Flag bearer

Cui Cheng, the former national flag bearer, stood under the big tree in front of his house at that moment, and at this time, the morning sun in the east was slowly rising. At this time, the former national flag bearer Cui Cheng's waist was straight, his eyes were shining, and the majestic national anthem seemed to echo in his ears, as well as the national flag fluttering in the morning breeze in his mind. Tiananmen Square was crowded with thousands of people, and the flashing lights were clearly extinguished in front of them. At the moment when the sun was rising, the former national flag bearer stood under the tree in front of his house for a long time, and finally with the rising sun, two big and round tears rolled through the corners of Cui Cheng's eyes. All the illusions finally disappeared in front of his eyes, and his heart suddenly became empty, like the early spring wilderness of his hometown.

The newlywed wife Xiu stood behind the window and looked at Cui Cheng with understanding. When she and Cui Cheng were in love, Cui Cheng was a national flag bearer at that time, and she loved her heart to death, and the sea was dry. Cui Cheng has been demobilized and returned to her hometown, and she is no longer the national flag bearer, but she still loves her steadfastly. Cui Cheng always has to be in such a trance every morning, and Xiu is proud of Cui Cheng at this moment. There are so many men in the village, no one has Cui Cheng who got up early, and no one has Cui Cheng who stands so tall and majestic. In Xiu's heart, only Choi Sung-jae is a real man. Xiu has a million reasons to be so proud, because his man has stood guard under the national flag and is a real flag bearer.

After the sun jumped out of the eastern sky, it was bright. Cui Cheng and Xiu walked towards their field with their hoes on their shoulders, and in that field of responsibility, they had to work all day to sow the hope of spring.

It's been more than half a year since the former flag bearer returned to his hometown, and for some reason, he still can't help but come in his heart. He always felt that at this moment he was not in his own field, but in Tiananmen Square hunting under the fluttering national flag, he looked ahead with his eyes and stood himself as a landscape, that feeling, that scene, how could he forget all this. Four years of life as a flag bearer has changed his life and is integrated into his blood, what four years have it been!

Choi Sung was lucky to be a flag bearer, he was chosen from a pool of recruits. All of a sudden, he moved into the flag squadron. The National Flag Squadron lives under the well-known Tiananmen Square, and this alone is enough to make Cui Cheng so happy that he can't sleep well for a few nights. Cui Cheng lost so much sweat and tears before he became a flag bearer, he himself can't tell how much.

To become a true flag bearer, you must first learn to walk. Learning to walk like a real flag bearer is not an easy thing, lifting the legs and landing are very strict, Cui Cheng's shoes have worn out several pairs in a row, and the blood blisters on his feet have become old leather again, Cui Chengcai finally learned to walk as a flag bearer.

Next, Cui Cheng has to learn to stand from time to time and stand like a real flag bearer. It was the height of summer, the sun was like fire, and Cui Cheng stood with all the recruits with his back against the red wall. Sweat soaked first the hat, then the neckline, and then the whole body. Sweat flowed into his eyes, the heat was unbearable, and tears flowed down with it.

They were still standing upright. The sun was in the west, and they stood. The sun had set, but they were still standing. The sun rises again, and they stand for a new day.

Since Cui Cheng walked into the National Flag Guard Squadron, he has not stepped out of the red gate at the gate of Tiananmen Square. Every day, except for raising and lowering the flag, the door is always closed. That red door separates the two worlds. Outside the gate, across the Jinshui Bridge, is the famous Chang'an Avenue and the equally famous Tiananmen Square, which is full of busyness and joy, and the people watching the scenery and flying kites form a human scene, and the laughter and noise are firmly separated by the door.

