Chapter 18 Chapter Seventeen

He came to Group C with the purpose of getting rid of Jiang Tao, and this goal was achieved; he was not allowed to feel relaxed, and the heaviness from the huge event that allowed him to leave Group A suddenly filled all the space in his heart , darkness replaced every ray of sunshine of life. The wheels of war are rumbling into motion.On the day he was appointed as the third platoon leader of the third battalion and ninth company of the C regiment, the whole army went to southern Xinjiang and entered the pre-war mountain adaptation training that lasted for three months.Compared with the new life he faced, the conflict with Jiang Tao was nothing.

This is the second and more difficult period he experienced after entering the barracks.Every day, he spends at least sixteen hours leading his platoon or his whole company to conduct all kinds of intense and exhausting training or maneuvers; at night, he lies on a creaking bamboo bed in the Dong cottage , realizing that he was concentrating on examining and thinking about something that he hadn't really thought about and was therefore absolutely incomprehensible to.The meaning contained in the latter was so clear to him personally that he couldn't believe it was real from the first place!

Among the possible and imaginable dangers brought about by the war, which really deeply shook his soul, made him doubt the reliability of his own life for the first time, and felt great terror, Or was it the terrible prospect of his death in war itself.He is only seventeen years old, and he still longs for one day to take off his military uniform and enter an institution of higher learning where he can study mathematics or astrophysics.War is the career of a real soldier, but he is not a real soldier. Even if he admires the heroic sacrifices in books or on the screen, he does not want to be that kind of person himself. "I was not born into this world to fight," a voice kept echoing in his heart, "I came into this world with other reasons and missions. I have reluctantly accepted the life of military school and barracks, but war and death I have no matter what. Unacceptable. Letting me die without completing those missions is absolutely unjust and unjustifiable in a limited frontier war.  …And anything that is not backed by adequate rationale cannot be real."

His thinking stops here, because he has done some rational and "logical" thinking about the relationship between war and death and himself, and his subjective tendency to try to deny the reality of this war has been affirmed .For Shangguanfeng, who received higher education at the age of sixteen and is keen on abstract thinking about the world, life is not so much reality as it is a concept, and it is not the specific facts of life that support everything in the world. It is the knowledge system, especially the unchanging rational and logical force that supports life and everything.He can neither deny his own "logical thinking", but his entire life consciousness has to be blocked in the void between peace and war, unable to advance and retreat.His life and thinking have been split, and his heart and reality have become independent worlds for themselves.However, the approach of war is hard to avoid, so his spiritual world experienced a second split: the split between emotion and rationality.While rational thinking cannot accept the reality of war, emotion accepts it, jumps over the abstract debates in the heart, and goes directly, like every combatant, to an important period of farewell to life and life, which is manifested in the night And the endless memories that often come flooding in during the free time during the day.They constitute another scene in the pre-war spiritual world of Shangguan Peak.

During the three months of reminiscence of relatives and past events before the war, there was a man who was one year younger than him, who always wore a golden bow on the back of his head no matter winter or summer, and the relationship between the two was still unclear. The image of the female high school student gradually became clearer than the images of parents, school, and teachers, and finally became the only person who made his heart tenderly attached to him. The love affair between Shangguanfeng and Liuxi—if their emotional relationship can be called love—does not go beyond the boundaries set by classical Chinese poetry geographically: the head of the teacher’s dormitory in the same middle school Big, childhood sweetheart, childhood sweetheart.However, the love praised by traditional culture is also love, just like the weak flowers in early spring are also flowers.Shangguanfeng's precocious wisdom caused the difference in their educational level, but did not widen the emotional distance between them.Today, Shangguanfeng, who has entered the war, misses Liuxi's voice and smile day and night, and all the past events between him and her, and suddenly tears down his mind: the time he spent with Liuxi when he returned home from the army to visit relatives in late autumn last year Time has become the only glorious festival in his seventeen-year-old life.

