"Tsk, calling me by my full name, you're showing no sincerity at all!" Li Siqing expressed disdain towards Lu Ruorong. "Can you be a little more corny? You should say something like: Hanhan, I'm so touched. I'm willing to make the world my enemy for you. Okay, okay, don't look at me like that. Next time you go on a date, I won't show up in front of you even if you kill me."
Lu Ruorong and Chen Zihan smiled at each other and stopped teasing Li Siqing.
After a while, Li Siqing suddenly thought of something and looked up to ask Chen Zihan: "Xiaodi Chen, what are your plans for winter vacation this year?"
"Of course I'm going home to be with my parents. I'm a filial son." Chen Zihan looked at Lu Ruorong with a smile. "Why, do you have other plans?"
"Rong'er and I agreed to spend a few days in Jinling during the winter break, then travel around Gusu, Guangling, and Runzhou. We'll go home again when the New Year is almost here," Li Siqing said briskly. "From Qiantang, it's not too far. A day or two in Gusu, Guangling, and Runzhou is enough. Once we're back, we'll be home just in time for the New Year. Will you come with us?"
Chen Zihan hesitated for a moment after hearing this, and finally said embarrassedly: "I'm going to Jinling in December!"
"Going to Jinling in December?" Li Siqing was surprised. After glancing at Lu Ruorong, he immediately asked, "Have you made an appointment with anyone to go to Jinling?"
Lu Ruorong didn't ask anything, just looked at them calmly.
After hesitating for a moment, Chen Zihan said truthfully, "In recent years, every December, I would accompany my parents to Jinling."
"Why?" Li Siqing was surprised. "Who are you going to visit?"
Lu Ruorong seemed to have suddenly thought of something and asked quietly, "Are you going to pay tribute to the dead?"
Chen Zihan glanced at Lu Ruorong in surprise, then nodded gently. "Every December, our family goes to Jinling to pay tribute. I have relatives who died in that war!"
Li Siqing and Lu Ruorong were stunned when they heard this.
Li Siqing was greatly surprised and immediately asked, "Who is he to you?"
Chen Zihan hesitated for a moment, and finally gave a brief account of the situation.
Chen Zihan’s mother Huang Xiaojuan’s grandfather served in the Chinese army in the 1930s.
He was a captain and belonged to the most elite Central Training Corps at that time.
In December 1937, when the Japanese army attacked Nanjing, the Central Training Corps was stationed at Yuhuatai.
When the Japanese army attacked Yuhuatai, he was unfortunately killed in artillery fire.
The battle was so brutal that tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers died under the artillery fire and butcher knives of the Japanese army.
Most of those who died on the battlefield never had the chance to be buried.
The same goes for Huang Xiaojuan's grandfather.
Huang Xiaojuan's grandmother gave birth to two daughters for her husband.
When the war broke out, her husband, whose ancestral home was Wushang, asked her to take her two daughters back to his hometown first.
In the end, the grandmother returned to her hometown with her two daughters and never left.
It was not until three years later that she learned that her husband had died heroically in the Battle of Nanjing.
She was deeply saddened when she learned of her husband's death.
She did not remarry, but lived in hiding in her hometown and raised her two daughters.
Not many people know that her husband participated in the Battle of Nanjing and died in the war, and he never encountered any trouble during that special period.
In the late 1970s, Huang Xiaojuan's grandmother passed away due to illness.
After her death, she was buried on the hill behind the village, facing north.
Before she died, she repeatedly instructed her descendants that if they had the chance to find her husband's ashes or remains, they should be buried together.
The two daughters kept their mother's will in mind and have been searching for their father's remains.
They have been running around for many years but to no avail.
They had only seen their father's name on the list of dead, but no one knew where he was buried.
Huang Xiaojuan's mother is the second daughter. Her elder sister died of illness in 1997.
The task of finding grandpa's ashes or remains fell on Chen Zihan's grandmother, Huang Xiaojuan's mother, and several of her eldest sister's descendants.
But as time goes by, the chance of finding my grandfather's ashes or remains becomes increasingly slim.
Unable to find grandpa's remains, they went to Jinling to pay tribute.
In the past few years, around December 12th every year, their family would go to Jinling to pay tribute.
Before Chen Zihan was reborn, He Yingrong, Huang Xiaojuan and others still went to Jinling Yuhuatai to pay tribute every year.
Huang Xiaojuan's mother passed away in 2015. Before her death, she was still thinking about her mother's instructions before her death.
She felt guilty for not fulfilling her mother's last wish.
She asked Huang Xiaojuan and other relatives to go to Jinling every year to pay tribute to her father and to apologize to her father in heaven on behalf of the two unfilial daughters.
It is now 2001, and Huang Xiaojuan's mother, Chen Zihan's grandmother, is still alive. They must go to Jinling to pay tribute to Huang Xiaojuan's grandfather.
"I'm definitely going with them!"
After hearing Chen Zihan say this in a low voice, Lu Ruorong and Li Siqing were stunned.
Li Siqing reached out and wiped his eyes. Lu Ruorong turned his back and wiped his eyes with a tissue before turning back.
"So your ancestors participated in the Battle of Nanjing and died in that war!" Li Siqing wiped his eyes and said to Chen Zihan seriously, "You descendants still remember the ancestors who died in the war and go to pay tribute to them every year. It's so touching."
"I heard that during the Battle of Nanjing, the Training Corps inflicted heavy damage on the Japanese army, but unfortunately, they were completely annihilated in the end." Lu Ruorong bit her lip and looked at Chen Zihan, saying seriously, "Your great-grandfather was a hero of the National Defense War. You should be proud of him."
"Now, we dare to be proud of our ancestors, but we didn't dare before!" Chen Zihan forced a smile and said embarrassedly, "Let's not talk about this topic anymore, okay?"
"You really should accompany your parents to Jinling to pay their respects." Li Siqing glanced at Lu Ruorong and suggested quietly, "How about we go over there at that time?"
Lu Ruorong was a little confused for a moment, and finally she said vaguely: "We'll see when the time comes. There are still nearly fifty days left anyway."
She hadn't thought about meeting Chen Zihan's parents now.
Chen Zihan understood the reason for Lu Ruorong's hesitation and immediately agreed with her, saying, "It's still early, so we'll see. Going to Jinling during your winter break is also a good idea, especially if it snows. Qiantang is a very awkward place; it doesn't always snow every year, and even when it does, it's not heavy."
"If you want to see snow, it's a good idea to go to Yanjing or the Northeast." Lu Ruorong smiled.
Li Siqing is also a smart man, and he did not touch on that heavy topic again.
When sending Li Siqing and Lu Ruorong back to school, Chen Zihan also gave them a clear answer: "If you want to go out and play during the winter vacation, then I will try my best to make time to accompany you and be your photographer the whole time. Is that okay?"
Li Siqing laughed and said, "You have to bring a boy with you, otherwise I will always be your light bulb, which is too embarrassing."
"no problem!"
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