In those days, every time Cui Cheng wrote a letter to his family, the topic was always inseparable from Tiananmen Square and the national flag. When the family sent a letter, it was naturally these topics, and the relatives at home had not yet been to Beijing, and of course Tiananmen Square was so distant and strange to them. Every day when they watch TV, they can see the spectacular sight of Tiananmen Square. Since Cui Cheng came to the National Flag Guard, the relatives felt that Tiananmen Square was no longer far away and no longer strange, and they unanimously hoped that Cui Cheng could take a photo of Tiananmen Square and send it home. Choi Sung has not been able to fulfill the wishes of his parents and relatives for a long time. Finally one day, Cui Cheng told the squad leader his wish. The squad leader looked at him for a long time before he said: Let's take a picture when you become a real flag bearer. At that moment, he felt that the squad leader was a little unkind. It wasn't until he became a real flag bearer that he understood the meaning of the squad leader's words.

Later, two more bricks were added to their heads. I didn't feel anything at first, but after a long time, the two bricks that were usually not in my eyes became a thousand pounds on my head at this time. Their bodies turned into shaking trees, first two bricks fell from their heads, then their bodies crooked, and their whole bodies also fell, and the world whirled. He staggered to his feet again, and two bricks as heavy as Mount Tai pressed on top of his head again, and he really wanted to cry out loud, or call his father or mother full of grievances. However, all this could not be realized, so he choked on his chest full of grievances, gritted his teeth and stood, tears pouring out uncontrollably.

In those days, how they envied those veterans. Every morning, the national flag, guarded by veterans, walked out of the red door, walked across the Jinshui Bridge, and walked all the way to Tiananmen Square. At this time, Cui Cheng could only secretly look outside along the temporarily open door. At this moment, how he wished that he could walk out of the city gate, guard the national flag, and walk to Tiananmen Square, how full of pride and excitement at that moment! However, all this, these recruits could only look at it secretly and from a distance.

The most obvious difference between a real flagbearer and these quasi-flagbearers is when it comes to sleeping. A true flag bearer remains straight even when he sleeps. Before going to bed, they burrow into the quilt and wake up in the morning, the quilt is still the same as it was before going to bed last night. However, the recruits could not, some of them slept on the ground, and some of them put the quilt on their bodies. After Cui Cheng discovered this difference, there were many nights when he quietly tied his hands and feet together with the backpack straps, until he could sleep like a veteran without tying himself, and he let out a long sigh.

Cui Cheng, these recruits, can finally stand like the national flag bearer, and the two bricks on their heads can not move for several hours. The squad leader looked at them and smiled. The squad leader said, "Okay, you're qualified." That night, Cui Cheng and his group of recruits stood under the national flag and sang a song called "The National Flag Understands Me".

Cui Cheng, who has been back to his hometown for more than half a year, still rings the melody of that song in his ears from time to time. Every time the melody of this song echoes in Cui Cheng's heart, he is full of emotion and strength - don't say anything, the national flag understands me, standing under the national flag, and the motherland pretends to be in his heart...... On the day they were about to be demobilized, they, the veterans and recruits, stood under the national flag and sang this song again, and all the veterans who were about to leave the team cried. They burst into tears as they sang over and over again.

Soon after Cui Cheng became a real flag bearer, the squad leader was demobilized. When the squad leader's group of veterans was demobilized, they sang that song along with them, the recruits. The squad leader also burst into tears and kept singing his voice hoarsely. That day, the squad leader squatted on the ground of the squadron gate and stayed silently for a long time. The ground paved with green bricks in front of the squad leader left a series of deep pits that they had grinded out when they walked and stood. Those pits are the footprints left by generations of flag-bearers, and the squad leader stares at those footprints for a long time. When Cui Cheng was demobilized, he also squatted for a long time in the place where the squad leader had squatted, and when he looked at the footprints left on the brick floor as a veteran, he understood the squad leader and understood the meaning of a national flag bearer. Four years of wind, frost, rain and snow, four years of spring, summer, autumn and winter, vividly, unforgettable.