However, there is only one date that is worth chewing and reminiscing over and over again. It was a Saturday evening, the sun went down, but the sky was still clear, and a large piece of beautiful plume clouds with the golden afterglow of the setting sun hung in the blue sky like showing off, refusing to leave for a long time.After dinner, Shangguanfeng came to a small park not far from home early, waiting for Liuxi.Since he came home, he always meets Liu Xi here every evening.Liu Xi's parents didn't mind their behavior. Shangguanfeng was seventeen years old, and his daughter was sixteen years old. They were still two children.Their only requirement is that Liu Xi must go home before nine o'clock. She has just entered her third year of high school and will take the college entrance examination next year, so she can't delay the next day's class.Ah, they still play together as they did when they were young. Once, Liuxi’s mother said to Shangguanfeng’s mother, like kittens and puppies, they grabbed their hands to eat ice cream, and then walked along the road towards the big iron bridge over the Chenghe River, saying You laugh, you laugh, you don't even touch your shoulders, don't worry about your mother-in-law.

Even Shangguanfeng and Liu Xi didn't regard themselves as adults.After all, they haven't grown up, and they get together every evening in front of the park because they are happy to do so, and they will feel very happy with each other. As for other things, they are still far away.But compared to last year, they are one year older, and they feel vaguely that there are more vague desires and impulses in their hearts than last year.Dinner at Liuxi's house was always later than his, and she had to finish her homework before she hurried across the road to him while wiping her mouth with a flowery handkerchief.Liu Xi never crosses the road at a crosswalk, and every time he is always so worried that she will be hit by a car, but every time she deftly sneaks through the gaps in the traffic flow, making him happy.Of course, they would not do anything deviant. For him, it was enough that Liu Xi came, and this was logical perfection.As usual, they would go to the ice cream kiosk in front of the park to buy two servings of ice cream, and then walk towards the big iron bridge over the Northeast City River.Liuxi never walks in a proper manner, her two slender legs are jumping happily, jumping, left for a while, right for a while, suddenly circle around him again, and then walk back, laughing and laughing , eating ice cream, looking at him with bright eyes appreciatively, and kept saying some ridiculous words that are purely a sixteen-year-old female middle school student.He didn't need to listen to what she said to understand that what she wanted to express was just a common joy from the two hearts, about the dusk, the city, the traffic, the tree shadows, the evening wind, about the youth and the secret love in each other's hearts. But very clear love.The golden bow on the short braid behind Liu Xi’s head fluttered up and down with her dexterous jumps, and the floral skirt that was short to the knees moved and swayed, sending some messy whiteness into his eyes from time to time, making him intoxicated and dizzy .Liuxi's gaze, smiling face, figure, her breath of life and enthusiasm are a river of music, a river of joy, which will drown him.So he also made a noise, entering the river like a torrent, hitting the beach rocks, hitting waves, and drowning the grass and wild flowers on the bank.It wasn't ridiculous for him to tell her about the barracks and the military academy, at least he didn't find it funny in the past, but it was ridiculous when he said it now.Unknowingly, he became the mainstream of the river, surging forward, but he longed to catch a glimpse of the girl's developing breasts hidden by a thin, loose bat shirt.Ah no, his heart was beating hard, which is disgraceful and not the way they should behave at their age.He raised his head to look at the stars in the night sky, and the big iron bridge had arrived.Liuxi likes to stand on the bridge and watch the boats moored on the river at night, and the lights on the boats are lit up one by one. "Ah, that's great!" She exclaimed in a standard middle school student's tone, making him not quite understand whether she praised the night view of the city or their happy play itself.Nine o'clock came, and they had to go back.

It's a Saturday evening, and Liuxi doesn't have to go to school tomorrow.Standing under the big banyan tree in front of the park, Shangguanfeng was waiting for his girl (can he think so? Maybe he shouldn’t, but he thought he could), feeling a little excited in his heart: he will return to the team in two days, Tonight was the last weekend he and Willow had together.Dinner at Liu Xi's house was even later tonight, and it wasn't until the afterglow of the day completely disappeared and the night sky was dark blue that he saw Liu Xi hurried across the road as usual and galloped towards him.Her actions were so reckless that even the passing driver frightened the jeep into a long arc.Liu Xi's beautiful image will never change in his heart: her appearance and figure are beautiful, the love buried deep in their hearts is beautiful, and all the female secrets hidden in her body are even more beautiful and charming, but he At first glance, I found that she was especially beautiful tonight!

