in her sister's belly didn't have to be a posthumous baby. It was really great!
Ji Mingchen looked at Chen Shengqing, who was covered in wounds but had returned alive, with a complicated expression, "Shengqing, you're back."
Chen Shengqing looked up at him and said, "Mingchen, thank you for helping me take care of my family when I was not at home."
What the two men had said before was tacitly understood by both of them, and they tacitly did not mention it again.
Ji Mingchen said, "You're welcome. I'm glad you're back. Be nice to Qiu Jin in the future."
After saying this, while the whole family was crying together, he left the Chen family silently with a gloomy look.
When the family's emotions gradually recovered, Yang Qiuyue asked everyone to eat first. When the family sat down at the dinner table, Yang Qiujin realized that Ji Mingchen was gone.
She hurriedly chased after him and caught up with Ji Mingchen under a telephone pole in the courtyard passage. "Ji Mingchen, wait a minute, why are you leaving without eating?"
Ji Mingchen turned around and said, "You are a family reunion. What's the point of me, an outsider, staying in your house?"
Yang Qiujin was silent for a while and then said, "I admit that what I said to you before was a bit too much, but I didn't mean anything else. I just hope you understand that in my heart, you will always be my friend and there will be no other relationship. You have helped me so much, please have a meal before you leave."
"Friends? Qiu Jin, you should know in your heart that I don't want to hear these two words." Ji Mingchen smiled bitterly, "I won't eat anymore. I still say the same thing. If you need me in the future, just come find me. Go back slowly. I'm leaving first."
He left dejectedly, but stopped at the corner, silently watched Yang Qiujin turn around, walked to a place where he could not see her, and then walked into the hospital.
At the dinner table, Li Xiu'e and Chen Tianyou, both with red eyes, kept picking up food for Chen Shengqing.
Yang Qiujin signaled to the two soldiers who had stayed for dinner, as well as E Yiran, "Comrade E, Comrade Qiu, Comrade Lin, please don't be polite and eat more."
She said, putting a large piece of stewed chicken into each person's bowl and said, "I apologize for not taking good care of you."
The chicken meat is obtained after winter comes on the border. There are too many chickens, ducks and geese on the farms. The farms are unable to feed them all during the winter, so they sell off most of them a month after winter comes.
Because meat coupons were not required, the purchase of each type of poultry was limited to two, and the farm, surrounding areas, and military service centers were in short supply.
Yang Qiujin also bought several and froze them in the snow in the yard, ready to be picked up when she wanted to eat them.
Yang Qiuyue, who had prepared dinner, saw that her brother-in-law had returned alive and there were guests, so she immediately took out a chicken from the snow, chopped it into pieces, put it in the pot and made a pot of mushroom stewed chicken.
"Thank you, sister-in-law. You are so enthusiastic. Unlike Deputy Head Chen, he has no awareness of being a host at all." Qiu Yongliang ate the delicious chicken in the soup and did not forget to say a few words to Chen Shengqing.
E Yiran thanked Yang Qiujin and said while eating the chicken: "The chicken from your border area tastes just as good as the pheasants from our northern forests."
"These chickens are free-range chickens raised in our farm. They usually eat a mixture of beans, corn, vegetables, fruits and weeds. The meat is firm and not dry. They sell very well in the supply and marketing cooperatives here." Yang Qiujin introduced proudly.
"Comrades, please eat more and don't be polite." Li Xiu'e also greeted them warmly.
Chen Tianyou curiously asked Qiu Tianliang: "Uncle, how did you find my dad? I remember Uncle Guo and his friends said that my dad exposed himself to protect his comrades and led the enemy away alone. His life or death is unknown."
"After we retreated from the Soviet capital, we wanted to go back to meet him, but we misjudged his retreat route and lost track of him, thinking he had died. Later, one of our comrades wondered if he would take the risk and retreat from the northernmost, coldest, and most dangerous primeval forest in the Soviet Union, so we set out for our northern forest."
Qiu Tianliang put down the chicken bone he had just chewed clean, smacked his lips and said with a look of unsatisfied satisfaction: "Your father was also very lucky. Even though he was seriously injured and wearing only thin clothes, he managed to successfully cross the primeval forest of tens of thousands of square kilometers and was rescued by Comrade E Yiran."
