While the whole world trembled in the horrors of the Spanish flu, the United States' march toward war was not affected too much. While it is true that the Spanish flu has slowed down the arming of the American military, it has caused much more damage to Europe. In particular, Germany, although some antiviral oral liquid was bought from the French and British through smuggling and other means, the quantity was quite limited, and the price was ridiculously expensive. Therefore, it does not have much impact on the whole situation, at most it is just an insurance policy for the lives of those Junker military aristocrats or capitalists. Later, in his anti-Semitic propaganda, Adolf Hitler claimed that during the war, during the Spanish flu epidemic, Imperial intelligence agents risked their lives to obtain from the enemy a lot of MacDonald's antiviral liquid, a special cure for the Spanish flu, but these life-saving drugs fell into the hands of the damned Jews. So these unpatriotic Jews immediately took advantage of this to make a fortune and raise the price of medicines to unimaginable levels, with the result that the soldiers who fought bravely on the front lines did not have access to these life-saving medicines, and those precious medicines fell into the hands of moths in which countries, and even until the end of the war, there was a large amount of leftover......

The Spanish flu epidemic killed nearly a million Germans. And because of the Spanish flu's extremely high mortality rate among young adults (the vast majority of those who have died from the Spanish flu in history have been in young adults), it has dealt a much harder blow than any previous campaign. In contrast, the United States, as well as Britain and France, have more medicines, so the losses are smaller than in history, for example, the United States, which died less than 300,000 people during the entire Spanish flu epidemic, almost three-quarters fewer than in history. Compared with the original history, the number of deaths in France has also decreased by nearly one-fifth, only the British Empire, the number of deaths has not changed much from history, it is still at least about 1,500 to 16 million, but although India is part of the British Empire, it is difficult to say whether Indians are British or not, if Indians are excluded, in fact, the number of deaths of authentic British people has also decreased significantly.

……

"Soon the war will be over. The good days of war are coming to an end. At the family meeting, after Greystone had given a report on the last month, Scrooge spoke, "Greystone, what do you think we should do after the war is over?" ”

"Dad, contractions after the end of the war are inevitable. It's almost impossible to make money like you do now. Greystone replied, "I'm ready to divest some of my non-core assets." In addition, there should be some business opportunities for the reconstruction of Europe. However, I guess it's hard to get too many opportunities in this market. The British and French will not leave us such an opportunity. Of course, the necessary efforts should still be made. In addition to this, I believe that the French will certainly seek a comprehensive and severe restriction on Germany after the war. The British might have turned against too much weakening of Germany - a fully automatic reaction of the European-stirring sticks. But on this issue, I think France will be in the driver's seat. After all, France shares a border with Germany, and France will certainly have land rights. So I think we can strengthen technical cooperation with Germany after their defeat. Considering that the Germans must have had a very hard time in the post-war period, we had better seize this opportunity to get all their scientific and technical personnel to us. Dad, what do you think of my thoughts? ”

"Basically doable, and besides, there's one place you overlook. That's Russia. Scrooge said. Then he glanced at Catherine and saw that she was dozing with her head down. Now that she's old and in poor spirits, it's hard to stay focused throughout the meeting as she used to. However, compared to Carol, she is already very good, in the past six months, Carol's attention and memory have declined to a mess, according to the doctor's diagnosis, he is afraid that he is suffering from Alzheimer's. Of course, he will no longer participate in family meetings.

"Catherine! Catherine! We're going to talk about Russia! Scrooge raised his voice.

"What?" Catherine woke up for the moment, and to be honest, she wouldn't have come to this meeting at all if it weren't for the fact that today's meeting would involve Russia, and therefore probably Dena, and she hadn't been to such a meeting in months.

"Dad, Russia is too far away, and our strength can't reach anywhere. There's only so much we can do. Greystone said he was worried that his father had forgotten some of his own statements about the limits of his strength.

"If we are going to overturn the revolution in Russia, we are really not strong. But if we are going to side with the Bolsheviks in Russia, then our power is very meaningful. "Britain and France are also extremely tired, and they will not be able to intervene vigorously in Russia." The anti-Bolshevik forces in Russia seemed to be small, but they were disorganized, and the leaders were fools with no vision, not to mention that even one Dana was stronger than any of them compared to the upper echelons of the Bolsheviks as a whole. Therefore, the victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia was inevitable, and they were inevitably isolated by the whole of Europe after their victory. At present, there is no country in the world that is completely free from the outside world. I think the Bolsheviks would have been willing to have some business dealings with us. When the time comes, their large-scale construction will definitely bring us a lot of benefits. ”

"But Dad, they're against us......" Greystone said.