Liu Xi laughed happily and ran in front of him, only then did he notice a change in her body: before going out, she took off the bat shirt and floral skirt she wore every evening, and put on a brand new, The pink dress worn by the eldest girl has a skirt that reaches below her knees, and the oversized lantern sleeves make the shoulders bulge like blowing air.In order to make up for the monotony of the clothes, the mother ingeniously sewed a wide white drawn lace diagonally on the front chest of this old-fashioned new dress from the left shoulder to the right armpit. "Look how my mother dressed me up?!" She said, laughing so hard that she couldn't breathe, "It's so ugly!... Is it so ugly?" She raised her face and looked at him coquettishly , asked, but the expression seemed to say: I want you to answer, is it ugly?But even if I'm ugly, I won't allow you to call me ugly!

he laughed.Because Liu Xi's laugh is contagious; and because Liu Xi looks a little funny in her new dress: she seems to have grown up suddenly, not like an innocent high school girl, but a mature big girl.Liu Xi also lightly applied a little lipstick tonight, and quietly applied a little powder on her cheekbones and cheeks, which was unprecedented in the past.Liu Xi's cheeks were flushed, her pupils were big and bright, her eyelashes were black and long, her face and figure were more vivid and charming than before.Suddenly, Shangguan Feng felt a strange excitement in his heart. He no longer thought that Liu Xi was inappropriate to wear this dress. On the contrary, this dress was like a magician's hand, and in a blink of an eye, it was like a hairy girl who loves ice cream. Into a graceful beauty, something close to the image of the radiant young bride that was so far and vaguely in his mind.He understood that today's dress was not forced by her mother, but by herself; Liu Xi also knew that this would be the last weekend they had together, and she put on this new dress to make him like it more She, however, was ashamed to let him see through her mind.Everything in Liuxi tonight—clothes, smiles, eyes, words—is giving him a silent promise: I won’t go to school tomorrow morning, no one said we can stay outside for a while tonight, but neither Who says we can't do that!

