Because I've been waiting for you to return to the team, Dingyue.
"Because I've been waiting for you to return to the team, Dingyue."
50.
The snow fell for two days and two nights in Shenhua Village. On New Year's Eve, when Chongming heard the news that the roads were frozen, he happened to see a thick layer of snow outside his window that had crushed the flower branches in the front yard. On the phone, Dou Yaozu asked Chongming, "If you're not going to reward the troops with General Lu today, are you not planning to show your face in front of the garrison tomorrow?"
Lu Jie was promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Army at the end of last year. This year was his first New Year's Eve celebration for the troops. Chongming, as his "successor," should have accompanied him to the military camp to comfort the soldiers, but Chongming did not want to get involved in his father's factional struggles, so he firmly refused to accompany him. The next step after the celebration was to make his appearance in front of the garrison and the high-ranking officials and dignitaries of the old Southern Party faction. From then on, Chongming was no longer just Chongming, who was devoted to the study of particle physics in the nuclear research institute, but Lu Dingyue, the son of the Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Army.
“I will appear before those soldiers in another way.”
Dou Yaozu knew that Chongming had his own plans, but his nagging nature remained unchanged. He couldn't help but grumble at Chongming, "What about the garrison? Haven't you broken up with Zheng's daughter completely now? Even if you run into that Madam Zheng, it won't be a big deal, will it?"
“I’m fine, but what about my wife? Only the director of the nuclear research institute knows about our marriage. My identity will be exposed sooner or later. What about Lan Jian? Even for her sake, I have to be wary of those people in the garrison who are so suspicious.”
"The garrison is the garrison, but you are the son of our Southern Army's commander-in-chief. Do you think these political charlatans can outmaneuver us, who are armed to the teeth?" The Dou family is also a pillar of the Southern Army's elite forces. However, unlike Chongming, Dou Yaozu has always attended top military academies and training camps in Europe and America. He is a typical brave and hardened soldier. "Besides, didn't the Zheng family always try to figure out which faction you belonged to? They investigated the garrison and all the high-ranking officials' children in the Southern Party, but they couldn't find you. If you don't reveal your identity to her and let her know that the Zheng family is not worthy of your attention, what if she comes back and tries to take advantage of you again when her daughter returns?"
"I'm already married, Dou'er, stop talking nonsense."
"But marriage has never been a foolproof way to avoid trouble. People who want to climb the social ladder don't care if you're actually married. And there are plenty of married wives of minor officials who have been forcibly taken by their superiors. Do you think the garrison is still the brave army that turned against the South for justice fifty years ago? Old Master Yan has been gone for who knows how many years, and even his son..." Dou Yaozu stopped abruptly, changing the subject, "Moreover, the Military Commission has not received your marriage report. The military court can declare your marriage invalid, Major Lu."
"Dou Yaozu!" Chongming pinched his temples, a headache throbbing. "I didn't hold a grudge against you for your discharge application back then, how dare you bring it up again?"
"Because I've been waiting for you to return to the team, Dingyue."
After a heavy phone call, Chongming sat back down at his desk. He opened a drawer and took out his marriage certificate with Lanjian. On the certificate, his military service status was marked with the word "confidential."
Lan Jian assumed that he was the descendant of a military man, and therefore did not need to serve in the military or that his identity was special and needed to be kept secret, which was why he filled it out this way.
In reality, Chongming joined the army at the age of thirteen. Descendants of high-ranking officers or soldiers in special branches of the Southern Army had the privilege of early service. These individuals received intensive training and special secret training from a young age, and the specialized small units composed of these sons of soldiers were known as the "Heroic Army." Chongming's father, Lu Jie, Dou Yaozu's father, Dou Wude, and the current director of the Nuclear Research Institute, Zhong Shiqing, were all from the Heroic Army, and their descendants rarely failed to join it.
The founder of this special force was Lu Yingyong, Chongming's grandfather. In a sense, this army was established by the Lu family to counter the increasingly powerful garrison battalion and the radical armed forces that had first declared independence in the south fifty years ago.
All the past events stemmed from the division between North and South fifty years ago.
The war between North and South was initially triggered by a corruption scandal within the Northern Party, but it eventually led to the exposure of the shocking secret of nuclear weapons development in the North, enraging the Southern Army. However, the one who fired the first shot was the Northern Army, which deliberately instigated conflict at the border between North and South. At that time, soldiers planted by the Northern Party within the Northern Army's special forces stationed at the foot of Xiang'ai Peak in Wuyue Mountain intentionally provoked public anger, forcing Battalion Commander Yan Zhenjun to deploy troops. Unwilling to engage in conflict with innocent Southern soldiers and civilians, Yan Zhenjun decisively executed the instigator who lacked discipline.
To set an example for others, he led his men to guard the Xiang'ai Peak defense line, and whenever an army from the north came, he drove them back.