Cui Cheng finally became a national flag bearer, and he could finally escort the national flag out of the Tiananmen Gate and across the Jinshui Bridge. As he stood in the square, guarding the hunting flag flying overhead, he felt like a different person. On Chang'an Avenue, the flow of vehicles and people is endless, and the Chinese and foreign tourists who came to see the style of Tiananmen Square on the square looked at everything here with novel eyes. Cui Cheng knew that he and the national flag had become a scenery here, and many cameras were pointed at himself and the national flag, along with the Tiananmen Tower behind him. At that moment, Choi Sung had many reasons to be proud and proud. This feeling rises little by little from the soles of the feet and finally fills the whole body. So, Cui Cheng straightened his chest, raised his head, looked ahead, and stood up with the dignity and image of the national flag bearer.

On Cui Cheng's first day on the job, the squad leader fulfilled his long-dreamed wish, which was to take a photo of himself, the national flag and the Tiananmen Tower. Soon after the photo was sent home, my father sent a letter, and my father said: "Dad is afraid that he will not be able to see Tiananmen Square with his own eyes in his life, so when you stand guard for the national flag, you should take a few more looks for your father, your mother and all your relatives......

In the past four years, Cui Cheng has stood under the national flag, and I am afraid that he can't say clearly. But those two times he couldn't forget.

In his second year as a soldier, he stood in a shift from eight to ten o'clock. Before he took up his post, there was a faint pain in his stomach, but he didn't take it seriously, and he took the post on time. As he stood at the sentry post, the pain intensified. At this time, a foreign military delegation, accompanied by the central leaders, was visiting the tower of Tiananmen Square.

The pain made his face pale, beads of sweat poured out from under the brim of his hat, and he gritted his teeth and said nothing. Time passed, and the foreign military delegation finished visiting the Tiananmen Tower and walked towards the square again. Cui Cheng's body trembled with pain, and at this moment, a foreign army general raised his camera at him, and at that moment, he used all his strength to stand himself as a standard flag bearer. In front of the foreign guests, he showed the smile of a Chinese soldier, the flash flashed, the foreign army general gave him a thumbs up, and he politely greeted the general with his eyes. Next, all the foreign guests took photos with him and the national flag as the background. He forgot about time and space, and at this time he only felt that the eyes of the 1.2 billion people in China were focused on him, including the eyes of his father, the eyes of his mother, the eyes of all his relatives in his hometown, and the eyes of these foreign guests in front of him. Don't say anything, the flag knows me...... He sang the song in his heart over and over again. Everything was gone, and only the flag fluttered beside him, the colors of the flag in front of his eyes. I don't know when the foreign guests left, until another sentry came to take over, and he fell headlong as he stepped off the post.

After he was taken to the hospital, doctors diagnosed acute appendicitis, and on that occasion, he spent more than ten days in the hospital. The leaders came to see him, his comrades-in-arms came to see him, and some young pioneers sent him flowers and letters of condolence. He knew he wasn't doing anything, everything was because of the flag above his head.

For a while, his father did not write to him for several days, and he wrote many letters to his family, one after another, and his father did not reply. He didn't know what was going on at home, and he seemed uneasy for a while, but as soon as he stood under the national flag and the sentry post, everything was calm.

On that day, he was at the sentry post when his father's figure suddenly appeared in his sight. His father walked straight towards him, he thought he was dazzled, and blinked several times before he believed that it was his father in front of him. The father had already recognized him from afar, and cried out in a trembling voice: "Son—at that moment, he almost cried out.

My father finally stopped not far from the sentry post, my father was a veteran soldier who participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and he knew the rules of the army. Finally my father stopped walking, untied the bag he was carrying and sat down.

The father said, "I'll come and see you for your mother."

When my father said this, he looked calm. He stared at his father, whom he hadn't seen in two years, and who seemed to be much older, his gray hair fluttering in the wind. He cried out passionately in his heart: Daddy-

My father also said: In this life, I will be content to see my son standing guard here. My father's voice choked up. He saw tears in the corners of his father's eyes.

He cried out again in his heart: Daddy-

The father said, "Your mother is not blessed."

His heart ached for a moment, and he had a premonition, but he could only look at his father with his eyes at this time.

My father said, "Your mother must let me come to see you, but if I don't come, your mother won't be able to close her eyes."

