CHAPTER XXXI

The way home

In Heilongjiang, a farmer hit sorghum hanging from the eaves, and a large snake bit his fist.

In Shijiazhuang, a teacher yawns in the theater when a gecko falls right into his mouth.

In Zhejiang, an actor was humming a song and walking on the path, and a toad was squatting in the middle of the road, and he stepped over.

Extras Yang Xiaofan accidentally stepped on two rope traps, his two feet were lassoed, and he was pulled into the air, and his death was extremely miserable.

Yang Xiaofan plays the most role as a Japanese soldier, has no lines, and has to "die" several times a day. Yang Xiaofan sometimes exchanges acting skills with friends, he said, playing a devil, the more obscene and clumsy he is, the more the director likes it. When entering the village to sweep, you have to bend down and walk, when you see the flower girl and the chickens and ducks in the village, you have to show salivating expressions, and you must panic and flee in confusion when fighting, in short, you must show the mentally retarded side of the devil.

Friends say that we have been beaten by such a group of mentally retarded and stupid people for more than 8 years, wouldn't we be even more ......

In the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there were many heroes and heroes, and many stories that can be sung and cried.

Regardless of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, all military personnel who fought on the battlefield to defend the dignity of the motherland deserve respect.

During the Battle of the Hundred Regiments, a soldier of the Eighth Route Army entrusted his fellow villager to send a letter to his father, which had no words, only a few corn seeds. That year, the father and son were about to plant corn in the field, but the son did not return, and died in battle, and only a few corn seeds were sent home.

The Japanese army attacked Zhongtiao Mountain, and the **31st Army blocked 100,000 Japanese troops from the northwest at the cost of 27,000 casualties, changing the entire situation of the war. Eight hundred soldiers from Shaanxi were forced to the edge of the cliff by the Japanese army, and they ran out of ammunition and food. They faced Shaanxi, knelt to the sky, and then knelt down to their fathers and mothers, singing the Qin dialect, preferring to die rather than surrender, and jumped into the rolling Yellow River.

According to an old man's recollection, those few lines of Qin dialect were sung like this:

Two Wolf Mountain, Two Wolf Mountain, Battle Hu'er! The heavens and the earth are shaking, good man, for the country, why not be afraid of death and life!

He Weiguo can never forget that early morning, he left his mother and left his village.

A 14-year-old boy carried a burden to plow the land, but was caught by the devil to build a turret. After he fled in the middle of the night, the village had been destroyed by the war, and he did not dare to go home, but he happened to meet a group of scattered Kuomintang soldiers, so he cried and followed the team all the way, and later joined the army to fight, and was displaced...... Never devoured again to go home.

While fleeing, the child had been starving. The troops stopped to eat, and they would also give him a little. More often than not, he just goes to pick up leftovers. The Japanese devils frightened him, he only knew that he would be safe with the troops, he kept walking, he didn't know where he was. In one county town, he picked up a map of China, and drew a circle on it every time he walked a place. Together, these circles form a road map for escape.

One day, an officer said to him, "Son, why do you keep following us, go home." ”

He Weiguo said: "My house was burned by devils. ”

The officer said, "If the devil burns down your house, you will kill the devil." ”

He Weiguo said: "I want a gun." ”

The officer said: "Take this gun, you are a soldier, you must fight me until the last moment." ”

Later, He Weiguo learned that this officer was Sun Liren. Artillery fire rumbled, bullets whistled, the war was over, residential areas were built on the craters, bullets rotted in the dirt, and wildflowers grew on them. He Weiguo went to Taiwan with the army, and the years he spent in a psychiatric hospital, although he was delirious, there were some details about his home that he can never forget

。

If you are close to his mouth, you can hear him muttering these words: loofah flower, pond seed, pomegranate......

He still remembered that the earthen walls of the old house were crawling with loofahs and yellow flowers, there was a stone mill in the courtyard, and the paper on the window lattices was cracked. During his childhood, he always wore a torn cotton jacket and leaned on the earthen wall, looking at the frozen pond outside the door and the old locust trees by the pond. The mother, dressed in patched trousers, walked under the locust tree and shoved a grinning pomegranate into his hand.

It was the last memory of his mother, and he still remembered her expression and movements.

No one knows why the veteran in this mental hospital suddenly shed tears and cried like a child when he looked at the pomegranates and mooncakes on the table during the Mid-Autumn Festival one year.

Some memories are not forgotten with the passage of time, on the contrary, they become clearer the longer they pass, like the crescent moon by the window, always reminding the past.

After He Weiguo recovered and was discharged from the hospital, he often attended veterans' gatherings, and the theme of the gatherings was basically to tell the same story. For the war, those Taiwanese veterans are not willing to talk about it, and the topic is more about nostalgia for their hometown.

Hometown, a haunting word, only a wanderer outside can deeply understand what hometown is.

For historical reasons, coupled with the advanced age of these veterans, many people are unable to return home. Burying me in my hometown - this is the last wish of many Taiwanese veterans. There is an 83-year-old veteran, suffering from Alzheimer's disease and loss of speech ability, and the only word he can say is "go home" when he sits in a wooden chair all day long. His last wish was to scatter his ashes in the wheat fields of his hometown.

After the opening of cross-strait navigation, there was a gathering of fellow villagers, and a veteran who was visiting relatives returned from the mainland and brought three kilograms of soil.

