[Crossing] Beacon Fire Dragon Line

All the previous foreshadowing was to ask Qi Han this sentence.

Sheng Rui was like a man who just proposed a marriage proposal, nervously waiting for a yes or no from the other party.

He knew it was going to be tough.Not an easy task even in his day, let alone now.But if he didn't even ask, he was afraid that he would regret it later.

"I can't take you to Germany." After a while of silence, Qi Han said.

Two months later, the Allied forces will land in Normandy, and Germany will become the largest heated kiln in Europe.

"You can stay. We'll stay together in Rome, Terni, Spoleto, Florence, wherever."

Qi Han stared at their intertwined hands on the table, lowered his voice: "Didn't you ask me who Greta is?"

"……Um."

"She's my wife. Me and her, we have some special circumstances." His mind went back to that hellish night in Cologne, and all that followed. "We made an appointment to end the relationship when the time is right. But not yet. If I run away now, it will be very difficult for her."

Sheng Rui fiddled with the ball of paper in his hand.Unfold, knead.Unfold and knead again.

"I'm not asking if you can, but if you are willing. When you find all the "Le" and the war is over, you are single again. After that, what will you do?"

Hearing such a question, for a moment, a strange expression flashed across Qi Han's face.Very fast, but Sheng Rui caught it.

Finally he gave an ambiguous reply:

"After that, it doesn't matter what happens."

Before Sheng Rui could ask any more questions, he got up to pack his bags.

Probably the experience in Terni used up all the bad luck, and after starting from Spoleto, the journey went smoothly.There was only one near-miss when approaching the town of Assisi. Allied planes carried out small-scale bombing at the foot of the Subasio Mountains, but the location was far away from them.

Qi Han covered the car with a camouflage net with grass blades and branches to clean up the wheel marks on the road.The two of them hid deep in the grass covered with camouflage cloth, lying motionless on the ground, listening to the bombing in the distance.After an unknown period of time, everything subsided, the sound of the rumbling plane engine faded away, and they climbed out again and continued on the road.

While driving, Sheng Rui unknowingly fell asleep in the bumps.Although he wanted to look at Qi Han more, but he really couldn't resist the sleepiness of staying up all night.When they woke up in the middle of the road, there was a large cloud of water and light in front of them, and they were driving across the grassy shore of the lake.He knew that this was Lake Trasimeno, and that he was about to leave Umbria and enter Tuscany.

I don't know when he was wrapped in a blanket.He stood up slightly, resting his head on the carriage to look at the water.Qi Han felt his movement and slowed down the car.No one spoke, and there was a subtle silence between them.

——Like a pair of lovers who calmly agreed to break up.He thought vaguely, and was dragged away by sleepiness again.

There is a whistling wind in my ears, like traveling through a tunnel of time and space.In the dream, he spent a long time, and saw the future of himself and Qi Han.He returned to Rome the day before the crossing, the sun was shining brightly, he turned around in the Piazza Rotunda where people were coming and going, and saw Qi Han smiling at him.

When he woke up again, the car was parked on a high ground.The lilac fairies all over the mountains are like golden oil paint splashed on the green canvas, undulating between the rice paddies, and the wind in early April in Tuscany is filled with sweet fragrance.Qi Han stood beside him, looking into the distance.

"What's wrong?" Sheng Rui lifted the blanket, sat up sleepily and asked.

Qi Han turned his head and said softly, as if he was afraid of waking someone up: "We're here."

Sheng Rui followed his gaze, and in the depression on the banks of the Arno River, surrounded by green hills, small towns and villages were dotted.There is a red and white city in between, like a bouquet of flowers in full bloom on the lawn.

This is the origin of the nickname "Flower City".

Florence is one of Shengrui's favorite European cities.But only today, when he saw it, he felt resentful—why did it arrive so soon?

Even if it is such a miraculous meeting, all they can do for each other is just a short journey in each other's lives.

"Are you leaving now?" Sheng Rui asked cautiously.

"I'll take you into the city." Qi Han said.Now Florence is like an isolated island, and it is not easy to get in and out.He raised his chin to a suitcase on the passenger seat, "That, you take it with you." There were food and daily necessities in it, as well as some money, which was all he could get now.

