Chapter 15 Episode fifteenth

A flock of pigeons circled in the long clear sky. Against the blue sky, the silver-gray wings looked like light clouds.The pigeon's wings fluttered triumphantly, and they were raised leisurely.Pigeon whistles whizzed across the sky, for a while, it was far away, and for a while, it was near.The pigeon spun a few times and finally flew away, leaving behind a long aftertaste. How peaceful! It's October, and sweet-scented osmanthus is in season. The small yellow rice-like flowers are hidden in the gaps in the leaves, quietly weaving an array of fragrance. Leaning under the sweet-scented osmanthus tree was a man wearing a blue and white striped hospital gown. His right leg was cast in plaster, with crutches in his armpits and sunglasses.His head was raised up, turning with the sound of the pigeon whistle, the sound of the pigeon whistle disappeared in the sky, but he still raised his head.

There seemed to be a slight sound behind the laurel tree. His sunglasses are looking straight ahead, "seeing" with his ears: "Who?" silent. He shook his head, doubting his hearing. He took out a cigarette and put it between his lips. There was another rustling sound behind the osmanthus tree.Stretching out a hand, he lifted the brass lighter with the cigarette case, click, the flames approached the cigarette in his mouth. He felt his cheeks burn, and took off the cigarette: "Who?" He shuddered at the sound of a soft laugh. "Jiang... the head nurse?"

"Tong Chuan!" ... Jiang Man supported his crutched arm and helped him to sit on the long chair painted white. Jiang Man was dressed in casual clothes: Indian red windbreaker, black nylon tights, and green army trousers. She seemed to have regained her youth and looked radiant. Another pair of sunglasses was placed on Tong Chuan's expressionless face, looking numb.He sat upright. Jiang Man clicked on the lighter again, and held it in front of Tong Chuan's face. He was lighting a cigarette, and seemed to take advantage of the light to take a closer look at him. Tong Chuan crushed the cigarette in his hand.

Jiang Man: "Really taboo?" Tong Chuan: "I can't avoid it." Jiang Man played with the lighter "click, click", the orange flame lit up and then went out, and went out and then turned on again... "Then smoke, I'll buy you good cigarettes." Tong Chuan was speechless, and his crutch was in a meaningless place: beep, beep, beep... After a while, Tong Chuan said, "Jiang Man, are your injuries healed?" "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay." "I heard that you performed very well in the 'Death Line' that day, but I don't understand, what is it that you jumped into the swamp?"

"It's better to find my own home than to let the enemy kill me. Who would have thought that comrades saved me." "So you still have to look for it. To be alive is to find your home." What do you mean by that? Tong Chuan's sunglasses are as black as a deep pool, a deep pool without waves. Jiang Man: "I have died once." "One cannot die twice." "I can." "cannot!" "Okay, if you say you can't, you can't." It is not easy for a thirty-year-old woman to overcome her eccentricity and stubbornness, but she has overcome herself——obeyed.

Tong Chuan: "Ah... there seem to be clouds in the sky?" "No." "I feel it—there is." "That's shade." "Shade is shade, and clouds are clouds." Jiang Man looked at the sunglasses in surprise. what happened?He is irritable?Yes, fidgety.Jiang Man wanted to divert the conversation, try to be considerate, smooth, and understand that restless heart. "How about the legs?" "It's over." "I asked the doctor and they said it was safe." "The doctor said whatever he wanted." "I'm really worried! At first I heard that you died, and I was completely dead. But I didn't believe it, so I said you are not a 'unlucky guy'."

"What did you say?" "I said you - not - 'unlucky'!" Jiang Man smiled. Tong Chuan's sunglasses moved, probably due to his frowning. "Yes. No. No—I'm lucky enough not only to be alive, but also to have a girl who has asked someone to express her love to me! It's from the Welfare Factory for the Blind. Our eyesight is just right—zero to zero. I agree with her We met——ah?! What did you meet? How did you meet? No need, it’s very simple. Everything is easy, zero to zero, hehe, zero to zero!” "You made it up." "it is true."

