In the darkness of the night, a bright starry curtain hangs low over the flat, barren field, and the dilapidated Mitsubishi pickup truck with the smell of decay continues along the road. There is not the slightest trace of modern society around, there are no street lights on the sides of the road, there are no guardrails with reflective strips, and the road condition is not very good, from time to time you will encounter potholes, and then there is the noise of "bang, bang, bang" and noisy the silent night.

If it weren't for the fact that there was a van with a broken taillight in front of him, Cheng Mo really felt that he was in a no-man's land isolated from the world. Cheng Mo, who was sitting in the co-pilot, looked at the tail light on the right side of the van truck in front of him, which should be scrapped, was completely broken, and the good tail light on the left side was also covered with thick dust, not bright at all, and it was like a dusty red plastic sheet under the light of the Mitsubishi front headlights.

If you are driving on a high speed, this situation is very dangerous, and if you are not careful, it will cause a rear-end collision. But on the Syria Highway, it is not so scary, after all, the road conditions do not allow the speed to reach 70 miles (112.63 km/h) that can make the mood feel free, and you can only maintain the appearance of 20 or 30 miles to ensure the safety of driving.

But this is really too slow, in China, even a two-lane national highway will not be so slow.

The van truck in front of him with bullet holes blocked Cheng Mo's field of vision, and he couldn't even browse the starry sky that could be comforted, which made Cheng Mo feel like he was riding a submarine on the abyss-like bottom turtle speed, and the van in front was like a huge lanternfish (deep-sea anglerfish), and when it encountered a bad road, the only bit of red light shook like a lantern in the wind in the thick inky darkness.

Such a depressing scene, coupled with the fact that he had to bounce and shake from time to time, made Cheng Mo feel that the pickup would fall apart at any time, so people like him felt uncomfortable. He was a little puzzled why the truck in front of him was driving very slowly and there was no vehicle on the side, so Khalid still didn't choose to overtake.

So Cheng Mo turned his head and glanced at Khaled, who was engrossed in driving, just now he was quite calm when he negotiated with the Syria soldiers guarding the checkpoint, and the posture of giving money was also very skillful, which made Cheng Mo a little impressed, but for a nineteen-year-old teenager, Khaled's proficiency was a little distressing.

"Why don't you overtake?"

"Uncle Ashkar told me it was safer. After a pause, Khalid explained, "In case we encounter the Anyway Mansion, they will attack the trucks first, and we will have a chance to escape.....

Cheng Mo never expected such a reason, but he still underestimated the danger in Syria, and asked with a frown: "Didn't they all sign an armistice agreement?

Khalid smiled bitterly: "The large-scale battles have been temporarily stopped, the small-scale ones have never stopped, today either the Zhengfu Army is fighting the Free Army, or the Queer Germans are fighting with the Nusra faction, or the Victory Front and the Deep Water Brigade are fighting, the most fierce is IS, they are doing things every day, as long as they are not extreme enough, they will do it." It's not safe even in Damascus, and it's close to the military-controlled area....." He raised his right hand and slapped the steering wheel, as if mocking himself, and whispered as if he had resigned himself to his fate, "but if there is no war one day, people are afraid." But there's nothing to worry about, this road is an important transportation route, and the protection of the army is quite tight, anyway, the government armed forces are at most long-distance firing point shells, or use drones to do things, and drones will not be used under normal circumstances, unless they are very valuable targets....."

Cheng Mo knew that Ennoth was behind the Zhengfu Army, that the Beacon State was behind the queer Germans, and that there was financial and human aid from the fundamentalist Saudi Arabian countries behind the IS, but he didn't know much about the Nusra faction, the Al-Nusra Front and the Deep Water Brigade. However, even if you don't understand it, Cheng Mo is familiar with history, and he can roughly guess that there must be the support of foreign forces behind it, which is nothing more than the surrounding powers such as Ether and Tourzi and the former suzerains such as France.

With such a tragic national condition, being a Syrian will certainly not be comfortable. Mental humiliation is secondary, because the anxiety of the day and the endless physical hardship that must be faced are the source of the suffering.