With a "boom", his premonition was confirmed, tears burst out of his eyes, and he screamed in his heart: Mother-

The father also said: This time your mother's eyes should be closed, she keeps calling your name when she goes; your father and your mother are such a baby, she can't rest assured; I thought about sending a telegram to ask you to go back, but I thought again, how can no one stand guard on the national flag, but I still stubbornly didn't send you a telegram.

Mother--he called it so in his heart, and tears finally burst out of his eyes.

My father found a train ticket in his pocket: "Son, I know that you are busy, so I bought a ticket back when I got off the train, and I almost should leave, you stand guard, my father has seen everything, and when I go back, I will say in front of your mother's grave, and your mother should close her eyes."

After speaking, my father stood up, picked up the small bag on the ground and said: This is a pair of shoes that your mother made for you before leaving, she said that Beijing is cold in winter, don't let you freeze, and your father will put it here for you.

After speaking, the father looked at him seriously, and then said, "Son, Dad is leaving." Dad walked back step by step, walked into the rush of people, and disappeared in his teary eyes.

After being laid off, he rushed to the train station, where his father's train had already started, and he only saw his father's hand sticking out of the window.

He yelled at the train, "Daddy—he stood there and finally burst into tears.

The mother's grave was seen when Cui Cheng went home to visit relatives when he was a three-year soldier, and the mother's grave was already overgrown with wild grass. He knelt in front of his mother's grave, holding a photo of the national flag in Tiananmen Square, his mother's greatest wish was to see him under the national flag, but his mother's wish has not been realized. He knelt in front of his mother's grave and lit the photo in his hand, and he shouted in his heart: Mother, take a look!

It was during that trip home that he met and Xiu was full of deep respect for him, the active flag bearer. Cui Cheng knew that he should be demobilized in another year, and Cui Cheng, who had been a soldier for three years, understood all this. He didn't want to hide Xiu, he said to Xiu soon after he met Xiu: Next year, I should be demobilized. Xiu nodded and said, "Yes." He said again: After demobilization, I will no longer be the national flag bearer, and I will have to go home and farm. Xiu still replied: I know. Xiu replied like this, which filled his heart with warmth and emotion, and he grabbed Xiu's hand. Xiu's hand was hot, and he clutched it like that.

Later, he returned to the National Flag Squadron, and then he was demobilized, and after returning to his hometown, he married Xiu. After four years as a soldier, he only brought back a reduced national flag from the army, and the small flag was a memorial to their demobilized veterans. On the day Xiu and him got married, there was nothing valuable in the furnishings in the new house, only the small national flag was particularly eye-catching. The little flag was attached to the head of their newlywed bed. Every morning, as soon as Cui Cheng opened his eyes, he saw the national flag, so he was stunned and stunned. Xiu seemed to understand him very well and never bothered him at such times, her gaze melted into Cui Cheng and the national flag. She knew the weight of the national flag in Cui Cheng's heart.

After Cui Cheng had been a soldier for three years, an incident happened at the sentry post, and that day, a middle-aged woman carrying a little girl on her back appeared in his sight. The woman walked towards him, and finally stopped at the guardrail in front of the sentry post, and she put down the little girl on her back. The little girl looked very weak and pale. The little girl stood up with the guardrail, first looking at the national flag above his head, for a long time. The little girl's pale face was reflected red by the national flag, and the girl said excitedly: Mom, I finally saw the national flag and Tiananmen Square.

The mother, who was standing behind the little girl, was wiping away tears from her clothes.

Later, the little girl's eyes were fixed on his face. The little girl's gaze stopped on his face for a long time, and then she said softly: Uncle, I want to take pictures here, my family lives far away from here, I am sick, and I have come to Beijing to see a doctor. Speaking of which, the girl seems to be tired.

The little girl's mother then said: "We have come to Beijing to see a doctor, and as soon as we got off the train, the child said that she would go to Tiananmen Square to see the national flag and ask me to take pictures of her." When the mother said this, she seemed to be unable to say any more, and she looked into the distance in disguise.

