Chapter 12 Chapter Eleven

Liu Zongkui hurried back to Bajiaoping, and it was already dusk inside and outside the village.Without breathing, he immediately asked Xiao Bin, the commander of the third battalion, to inform the company commanders and instructors of each company to hold a meeting under a big eucalyptus tree beside the village where the battalion headquarters was located. Mountain region map. With the help of the light of a lantern that his guard Wei Xi found from his hometown, he found the ravine named Heifengjian that Jiang Tao had designated for them in the twists and turns of the densely packed contour lines on the map.He roughly calculated in his mind that the mountain road from Bajiaoping to Heifengjian was at least forty li.

It is now seven o'clock in the evening, and there are still five hours before the arrival time set by Jiang Tao for them. In addition, the actual distance of the mountain march is 30% longer than that on the map. After deducting the rest time on the way, the marching speed of the troops tonight must not be lower than Twelve miles per hour. This is not normal marching speed, this is rapid marching speed! The military and political leaders of each company are all here.Liu Zongkui did not ask them to squat down, but stood up himself, with a dark face, did not say a single unnecessary word, did not discuss with Xiao Bin and Chen Guoqing, and immediately ordered:

"The whole battalion will start immediately! The seventh company will be the vanguard, followed by the eighth company, the battalion headquarters, and the ninth company as the rear guard! The commander of the seventh company must pay attention to the speed of travel, which must not be less than six kilometers per hour!" He reported the coordinates on the map of Heifengjian, and asked the commanders of each company to mark the marching route tonight on the folded map he carried with him. Without allowing them to discuss a few words as usual, he waved his hand and said loudly: "Act now!"

After that, he stood at the crossroads beside the stockade, taking advantage of the mountain spring water from Wei Xi, and seized the time to eat a piece of hard compressed dry food to satisfy his hunger. "Deputy head, what mission did the A group give us?" Xiao Bin, who was aware of the heaviness and depression in Liu Zongkui's calm expression, and who was familiar with the estrangement between him and Jiang Tao, walked up to him and asked cautiously. One sentence.This is a lean and thin twenty-eight-nine-year-old southerner, with a protruding forehead, high cheekbones, deep eyes and wide mouth unique to people from Guangdong and Guangxi, but extraordinary strength is condensed in the bones under the dark skin.

"There is no mission. He just wants us to go to Heifengjian to stand by and be the reserve team of the A regiment. ... Let's study tomorrow's action plan during the break on the way." Liu Zongkui answered Xiao Bin briefly.He was still in a very bad state of mind, and felt that there were some things he needed to think about, so he didn't want to elaborate. Xiao Bin turned his head and looked at Chen Guoqing, who was standing behind him and looked like a scholar.Both of them breathed a sigh of relief.Xiao Bin bent down, opened the map, illuminated it with a small pen and flashlight, and studied the marching route tonight, with a little more excitement in his tone, cursing:

"Jiang Tao is too hurt! He didn't inform us earlier, let us go to Heifengjian now, and don't let people go to death!" With half a mouthful of compressed dry food left, Liu Zongkui felt full.Without saying anything, he took out a crumpled cigarette from his pocket, lit it and smoked it.Because of the excitement in Xiao Bin's words, and because Xiao Bin and Chen Guoqing were secretly relieved after hearing his words just now, his already extremely heavy heart became even heavier. Only three months ago, if anyone had said that he would soon be promoted to deputy commander and lead a battalion of the regiment to participate in the battle to recover the Gongmu Mountain area tomorrow, Liu Zongkui would have thought him a dream.As early as the summer three years ago, his first job change report was typed up. At any rate, he survived until January last year, and finally got the approval. Since then, he has been included in the surplus staff, waiting for the military and local authorities to confirm the details for him. receiving unit.It was just because of the procrastination of the department in charge of military transfer work in the county in his hometown that he didn't make it until the end of December last year, and his wife Xu Chunlan was terminally ill and admitted to the regional tumor hospital at this time.After receiving the telegram, he asked for leave to take care of his wife, but the army received an order to perform combat missions the next month.The C regiment, which was originally a compendium regiment, will be re-expanded into a full regiment, and the combat backbones who have been confirmed to be transferred are not allowed to leave.The news reached Liu Zongkui's ears, and the military party committee's order for him to serve as the deputy head of the C regiment had been issued.

