Bai Liu repeated softly: "The war has been over for fifty years?"

Elena lowered her head, drooped her wrinkled eyelids and looked at Bai Liu: "Maybe longer, I'm so old that I can hardly remember these dates."

"I just remember that a long time ago, when Alex was still alive, he and that guy named Guy wrote me many, many letters." Elena pulled out a pile of old letters from her dirty apron. "Every time I come to sweep the graves, I read the letters they sent me in front of their graves so that I won't forget them completely."

Iliana sighed wearily, "You know, I'm the only old woman who remembers these things now. If I forget them, there will really be no trace of them left."

Bai Liu looked at the stack of letters and politely asked, "Can I take a look?"

Iliana looked at Bai Liu in surprise and said, "Are you interested? No young people want to hear about these old stories anymore."

Bai Liu smiled: "I am a comrade of Alex and Guy. I have an obligation to help remember them."

Iliana stared at Bai Liu quietly for a long time, and she suddenly laughed: "Young man, even if you are a liar, you did make me happy with your lies."

She handed the pile of letters to Bai Liu, tears welling up in her eyes: "Welcome to commemorate these two people with me."

Bai Liu held up the letter and said, "Perhaps you don't recommend that I open it and read it in person?"

Iliana laughed and waved her hands tremblingly: "Of course not, I can recite everything on it by heart."

Bai Liu lowered his head and sorted the letters in chronological order, then opened them one by one. Iliana chattered on:

"...You know, young people, when people are very old and have a bad life and are alone, they will recall their past over and over again, wondering what they did wrong to end up like this..."

Iliana's old voice paused for a moment: "Do you know what is the most terrifying thing in this process?"

Bai Liu raised his eyes and looked at her: "What is it?"

Elena forced a smile, but tears flowed from the corners of her eyes: "You did do a lot of things wrong."

Bai Liu lowered her eyes and looked at the first letter in her hand. It was from Iliana to Alex.

[Tribute to my dear fiancé:

Your dirty, shameless, and despicable male lover wrote to me two days ago, asking me to forgive his despicable behavior with you, and shamelessly asking me to bless your love and marriage.

What a disgusting thought!

Is there any god in this world who would allow two men to unite in his presence?

I even suspect that enemy shells will rain down on the place where you hold your wedding as punishment for your unethical behavior!

Alex, as a doctor who studies the mechanisms of human life, the greatest profession on earth, why would you allow yourself to hang out with such a ridiculous psychopath and waste your time that could be used to save lives?

When you are with him, don't you feel that your future and ideals are tainted by shit?

At least when I received the letter he sent me, I felt like my dignity had been tarnished by shit. 】

Bai Liu opened the next letter, and the sender was Alex.

To Iliana:

First, allow me to vehemently refute the way you addressed me. I have never met you, nor have I ever agreed to allow you to take the initiative to become my fiancée. The way you addressed me at the beginning of your previous letter was completely wrong.

Second, there will only be one person who is my lover, my wife, and the person who will accompany me for the rest of my life, and that person is Guy, not you who suddenly appeared after Guy and I fell in love.

I don't know where your inexplicable admiration for me comes from, whether it is from my parents' unrealistic expectations and descriptions of me, or from the pursuit of the only young man with a higher education in that narrow town, or from the complacency and self-satisfaction with your own beauty, and the ridiculous idea that the most beautiful girl in the town can win the title of the best young man.

Allow me to explain to you, Elena, that I am not an object to be won and flaunted. I am a person with feelings.

After I gave my love to Guy, it was absolutely impossible for me to love anyone else until I stopped loving him.

Irena, you are also an independent person. Your value does not need to be demonstrated by getting me. You can prove it by doing more valuable things.

Guy and I both have the qualifications to go to higher universities for further studies. I will use mine myself. Guy said that you are still a young girl who doesn't know much, and you have more qualifications to enjoy the beauty and knowledge of the world than him who doesn't know whether he can come back alive.

If you have any idea of ​​going to a higher education college, Guy says he can give you his place.

Even though you said all kinds of shit to Guy that I think is bullshit, Guy forgave you and noble enough to give you the opportunity to study.

Although I strongly objected, Guy was very persistent.

Guy said he could see that you were a girl with ambitions.

He said you like me because I am a doctor, and you think I am great in curing diseases and saving lives, so you cast a girlish admiration on me.

Guy asked me to tell you something. If you like saving people, why don't you try to do it yourself?