"You made it up." Jiang Man's voice changed, and he looked at Tong Chuan fixedly. It was impossible for Tong Chuan to see her, and the dark reflections from the sunglasses reflected Jiang Man's joyful-surprised-painful changes. "Jiang Man, I don't know how to make up stories—it's true." "I've come to see you from afar—just to hear you say that?" Jiang Man's heart trembled, she was about to lose her temper to make Xiao Xing'er angry, but when she saw Tong Chuan's disabled appearance, all her anger disappeared, leaving only sadness.

"Jiang Man, head nurse, forget it. Thank you for your mercy. Of course, it's not just mercy, but there is also mercy. You go. We don't have to repeat the story in the movie-you take care of the disabled, and I am taken care of. You have a beautiful heart , self-sacrifice, the second round of 'death'..." Jiang Man's eyes were wet.That's not what she meant when she said "I died once"! "Don't say that, Tong Chuan, don't say that." Tong Chuan propped up his crutches: "When are you leaving?" "This time it's a family leave, one month. Our hospital knows that I'm coming to see you, and the dean said it's okay to take a longer time - no, I'm not leaving!"

She is declaring her determination. Tong Chuan was stunned for a while. Not far away, the window of the ward was open, and around the osmanthus trees, there were three or five patients wandering around, and a soldier holding a guitar was half lying on the grass. Tong Chuan moved his crutch resolutely. Jiang Man resolutely went to help Tong Chuan. "No. I'm used to being alone." "Don't try your best." "Look at—relieve. Be at ease. My heart is—a—light." "I believe so." "Jiang Man, since it's a family leave, you should go back to Beijing."