Like many peasant children from poor backgrounds, although Liu Zongkui has been in the army for fifteen years, he still cannot be said to be a thorough soldier.Even if they leave home at a young age, travel thousands of miles, and have not seen their hometown for decades, the hometown will still remain clearly in their hearts and become the most important and dynamic scenery in their spiritual world.It is an unforgettable memory, and the most corrosive time can do nothing to it.For Liu Zongkui, his hometown is a tall Zhutian Yang that will always remain on the memory screen, a smoky earthen cave dwelling, and a remote village in the Taihang Mountains. The extent of the pot.When he was a child, except for the Zhutian Yang tree in front of his cave, all he saw in the ditches in front of and behind the village were all earthy yellow.When he was a little older, he started to read and realized that it was a color of extreme poverty.He has always believed that his unreasonably heartbroken attachment to this big poplar tree, and later to Xu Chunlan from Xujianao, is all due to the lack of greenery given to him by his hometown in his childhood.Xu Chunlan was his classmate from elementary school to junior high school. It was nothing more than a silent affection for her during the nine years of schoolmate life. They didn't say anything unnecessary to each other, but this alone made him secretly cherish her as he grew up. With warmth and fantasy.In the year of graduation, he joined the army as he wished. The green uniform gave the young man the courage to find the Juliet in his heart. On a snowy evening, he privately ordered his life on the desolate Huangtu Nao outside the village.At first the woman's family did not agree to the marriage, because Liu's family was as poor as hers, with only a square table with three legs, two low jars for grain, and a charred earthen kiln.Xu Chunlan herself is not unavoidable, Liu Zongkui got on the train with regrets, walked into the military camp on the southern border of the motherland, saw the wild forests all over the mountains, and realized more and more how much greenness was lacking in her hometown, including Xu Chunlan How pitiful the people in my hometown are living.

A rural youth who has grown up in bitter water, knows how to be self-reliant at a very young age, has a strong desire to do better, and is not afraid of suffering for this, but has a relatively narrow inner vision, began his own struggle in the military camp.What dominates his thinking and actions is not so much knowledge and rationality, but the instinct for survival, and a peasant-like thing hidden deep in his heart, commonly known as "conscience".The latter constitutes the basis of his entire world view and theory of life, the most powerful and irreversible moral law in the depths of his soul.When he was a soldier, all he thought of was to work hard and strive to become the deputy squad leader and squad leader; after becoming the deputy squad leader and squad leader, what he thought of was to be the platoon leader.As a platoon leader and an officer with a monthly salary of fifty-four yuan and fifty cents, his struggle seemed to have come to an end.The new military officer status allowed him to bid farewell to the fate of being demobilized and returning to work as a farmer. He could find a city girl as his wife and build a family characterized by a fixed salary and commercial food.But the so-called "conscience" led his inner nostalgia back to Xu Chunlan, who was a farmer in his hometown, even though at this time he vaguely heard that she was not in good health, and that her family inherited a A terrible gynecological disease.Liu Zongkui, who has become an officer, is still a farmer at his core. His status as an officer not only did not bring him joy, but it gave him a kind of guilt and anxiety in the face of the people in his hometown and the peasant girl, as if they were still living in poverty in their hometown. He should have been ashamed of living in the barracks in the midst of hunger and cold, so to speak of abundance.The satisfaction of marrying Xu Chunlan is not only his nostalgia for his first love, but also the meaning of finding a new matching point between the life of the people in his hometown and his own life, so that his heart can be relatively peaceful.His thinking is: Of course, he can't let everyone in his hometown live the good life he is today, but at least he can let a rural girl who has just shown signs of misfortune in her life live this kind of life.

He failed to do so within six years of marriage.In less than three months of married life with Xu Chunlan, she was diagnosed with an incurable disease called "upside-down blossoming" in the district cancer hospital.In the first two years, Liu Zongkui took her to seek medical treatment everywhere, including Beijing and Shanghai. When Xu Chunlan's condition stabilized, he was deeply in debt and realized that there was no hope for his wife's illness.His enthusiasm for her also declined. Xu Chunlan's illness made it impossible for them to have a normal married life for many years, and of course it was impossible to have children.He didn't change his mind about her, but he was extremely depressed. He had tried his best for her, and there was nothing more he could do.However, Xu Chunlan and her father-in-law don’t see it that way. They have their own farmer’s ideas: marry a chicken as a chicken, marry a dog as a dog, Xu Chunlan marries into the Liu family, she is a member of your Liu family, if she doesn’t die for a day, you Liu Zongkui will have to get money Heal her!