"Axi, you are beautiful today!" He said boldly and moved.I felt a kind of longing that was vague before being excited. "Oh, don't talk nonsense, I'm so ashamed!" she cried, hitting his chest with her fists, and her cheeks blushed even more. Afterwards they did not talk about the dress, but no one forgot it, and above all no one forgot the strange emotion it gave them.Shangguanfeng felt that Liu Xi had grown up tonight, and he himself had grown up with her, and the look and excitement of a grown-up boy looking at a grown-up girl was invisible in his eyes.Liu Xi herself was disturbed and excited by this emotion she had never experienced before.She was not used to being watched so passionately even by Shangguan Feng, so she avoided his gaze and shouted: "Ah Feng, let's go eat ice cream!" They went to the ice cream kiosk to buy two ice creams as in the past, and ate them standing face to face, smiling as if no one else was there, and looking at each other from time to time, but they didn't walk towards the big iron bridge in the distance.The night wind is warmer and cooler than the previous days, the night sky is vast, the galaxy is bright, meteors are falling, and the forest tops beside the road are rising higher and higher under the reflection of the street lights.Tonight is an unusual night, and they very much want to do something daring, like the men and women at the park gate, who have never done it before.Liu Xi looked back at a newly posted poster in front of the fence gate of the park, and exclaimed in surprise: "Hey——Ah Feng, there's a dance here too!" Two bright lights flashed in her eyes, "Let's go dancing too?... Can you dance?" One of the major differences between military school graduates and local university graduates is that they still can't dance on the day they leave college, but this doesn't mean that he doesn't have the courage to buy a dance ticket and take his beloved girl off the dance floor.Tonight they all realized that something would happen in their lives, which they longed for, but they were instinctively afraid of it, so even in order to find something to do and avoid it from happening, he should go to the ticket office in the park Buy two dance tickets at the window.He actually went there and bought back two pink tickets. When she returned to Liu Xi's side, her expression was flustered again. "Afeng, I can't dance, what should I do?" "Don't be afraid, I will teach you!" The young man said bravely.Now that they're grown up, they have the right to go to prom like men and women.He believes in his own intelligence, and once he gets off the dance floor, it is impossible for him not to learn. They entered the park hand in hand, and walked down a dimly lit forest path that led to the dance hall deep in the park.The dance music wafted over melodiously, and Liu Xi suddenly became very happy again, holding his hand, jumping up and down, at least she wanted him to feel brave and not afraid.But at last she said: "Ah Feng, look at what kind of mess we're fooling around in! I heard that all the people dancing here are hooligans!" "Don't worry, I'm here!" said the young man, and squeezed the hand of the girl who came close to her.For a moment, he felt that Liu Xi's whole body was shaking violently like a fever.She was silent for a while, then said: "Ah Feng, it's really dark in this forest, let's sing!" "The spring water ding dong, the spring water ding dong, the spring water ding dong—" she sang first as soon as she finished speaking. Shangguanfeng didn't sing along with her.She wanted to use her singing to embolden herself.Shangguanfeng also felt that they were doing something absurd.His childhood and college education had always taught him that dancing was not a decent thing to do.But they have already bought the dance tickets, as long as Liu Xi has not formally proposed to interrupt their behavior, as a man, of course he has to continue this matter. The park's open-air dancing arena is set on a semi-abandoned, walled circular ice rink.Rows of flickering colored light bulbs hung across the dance floor, and a band of five or six people perched high on a small platform deep in the dance floor, playing a fast-paced waltz.Those who left the arena were all grown-ups, many and crowded, and there were more people watching outside the arena. The music and human voices merged together, and it was as chaotic as a market.They entered the field, found a dimly lit corner, and stopped. He stared at the couples of men and women for a while, understood some ways, turned around, and opened his arms to Liuxi. "Come on, I'll take you to dance!" He said exaggeratedly. Liu Xi glanced at him warily at first, two patches of paleness appeared on her red cheeks; suddenly he saw two crazy lights in her eyes again, she accepted his invitation, and walked off the stage happily, as if changed She became a frivolous girl who could flirt with any man, but her whole body trembled even more.They don't dance well, either you stepped on my feet, or I stepped on yours.Gradually Liuxi stopped smiling, music, rhythm, and dance steps were not important, what was important was themselves.It was the first time they had been so close together, arm in arm, breast to breast, eye to eye.This is unfamiliar, unaccustomed, and frightening, so from the very beginning, each other heard the sound of each other's heart beating wildly, the sound of sudden tense and rapid breathing, and saw the blush flying on each other's cheeks, together with Shy, dodgy eyes.Gradually they became bolder and no longer avoided the other's loving gaze.It was a new and dizzying level of meaning in life into which they were daring to enter, and which they felt terrified and happy about.The colorful lights above the dance floor flickered on and off, and Shangguan Feng approached the girl's beautiful face from different angles and sides, her big and wide eye sockets, thin curved