"You said the same thing eight years ago." "But, he is no longer the reckless child he was eight years ago." "She's not the little girl who didn't know what to do eight years ago—Tong Chuan, Tong Chuan!" She called his name affectionately. Maybe this call brought back Tong Chuan's memory?He seemed to be hit by the tide of memory, his body trembled, and he calmed down again after a while. "Jiang Man, you should go back to Beijing." Tong Chuan left Jiang Man behind and left as soon as he said he would.The pair of crutches struck the ground with a firm beep.He judged where he was by relying on the roadside flowers and trees and the smell of the ward.The angle at which his arms move the cane is always equal, and his stride remains of a generally large size.He kept facing straight ahead, walked to the side door of the inpatient department, then turned around stiffly at a right angle, opened the door, and disappeared inside. He was lying straight on the hospital bed. Outside the window, a patient was plucking the strings of a guitar.The man didn't sing aloud, but Tong Chuan clearly heard the episode of the TV series, and he could recite the song after hearing it. A sleepless night. Tong Chuan was not admitted to the hospital where Jiang Man was, but he found out everything about Jiang Man.He has always been looking forward to being with Jiang Man. Now, he not only hopes that Jiang Man will leave forever, but also fears that she will take a step away.He once dreamed of combining with Jiang Man, how attractive it was, in the dream a pair of eyes grew in his heart!Most of the backgrounds of those dreams unfolded in the white and flawless northern snowfields.When he woke up from the dream, he seemed to fall into a bottomless black abyss, feeling lost, empty, and even frightened like a child.Yes, in reality, he will live endlessly in the dark.It is precisely because Tong Chuan loves Jiang Man deeply that he can't bear to drag her down and make her sacrifice for a long time.He thought that he must get used to loneliness, obey loneliness, and find his own way of life again.Even if he gave meritorious service, people surrounded and guided him to the rostrum of the celebration meeting, wearing flowers and military medals, so what if time has changed?The celebration is everyone's, life is his own, and the middle-aged and old age in the future is his own. He should not let the people he loves live and suffer with him!He paid his precious eyes for the motherland, and others paid half his life's toil just for him-how can he bear it?blind!What a terrible lack of that word!Therefore, he wove a story about a blind girl in front of Jiang Man against his will and pain.He hoped that Jiang Man believed it, and he even believed it himself - he thought that his life would end like this. At half past five in the morning, the soldier's "biological clock" made him habitually sit up.For the first time, he sat blankly on the bed for a long time, and suddenly wanted to write a letter to Jiang Man, trying to explain the truth and unchangeable determination as clearly as possible, and try not to hurt others' hearts.This letter can only be written in Braille, which he has just learned a little.That's right, leave some "passwords" for Jiang Man and let her find someone to decipher them.He had boards on his legs, Braille paper, iron rulers, and tattooing pens. Jiang Man! ——As soon as he typed these two words, his heart was stabbed. He stroked those two "words" over and over again. He poked wildly with the pointed pen, and finally pierced the Braille paper so hard that the "pen tip" was deeply inserted into the wood! Then everything stopped and he didn't move. After a while, he heard two people walking into the ward, and the fragrance of women's cosmetics floated over. The footsteps were light and quiet, like clouds, like a breeze. It's a nurse.Yes, two nurses. He heard something put on the bedside table.Then, a scent of pine resin often found in the northern wilderness strongly stimulated him.He stretched out his hand to touch it. It was a pine branch stuck in the shell casing.He touched the sharp, moist, and straight pine needles. Tong Chuan asked, "Who brought it?" The ward nurse replied: "She." "Who?" The nurse in the ward gave a "puchi" smile, signaling to the two wounded patients in the ward, and all three of them went out. "Nurse, please take this away." There was no answer, he only heard the door knocking and the sound of people walking out.He stretched out his hand to push the cannon shell, wanting to push it further away, so as not to let the sharp pine needles pierce his heart and bring back memories of the past.As soon as his hand touched the cannon shell, the cannon shell moved by itself, and then he felt the fragrance of turpentine getting stronger and closer to him. He identified the direction it was floating in, and touched it by feeling—ah!He felt a pair of hands, a pair of cold hands holding shell casings with pine branches in them, and those slender hands grabbed his hands! He withdrew his hand as if electrocuted. "I was just writing to you." "Really? Let me see." "Just the beginning. Jiang Man, you can't decipher it yourself." "A 'book' that I've read and doesn't need to decipher." Jiang Man put down the pine needles and shell casings, pulled out the "pen", took the "letter" that Tong Chuan had just begun, closed his eyes, and felt with his fingertips: "Jiang Man..." She was actually learning Braille!But what she touched next was not the literature of the blind, but a self-stabbed heart, a mess of scars.Her eyes were red and she said: "Tong Chuan, let's stop torturing ourselves. That's enough, eight years, eight years! How many eight years do we have? Why do you speculate and wrong others? Am I not worthy of your trust? Do you have to hang myself, jump into a well, and give you my eyeballs before you can see my broken heart?" "Jiangman!" The stubborn and introverted soldier couldn't control himself anymore. He suddenly relied on his sixth sense to grasp Jiang Man's hand accurately, forcefully, without hesitation, and forgetting all scruples. Jiang Man's feelings were like water breaking a dike, crying, and crying, she rushed to Tong Chuan's bedside, crying and beating the person who beat her with his fist.Tong Chuan's injured leg was hit repeatedly by the small fist, and he let out an "ah" in pain, and Jiang Man realized that he had done something stupid.She stopped, raised her