Chapter 49 chapter eight

From leaving the command post of Regiment A last night until this afternoon when she went to the battlefield with Chen Guoqing, Zhang Li spent the last period of her life like this: She returned to the third dressing room of the Division Hospital located in the valley on the north side of 631 Heights with the despair and sadness of being abandoned by Jiang Tao who had a change of heart, and with the determination to go to the battlefield to die for the country.The sadness that caused great pain in her life when she set off was still there, but four hours later, the jeep stopped outside the Yaozhai where the bandage was staying, and she saw several familiar military tents in the bamboo forest under the bright moonlight However, the heart in the chest is as hard and calm as a stone.

This day and night had given her so much.Jiang Tao seems to have loved her, but now he doesn't love her anymore, but she can't lose Jiang Tao, she doesn't know how to live without Jiang Tao, what's the point of living!For Jiang Tao, she has already broken the boat, and many people even regard her as a woman without shame.In the past, she always had a kind of confidence, thinking that Jiang Tao would marry her sooner or later because she couldn't leave her. At that time, her love for Jiang Tao would be understood and accepted by people, and those foul words on her would be washed away. .Now she can't get all this anymore, without Jiang Tao, she will never be innocent, and she will never be a respectable woman!

A woman cannot live without love!Love is the sunshine in a woman's life.Without love, a woman will think of death.She is a soldier, and her best destination is to die heroically on the battlefield.Death can make others forget her previous actions, only remembering that she was a martyr who died for the country.Death will also shock Jiang Tao, and he will look back at her again, because of her death, he will be punished in his heart! ... She got off the car at the intersection outside Yaozhai, sent the driver back, picked up the simple luggage, found the director's tent, opened the curtain, and shouted "Report!"

On the last night before the war, the director's tent was brightly illuminated by a lantern.The director—a 50-year-old, skinny man—is busy and worried about setting up a simple operating table.Generally speaking, when the battle breaks out in a few hours, a large number of wounded will be sent here, but up to now a barely usable operating table has not been set up, and the assistants he needs are not enough.So when he turned his head and saw Zhang Li who seemed to have fallen from the sky, his two small round eyes immediately lit up. "Zhang Li, it's you?!...Why did you come back?!" He shouted happily, coughing, "...You came back just in time, I just need people here!"

"Ah no, Director, I came back to join the ambulance team!" Zhang Li said loudly, her pale cheeks flushed brightly due to excitement.On the way back to the dressing station, she thought of the ambulance team that would be sent by the station to support the third battalion of the A regiment on the eve of the battle.She must go to the battlefield tonight, of course she can't let the director keep herself in the institute! The light in the director's small eyes dimmed immediately.He looked at her in some confusion, and there was a fleeting expression of indifference and disgust on his face. ——It was strange for Zhang Li to come back suddenly from the command post of the A regiment on the eve of the battle, but now that she asked to go to the battlefield with great emotion, it was even more strange to him.But he didn't have time to think about these things.Out of a doctor's insight and sympathy for the various physical or psychological defects that most members of human beings have, he has always been tolerant to Zhang Li; but as an ordinary person, he still does not like her style.Since she would not submit to his arrangements, his enthusiasm for her faded.Of course he can order Zhang Li to stay, but this is not allowed by his character.

"Okay, I agree," he said unhappily, "instead of Dr. Qian, you will lead the ambulance team to support the third battalion of Regiment A." He frowned: it is not ideal for Dr. Qian to stay as an assistant. But right now he has no other choice. "Are you still having any trouble?" he asked, looking into her eyes. "No!" Zhang Li replied, her heart pounding, she thought the director doubted her courage. ——No, only today, she does not lack courage! The director didn't say anything, and took her out of the tent, came to a small open space illuminated by the moonlight, and called the deputy director's name angrily.Zhang Li misunderstood his unhappiness.As soon as he decided to send Zhang Li to the battlefield, another thought came to his mind. "She's a woman...you let a woman go to the battlefield." What made him even more unhappy was that the battle would start in a few hours, and he no longer had the heart to change his decision!