Liu Zongkui, who has become a company commander, led his company to participate in the border war in the spring of previous years in this predicament.From the beginning to the end, for more than twenty days and nights, he was exposed to the hail of guns and bullets. He was used to seeing lively life and sudden death, and his spiritual realm was raised to a whole new level.Hiding in the trench and thinking about his wife's illness, he felt less worried.Life and death are ordinary things, and people should have a calmer and more detached attitude towards them.After returning to China, the class teacher was on family leave. Standing in front of Xu Chunlan's hospital bed again, a thought popped into his mind that it would be better for her to live in such pain and die sooner. From then on, his love for his sick wife became normal. up.

Not as usual, but he could bear it more silently. Liu Zongkui couldn't forget an incident that happened three months ago. The visit home at the end of December last year was the result of five consecutive telegrams from my father-in-law in critical condition.In the past two years, he has even gotten used to telegrams that his wife was critically ill. It was nothing more than his father-in-law forcing him to find money to pay for his daughter to stay in the hospital.But he is about to change jobs, and there is very little transfer fee left after repaying the debt; considering that there is little hope of repaying the money before leaving the team, it is not easy to find a place to borrow money.But it was rare for five telegrams in a row to report that he was critically ill. He had to believe that it was time to say goodbye to his wife, so he borrowed 160 yuan from a fellow villager, bought a train ticket, and He bought Xu Chunlan a plaid card top (he thought this might be the last piece of clothing he bought for her), and he only had thirty yuan left when he returned to the county seat.He rushed directly to the regional tumor hospital without going home, and his wife was still awake. Only then did he know that his father-in-law had already sold the three tile-roofed houses he and Xu Chunlan built when they were newly married for 3,000 yuan, and he was using it for his daughter. One injection of life-prolonging potion that costs 150 yuan a day.When the son-in-law entered the ward, the old man stopped letting him go out, and sat at the door with a mulberry stick, claiming that if Liu Zongkui wanted to get out of this room, he would fight him hard!My daughter has been in a coma for most of the day, and she will not live long. When she is good, she will not enjoy your blessings. When she dies, you have to guard her bedside until she dies!After she dies, I want you, the battalion commander of the People's Liberation Army, to give her a good report! Liu Zongkui had no intention of leaving her after entering his wife's ward.He knew in his heart that Xu Chunlan must leave him this time, and that she had been punished for her sins in the world.Now looking back on their love and marriage, he found that he still loved her deeply in his heart.His indifference to her was not caused by Xu Chunlan herself but by her cancer.Xu Chunlan has not only been his wife for many years, but also a part of his life and even his life. Her dying also really made him feel the pain that half of his life is about to die.He and her walked together as husband and wife in this world, and they were close to each other, but the world in front of them was dark, and no information could be revealed. I have to give her one last ride. For the next week, Liu Zongkui spent all his time with his wife.He guarded her bed every step of the day and night, taking care of everything she ate, drank and lazed. If he couldn't hold on anymore, he would lie down beside his wife's bed and sleep for a while.These days he had many dreams, several times he dreamed of Xu Chunlan when he was newly married, walking towards him with bright eyes, white teeth, beautiful branches, showing no sign of illness, and once said to him with a smile on his face: "Zongkui, I'm going!" Waking up with a start, she knew it was Nan Ke Yimeng.However, I don't know whether it was the "survival potion" that worked, or whether his return gave Xu Chunlan the belief in living again, and her death was dragged down day by day.When a week was about to pass, Liu Zongkui even secretly had a glimmer of hope in his heart: Who knows, maybe she can survive this time, just like every time she was critically ill in the past! At this moment, the army sent the first telegram ordering him to return to the army, and his father-in-law immediately tore it to pieces at the door.The second telegram was sent to the ward at dawn the next day. Liu Zongkui lit it with a match after reading it.Xu Chunlan remained in a coma for a day and a night, and he once again had a premonition that she would go away either tonight or tomorrow, and he couldn't go away.Besides, since he was approved to change jobs, he has gotten used to not seeing himself as a member of the army.The third telegram and a letter from the head of the regiment were sent to the ward in the middle of the night. After reading them, Liu Zongkui learned about the news of the war and became the deputy head of the regiment. Now he understood that he had to go back, father-in-law But he still blocked the door like a thief, not letting him go out.His daughter's life was dying, and he couldn't listen to anything.All he wants is you to stay by his wife's side, waiting to organize a funeral for her!Liu Zongkui had no choice but to fall asleep next to his wife's hospital bed at two o'clock in the middle of the night, and slept until seven thirty in the morning