head, held back her tears, and suddenly hugged Tong Chuan's shoulders again, crying bitterly.She has completely indulged herself.It was rare for her to have such an indulgent opportunity.There are too many feelings that have been accumulated in her heart for eight years.Her love is sincere and noble, and she doesn't think that she will just take care of him in the future, as long as she is with him, he will give every moment. Tong Chuan was afraid that there would be someone in the house, so he wanted to push her away. She cried: "I don't, I don't, I don't!...I'm a thirty-year-old woman, what do you want from me?!" Yes, what else do you want others to do?Tong Chuan's heart was scalded, and tears flowed from his empty eye sockets. Slowly, Jiang Man became calmer.She opened her tearful eyes on Tong Chuan's shoulder and saw a sudden green, she asked: "Look—oh no, I'm sorry. You must know what's in that shell?" Of course he does. Knowing the icy and snowy Great Northern Wilderness... I know the small forest train station, the wooden houses... I still clearly remember the letter with pine needles he sent... Oh, pine needles, how strong and persistent is the fragrance of the oil!It is simply - "memory grass". The entire regiment washed away their sweat stains in the river, rinsed off the blood stains on their uniforms, painted their helmets with green paint, and wiped their automatic rifles until they were shiny blue.Motorcycles, radio cars, jeeps, and cannon cars have a new look.The rucksack is full of gorgeous wild flowers in southern Yunnan. Oh, Triumph, the troops are about to return to Kunming! The head of the team, Yang Yongxia, assembled the team in the canyon, looking at the hunting flag full of bullet holes.Looking at the faces under the helmet that had been bathed in blood and rain, he sternly asked the troops to accept the welcome and inspection of the people on behalf of the martyrs, and to step out of the military power!He recited the names of the martyrs who will remain in the land of southern Yunnan forever, and said his final farewell.No, not goodbye.He swallowed back his tears - the martyrs are always in the company's roster.Soldiers, death is temporary, life is eternal.Think about them, what is there to be proud of?Let's share the taste of triumph with the masses! O triumphant, soldier's day! Think about the crowded streets, the shocking gongs and drums, firecrackers, colorful rain of flowers, thousands of pairs of tearful and smiling eyes... and then think about interspersed, offensive, minefields, and trenches, the soldiers are immersed in austere joy middle.Correspondent Xiao Huang also picked the most beautiful wild flowers all over the mountains and plains, and whispered that he was going to throw it to the most beautiful girl in the sea... No one expected that before the military vehicle drove into Kunming, it received an order on the road-the team must enter the city at midnight. midnight? midnight…… The military vehicles of the triumphant division slowly entered the urban area of ​​Kunming. Apart from the lonely chugging of military vehicles rolling over the asphalt, there was no sound at all. The prosperous provincial capital is asleep.The moon is nestled far away in the sky.On both sides of the broad road, the street lamps silently glowed orange-yellow.The trees beside the street silently hide their shade in the night.Row upon row of high-rise buildings, the curtains on the windows and curtains of each building were all drawn down, and most of the lights were turned off.Occasionally, there are one or two brightly lit windows, and it seems that someone has lifted the colorful curtains and looked at the road.There is a purple light shining through the jacquard window screen on a top floor, and there are many figures, and the fiery rhythm of "disco" dance music comes from there. How solemn and majestic is the sequence of marching military vehicles!Two motorcycles cleared the way in front, followed by the regiment leader's Beijing jeep. The trucks moved slowly at equal distances and speeds, with helmets and guns flashing under the lights. There is no triumphal arch erected, no welcome in the aisle, no cheers and slogans, no girls and children, no flower rain and gongs and drums, no one knows that there are soldiers returning from the battle of blood and fire... Sleep, sleep, the whole city is sleeping soundly... There are only two people standing in the halo of lights not far from the General Hospital of the Military Region on the cross street.One is the nurse Jiang Man, and the other is the deputy battalion commander Tong Chuan.Jiang Man held a bunch of green pine branches tied with red silk in his arms. Tong Chuan changed his military uniform today, and his sunglasses looked unfathomable. To him, night was a continuation of darkness and day, but when he heard the chugging of military vehicles, his heart suddenly brightened. The head of the regiment issued an order, and the military vehicle stopped. The head of the regiment got out of the car and walked towards Tong Chuan. Xiao Huang, the correspondent, galloped after him, holding the bunch of beautiful wild flowers in his hand. Kobayashi also jumped out of the car from the cab. Leader Yang Yongxia took Tong Chuan's hand: "Did you disturb others?" Tong Chuan: "No. Just the two of us." Yang Yongxia: "The military region arranged to enter the city at this time, and I didn't figure it out until now. Anyway, I have to get out of the military prestige. You see, our Eighth Regiment looks alike—oh no, I'm sorry...you s eyes……" Tong Chuan: "I see it, I can see it." Xiao Lin smiled wryly: "It's really disappointing. Why did the military region let us enter the city in the middle of the night? Why didn't we inform the local people? The people in the city seemed to be completely dazed, as if they didn't know anything about this war." Yang Yongxia: "It would be right if this is the case. Think about it, the purpose of fighting and shedding blood is to wake up the common people in the middle of the night, welcome you, a great hero? You have one less wrinkle in your brain!" Tong Chuan turned his head, and there seemed to be a flash of light behind the sunglasses. Yes, he thought, that's right.The purpose of war may be to make people in the rear forget the war forever. Military vehicles drove through the market, and even the lights were dimmed; The military vehicle drove through the market, in this quiet midnight...