At this moment, Cheng Mo was a little distracted, and he remembered the modern history of China, which was the history he didn't like to read the most. He stared at the dimly lit left taillight of the van in front of him and thought to himself: history never corrects mistakes, but only repeats itself, and this is a disappointing fact. He couldn't help but sigh: "It was the same in China more than a hundred years ago, after the First Sino-Japanese War, the great powers divided their spheres of influence in China, and the whole of China was divided. Later, taking advantage of the First World War, when the great powers had no time to look eastward, China completed the bourgeois revolution and overthrew the Manchu rule, but China did not get better, forming the Beiyang warlords, and behind these warlords also stood foreign powers, under their manipulation, the warlords fought and fought among themselves for many years, it was the darkest, corrupt, and poorer era in the entire history of China......

"Huaxia?" Khalid was a little surprised.

Only then did Cheng Mo realize that he was a little too relaxed and devoted, completely forgetting that he was currently a German. But this was not a problem at all in front of the battle-hardened Cheng Mo, who shrugged his shoulders very naturally and explained: "My ...... Ex...... I am from Huaxia, so I know Huaxia very well and have deep feelings. ”

His current identity, Requetzka, and Wendy, played by Athena, are husband and wife, so he can only arrange for Xie Minyun to be an ex-wife.

Khalid did not doubt Cheng Mo at all, and said disapprovingly: "I know Huaxia, they have assisted us with a lot of materials in Syria, and have built a lot of refugee camps for us, it has been reported on TV, many of my family's living utensils are donated by Huaxia, and there are mobile phones, my mobile phone is Xiaomi's, but there are few places with signals in Latakia, and there is no electricity all year round, so it is basically useless, and it can only be used when I go to Damascus......"

Cheng Mo finally knew where those familiar enamel cups came from, he smiled and said, "Huaxia is a peace-loving country. ”

"Then why didn't they help stop the war? Everyone said they loved peace, so why didn't anyone want to help us?"

There was no resentment in Khalid's tone, only confusion. Cheng Mo was silent for a while, he really didn't know how to answer this question honestly. As an individual, we will act by moral, emotional, and other factors, but as a nation, a collective of human beings, we can only act for profit.

This answer was too cold and ruthless, so Cheng Mo said: "Probably everyone can't beat the lighthouse! After all, the lighthouse has the most powerful force in the world.....

The atmosphere in the car fell into a somewhat suffocating dullness, and the unpleasant rancid smell became more and more obvious, Cheng Mo opened the window, let the fresh cold air pour in, and blew away the stuffy air conditioner, and the faint rancid smell disappeared without a trace. Driving through a section of bad road again, the tremor of "clang, clang, clang" was particularly loud at midnight, and Cheng Mo also felt an uncomfortable bump and had to hold on to the handrail.

"It's the result of the tank running over the past. Khalid's voice trembled in the cold wind, and he didn't know if it was because he was terrified by the image of a tank driving by, or because the car was not moving smoothly enough, "Before I was fifteen years old, I didn't know what war was like, I only saw it in books and movies, and my favorite toy at that time was a toy gun that made a 'thud, thud, thud' sound, my father loved to read, and his favorite author was George Martin, and we had a complete set of George Martin's works at home, "A Song of Ice and Fire", "A Song of a Rush, a Rush", a "Rush, a Rush", a "Rush" sound, my father loved to read, his favorite Influenced by my father, I also loved to read books when I was a child, and even fantasized about becoming a writer. Now that I think about it, life at that time was really happy, although my mother was always very strict and cared very much about my grades, so that I didn't have much time to read storybooks and watch TV series, but as long as I did well in exams, there was always time to do nothing during the holidays, lying in bed and leisurely reading books all day long, watching TV all day. But all that changed when I was almost 12 years old, and I remember very well that at the beginning, it was said on TV and in the newspapers that Syria was not affected by Tulis and Aiji, and that the society was very stable, but after the arrest of a group of middle school students who participated in the march and painted graffiti on the wall, things took a turn for the worse, and there were continuous demonstrations all over the country, but everyone still had a rational attitude, and no one thought of resorting to force, but with Facebook, Negative news about the government continued to spread at the oil depot, and tolerance became less and less until April 17, 2011, when a mob shot and killed 40 demonstrators in front of a temple in Homs. No one knows who those rioters are, the government says it is a Shabiha thug, and on the Internet it is a local plainclothes policeman. It doesn't matter what the facts are anymore, everything has changed since that moment, first there was a protest, then an uprising. At first, the Zhengfu was able to control the situation, but when the vendetta between the sects began, things began to get out of control. But it was barely able to go on, and I went to school in an environment of constant violence and killing, and as the Zhengfu army attacked the opposition, the situation began to recur, sometimes good and sometimes bad, and I naively thought that the turmoil was about to end. However, on April 14, 2018, the lighthouse, England and France launched an air raid on Damascus, my aunt in Damascus called my parents and said that they had to find a way to get out of here, the war broke out, many people died, many people had no homes, although the situation has been very bad, the factions have been fighting back and forth, but everyone has not despaired, the order of life can barely be maintained, the powerful lighthouse, England and France intervened, so that the whole of Syria was plunged into a terrible war. For the first time, I saw horror in the eyes of my parents, they called me and my sister all up, and started to pack things in the middle of the night, I hadn't woken up at the time, a little unhappy, but I still complained and tried to start packing up, my toys, my books, and my puppy called 'Guard', but when I got in the car, my mother threw all my things for me, I hugged 'Guard' and didn't want to let go, my mother, who had never hit me, gave me a slap directly......"