Many of the veterans looked nervous on their faces, and everyone sat together like schoolchildren, with no one talking, not even panting loudly. It was as if they were participating in a solemn ceremony, and each of them was given a spoonful of soil. Some veterans treat dirt as a treasure and lock it in a safe; Some veterans put the dirt in a teapot and drank it.

It is difficult to leave their homeland, and perhaps, they will never be able to set foot on the land of their homeland again in this life.

In order to commemorate the 67 th anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a group of veterans of the Kuomintang Expeditionary Force were invited to the mainland to participate in the activities after consultations between relevant departments on both sides of the strait. When these veterans of the expeditionary force participated in the commemorative activities, they passed through the small railway station, and the people in the waiting room were in twos and threes, including peasants who went out to work, students who went to study, couples who traveled abroad, and civil servants who went on business trips. The hosts unfurled a banner - "Welcome home!" When a group of gray-haired veterans appeared, I don't know from which corner of the waiting room came applause, the applause was lonely at first, and then, everyone stood up, smiled, and applauded!

The veteran's expression was even slightly shy, and the veteran's gray hair was a real glory.

He Weiguo was also one of them, and his invitation to visit the mainland this time strengthened his determination to return to the mainland to settle down.

When he returned home, before he set foot on his homeland, he squatted down and cried bitterly because he was distressed. Time has changed his appearance, and he has also taken away his relatives in the mainland...... The original home is long gone.

Many years ago, he carried the burden, and when he went out, he was still young, and when he came back, he was already in the twilight of his life.

In his life, he was lonely and drifting, like a dandelion in the wind and rain.

When He Weiguo was working in the cemetery, the ashes of some Taiwanese veterans had nowhere to be placed, so he had to be entrusted to be buried here. The homes of those Taiwan veterans on the mainland are no longer there, and some of them can't even find their villages at all.

This loneliness

The old man often muttered to himself, in a trance, he would be in a daze for a long time, and said to the fallen leaves:

"Father, mother, brother, and my comrades-in-arms, you are all waiting for me below."

The actors wearing Japanese soldiers' uniforms at the nearby filming site, as well as the faint sound of artillery fire, made the veterans mentally deranged and relapsed from old diseases. The psychological wounds of the past are indelible, and his memories return to the period of the Anti-Japanese War, and this deranged mental state makes him mistakenly believe that he is still on the battlefield. He killed an innocent man, made a bow and arrow lurking outside the turret, and shot and wounded another Japanese-speaking actor. In the end, he grabbed a pistol and hid in the cave to make a last stand.

At that time, the bearded director wanted to film the scene of rounding up the veterans, but was driven away by the armed police officers and soldiers.

Director Chen said: "What about you pretending to be a reporter? What a mess. ”

The bearded director said: "It's stupid that so many people can't catch a single person." Do you want to keep guarding the entrance to the cave so that the old soldier is so hungry that he can't stand it and run out, and then arrest him? But I think there might be snails, frogs, snakes, or something in the cave, and the veteran can hide in it for a month. ”

Two armed policemen confiscated the bearded director's camera and walked down the hill with his arm on his shoulder.

The bearded director said, "Wait, I have a way to get the veterans to come out." ”

Director Chen asked, "What's the solution?" ”

The bearded director said: "There is a special actor in our crew who looks like Sun Liren, isn't this veteran Sun Liren's subordinate?" We can put on Sun Liren's old military uniform and order him to come out and receive the instruction. As soon as he comes out of the cave, you will go up and arrest him. ”

At that time, the situation was critical, He Weiguo had a gun in his hand, and he was in the dark, in order to avoid casualties, the armed police officers and soldiers did not choose to enter the cave and forcibly arrest him. Although the method offered by the bearded director is somewhat absurd, it is necessary to try it. The special actor quickly changed into costumes and arrived at the scene, standing in front of the cave and shouting, asking He Weiguo to put down his weapons and walk out of the cave.

There was silence in the cave, and after a long time, a sentence came from inside: "Password? ”

A password is a military code used to identify friend or foe. The special actor spread his hands helplessly, and no one could know which battle He Weiguo's memory was in in the War of Resistance against Japan, and what the military password of that battle was at that time.

The scheme of entrapment failed.

When it got dark, a team of armed police with night vision equipment quietly sneaked into the cave, intending to raid and arrest, but was stubbornly resisted by the old man He Weiguo, in order to avoid unnecessary casualties, the armed police officers and soldiers chose to retreat in time. Next, after research and discussion, the command proposed four plans: first, flooding, pouring water into the cave to drown the murderer; second, smoking, but it is not known whether there are pores in the cave; third, blasting, but the cave could not be attacked for a long time, and explosives could not be placed; Fourth, fire attack.

Su Mei said: "Aren't these four plans the way the devil treated the fellows in the tunnel back then?" ”

Bao Chu said: "It's really ironic, the old uncle is a hero who fights devils." ”

Hua Long said: "Is there room for relaxation, the law of our country stipulates that mentally ill patients are not criminally responsible." ”

Professor Liang said: "He is a martial madman, he has a gun in his hand, and he has killed one person and seriously injured two people, and he will continue to endanger society if he is released, so he can only ......."

The scene was deadlocked.

While everyone was arguing about what to do with the old soldier, who had lost his mind, there was a "bang", and a gunshot rang out, coming from the depths of the cave. Bao Shu yelled "not good" and rushed into the cave to see ......

The last bullet of this veteran was reserved for himself.