The deputy director ran out from another tent and saw Zhang Li's surprised expression; the director told him a few words about the ambulance team, then turned around and left them; They came out, brought five or six male nurses, and announced the change of personnel in the ambulance team, with Zhang Li as their leader.Everyone nodded coldly, walked out of the stockade together, and went down a moonlit path to the valley ahead.There was a stretcher team of more than 20 people on standby. Seeing them coming, the migrant workers stood up one after another.The deputy director stood on a stone to let all the migrant workers know their new team leader. Without further delay, he looked at the watch on his wrist and said loudly:

"Let's go! You go immediately!" But the team didn't set off right away.Because the guide assigned to them by the division disappeared.The deputy director sent people to look for it separately, so Zhang Li and the rest had to stay put and wait for orders. This waited for a long time. If the team started immediately, Zhang Li would not think of anything else.She asked to go to the front line with the ambulance team, and now her goal has been achieved.But because the team had been waiting in this valley for a long time, her agitated mood had to be quietly changed by everything around her.

After midnight, the moon became smaller and turned westward; but its brilliance was still white and bright under the tile-gray sky, covering the thousands of mountains and valleys permeated with deep silence in an endless emptiness; The mountains and hills, and a single big tree on the cliff beside the nearby valley are strongly divided by the contrast of black and white. The dark side is blurred, and the side against the moonlight is like a layer of mercury, shining brightly. The thatched huts, fences, and bamboo forests of Yaozhai are bathed in moonlight, and their reliefs seem to protrude from the mountainside; , a pleasant smell of boiling young corn cobs wafted intermittently from the stockade to the valley. ——Zhang Li's attention was distracted, and her heart was gradually stabbed by everything she felt again.

She is about to go to the battlefield; she stands here, there is only meaning to wait.But the moonlight, the sky, the mountains, and the forest in the moonlight, the Yaozhai surrounded by bamboo forests, and the faint smell of cooking smoke wafting from the village all quietly showed in her heart another kind of conflict with war. , Jiang Tao, and her own life are different, a kind of free, quiet and peaceful order that seems to have never changed.She had always been blind to all of the above, but tonight it suddenly revealed to her the quiet beauty and eternal charm of its own pictures.The smell of cooking smoke wafting from the Yaozhai reminded her of a simple fact: when she was about to go to the battlefield to die, there were still people who indifferently cooked and ate tender corn here, as if her death didn’t count for them. nothing the same.It seemed that it was this little incident that really shocked her!

