In the darkness of the night, Wei Ran waved goodbye to the old couple standing at the head of the village, and left the small village with a large bag full of walnuts and dried hawthorns, as well as five or six kilograms of dried hawthorn leaves.
Among the gifts he brought, Mr. Zhao Shengli only accepted the bottle of liquor that Wei Ran had opened when he called, and as for the rest, he insisted that Wei Ran take it back intact.
"Brother, what do you mean, that old man is a veteran?" Liu Yanghe, who was driving, asked curiously.
"No, where are the second-level combat heroes?"
Wei Ran said with admiration, "You can probably read his name in your local county annals."
"That's awesome!" Liu Yanghe said with regret after praising him, "Seeing that old man makes me regret not joining the army."
"Why didn't you go then?" Wei Ran asked indifferently.
"You think I don't want to go?" Liu Yanghe sighed, "I was kicked off in the first round."
"Because of physical condition?"
"I'm in good health!"
There was regret in Liu Yanghe's tone, "When I was in school, I was ignorant and often got into fights. I even spent half a year in a juvenile detention center. If I had known that it would affect my joining the army, even if I had my hand chopped off, I wouldn't have taken it with me to fight back."
"You can't join the army even if you chop off your hands," Wei Ran reminded him faintly.
Liu Yanghe grinned, lit a cigarette and said with longing, "If I could be a soldier, if I sharpen my head, I would have to go to the border to kill those people who drink water from the Ganges."
"You are quite angry." Wei Ran shook his head in confusion.
"I don't have any skills except fighting."
Liu Yanghe patted the steering wheel, "You said I'm good at driving a car, but if you asked me to drive a fighter jet or something, I would probably be so scared that I peed my pants. But I'm not afraid of fights. I can pick 20 of me with a big knife."
Not only are they cowardly.
If I could serve as a soldier, it would definitely not be a waste to fight those Mi Tai things. If you could give me a blue-light Gatling or something, I could kill them all by myself."
Seeing the driver, who was not much different in age from him, becoming more and more outrageous, Wei Ran inexplicably wanted to talk to him about his ideological consciousness.
When this idea came out of his mind, he couldn't help but have a smile on his face. Presumably, when Zhao Shengli saw that he wanted to take the prisoner to steal the watch, he must have felt the same way as now when he heard the driver of the black car.
There's probably no difference in what you think when you're dreaming.
Seeing that Wei Ran was silent, the driver Liu Yanghe also stopped talking, increased the speed slightly, and drove the car back to Pingquan High-speed Railway Station.
After paying an extra two hundred to Liu Yanghe as a thank you fee, Weiran took the high-speed train back to the capital at nine o'clock that night.
The gift he prepared for Zhao Shengli failed to be delivered, so he had no choice but to send it home the next day. Then he took a flight to Dandong with the walnuts and dried hawthorns sent by Zhao Shengli and his wife.
This place is only separated by a river from the former battlefield. It was from here that Chen Qi, Zhao Shengli and others bravely crossed the Yalu River.
But decades later, some people came back and were buried in the city where they set out, while others stayed on the other side of the river forever, continuing to silently guard the land behind them.
Following the address, we found the Martyrs Cemetery. Walking among the pines and cypresses, Wei Ran gradually calmed down.
He could see too many familiar names here, and he could also see more names that he had never heard of before, and he could even see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier without a name.
In addition to the tombstones that were wiped clean one by one, he could also see old people chatting under the trees, parents with their children, and some students who were carefully wiping the tombstones with towels under the bright sun.
Wei Ran didn't know why they came here, didn't know why they came here to enjoy the cool air and chat, didn't know why they came here to tell stories to the children, didn't know why they wiped those tombstones. He didn't know what kind of stories they had experienced, he didn't know
What kind of story will they experience in the future?
But he knows, they must know, because they have been here watching, listening, guarding, and waiting.
"I wonder how many of those children will become heroes like you in the future."
Wei Ran looked at the students who were diligently wiping the tombstones and muttered to himself, and couldn't help but think of Liu Yanghe, the black truck driver who dreamed of becoming a soldier and finding three pigeons to fight with.
Finally, he lowered his head and looked at the tombstone of "Martyr Lin Yuehua".
To his right, the name engraved on another tombstone is "Martyr Sun Yannian", followed by "Martyr Li Dali" and "Martyr Gao Qiang". They were warriors when they were alive, and they still looked like warriors after they died.
There was also a neat queue.
Silently he opened the suitcase and took out the walnuts and hawthorns given by Zhao Shengli and his wife and placed them in front of the four tombstones. Wei Ran opened his backpack again and took out a bottle of liquor and a few bottles of liquor bought on the road.
Three glasses were placed in front of the four tombstones in order to fill them up.
He took out an extra cup and poured it into it. He clinked their cups one by one, and Wei Ran raised his head and drank it all.
One glass of wine, two glasses of wine, and after the third glass of wine was poured into his stomach, he simply turned around and left this peaceful and peaceful cemetery. If they could hear some words, he believed that they could still hear them even if he didn't say them.
hear.
"Finally it's time to go see the bugler Xia Chuan."
Wei Ran rubbed his face and couldn't help but look up in the direction across the river. The car driver Liu Yijiao and the squad leader Shen Shen of the assault squad still hadn't gone home yet. He even wanted to see them. In the short term,
It’s not that easy to achieve either.
With this trace of regret, Wei Ran stopped a taxi that happened to be passing by and motioned for the taxi to drive freely in this city that he had never been to before. He turned his attention to the scenery outside the window.
He doesn't know what the scene was like here decades ago, what the people in this city did for that war and what they endured, and he doesn't know what the people here were like when the war ended.
How happy it is.
But he knows that now the residents here no longer have to worry about the flames of war coming to their doorsteps again, or the American planes dropping bombs overhead. He also knows that even if one day someone really dares to bring the flames of war to the door again,
Here are the children who are listening to their parents telling stories in the cemetery, and the students who are carefully wiping the tombstones.
They will still take up arms without hesitation, just like those people in childhood hero stories, like those people represented by wiped tombstones, singing songs all the way to fight a winning war.
"Peace is so good..."
Wei Ran sighed sincerely in his heart, and a look of relief appeared on his face that had been dull for the past few days.