of the next day. It was a strange morning, which left an indelible memory in Liu Zongkui's heart.He didn't wake up by himself, it was the rare beautiful and melodious birdsong in winter in the north that woke him up.Opening his eyes, he first saw a ray of red, bright and warm sunlight slanting into the ward through the glass window, and Xu Chunlan's bedside suddenly became bright.Xu Chunlan woke up at some point, her thin face was flushed with rosy cheeks, as bright as a peach blossom, her eyes were black and bright, teary and full of emotion, she seemed to have never been so beautiful before.She was lying there reading the commander's letter like a healthy person.For a moment Liu Zongkui was terrified, and suddenly felt: This is the first time Xu Chunlan has really woken up in a week since he returned home, and after this long period of coma passed, all her illnesses were cured, and the rest The only thing left is weakness after recovering from a serious illness!Liu Zongkui sat on the small stool in front of his wife's bed, motionless. He was afraid that the dreamlike scene in front of him would disappear in an instant!After a while, he heard Xu Chunlan's voice as faint as a mosquito flying by: "Zong Kui, come here." Liu Zongkui moved his body closer to his wife.Two lines of clear tears burst out from Xu Chunlan's eye sockets and flowed down her ears.She still opened her round teary eyes, and said in a voice as light as a whisper: "Darling, you...kiss...I..." Liu Zongkui kissed her forehead, then kissed her lips. "Zong Kui, you... let's go. Don't... leave me alone." Xu Chunlan closed her eyes contentedly, and pouted weakly towards the back window of the hospital bed. "let's go!" It was his wife who instructed him to jump out of the window and escape from the ward and return to the army.Two months later, the C regiment had already entered the border mountains for adaptive training, and Liu Zongkui received a short letter from his father-in-law.This time the old man's attitude was surprisingly good, and he told him in the letter that Xu Chunlan had died of illness a month and a half ago, and the funeral was settled, so that he could fight the war with peace of mind and don't worry about it.This letter is not surprising to others who are familiar with his wife's medical history, but it caused a huge shock in the depths of Liu Zongkui's heart: the impression his wife left on him in the morning when he left home was beautiful, vivid and strong, so that he could not understand it at all. How could she, who seemed to have almost recovered, die suddenly only half a month after she left!This kind of paranoid thinking also made him come to a conclusion that only he firmly believed in: the death of his wife was his own departure that morning.He also seemed to realize for the first time that even compared to his father-in-law, he is the closest person to his wife: after spending the 3,000 yuan house price, the father-in-law will only let his daughter’s illness go, and will not sell his own house again , and if it was him, he would think of other ways.Before the army's telegram arrived, he actually thought of a way: sell blood to this hospital once a day, and exchange Xu Chunlan with a "vitation for life".If it hadn't been for the three urgent telegrams and the letter from the team leader who stayed with her to take care of her and continue to treat her, Xu Chunlan might have overcome the illness and survived.As the troops drove further, Liu Zongkui felt a sense of depression and grief in his heart: his wife did not die of cancer, but she was the first martyr who died in this border war that had not yet started. In the past, he thought that his life and heart would be easier after his wife died, but now that Xu Chunlan was gone, he realized that was not the case.Today's ease itself has become a heavy burden that he can't bear mentally.His wife's death was like a sharp knife, piercing his heart and allowing light to penetrate in; with the help of this light, he clearly saw the hidden malice he had harbored towards her in recent years, but it was too late to make amends at this moment.Liu Zongkui is thirty-four years old, has no children, lacks relatives, has no house or property, and owes about two thousand yuan in bills. He is alone and puts his life in poverty and embarrassment on the battlefield. The border wars in the spring of the past few years have taught him Knowing that life and death are normal things, Xu Chunlan's death made him understand another truth: everyone is not easy to die, even a person like Xu Chunlan who will only cause others to live will be given to others after death. The husband left behind endless thoughts, pain and regrets.People should cherish every life in the world, because it is unique not only to themselves, but also to other people.His conscience and self-condemnation finally got entangled in this matter: Three years ago, he became the battalion commander in the summer. I dismissed that thought again.Today, Liu Zongkui, whose wife has become a ghost under the spring, has no choice but to lash out at his own soul: If he hadn't had such a strong self-esteem at the time, and didn't care what Jiang Tao and his like would think of his and his wife's life, Xu Chunlan would still have the opportunity to go to the military camp in his lifetime I came here to spend a few days of hard life for the battalion commander's wife. In the past three years, he never forgot the conflict with Jiang Tao.However, today, three years later, he, who is going to be the deputy commander in the division, will lead a battalion assigned to Jiang Tao to participate in the battle of Qipanling, which will be commanded by the latter tomorrow.