Speaking of this, Khalid stopped narrating, because the van in front of him had slowly stopped, Khalid also stepped on the brakes, parked the car behind the van, he pulled the handbrake and complained: "It used to take more than ten hours at most from Latakia to Damascus, but now it will take at least one day, and there are dozens of checkpoints on the road of more than 300 kilometers without traffic jams and accidents...... It's terrible. ”

"What about the back?" asked Athena, who had been sitting in the back seat without saying a word.

"What's the back?" Khalid was stunned for a moment, then reacted, "I cried in the back, and I ran for my life while crying....."

Cheng Mo glanced at the rearview mirror, Athena was sitting cross-legged in the back seat, as if meditating, the eyes of the two people met in the mirror, Cheng Mo asked thoughtfully: "Then your mother wants you to throw away your puppy, have you thrown it away?"

"Oh! of course not. Khalid shrugged his shoulders, "Seeing me crying, my mother also cried, saying that she couldn't take care of her life, and how could she take care of a dog's life." I didn't know what to say, I just cried, and then my father allowed me to carry the 'guards' into the car, telling me that if the guards couldn't cross the border, they had to let the guards go......"

Cheng Mo shook his head and said, "You left too late, you still have a chance to leave before the war breaks out, and you won't be able to go anywhere when the war breaks out." ”

Khalid sighed and said, "Yes! My father also regretted that the road to the border with Turzi was full of people and cars, and everyone was on the run." I sat in the car and saw a lot of people running away with their bags, some people didn't know where they were going, they just fled with the crowd, like sheep driven by wolves, everyone was thinking about getting out of here quickly, but few could really leave, and soon my father received a notice that the border had been blocked, and some people said that it would be better to find a way to take a boat to Cyprus. As a last resort, we had no choice but to turn around and go back home before we reached the border. By the time we returned, there had been riots in the city, and the streets were littered with destroyed police cars and ...... "Corpses ......," Khalid laughed dryly, "that was the first time I had seen a real corpse, it was completely different from the people who died peacefully in the temple, they were in the middle of the road, their eyes were open, and they could barely see the pupils, only the whites of their eyes like mist, and the bullet holes all over their bodies......"

Cheng Mo recalled that he almost vomited when he first saw the body that had been shot, it was in Moscow, and now he recalls it so far away. He remembered what Li Jiting had said to him: "Death is not terrible, although people rarely see death in their lives, they are always accompanied by death; war is not terrible, war is almost as old as us human beings, what is terrible is the human heart, when we lose our rationality and transform into beasts or machines, people are no longer human beings..... So don't let the instinct of the beast occupy our hearts..."Cheng Mo thought again: "But what if we can't live if we don't become a beast?"

At this time, the pickup truck had followed the big truck slowly to the front of the checkpoint, and with the pass he got when he crossed the checkpoint for the first time, plus Khalid stuffed the soldiers with money, this time it was quite smooth, and they passed the checkpoint safely without stopping for a long time.