eyebrows, and long, thick bush-like eyelashes , eyes like clear water, thin and tender lips, full, dramatic and perfect chin, saw the charming shadow deep in her thin neck.In a flash he understood why an old-fashioned dress had such power tonight that it transformed a Cinderella into Snow White: Picky and human together, revealing every ups and downs of the girl's developing body.Liu Xi's figure is still thin and girlish, but the pair of small apple-shaped breasts on her chest have been perfectly developed. Although they are oppressed by a new dress, they are still surrounded by the slanting white drawn lace. Under the cover, the shape still stands out completely and clearly.Liu Xi was not yet old enough to wear a bra, and he even faintly saw those two tiny breast buds through the thin fabric.Oh no, he shouldn't look at them, stop thinking about them! He was already confused, and he knew his confusion, but he couldn't help himself, and she was even more confused.But the fear did not disappear. On the contrary, the more confused they became, the more fear expanded, controlling their thinking and suffocating each other's breathing.Suddenly, Liu Xi stopped, grabbed his hand and quickly ran out of the dance floor. A pale moonlight had already appeared outside the dance hall, illuminating the forest tops, but covering the forest path in darkness.The dance music fluttered melodiously, and it sounded so intimate and moving, it suddenly became a regrettable thing to leave the dance floor.They didn't go back, but walked to the forest on the other side of the park.They entered a new life tonight and didn't want to leave it anytime soon.It turned out that the woods were not peaceful. There were one, two or even three couples cuddling up on each bench, and the noises they made from the dark surprised the two young night walkers every time.Liu Xi had previously spat in the direction of a bench, scolded "rogue" in a low voice, but suddenly shut her mouth and said nothing. Finally they entered a secluded bamboo garden in the northwest corner of the park.The path under my feet came to an end, and the moonlight shone dimly on an uncovered bench in the open space in the garden.The benches were empty, surrounded by dense bamboo forests, and the voices of people were silent.Liu Xi, who was walking a little ahead, stopped in panic and turned around.At this moment, Shangguanfeng suddenly realized that the moment they had been waiting for all night had arrived: Liu Xi looked at him, with a look of fear and resignation on his pale face, but the same passion and desire.She was calling to him wordlessly.She was completely fascinated by this moonlit night. He was also intoxicated.He took a step closer to her and reached out to hug the girl.He felt her body shaking like a bamboo in the wind beside him... She closed her eyes with a fatalistic attitude... Later, on that long chair, he found the warm and moist lips and tongue that he seemed to have longed for all his life, and found the entanglement between them as if they were fighting for life.A budding beautiful life was completely contained in his arms, and his trembling hands and passion began to travel in this heaven gifted by creation.They walked over hills and plateaus, touched the fruit and delicate pistils of figs, staggered and paused on every inch of virgin land, flat or uneven, plump or barren.Liu Xi has been quietly closing her eyes as bright as the sun and the moon, with a vague moan from her lips occasionally.Her passion had merged with his, and accompanied the latter through the strange thorny fields.They are no longer themselves, but two grown-up strangers, the only one man and one woman in the world, Adam and Eve.They are not so much experiencing happiness as they are experiencing pain.He is going to finally go to the valley surrounded by lush green grass and smoke, where there are herds of cattle and sheep, clear springs flowing all year round, lilies in full bloom, frankincense and myrrh...that is your paradise, your hometown And home, the church bell is ringing, it is calling you, but you stand still on the hill at the mouth of the valley, hesitating whether you should go home or not.You are suddenly a seventeen-year-old again, experiencing the horror of facing a whole world and a life of perfection and dignity. ...the valley no longer waits, it has waited, the illusion disappears before your eyes, the girl jumped out of the young man's arms like a clever fawn, stroking her dress and hair in a panic, laughing, nothing happened As if, say: "Afeng, let's... let's go eat ice cream!" ... In the long-term chewing and aftertaste of the past, Shangguanfeng also understands that he has added many poetic and romantic elements to Liu Xi's image. As for the last details, either it really happened or it didn't happen at all. .During the three months before the war, the division of life, reason, and emotion still failed to enable him to cross the void of peace and war. War and death—especially death—still remained incomprehensible, unacceptable, and incomprehensible in his spiritual world. It lacks sufficient rationality, so it is unreal; but as the wheels of war move forward, he still recognizes and accepts its reality in the form of external objects.His memory of Liuxi is a form of this acceptance, and it is through it that he bids his final farewell to life and life, and feels great regret for his life: only Liuxi in his life.He didn't even get to experience the whole of life as a human being.He may never have the opportunity to study Pythagoras, Newton and Einstein at a regional university.Whenever he thinks of all this, Shangguanfeng will deeply regret: that night last autumn, he could have answered the call of the bell and walked into the valley with white clouds, green pastures, and herds of cattle and sheep.No life as a human being is complete without walking into that valley.He lost that chance.