Chen Tianyou listened intently, calculating in his mind how big tens of thousands of square kilometers really was.
Everyone at the dinner table was looking at Chen Shengqing. He put down his chopsticks and said, "At that time, we were in the capital of the Soviet Union and were ambushed by Anna's organization. They had the upper hand in firepower. I knew they were coming for me, and I had to buy time for other comrades to escape. I kept wandering around the city, using the blasting techniques I learned to blow up their capital into a mess, creating chaos, and at the same time getting rid of some of Anna's people and fleeing to the north. That was the coldest place in the Soviet Union. They didn't expect me to flee to a place with a temperature of nearly minus 50 degrees Celsius, because it was too cold there. If you don't have a car, you will freeze to death if you just walk there. They probably thought I wouldn't be so stupid as to hide in those places and seek death."
He said it lightly, but Yang Qiujin was terrified and confused: "Then how did you leave the northern border of the Soviet Union smoothly, and how did you cross the primeval forest in the northern border of our country and be discovered and rescued by Comrade E Yiran?"
Chen Shengqing coughed suddenly, rubbed his forehead uncomfortably and said, "Uh... In an emergency, we must use the usual methods."
"I know this. He was a man dressed as a woman and deceived those Soviet soldiers and residents." The outspoken E Yiran swallowed the mushroom in his mouth: "When I found Comrade Chen, he was wearing a woman's wig and a woman's Lenin suit. When I first found him, I thought he was a lesbian because he was so beautiful and so deceptive. Later I found out that he could speak fluent Soviet. As long as he disguised himself a little and spoke in a female voice, it would be difficult for people to suspect him."
The room was quiet for a moment.
Chen Shengqing was so frightened by the crowd that he had to say to Yang Qiujin: "Qiujin, we are spies. In order to obtain useful information, we have to learn all kinds of techniques. Disguising and escaping as another gender or obtaining information is just one of the normal means. You have to believe me, I am not that kind of person..."
The kind of pervert who likes to wear women's clothes.
"I know. You don't need to explain too much." Yang Qiujin patted his hand soothingly. "It's good enough that you can come back alive. Nothing else matters."
Chen Shengqing breathed a sigh of relief. He was really worried that Yang Qiujin would have other ideas after knowing that he was disguised as a woman.
"No matter what, this time we are indebted to Comrade E Yiran." Yang Qiujin stood up, respectfully raised the cup in her hand, and thanked E Yiran, "I will use tea instead of wine to toast you. You not only saved my husband, you also saved a family, the father of an unborn child."
E Yiran quickly picked up the teacup in his hand, stood up and said, "You're welcome. It's just a piece of cake. I'm just curious about the border and you, so I got on Comrade Qiu's car to come to the border to take a look."
Chen Shengqing was stunned, "Qiu Jin, what are you talking about?"
"I'm saying, you're going to be a father again." Yang Qiujin stroked her belly, a shy but gentle smile showing on her bright face.
Chen Shengqing's eyes widened, he stood up with great effort, and reached out to touch her belly in disbelief, "Are you pregnant?"
"Well, it's been more than three months." Yang Qiujin observed his expression, "Why do you seem unhappy?"
"I'm not unhappy, I'm too happy, but I'm also scared. I don't dare to think, if I didn't risk everything and go north, if I died in the Soviet Union, what would you and the children do?"
Chen Shengqing placed his trembling hand on Yang Qiujin's not-so-obvious belly, feeling a small life growing inside her. The usually strong man showed a hint of fragility on his handsome face, and his narrow eyes gradually filled with tears.
His Adam's apple rolled: "Qiu Jin, thank you for waiting for me to come home, thank you for letting me know that I still have a child who is not yet born, thank you for giving me the chance to be a father again."
Yang Qiujin's eyes also turned red. "You're welcome. You'll have plenty of opportunities to make up for us in the future."
After dinner, E Yiran and the other two left and went to the military guesthouse to spend the night.
Yang Qiuyue and Li Xiu'e cleaned up the table and the dishes, boiled a pot of hot water, and after everyone washed their feet, they took Chen Tianyou to bed early on the kang in the small room. Yang Qiujin helped Chen Shengqing, who had difficulty moving, back to the kang in the master bedroom.