The little girl said again: "Uncle, our school also raised the flag, and when my illness is cured, I will also come here to watch the national flag being raised, okay?"

He listened to the little girl's words, his heart warmed, and he nodded slightly at the little girl. The little girl saw it, rejoiced, and smiled, revealing a row of white teeth.

The little girl leans against the railing and asks her mother to take a picture of herself. The mother carried the little girl far away, but the girl still turned back from her mother's back and beckoned to him. He seemed to hear the little girl saying, "Uncle, when my illness is cured, I will definitely come here to see the flag-raising."

He silently blessed the little girl in his heart over and over again. After many days, he still can't forget the appearance of the little girl. He didn't know if the girl's illness had healed, and he didn't know if she had seen the national flag raised.

That day, not long after he started his job, he saw the little girl's mother again. The mother seemed to have been waiting here for a long time, and he didn't see the little girl, and his heart sank. When the mother saw him, she seemed to recognize him, and let out a long breath, and then said, "I have seen you at last, do you remember our mother and son?"

He nodded at the mother.

The mother also said, "My daughter left me yesterday and she has leukemia." At this, the mother sobbed softly.

His heart ached.

The mother continued: I know that this disease cannot be cured, and her biggest dream is to see the national flag raised with her own eyes, and I wanted to take her to see her when her illness improves, but I didn't expect her to leave last night.

Mother couldn't say any more. His throat tightened, and the little girl's dark and bright eyes flashed in front of him, with great nostalgia and longing for the world. His eyes were blurry.

Later, the mother took out a photo from her arms: My daughter entrusted me to bring it to you, she said that there is also you in this photo, let me give you one, she said also let you remember her, her name is Yingying.

The mother took two more steps forward, reached under the guardrail, carefully placed the photo on the ground, thought about it, picked up a small pebble and pressed it against the photo, and then walked away with her head down.

To this day, he still treasures the picture of the little girl. The girl's eyes looked hopefully ahead. Since then, every time the national flag is raised, he can't help but look for the little girl's eyes in the crowd of onlookers, and he feels that her eyes have been looking at him, looking at the national flag. The thought of the little girl warmed his heart.

He stood on the sentry post, still feeling that the little girl was looking at him from a distant place, so he blessed her loudly in his heart: Yingying, you are good to go-

It has been more than half a year since he left the National Flag Squadron, and every morning, no matter rain or shine, he can wake up on time. Waking up every day is the flag-raising time of the day. The first thing he did when he opened his eyes was to look at the small national flag attached to the bedside, and at this time he felt that the small national flag was getting bigger and bigger, and it was waving in the wind above his head. So, he looked at it obsessively.

On several occasions, he woke up early in the morning, found the military uniform he had been wearing, and walked out of the house in full dress. It wasn't until the sun rose that he came to his senses, walked home in amazement, took off his uniform, folded it carefully, and put it in the cupboard. While he was doing all this, Xiu kept looking at him silently. Xiu doesn't say anything, Xiu understands his heart.

Over the course of many nights, he finds a picture of a little girl named Young-young and tells Xiu the poignant story. Each time, Xiu's eyes filled with tears.

Half a year after demobilization, Cui Cheng, the former national flag bearer, has adapted to life after returning to his hometown. Every day when the sun rises, he and Xiu go down to the fields to do farm work, and when the sun sets, it is also time for them to call it a day and go home. The days are like raising and lowering the flag every day.

That day, he and Xiu sat on the ground resting, and Xiu suddenly said: Wait until autumn, sell grain, and I will accompany you to Tiananmen Square to watch the flag-raising.

He looked at Xiu for a long time and didn't come back to his senses, and later, Xiu repeated what he had just said, and this time he heard it clearly. He grabbed Xiu's hand, as if he saw the seeds sown in the field, breaking through the soil, first sprouting stems, and finally a golden crop......

He seemed to be standing under the national flag again, listening to the sound of the hunting flag ringing in his ears.