"Who are they? . . . How can they even think about cooking corn to eat at this time? . . . A war is about to start before them, and a woman is about to die. How can they do this? . . . Life There is only one time for everyone. Life is not something that can be thrown away at will." She thought, her heart jumped up, and for a moment she thought of Jiang Tao and the female reporter on Maoer Ridge, and a new sharp pain was born from jealousy . "People here don't value war and your death, so will Jiang Tao value it?... If you die in the battle at dawn tomorrow, will Jiang Tao really look back at you full of pain and guilt?..." She She didn't want to think about it anymore, the last thought was so terrifying that it might even make her resolve to go to the battlefield tonight meaningless. "Ah no, I didn't go to the battlefield to avenge Jiang Tao....I am a soldier who participated in the war. I went to the battlefield for my motherland. What I want to show is my own bravery...." She still wanted to continue thinking, a pain different from the pain of losing Jiang Tao had clearly appeared in her heart, she felt it, but she couldn't do it.The guide was retrieved by the nurses, a young refugee who was deported from the other side of the border a few years ago, and was later placed in a nearby state-run forest farm.Just now he ran to the home of a Yao family he knew in the village to drink corn wine.When he was brought back to the valley, everyone noticed that he was shaking a little when he walked.The deputy director blazed at him: "Comrade you, how can you do this!... There is going to be a war, what should I do if I take the wrong way? Ah?!..." "It's okay, mother. I'm very familiar with this area!" The guide replied carelessly, spouting alcohol, "I'm familiar with every mountain road in this place." (Familiar) and promise to bring the army one (one) and (straight) to the location!" "Be careful, take the wrong path and kill your head!" The deputy director threatened him, then turned around and ordered, "Let's go!" The team set off.The guide, who was as thin as a hemp stalk, staggered in front, Zhang Li and the male nurses from the ambulance team followed behind, and finally came the stretcher team for migrant workers.At the beginning, we walked south along the valley, and then entered the vast forest in the mountain gorge in the north of Qipanling.The light in the forest is much dimmer than in the valley, but the road under our feet and the ever-changing scenery far and near are clearly distinguishable.The air has become as cold as deep water due to the loss of the day's residual heat, but the water has dissolved so many unique smells of soil, fallen leaves, pine cones and green grass in the mountains and forests, making it extremely fresh.The silence was heavy and powerful, combined with the feeling about the enemy's situation, it heavily oppressed everyone's nerves.Whoever's footsteps are too loud, and a night bird flies up with a "flap", will make people's heart tense suddenly.Zhang Li's heart was bound by everything in front of her eyes, and she didn't return to the meditation she longed for.When she finally got used to the environment and atmosphere in the forest, she was going to go back to her thinking just now. The guide who had been walking in silence seemed to be sobered up by the fresh air in the forest, and he talked to her endlessly. Speak up: "Wow—so you hope (is) a female military doctor," he glanced at her abruptly, and exclaimed in a fuss, "Comrade Ji (comrade), you Jin (really) beautiful! ... I can reach ( Do you know your last name? Ah, Mr. Zhang Yixing, do you think that I drink too much corn wine? No, I don’t drink much. Do you know what I want? ) Yin (person)?...You are too late....I tell you in secret, I also want a few (children) of a high-ranking cadre. Don’t you believe it? I don’t want to be a high-ranking younger brother, but I hope there. My grandfather joined the Communist Party there in 1937 and was the secretary of the new (provincial) party committee. My father joined the Southern Competition (political) ) government, used to be their ministerial cadre... But then my grandfather was washed (dead), and they started washing (beginning) to exclude Chinese, my father stopped being a ministerial cadre, and then they took our Huayin (People) drove them back in large numbers.... I'll explain it to you and you'll understand, I hope I can be a few younger brothers there...." The guide sobbed and blew his nose loudly, making Zhang Li feel that he was still drunk after all. "...Zhang Yixing, to tell you the truth, when I first came back to our place, I thought they would arrange for me to be a cadre. What kind of younger brother would I be? My mother (didn't) expect them to put me in the same place. ) Go to Linqian (field) to tap rubber, borrowing is not fair! How can the brothers of high-ranking officials go to tap rubber? We were persecuted abroad, and we still hope to be persecuted when we return to China...Of course I won’t do it Oh, my mother is so blind (stupid), I wish I would not be a rubber tapper! But I hope you can tell me what hope (thing)?...They actually want to snatch my name from Lin, How much (salary) is withheld from me! What kind of behavior is this? Thanks (socialism) there is no reason to let silver go hungry!..." After a while he talked about his lover over there again, mournful and sighing.Zhang Li never returned to the state of thinking.But the guide still took the wrong way, and walked for three and a half hours after two and a half hours.At 5 o'clock in the morning, the team arrived at the hidden area of ​​the third battalion of the A regiment, and the troops had already started to move.They did not keep up with the sharp knife company, nor