It was already the middle of the night and the troops had long ago shut off the electricity. A dim oil lamp was on in the house, illuminating the entire room.
A cold wind was blowing outside the window and snow had started to fall from the sky again, but inside the house it was as warm as spring and the kang bed was warm.
Chen Shengqing sat on the kang bed, looking at the room's layout which had not changed much, feeling very nostalgic.
The clothes he changed before leaving were washed by Yang Qiujin, folded neatly and placed on his pillow, and they have never been moved.
This was because Yang Qiujin was always missing him and didn't want to believe that he was dead, so she deliberately put the clothes he often wore on his pillow when he slept, pretending that he would come back and put them on and had never left.
After taking a look around, Chen Shengqing understood what she was doing. He shuddered in his heart, raised his intact right hand, pulled her to his side, and regardless of the injury on his other hand, he hugged Yang Qiujin's slender waist tightly with both hands, buried his head in her chest, and said nothing.
Yang Qiujin did not struggle. She held the man's much thinner back with one hand and gently stroked his much longer, coarse and black hair with the other hand.
The two of them hugged each other quietly, feeling each other's body temperature and heartbeat, and no one spoke.
After a long time, Chen Shengqing calmed down his turbulent emotions, let go of Yang Qiujin, raised his eyes and looked at her, "Qiujin, I feel like I'm dreaming."
When he was fleeing in the northern border of the Soviet Union, bullets whistled in his ears and blood kept flowing out of his body. He gritted his teeth, covered the injured area, and ran for his life in the snowy border.
At that time, he dreamed of returning home. In his dreams, the warm house, the beautiful wife, the gentle mother, and the naughty children all told him to run, they were waiting for him.
But the North was too cold. After he had stopped bleeding from his wound, the wound opened again, causing him so much pain that he could not move. He was in the vast snowy forest and could not find the way home at all.
Now he has returned to his dream home, with his wife, mother and children by his side, but he feels it is unreal and always feels like he is dreaming.
As soon as he woke up from his dream, he would run wildly in the dark snow.
The panic and fear in his eyes and the fragile look on his face made Yang Qiujin realize that the man she had always thought was strong and reliable actually had a fragile and helpless side.
She lowered her head distressedly, rested her forehead against his, and comforted him softly: "Shengqing, you are not dreaming, you are really at home, you don't have to flee anymore, and you won't be hurt anymore. The child and I are by your side and will never leave you."
Chen Shengqing met her gentle gaze, and his impetuous mood gradually calmed down. He looked at Yang Qiujin intently, his eyes full of tenderness, "I remember everything you have done for me over the years. Qiujin, what have I done to deserve your continued attachment to me?"
Yang Qiujin felt a little embarrassed by his sudden tenderness, so she said, "We are husband and wife, we are one in life and death. If you treat me well, I will treat you well too. Why do you remember the past so clearly?"
"I don't remember clearly, how can I answer you later?" Chen Shengqing pulled her to sit on his lap again, looked at her with fiery eyes and asked: "Qiu Jin, is your love for me really just out of the love between husband and wife? Nothing else?"
Yang Qiujin knew what he was asking, but she couldn't say it. She blushed and struggled, "What are you doing? Your leg is still injured. Let me go."
"No, don't let me go for the rest of my life." Chen Shengqing held her hand tightly, "You are my woman. You can only belong to me for the rest of your life. Don't let me leave."
Yang Qiujin's heart skipped a beat, and her cheeks turned redder. "What's wrong with you today? Why are you talking so cheesy?"
"You haven't answered my question yet." Chen Shengqing took her hands and forced her to look at him.
His determination to achieve his goal made Yang Qiujin feel a little embarrassed. "What do you want to hear? Oh, do you want to hear me say that I like you, I love you, and I can't leave you?"
Chen Shengqing curled his lips, "I like to hear all of this. In fact, I want to hear you say that you like me more than you like Ji Mingchen."
It’s Ji Mingchen again. This man never stops comparing himself with Ji Mingchen!
Yang Qiujin pushed him away with a speechless face. "I don't like anyone, okay? Stop talking nonsense. You've traveled a long way and are so badly injured. Go to bed early. Tomorrow I'm going to find Political Commissar Liao and the others and confront them properly."
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