"They're going to oppose it, and they're going to oppose the guys in Europe first. In a sense, for a long time to come, all the forces that can cause trouble for Europe are forces worthy of support. It is we who make money, and it is Europe that is threatened in the first place, such a good thing is really not found with a lantern. After the war, we had to be kind to Germany and Bolshevik Russia, to support them, to help them, and maybe one day they would help us smash the whole of Europe to pieces. Well, Donald, after the war, you find a time to come with me and get in touch with the Bolsheviks, especially with Dena. It's going to be the last big deal of my life. ”

……

Ukraine, July 1919.

The day passed, but the heavy thunderstorm never fell. As a result, the nights in Ukraine are exceptionally humid and muggy. Because the dark clouds obscured the moon, the prison naturally became even darker, and in this darkness, the iron door of the prison opened, and a few white. The soldier stood in the doorway with a rifle with a bayonet, and an officer with a flashlight shook it inside and shouted: "Valia Ivanovna, come out!" ”

Dena stood up and patted the dust off her skirt. A hand suddenly grabbed her arm: "Aunt Valia, don't go, they will kill your ......"

Although I couldn't see who it was, I knew by listening to the voice that it was the young man with pale freckles all over his face. So she turned her head and smiled over there, though in the darkness she knew that no one could see it.

"Sergey, what should come will come. Well, if I'm okay, I'll have to test your trigonometric functions tomorrow. Dena's voice was calm, so calm that she was surprised herself.

At this time, the beam of light of the flashlight suddenly shone on Dena's face, and the strong light illuminated her eyes, and she had to raise her arms to cover it.

"Valya, Ivanovna?" That white. The officer asked. He still had some impressions of the woman, who had been teaching math to poor boys in prison these days. Perhaps, she thinks these poor boys will be able to use these things in the future. But the officer knew that it didn't really work. Because as far as he knew, the army was about to withdraw from the city, and before that, all the people in it would be cleared, not a single one.

"Yes." Dena replied, gently breaking free of the hand that was pulling at her arm. Then groped his way to the door. The officer pressed the beam of light down a little, as if to help her light the way ahead.

The officer stood in the doorway, and when Dena had walked all the way to him, he raised his flashlight and took a picture of Dena's face, and then to a photograph in his hand, as if comparing it with Dena herself.

"Valya Ivanlovna." The officer looked at her again and said, "Please come with me." ”

Dena knew that on such a night, following a white man with a group of rifles with bayonets. What does it mean for a military officer to walk in general. Generally speaking, this means that "Valia Ivanovna" will be added to the list at all times, and from then on, there will be no "Valia Ivanovna" in the world, just as there will be no "Dena Macdonald" in the world a long time ago. No, it's not the same. After the disappearance of Dena, there will be "Valia Ivanovna", "Valia Ivanovna" will disappear, and there will be nothing else. Yes, there is nothing, there is no record, there is no tombstone, there is no ...... There is no heaven or hell either.

Dena raised her hand and straightened her hair and said, "Lead the way." ”

……

It's just that unlike what Dena imagined, she wasn't taken to some middle country and then ordered to dig a hole for herself first, but was taken to a building. The officer, who had left some of the soldiers outside, led her upstairs to a door, and said to Dena: "Ms. Valia Ivanovna, someone wants to see you." You can go in. ”

Dena was a little surprised, she hesitated slightly, then gently pushed the door, and it opened. Dena saw a man sitting under the electric lamp by the fireplace in the room, wearing a wide-brimmed hat with the brim obscuring the light, which made his face dark.

The officer motioned for Dena to walk in. So Dena went in, and the officer followed.

"Sir, I brought you Ms. Valia Ivanovna." The officer said, "Is there anything else you need to command?" ”

"Ah, that's good, thank you. No, you can go out and bring me the door by the way. The man said, and from the man's voice, he was supposed to be an old man.

"Yes sir." The officer saluted the man, then turned to leave.

"You're ......," Dena's voice trembled a little.

The man stood up and reached out and removed the hat from his head, revealing a full head of gray hair.

"What's the matter, Dena, I'm not too old for you to recognize, am I?" The man said with a smile.

Scrooge ...... Uncle Scrooge? Dena's eyes widened.