The Mitsubishi pickup truck followed the van and continued along the road, and Khalid widened some distance from the van in front of him, so his vision widened a lot, which made Cheng Mo's vision not so depressed, as if he was ready to be stuffed under the car at any time.

The night breeze was like water, constantly flowing in through the car window, blowing the hair of the three people. Khalid scratched his hair and said with some embarrassment, "Is what I said too boring?"

Cheng Mo shook his head, "No, I'm quite curious about what you experienced in the war. ”

"Now that I think about it, it doesn't seem to be anything special, when I got home, my dad tried to find a boat that could leave Syria, the price of the ticket was scary, and only charged dollars and euros, our family of seven people couldn't afford to pay such a high ticket, my dad could only take all the valuable things in the house and sell them, the car, my mother's gold jewelry, and electrical appliances, all that could be sold were sold, only some hoarded food was left and couldn't be sold, and the rest was all sold, but the Suria dollar was exchanged for dollars, The exchange rate of the euro is rising day by day, and it is not even convertible at all. The first time I saw him kneeling for someone else, he wept bitterly, and he took a bag of money in the hope of exchanging some dollars, euros, at least two or three ferry tickets, to send my sister and me away, but the man just shook his head and said that he could only exchange it for gold, and he would not accept it. ”

Khalid's voice choked up, he was silent for a moment, adjusted his mood before continuing: "I grew up very, very much admired my father, I thought he could do anything, just like Superman, nothing could bother him, but that day I learned that my father was just an ordinary person, he could make money to buy a car, he could send me to a Catholic school, and he could buy a small house by the sea, but he couldn't take us away. ”

"We had nowhere else to go but to hide in our homes, and those who didn't have a way out of the neighborhood went home. We are not the main war zone there, the port is, the day is slightly better, only the continuous gunfire, but the night is particularly scary, I open the window can see a meteor-like missile falling in the city, at the beginning every time the bomb explodes I will scream and hide in the basement, and then slowly get used to it, I will distinguish the direction of the missile, if it is not towards us, I will just hide under the bed, if it is towards us, I will hurry to the basement. I remember the closest explosion to me was the one where Uncle Ashkar's house was hit by a missile. I hid in the basement and felt the whole world tremble, I thought that the war had broken out in our yard, my father and mother kept crying and chanting prayers aloud, I never paid much attention to the prayers in my usual prayers, I was really panicked that time, I had never prayed so devoutly, I had only one thought, I begged the Creator to save me, not to let the bombs fall on our house. ”

"That time was really lucky, the whole street was not destroyed in our house, and only our family was not injured, but the others were not so lucky, I have never heard so many cries, and the cries were more terrible than gunshots....."

"As the war continued, everyone gradually got used to it, sometimes fierce, sometimes dull, but no one dared to go out easily, even if the house was bombed into ruins, they could only hide at home. There are fewer and fewer people, both the Zhengfu army and the opposition army are arresting men to enlist in the army, and in areas controlled by queer Germans, even young women have to join the army......" Khalid spat out a cloudy breath and said with a wry smile: "I am relatively thin and look young, but because I have reached the age of fifteen, I have to be conscripted into the army, and finally my grandfather replaced me to join the army. He said he had lived enough, even if he was allowed to be a human bomber. ”

"Later, it didn't get so bad, maybe we got used to it. But the news of his father, who was forcibly conscripted into the army, came to die, and he did not die heroically, that is, when he was on patrol, he was attacked by shells, and even the enemy did not see clearly, so he fell very unfortunately. My grandfather was also released because he was lame. The mother, who was terrified every day, cried that at last he did not have to be afraid, and that he had gone to the Creator's garden, and that sooner or later she would follow. There is not too much chaos at home, in fact, each of us is ready to die by ourselves or other loved ones. There were no priests in the temple for a long time, so we had to perform a simple ritual to bury my father, and we used this car to drag my father's body to the foot of the mountain we had just passed. My grandfather told me that my father's biggest regret was that he didn't get us out of here. Khalid paused for a moment and whispered as if making a wish, "So my greatest wish now is to save enough money to get my family out of here......."

Khalid's sympathetic past did not win much pity from Cheng Mo, and he had never had a heart. For him, he is just going deep into a war-torn country, deeply perceiving the true appearance of modern civilization when it has stripped off its false face, and the human mentality in war.