did they see the battalion commander's instructor, but only a deputy instructor who was in charge of the battalion's own rescue team at the rear of the offensive formation. "The division hospital came to reinforce us?...Why didn't I know about this!" After listening to Zhang Li's introduction as the leader of the ambulance team, the assistant instructor did not welcome her, but seemed very impatient.He felt that the battalion had already been equipped with enough ambulance forces, and the new ambulance team only added to his confusion.But he had no right to send them back, so he said: "Okay, you guys find a place to hide first, and I will send someone to notify you if there is a situation!" Then he left, neither saying that combat operations had begun, nor explaining to the new rescue team what they should pay attention to.Zhang Li asked the rescue team to dig cat's ear holes in the forest in the dark - the moonlight had completely disappeared, and the darkness of dawn replaced them - and went in to hide. Finally, she dug a hole herself, only to find that the guide didn't know when Gone. Silence filled the surrounding darkness again.The thought that had been suppressed during the march, together with the great pain hidden in it, finally surged in her heart. "I'm already on the battlefield. . . . In a few hours I'll be in battle. I have no intention of living. . . . But why is my heart so heavy with sorrow? Why since I left the valley below the dressing-room, I It seems that everything that happened on this bright moonlit night is unreal, like a dream?..." Her thoughts stopped at this painful question, because she wanted to know a truth that was real and not a self-deception. s answer.In fact, since she saw the moonlight, mountains, forests, and Yao village again in the valley below the dressing station, and smelled the smell of the people in the village cooking tender corn again, she no longer commanded the A regiment at Maoerling tonight. The resolution made was filled with passion. "...I discovered that there is another kind of life in the world. Although ordinary, it is always beautiful....Jiang Tao did nothing wrong. He never told you himself that he would love you faithfully. , It is you who idealized your relationship and placed your desire for marriage.... This moonlit night, I also realized a truth: there is life outside of life, and there is a world outside of the world. That is to say, there is a world outside of men. There must be men. . . . My pain comes from my awareness, from knowing that I was wrong and not being able to correct it. I have gone to war, and not alone, I am the leader of a rescue team, I couldn't do my best not to do my duty as a soldier on the battlefield.  …” It was the moment before dawn when she couldn't see her fingers. At this moment, Zhang Li understood what happened in her life in the past night.The threat of death became real, but her heart turned into a hard stone again because of the approaching war. "Okay, don't think about it anymore," she said to herself, "you have thought about what you should think about just now... You didn't go to the battlefield because you love Jiang Tao or want to take revenge on him. You are a soldier. The leader of an ambulance team. You came to the battlefield to fulfill the duties of a soldier.... Every soldier may die in battle, so your remorse and sorrow just now are unnecessary!..." She really didn't think about anything else.The war did not give her more time.But in terms of spirit, she was completely different at this time from when she left the command post of Regiment A.With renewed determination, she waited until the moment when our army bombarded Height 631, thinking that the deputy instructor of the 3rd Battalion of Regiment A would send someone to lead them to follow the troops, but this did not happen even after the shelling ended. Several migrant labor teams in the forest disappeared.Zhang Li was excited by the atmosphere of the war, and took the initiative to lead the rescue team to climb up the hillside to track down the attacking team of the third battalion of the A regiment.At dawn, they ran into the chubby, beaming assistant instructor on the mountain ridge line under the 631 height. "Hey, Doctor Zhang! Are you coming up too?" He was not at all disturbed by Li Xiao's negligence, but rather looked at Zhang Li and her team in amazement, as if they had also boarded the Qipanling mountain ridge. He was very surprised. "The battle on the 631 highland is over, and our battalion fought a clean and beautiful annihilation battle!" He said happily, "Let me tell you another news, the three main highlands on the Qipanling line are all occupied by our regiment! If the enemy If you don’t counterattack, the battle is basically over!” "What did you say...?" Zhang Li couldn't believe her ears.At this moment, her heart was still boiling with the enthusiasm to charge forward, and when she first heard the news from above, she could hardly believe her ears! She was ordered to take the team to a forest on the reverse slope of the mountain ridge line to hide and wait for orders-after all, the war is not over, and they have not received the order to retreat, but it is unnecessary to climb to the 631 height.Zhang Li broke up with the assistant instructor here, waiting for a new combat order.But many hours passed, and not only did they not receive a new order, they did not even hear a shot! A new bright morning is coming.The sun shines into the forest, driving away all the fog and darkness, and every tree, every bush, every grass, and every wild flower looks bright, beautiful and full of vitality again.Zhang Li cast her eyes on the vast mountains and the sky, and suddenly realized that the feeling of being in