Preface
There is a kind of silence that can be described with numbers, called warmth: the countless starlight inlaid in the dark blue night sky, the ups and downs of various buildings under the night sky, and the warm lights emitted from each building like breathing.
Each window tells a different story, happy families; loving couples; supportive relatives; and elderly companions who have gone through thick and thin together. All of this, every night, from each building's windows, pours into the sky in a surging manner, converges into a mighty river that flows into the sea, and bursts forth with warmth like starlight.
There is a silence that can be described with numbers, an endless white expanse etched on cold stone monuments, lying dormant in the desolate land beyond most people's memories. The wheels of history, stained with blood and life, repeatedly trample this desolate land, maintaining silence through remembrance, tempering, and nightingale's bloody cries.
We only remember this desolate land at certain specific times.
The most heart-wrenching grief I have ever seen is etched on Wang Lao's face: the elderly man maintains a straight military posture for a long time, standing in the endless white space with his head thrown back to the sky, large tears constantly falling from his crimson-red face and rolling down his neck veins onto his khaki uniform.
Wang Lao and his comrades experienced the war that lasted for over 50 years, a war that brought out various sparks from the friction between gunfire and humanity. The war left him with chronic illnesses that plagued his later life, leaving his comrades on foreign soil.
"That year, many comrades were demobilized and returned home. Soon after, they received letters from all directions: the family had divided up the land, and after holding guns for so many years, they didn't know how to use a hoe... In a few days, they would be going on blind dates, what could they say when they met?... The letter was passed around among us remaining comrades, each of us reading it once and leaving tears behind. It's too exciting, you might not understand, but it's really too exciting... Old Squad Leader was happily smoking, scolding us for being cowards, but as he smoked, he also shed tears. He said we weren't afraid to die, but more importantly, we wanted to live well. After fighting for so many years, what I feared most was roll call after the war. If there was one person who didn't respond, my heart would skip a beat, it felt like I had lost a piece of flesh. I was truly scared, scared that one day all you guys would be gone, and I'd become a skeleton, as Company Commander would say, a walking corpse. Now it's all good, we've been liberated, the country has been founded, we don't have to fight anymore, and I can finally sleep soundly."
"Not long after, comrades from all sides returned to the troops, shouldering guns and going to Korea... The squad leader said, we are not afraid of death, but want to live a good life."
"Do you know how many of my comrades are buried here? I've lost count... If all these people were alive, and they marched past us at quickstep pace, do you know how long it would take?"
"Do you know how many comrades are still lying in Korea? Tens of thousands! Do you know how many families the martyred soldiers represent?......"
Wang Lao said he is not a hero, he just carried guns with heroes.
The wind swooped down from the sky, washing over row upon row of icy tombstones, countless tombstones clustering around Wang Lao's solemn face.
The long song should be sung with sorrow!
King Lao walked past tombstone after tombstone, his hands holding a basket full of cotton gloves. Every time he passed by a tombstone, he would press the gloves onto it, muttering to himself: "It's cold, don't suffer from hunger and cold anymore."
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