Of course, he didn't mind helping Khalid fulfill his wish if all went well, but it wasn't fitting to say it right now, so he just whispered meaningfully, "I hope you will fulfill your wish soon." ”

"Thank you, Mr. Rektzka. I have never said these words to others, my classmates have died and fled, and there are few people who can still be contacted now, and the people I know are the luckiest in my family, and they are all much worse than me, and there is no place to talk if you want to......"

Cheng Mo nodded and said, "I can understand." ”

"Maybe we should change the subject and talk about something less heavy. Khalid smiled, his mood seemed to be much lighter, and after a moment's hesitation, he asked, "Mr. Rykčka, why are you coming to Latakia at this time? ”

"Originally, my wife and I had to go to Beirut, but because there was something wrong with the boat we were on, we had to get off in Latakia, or I had to wait on the boat for an unknown amount of time, in order to save time and money, I had to get off the boat, first to Damascus, and then to Beirut ......"

"I see. I said how could any tourists come to our Latakia, but luckily you didn't stay in the city for too long before my sister saw you. At that time, I was selling cactus fruit in the city, and she ran over and told me, I thought this was an opportunity to make money, so I hurried after it, and I was a little afraid that you would be seen by the IS or the Black Flag Army or the Jihadist Brigade, and that would be a big trouble. Khalid sighed, "Thankfully, there is no ......"

Cheng Mo knows the grievances between the Middle East world and the Western world for thousands of years, but he doesn't know much about the division of the sphere of influence in Syria, so he guided Khalid to talk about this matter without a trace.

Not only did he talk about Syria, but Khalid also described his yearning for a world beyond Syria, imagining that he could go to Europa, live in a truly free world, eat steaks and fine pastries, and buy beautiful dresses for his sisters and sisters.

He said that he had relatives who had gone to Dresden in southern Germany, where they were living well, and that the German government had arranged language classes for them, and had arranged for them to stay and eat and pay them some money every month, and most importantly, they did not have to fear the threat of death at any time.

"I'm scared when I hear the sound of fireworks now......." Speaking of this, Khalid turned his head to look at Cheng Mo and smiled innocently, "Fortunately, you are not a lighthouseman, but a German, if you are a lighthouse man or an English or Frenchman, I will not help you, maybe you will be hanged in Latakia, and it will be made into a video and broadcast by Al Jazeera......"

Cheng Mo knew that Khalid was not alarmist, but was stating a more extreme possibility, and he didn't feel terrible about it, but he just felt that every human being was an individual full of contradictions, just like Khalid, who hated the outside world and was full of yearning, and couldn't wait to leave the land under his feet, but it was difficult to get rid of the attachment to it in his bones.

Probably humans are animals that desperately need a sense of belonging, afraid of loneliness, want to communicate, in order not to be left behind by the group. Just like Khalid and his family, who were obviously open-minded believers, but had to go to extremes in order not to be ostracized. Temporary security is gained through self-sacrifice and compromise.

But as time goes on, the hollowness in your heart will get bigger and bigger, and either you will try to cater to this group to gain more recognition, or you will choose to flee.......

The country and the nation are the most basic sense of belonging for everyone.

Cheng Mo once thought that only strong people could go lonely without a false sense of belonging. According to Maslow's theory, if the lack of physiological needs, security needs, belonging and love, and respect are not met, it will be difficult for high-level growth needs to develop.......

Figuratively speaking, it is impossible for an ordinary person to grow when he lives in a country like Syria, where basic needs are difficult to meet.

It used to work, it doesn't now.

Thus, nations and nations are not imaginary communities, but real collections of human beings that can actually provide a sense of belonging.

As a refined egoist, a classicist liberal, Cheng Mo does not have any feelings for his family and country, and in his opinion, patriotism is indeed a business in most cases, but this business is not for everyone.

As an ordinary person, patriotism is a must, because every ordinary person is deeply bound to the country that can provide you with a sense of belonging. Only when the country is good, everyone in the country will benefit and become better. When the country is bad, those who have the money can leave at any time, and the people who suffer the most are the people who make up the country that cannot leave.

Therefore, there are only two kinds of people who hate the country - one who receives money, and the other is a hopeless fool.

