On August 3, 1949, the school headquarters suddenly notified the squadrons: "The Japanese army has opened up on August 15, and all preparations ...... be completed by the 15th." "All squadrons mobilized everyone to sort out all the original clothes, boxes, utensils and other things, and sent home on the 14th to the school near Hongdu, and returned to school on the same day. Everyone thought to themselves that they were about to march on an expedition, and they were really nervous, so they immediately got busy.

I put old clothes, books, and other things I didn't need in an old suitcase that I used when I was in high school, asked the squadron leader for leave, and went straight to Hongdu's cousin-in-law's house. My cousin-in-law had returned to his hometown in Wanxian County around April, leaving only one gatekeeper, and I handed over my things to him and asked him to help me bring them back to my hometown at my convenience.

I'm about to leave Hongdu, who raised me, but I'm always thinking about my cousin Xu Huiying. Cousin-in-law's name is Xu Piaoping, a native of Wanxian County, he does business in Hongdu, and only gave birth to an only daughter, named Xu Huiying, nicknamed Jufang, Jufang is a daughter at home. In 1949, she was in the third grade of junior high school, two levels lower than me and three years younger. Tingting Yuli, tall like her father, but as beautiful as her mother, he called me cousin. On the eve of the liberation of Hongdu, her family rented a galleon to load all the household belongings, and the boat docked at the mouth of the Fuzhou River in Hongdu. My cousin-in-law was very busy with the business handover, so he asked me to accompany Jufang and a little brother Wei Su to guard things on the boat.

At night, the fishing fire of the Fuhe River is lit, and the bright moonlight falls on the quiet river, like falling pieces of silver, and the silver shines.

Since the spring of 1947 to Hongdu to study, I have known them for several years, every Sunday, my cousin always asks me and Zhang Xuexuan to go to her house to play (Zhang Xuexuan is my cousin's cousin). His house became our paradise on Sunday.

I don't know when Xu Huiying gradually fell in love with me, she grew up so old and rarely had contact with the opposite sex, and she was all blue and blue "nuns" in the girls' middle school. One year in March, she asked me to go to Peach Blossom Village to play, pink peach blossoms, beautiful girls, handsome young men, how comfortable and romantic. We talk and laugh, and revel in the picture scroll of nature, which can be described as people swimming in the painting, and people walking in the painting. Sometimes we are rowing on the East Lake, walking slowly in the park, and the streets and shopping malls on both sides of the Fuzhou River flash our figures. I remember the first time she invited me to watch a movie, I asked her what the film was, she smiled silently, and went to the cinema to see that the name of the movie was "A Thousand Miles to Jingniang". Perhaps God had arranged for us to break up.

One day, she said to me sadly, "Cousin, I'm leaving, when can we see each other?" ……。 Before he could finish speaking, he began to cry. I comforted her and said, "Don't be sad, you better stay and join the army with me." ”

But she didn't speak, she just whimpered.

Soon, Zhang Xuexuan was forced to return to his hometown in Wenshan by his father's order, and I was the only one here to help my cousin-in-law take care of the ship. During this time, I often took the two sisters and brothers to sit on the riverbank to chat, walk, watch the night view of the riverside, and sometimes go to watch movies. There are two boat bosses on the ship, who are also from Wanxian, who go back and forth between Wanxian and Hongdu, transporting upstream timber and other goods to Hongdu, and then transporting goods from Hongdu to Wanxian and other places. He knew his cousin-in-law well, so we also ate and stayed on the boat and treated us well.

The mountain rain is about to come, the wind is full of buildings, the army is about to cross the Yangtze River, Hongdu is already a rumor for the rich, they carry the wealth and flee one after another.

A few days before they left, I kept Jufang again, and she had a dead mule—not a good match. She may have had a lot of pain in her heart, after all, she was not yet an adult and self-reliant, and I was so naïve at that time. The night before leaving, I persuaded her to stay again, but she was still silent, and I was a little angry, and I told her a few words, and she cried even more sadly, for it was the first time I had seen this young lady cry like this. As soon as she cried, half of my anger disappeared, and I felt that it was strange and pitiful, and it was not good to talk about her again.

The captain of the ship thought that we were arguing, so it was inconvenient to ask more. I patiently persuaded her to stay and wait for the liberation of Hongdu. She still didn't dare to make this decision, I was angry and was about to leave, she suddenly dragged me with both hands, and my little brother Jingjing (scientific name Weisu) also took my hand and said, "Uncle cousin, don't go, accompany my sister, you see how pitiful she is crying." "I went soft again.

On this annoying night, the three of us sat in the bow of the boat, silent in the moonlight, water waves, and fishing fires, only the sound of beating in the distance. This situation and this scene are like the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ji's "Fengqiao Night Park": "The moon falls and the sky is full of frost, and Jiang Feng is sleeping. Hanshan Temple outside the city of Gusu, the bell rings in the middle of the night to the passenger ship. This eternal swan song expresses the hesitant and helpless state of mind of countless wanderers.

One day in mid-April 1949, my cousin-in-law's family was about to depart, and I bid them farewell with gratitude to my cousin-in-law and cousin, as well as my friendship for Kikufang. Before getting on the boat, Xu Jufang shook my hand tightly, stuffed me with a small photo, and lowered his head to get on the boat. I said goodbye to my cousin-in-law and cousin one by one, wishing them smooth sailing and a safe home, and I also wish Jufang and Jingjing healthy growth.

The ship set sail, and I shouted to my cousin-in-law, "Take care, have a nice trip!" Jufang also stood at the bow of the boat, waving her little hand, and by this time she had become a tearful person. Looking at the sailboat in the distance, my heart seemed empty, sad, and I went back to school.

After liberation, Xu Jufang settled in Hongdu. In 1956, I went to Jinling to study, and when I returned to Nanzhao Province, I stopped by Hongdu to see her, and she was already a young woman with two children. One year, my wife and I went back to Yuzhang Province to visit relatives and reunited with her. Later, she also went to Wenshan's hometown to visit Zhang Xuexuan (they are relatives) and me, everyone was old, wishing each other a long life, who knew that in 1988 she died of cancer. She has worked hard to raise three children, all of whom have graduated from college and are already working in the United States. Her life is mixed, happy that her three sons have grown up and become talents, and she also went to the United States once; Sadly, due to her poor family background, she has been hit by political movements many times, and her life has been tormented, and because of her bad birth, she married a stubborn old man who was more than ten years older than her and had been married for the second time, and the two parties had no feelings.

The military university is really about to be launched, people's hearts are fluctuating, and all kinds of ideas are popping up - fear of hardship, fear of death, and wavering will. In view of the problems existing in the students' thinking, the school organized everyone to re-study the article "Carry the Revolution to the End" and asked them to talk about their problems and plans in connection with their own ideas, and to carry out criticism and self-criticism. The central theme of the event was how to establish a correct view of life and death.

Since ancient times, people have had different views on life and death. Tao Jingjie once said: "What is the way of death and life, the body is the same as the mountain"; Lu You wrote in the poem: "When you die, you know that everything is empty, but you can't see Kyushu with sorrow"; Wen Tianxiang said: "Since ancient times, no one has died, leaving Dan to take care of the sweat"; Sima Qian believes: "Man is inherently dead, or heavier than Mount Tai, or lighter than a feather"; Li Qingzhao is even more simply: "Life is a hero, death is also a ghost." What a magnificence! However, the revolutionary concept of life and death is fundamentally different from the concept of life and death in feudal society.