a dream that lasted from last night to the present has disappeared, and her heart is being excited by the joy and ease of rebirth! "Is the war really over?... I went to the battlefield, but I didn't die," she thought for a while, with tears streaming down her cheeks. "...Why am I so happy? I am happy that I am still alive!...I am also happy that I have finally left Jiang Tao and found the confidence and desire to live again!...The world is vast, and being alive is beautiful ... I am only twenty-eight years old, and I haven't found a true love worth dying for in the world. How can I lose the courage to live?! ... But the problem is not here, it seems that only because of the war, I Only then did I realize how wonderful it is to be alive!..." Tears welled up and flowed on my face, but my life became full, full and joyful because of this warm and moving thinking. ... If the battalion commander and instructor of the 3rd Battalion of the A Regiment met Zhang Li before receiving Jiang Tao's order at 4:00 p.m., she and her rescue team would not have been sent to support the 3rd Battalion of the C Regiment. The relationship between the head of the regiment; if the assistant instructor who met her twice last night and this morning hadn't been transferred from the military hospital just before the war and knew nothing about her and Jiang Tao's story, they would not have been sent to the 632 highland area .It was a coincidence that Yin Guocai, chief of staff of the regiment, called the battalion commander to send an ambulance team to support the third battalion of C regiment. A useless ambulance team sent to them by the division hospital.The instructor of the battalion commander was very happy, and without further questioning, he ordered the assistant instructor to go down to the 631 Heights, came to the forest where Zhang Li's ambulance team was on standby, and gave them the task of going to the 632 Heights to support the third battalion of the C Regiment. ... Seeing Chen Guoqing in the gully on the east side of Dashanleg in the south of the 631 highland, she unknowingly developed a good impression of him. Of course, this good feeling was hazy and purposeless.It is not unusual for a simple and enthusiastic woman like her to have her life filled with new-born passion and imagination, and the whole spiritual world unfolds enthusiastically and joyfully to outsiders.If Chen Guoqing didn't respond to her brand-new life appearance and inner beauty, the matter would have passed. However, before he set off, he not only noticed this beauty, but also cast a strange glance with admiring and admiring eyes.At this time, Zhang Li's young heart had to be touched again... ... But the reason why she rejected Chen Guoqing's arrangement twice, and finally rushed into the woods in the eastern valley of the 634 highland with the instructors of the third battalion of the C regiment, was the main reason for her sense of responsibility as the leader of a rescue team.Zhang Li is a woman and a soldier at the same time. How can she be separated from his team members when the director entrusts her with an ambulance team?But that vague affection for Chen Guoqing still played a role in her decision: she liked this gentle man, and his appreciation itself was an encouragement to her confidence in life, and she didn't want him to think that she was not brave enough , she wanted him to appreciate herself further... Even before she rushed into the forest with Chen Guoqing, she didn't think about her own death.Since last night, she has already died once, and now she has just come back to life, with so many new desires and longings for the future life in her heart, how could she think of her own death?She was only worried about Chen Guoqing: he almost straightened his chest and charged towards the enemy's muzzle, she was worried about his safety! "I want to follow!...I must follow!" She thought so, without calling the ambulance team behind, she quickly chased Chen Guoqing by herself, and rushed into the depths of the forest second after him! She witnessed Chen Guoqing's death, but she didn't immediately think that it was death.She didn't think that she would die, so she couldn't imagine that Chen Guoqing would die.She just thought he was wounded and needed her help! She ran two steps forward, and in her haste, she didn't untie the copper buckle on the first aid bag on the right side of her body, and was hit by an enemy who circled from the middle of the side tree trunk to her back!The string of submachine gun bullets suddenly penetrated her right chest continuously, spurting out like a spring of blood, and the huge cutting pain immediately made her faint.Zhang Li's unconscious body swayed, and she fell face forward on a bush. She awoke quickly from her swoon, the hard boughs of the shrubs pricking her face and the bubbling wounds on her chest.More enemies ran past her, and in a flash she thought that no one would come to save her, and she clearly thought of death.She didn't want to die on her face, so she exhausted the last strength in her life, turned over abruptly, and lay on her back on the grass beside the bushes. Her eyes gazed dreamily at the sky above the woods.The sound of guns and guns was no longer heard, and the sky at four o'clock in the afternoon was clear and bright, and a white cloud dyed red by the setting sun floated there motionless, so serene and quiet, the world at this moment was almost as solemn and beautiful as life itself .Zhang Li suddenly thought of someone! ——Jiang Tao, my relatives, I haven't really forgotten you! ... What do I want to say to you?Ah, I want to say to you, you must love those women who love you!Otherwise, all women will walk away from you in the end! ...You have to be vigilant! ...