Cheng Mo is of course a smart man, according to the "Pascal bet theory", he will love his motherland no matter what, even if he longs for true freedom, he knows that he cannot strip away the attributes that he was born with, and he cannot forget the places he lived and the people he has been with.

Even if the economy is declining and civilization is dying, it is impossible for him to forget the adoption cards on Yuelu Mountain, his alma mater on the banks of the Xiangjiang River, and the 202 road that he has taken countless times.....

Perhaps, this is the so-called "nostalgia........

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Three more levels passed, and on the fifth level, the clock turned to twenty-two. Because Cheng Mo and Athena couldn't drive, they didn't change their drivers, so Khalid could only park his car in the wilderness not far from the checkpoint.

The temperature difference between day and night is very great, there are still sixteen or seven degrees during the day, and at night the temperature plummets to only one or two degrees, and there is no shelter above the wasteland, and the cold wind is even more cold. It was impossible for the car to idle and turn on the air conditioning, so Khaled, who had been prepared, brought firewood down from the truck trailer, then picked up a military shovel and dug a pit beside the car to remove the nearby weeds, and then piled up firewood in the shallow pit, poured gasoline, and a moment later, a warm bonfire rose on the field.

It has only been more than ten minutes since all this was done, and the residual heat in the carriage has not yet dissipated. Cheng Mo and Athena got out of the car only to feel that it was freezing and hurriedly approached the burning fire.

Khalid brought down three cushions and three blankets, gave one to Cheng Mo and one to Athena, and then placed the cushion in his hand on the front wheel of the pickup truck, and sat down with his back against the front wheel.

The only place where the whole pickup can lean on is the front and rear wheels, and if Cheng Mo and Athena don't want to be cold, they can only sit together at the rear wheels. Athena didn't think as much as Cheng Mo, so she walked straight through the weeds and stepped on the gravel to the rear wheel, bent down and put the cushion on the ground, and then sat down.

Cheng Mo stood by the bonfire and looked around, Khalid had already closed his eyes, and it was impossible for him to run over and huddle with Khalid, so he could only choose to go to the carriage to be cold, or cheekily squeeze with Athena......

He was not a cheeky person after all, and after thinking about it for a while, he still opened the door and got into the carriage. After getting off the co-pilot's seat, Cheng Mo lay on the seat covered with a blanket. This posture is comfortable, but the unair-conditioned carriage seems to be colder than in the wild, and Cheng Mo had to roll up the blanket under his body and wrap himself tightly.

The bone-chilling cold made the blankets and clothes look extremely cold, Cheng Mo shivered and couldn't close his eyes, the bonfire outside the window was reflected in the glass window, and the rising sparks in the vague rose to the sky in the wind, and the bright Milky Way merged into an eternal light.

Cheng Mo thought to himself: When you get back Uloporos, you must get yourself a skill that can dissipate heat.......

————————————————————————

Even in the reckless wilderness of no man's land, the Sanskrit sound of the proclamation is sung in the early morning.

Cheng Mo opened his eyes and saw Khalid kneeling on the mat, facing east and praying the morning prayer. Not far away, there is a big tin horn on the roof of the checkpoint, and the sound of singing is constantly spreading in all directions. Cheng Mo froze all night, didn't sleep well, just wrapped in a blanket and got out of the car, the bonfire was added with firewood by Khaled, and it was burning vigorously, and the smoke filled with the smell of firewood made Cheng Mo, who had cold hands and feet, feel a trace of warmth.

He walked over to the campfire and looked back at Athena, who seemed to be still asleep sweetly leaning against her back wheel.

The pale white morning light stained the skyline, and the firelight reflected her face, although the contour of her face was not her original appearance, but Cheng Mo's eyes could clearly see Athena's flawless face. He paused for a moment, and saw the plain wool blanket slip down to her waist, Cheng Mo took a light step, walked to Athena's side, bent down, and carefully pulled the blanket to Athena's shoulder.

Athena opened her eyes and looked up at Cheng Mo slightly, her deep blue pupils as translucent as a morning star in the dark color of the awakening.

It is also as distant and indifferent as a morning star.