After Yan Zhenjun rebelled against the Northern Army, he was hailed as a righteous force by the Southern Army and incorporated into their garrison. Yan Zhenjun's subordinates were all elite troops, and their views coincided with those of Huang Qu, the newly appointed, aggressive, and militant leader of the Southern Army. Huang Qu's original unit belonged to the personal guard of a key figure in the Southern Party. Initially, the Southern Army was united under his command to fight against the Northern Army, but his iron-fisted declaration of independence caused controversy within the Southern Army. In order to counter the orthodox Southern Army, he began to heavily rely on the garrison troops who had defected from the North, cultivating his own power base.
Yan Zhenjun was unwilling to be drawn into political struggles, but he also couldn't stand by and watch the garrison battalion become a supporter of others and be at their mercy. At that time, the government of Nanlu, which had become independent, was inciting the people to support the development of nuclear weapons. Yan Zhenjun had considerable prestige among the people. In addition, he came from the north, which had been developing nuclear weapons for ten years. He took the lead in establishing the Nuclear Energy Research Institute at the former North-South Federal Polytechnic University's School of Nuclear Engineering, which had been renamed Nanlu University, and built a nuclear reactor on the open space behind the university campus.
The first director of the Nuclear Research Institute was Yan Zhenjun, the commander of the garrison battalion.
Meanwhile, in order to maintain peace and stability between the garrison battalion and the Southern Army's elite forces, Yan Zhenjun secretly sent his only surviving son from the war to the Heroic Battalion established by Lu Yingyong, the commander-in-chief of the Southern Army. The Nuclear Research Institute collaborated with the Heroic Army, and almost everyone involved in core research was a son of a high-ranking Southern Army general, rather than a high-ranking garrison officer or his descendants who were obsessed with the regime.
Besides Yan Zhenjun's biological son, there is Yan Jisheng.
Nearly thirty years later, Yan Jisheng, a man of great talent and knowledge, took up the post of director of the nuclear research institute in accordance with his father’s last wish. However, just when everyone thought that nuclear weapons were about to be successfully developed under his leadership, he suddenly betrayed the institute and fled north.
Yan Jisheng's destruction of nuclear facilities and escape ignited public anger. Some said that the garrison troops from the north had been lying low in the south for so many years, only to be targeted for this. Many high-ranking garrison officers who had already risen to power were implicated. The previously out-of-power Southern Party installed a new leader, a conservative who did not value nuclear energy and weapons. Upon taking office, he announced a desire to negotiate peace with the north, which prioritized commerce over politics, and to develop the economy. The north had been a commercial power for thirty years, and many of its ambitious politicians were businessmen driven by profit. After thirty years of division and undercurrents, the two regions finally had a chance for amicable negotiations. In addition to signing a nuclear peace treaty, they also signed many mutually beneficial agreements to promote education, economy, industry, and military development in both regions. These were the twenty years of the most harmonious and stable development between the north and south.
However, in the past two decades, the factional struggles among the former members of the Southern Party have become severe, the power of the garrison has made a comeback, the power shifts in the southern foothills have been constant, and friction between the north and south borders has been frequent.
The South and North militaries conduct joint military exercises annually, testing each other's strength while simultaneously harboring mutual suspicion. Following another small-scale firefight on the border late last year, both armies entered a period of alert. No one knows whether that first shot fired fifty years ago will be fired again with the end of the nuclear peace treaty.
At this crucial moment, Lu Dingyue, son of Lu Jie, major general and commander-in-chief of the Southern Army, and Meng Lanjian, niece of Zhou Puzhao, commander-in-chief of the Northern Army Navy, completed the first and highest-level political marriage between the descendants of generals since the long-standing division between the North and the South.
Only a very few people knew that Meng Lanjian's true value lay not in the fact that her uncle was Zhou Puzhao, nor in the fact that her father was the newly appointed Director of the Finance Department of Beiluan, but in—
She is Yan Jisheng's only niece.
That is, the granddaughter of Yan Zhenjun, the commander of the garrison battalion and later the first director of the Nuclear Research Institute, who was left behind in the north.
The people of Nanlu hated Yan Jisheng, but few doubted Yan Zhenjun's loyalty and righteousness. Yan Zhenjun had been dead for nearly three years when Yan Jisheng defected. After fleeing to Beiluan, Yan Jisheng maintained a high-minded and aloof demeanor, claiming he was a northerner from birth. He claimed that it was precisely because of his differing political views with his father, opposing his father's construction of a nuclear reactor and the establishment of a nuclear research institute in the south, that he had spent years in hiding, ultimately destroying his father's hard work. With this statement absolving himself of responsibility, Yan Jisheng remained active in Beiluan politics for several years. While the people of Nanlu wanted nothing more than to tear him apart, he was hailed as a "true hero" for "saving the country through indirect means" and "sacrificing family for the greater good" with the support of the people of Beiluan.