I'm sorry that my parents made those blind promises to you, but I will still severely reprimand you if you say anything inappropriate to Guy again.

Bai Liu continued to flip through the pages, and the next letter was from Iliana again, but this time it was not addressed to Alex, but to Guy.

Tribute to Guy:

I apologize for the inappropriate and personal insults I used.

I put all the money I have saved from working in the past three years from the age of eleven to now in this envelope as personal compensation for my inappropriate remarks.

I won't accept the study qualification you offer me. I still think you are wasting Alex's time. He can have more. He invented a drug that can delay human death. How many soldiers who died in the war can this save?

Everyone in town says Alex can be the next war hero!

But after he met you, all he can think about is falling in love!

I still hope you stay away from him, maybe you can find another male lover you truly love, but that person should not be Alex. 】

The next letter was from Guy to Elena.

[To the lovely little girl Iliana:

Hey girl, guess what? I think you're right.

Alex will indeed have a very bright future. He is a very talented guy. The experiment of the drug is progressing very quickly. His superiors have approved him to experiment on wounded soldiers, and the results are remarkable.

I don't deserve him, Alex is great, so I still want to selfishly possess him for a while and have the best memories with him.

Ileana, I have seen your photos. You are very beautiful, but you are too young, only fourteen years old. You can't tell the difference between love and longing.

I have to admit that Alex is a good guy, but it would take at least four years for you to talk about love with him - believe me, with your beauty, determination and perseverance, by that time you would probably have met another good guy who would make you more excited.

Of course, she could be a good girl, but I don’t mind that.

After the war, enjoying a romantic and slow-paced love in peacetime is what you and Alex deserve, instead of rushing to sacrifice your youth and marry a war hero imagined by the townspeople and Alex's parents under the influence of the war frenzy of the townspeople and Alex's parents.

This isn't fair to you or to Alex.

I want you to be happy because you deserve it, and I want me to be happy too.

But unfortunately, God is not willing to bless me with the happiness I want.

Hey, Alex told me that you are good at making wedding dresses, can you make one for me? I want to wear it to marry Alex? 】

The last letter Irina wrote to Guy had very messy handwriting, with many traces of tears on it, as if the fourteen-year-old Irina was crying while writing the letter.

But her tone in the letter was completely different and cold:

To Guy:

I don't know where you got those rumors that I was forced to marry Alex, but that's not true, I did it of my own accord.

I won't do the wedding dress. I won't allow anyone to marry Alex before me. Give up! 】

Bai Liu looked at the wedding dress that Iliana had placed on Guy's tombstone, raised her eyebrows and asked, "Can I know why you made a wedding dress for Guy in the end?"

Iliana smiled with nostalgia in her eyes, but her smile seemed to hide a lot of unspeakable sadness in her happiness, and the corners of her mouth could not stop tugging down:

"…I was too young at that time and didn't understand anything. The town wanted to choose a beautiful girl to marry the town's war hero. The winner could get a sum of money from Alex's parents, so my parents let me go."

"I was the prettiest of all the girls." Iliana's eyes became more distant. "I was chosen very easily. I was still very young at that time, and the law did not allow me to get married, so Alex's parents told me to stay with Alex until he came back. I was not allowed to contact or fall in love with anyone before Alex came back."

"At that time, my whole life was about marrying Alex, a hero. Someone snatched him away, and I was completely panicked. I hated Guy so much." Elena's eyes were red, and her tone was hateful. "Guy was a very smooth-talking guy, and he liked to write letters to tease me. I just couldn't understand how a man who fought in the war could have so much free time and smile every day."

"Guy was different from all the men I had met. He respected me, encouraged me, and said that sooner or later I would achieve as much as Alex. He even helped me get admitted to the school so that I could go there directly."

Iliana's tears flowed from her wrinkles: "The night I wrote this letter to Guy in tears, I secretly made a wedding dress overnight and rushed to the post office to mail it to him."

As she spoke, she turned her head and looked at Bai Liu in a daze: "But when I got to the post office, they notified me that a new letter had arrived and asked me to pick it up. I opened it and it was still a letter from Guy."

Iliana burst into tears: "——It's Guy's suicide note and a suicide note."

"Guy was killed on the spot after he rebelled during the early morning raid. He knew all this would happen and left me a suicide note in advance, asking me to take good care of myself and help him take care of Alex."

"I wanted to give him a wedding dress, an apology, and thanks..." Iliana choked up and said with trembling lips, "but he didn't have time to hear all of them."