Cheng Mo suddenly felt embarrassed, thinking that he really shouldn't have done this, vulgar, stupid, and a little contrived. But why didn't he think about it so much just now? He quickly straightened up, bent the corners of his mouth and smiled reluctantly, and said, "You can sleep for a while, and I'll go and heat up the bread and lamb skewers for you." ”

Athena nodded as a matter of course, did not make a sound, and continued to rest on the wheels.

Even in the dry Syria, there was a hint of humidity in the cold air of the early morning, and Cheng Mo took out a plastic pot that was originally filled with alcohol from the carriage, but now it was filled with boiling water.

Latakia has not yet restored its tap water supply, and the water must be fetched at a fixed location every day, which is more expensive than the mineral water in China, and cannot be used directly, and must be filtered through a filter before boiling before drinking. Cheng Mo put the expensive pot of water on a slightly larger stone, took out toiletries from Athena's backpack, brushed her teeth and face in the cold wind, cleaned herself, and then gave her Athena's toiletries to put on the stones, then walked to the campfire and began to grill naan and lamb skewers.

Naan and lamb skewers were already made by Khaled's mother, and they only needed to be heated, but in the wild, even if there was a fire, it was not easy to heat up.

In order for Athena to have a hot meal, Cheng Mo took a military shovel and dug a pit again, found a few stones, placed them around the pit, spread firewood at the bottom of the pit, and made a simple stove. Then he wasted all his strength to find a slightly flat stone, and took advantage of Khaled's inattention, and used the stone the size of the Seven Sins Sect's general drum to cut it into an unusually flat stone slab, and then washed the stone slab with water, placed it on the simple stove, and slightly adjusted the position of the stone on the side of the pit as a fulcrum, so that the stone slab could be placed on it smoothly, and a stove for making "stone slab burning" was completely done.

Cheng Mo found gasoline and ignited the firewood, and waited for the fire to completely heat the slate. The fire was very big, and the gray stones were quickly burned black, Cheng Mo hurriedly brought mutton skewers, picked out some fat, and fried mutton fat on the stone slab, so the fragrant cooking smoke rose above the wasteland.

Athena, who smelled the aroma, immediately stopped sleeping, wrapped in a blanket, walked to Cheng Mo's side, and watched the mutton and scones on the slate in the morning light, the mutton wrapped in cumin and chives sizzled on the slate, the scones soaked in fat turned brown, and the aroma of mutton and wheat were mixed together, which made people feel relished.

Athena swallowed a mouthful of saliva, stared intently at the lamb and the chopped scones and asked, "When are you going to eat?"

Cheng Mo, who was squatting next to the stone slab, glanced up at Athena and said with a smile: "You go to wash your face and brush your teeth first, and when you finish washing your face and brushing your teeth, you can eat." Seeing Athena turn around quickly, Cheng Mo said again: "I'll put everything over there for you." Athena nodded without looking back, and walked to the stone where the toiletry was placed, Cheng Mo had already placed the soap, toothpaste and toothbrush neatly on the stone, but he didn't pretentiously help Athena squeeze the toothpaste.

At this time, Khalid had already finished the morning prayer and had just finished washing, and looked at Cheng Mo, who was cooking, Khalid shook his head and smiled: "Uncle Rykska is so kind to you, which is unimaginable in our Syria......"

Athena, who was squeezing toothpaste, stopped her movements and asked in a low voice, "Why?"

"In Syria, these things are done by women. ”

Athena said seriously, "That's what a servant should do." ”

Khalid didn't expect that he just wanted to say something nice, but he put himself in an embarrassment, he scratched his head, "It's different, although I haven't been in a relationship, I know it's different......"

"What's the difference?"

"I don't know either, but my mom always said that there is no love in the food outside, only the food cooked by the family has enough love. ”

Athena frowned, puzzled.

Khalid smiled and said: "A servant or a cook cooks, for him it is just work, there is nothing to be happy about, but relatives and lovers are different, I remember when my father finally came back once, my mother would always prepare carefully for a long time, go to the vegetable market early in the morning, pick my father's favorite dishes, buy the freshest, she is also full of joy when cooking, especially when watching my father eat, there will always be an indescribable sense of satisfaction......" Khalid spread his hands and looked at Cheng Mo, "I can't tell where love is hidden, probably hidden in those ordinary actions!"