Chongming initially had no idea that his father wanted him to marry Lanjian not because of her uncle's relationship, but because of Yan Jisheng. It wasn't until the Zhong family's year-end banquet, when the director called him to the study to play chess, that he learned of Yan Jisheng's suicide. The two weren't classmates in the Heroic Battalion; Yan Jisheng had lived in anonymity during his time there.
People knew he was Yan Zhenjun's son, so even though Zhong Shiqing had met him before, he only learned about him later when Zhong became the director of the Nuclear Research Institute.
"That brat destroyed the nuclear research institute his father built! How cruel and cold-blooded!" Zhong Shiqing said, her voice filled with righteous indignation when she heard that Yan Jisheng had only reunited with his long-lost niece and nephew before his death. "The Yan family has been loyal and righteous for generations. Before his death, Old Master Yan regretted that he had mistakenly sent those ambitious wolves in the garrison to the center of power, causing unrest in the North and South. How could he have given birth to such a scoundrel as Yan Jisheng?"
Chongming was usually one to keep his emotions hidden, but after hearing what Zhong Shiqing said that day, he returned to his seat and looked at Lanjian with a vague sense of pity. So that night, under the influence of alcohol, he mentioned to her the Fragrant Peak of Wuyue Mountain and the winter in Shenhua Village.
Later, when Chongming again condemned Dou Yaozu for tipping him off, he had missed such important information. Dou Yaozu had never heard his elders mention that Meng Lanjian was a descendant of Yan Lao. He shook his head upon hearing this, saying, "Yan Jisheng not only destroyed the nuclear research institute, but also only recognized his niece before his death. What was he thinking? At that time, the two armies had just entered a period of alert, and your father had just taken office. He deliberately spread the news of his niece to the south, perhaps to make your father make a painful decision and force you to marry your junior sister?"
Bei Luan intended to block the news, but Yan Jisheng had secretly sent someone to leave a message to the south before committing suicide. By the time Lu Jie learned of the news, Yan Jisheng had already committed suicide. Lu Jie couldn't wait to contact Lan Jian again through Zhou Puzhao's connections. He had to get Lan Jian married into the Lu family as soon as possible.
“I have a vague feeling that my father had arranged for me to marry Lan Jian long ago. It was only a matter of time for him to marry Lan Jian. But after Yan Jisheng died, he seemed to be thrown off balance and made me marry her immediately. There must be something in between that he didn’t want me to know.”
"Do you think your grandfather and Old Master Yan might have already seen through Yan Jisheng's wicked intentions? Maybe they even started planning to reserve Meng Lanjian for you as their daughter-in-law when she was still in her mother's womb?"
"After Yan Lao went to the South, he never went north again. Apart from himself, I guess no one knew that he had a daughter who stayed in the North. Also, when Lan Jian was born, Yan Jisheng had not yet defected to the North. No one knew that he still had family and guards in Bei Luan. My grandfather and father probably didn't know either."
A few days later, Dou Yaozu brought Chongming the information he had gathered: "I heard from my father that when Old Master Yan was on his deathbed, he suddenly had a will to live and started using the best medicinal herbs like ginseng to prolong his life. He had a few days of lucidity before he passed away. My father has been thinking about it these past few days and calculated the time. Old Master Yan passed away not long after Meng Lanjian was born."
At the time, Dou Yaozu's words were too mystical, and Chongming didn't take them to heart.
Now that he had mentioned the garrison battalion and Yan Jisheng again, Chongming began to piece together some clues—
It's impossible that Lan Jian only found out she had such an uncle when Yan Jisheng was on his deathbed.
When she first came to Zhong Shiqing, she brought blueprints with her to the nuclear research institute. Zhong Shiqing suspected that the blueprints might be the same ones that Yan Jisheng had taken to Beiluan. It wasn't until Zhong Shiqing learned that Lan Jian had been forced into a marriage with him that he was certain that the blueprints were indeed the ballistic system that Yan Jisheng had failed to realize.
Is there any possibility...?
Yan Jisheng had always been by Lan Jian's side, but she didn't know that he was her uncle.
TTTT Notes on time TTTT
1. To emphasize the fictional setting, the author used a little bit of a cheat code to greatly expand the family background of the male and female protagonists (which is why their marriage between the North and South prevented war).
2. Also, because the world-building is fictional, some of the author's settings are not as rigorous as in reality. For example, active-duty soldiers cannot go abroad, and Chongming going to the United States (wait, I seem to have forgotten to make this place fictional too, hahaha) also has its reasons.
3. I fixed a bug earlier today. The part where Lao Zhong said that Chongming would also send Lanjian to the United States was a bit easy to misunderstand. Xue Xiang went to X University to sign a cooperation agreement after returning from Hawaii. I made X University the place where Lanjian went abroad after that, and the United States can be seen as a transit country (laughs). In Chapter 26, I changed Lao Zhong's part to "sent abroad" to be more precise.
4. I forget if I've emphasized this in the main text, but a very important core theme of this article is anti-war.
5. Of course, the happiness of the male and female protagonists is also very, very important / The author, who is still trying to make delicious food, bows down.
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