Sheng Rui nodded, and suddenly remembered that there is one more thing that should be asked: "If, I mean, if one day you return to your original time and space, what will happen to me?"

"You will also go back. But there may be a little time difference in between, maybe a few seconds, maybe a few years. The time dimension is different in different time and space, and it cannot be accurately estimated."

"That's it."

Qi Han pulled out the pendant from the neckline, "This thing will always emit long waves of a specific frequency. If one day in the future, my colleagues come to this time and space, they will find its location. As long as it is taken away, you can Go back, it doesn't matter if I'm here or not."

Sheng Rui imagined the moment when they parted.Take a step away from each other, and then look back, the other party is already a hundred years old.It is not a description or a metaphor, but a real century.Between them lies the vicissitudes of time and space.

Would Qi Han at that time still remember that in Tuscany in [-], there was such a mid-spring dusk when golden lilacs bloomed in the mountains and fields?

"Maybe you are right not to be with me." Sheng Rui said slowly. "If I saw you go with my own eyes, I would not be able to bear it if I was left alone in this time and space. If you were far away from me, even if you were no longer there, I would not know immediately. good."

Just like those distant planets in the universe, they may have ceased to exist a long time ago, but the light they emit still reaches and warms people's eyes.

Qi Han didn't speak.His eyes were set to the north, beyond Florence, across the Apennines, and across the distant Rhine.There, Germany's "Thousand Year Reich" is slowly sinking into the night of silence.The golden narcissus of Tuscany and the burning clouds of the Rhine alternately overlapped before his eyes like phantoms, and the latter became the background of the former, like the legendary Rhine gold.

"Hope I'm doing the right thing," he murmured.

After being silent for a while, he suddenly said something out of the blue: "Ray, life is a very mysterious thing."

"Ah?" Sheng Rui didn't follow his train of thought, and didn't understand why the topic jumped here.

"Do you remember that I told you that someone went to Xi'an in [-] before me?" Qi Han asked.

"Yes. What happened to him?"

"He's dead." Qi Han sighed. "Before him, we always thought that the transition is energy conservation, what you bring, you will take away, including life. Later we discovered that life is completely different from other energies. It can repair itself, as long as you leave In this time and space, there are living cells in the body, and life can be restored after the jump. But if all the cells die, they will never be resurrected. It disappears."

He thought about that person.Chi Yue, Chi Caifan's older brother, looks very similar to Sheng Rui when he smiles.He returned intact, but completely lifeless, like a machine that had been suddenly turned off.No one knows where his soul has gone, just as no one knows where it came from.People can replace neural synapses with trillions of network nodes, seal each layer of logical loops with tightly nested if/else codes, and create a god-like perfect artificial intelligence, but it cannot produce life and soul.That is something beyond human beings.

"Why are you saying this all of a sudden?" Sheng Rui was puzzled.

"Because I'm afraid you will disappear." Qi Han rested his chin on his knee and said softly: "Ray, you have to be good. Even if you are not in the same time and space, I know you exist, so I will It's reassuring. We're all part of a bigger program, and maybe one day, we'll meet somewhere."

A strange anxiety swept over Sheng Rui's heart.He always felt that what Qi Han really wanted to say was something else, and he couldn't touch the meaning that gradually dissipated in the air.Something is happening where he can't see, he seems to know it, but he can't do anything about it.

In the evening of April, the smoky wind blows gently, and there is a lazy coolness in the air.Their arms were very close, and there was warmth on their skin.

He turned slightly sideways and turned Qi Han's face.

Qi Han quietly accepted this long and deep kiss.Between the intertwined lips and tongue, the sweet fragrance of daffodils is overflowing.

After entering the city of Florence, as Father Padreio said, Sheng Rui quickly found someone to take care of him.The cardinal arranged for him to live in an old house on Via Santa Maria, facing the Arno River.

Walking into the room, Sheng Rui turned on the light, turned it off, and turned it on again, repeating this three times.

Two car headlights lit up on the municipal square not far away, like two eyes staring at him.They stayed quietly for a long time, then slowly turned, went away, and disappeared.

It wasn't until the light was completely out of sight that Sheng Rui collapsed on the bed with his clothes on.There was a yellow daffodil petal on his clothes, he turned over, took it off and held it in the palm of his hand, as if he could feel Qi Han's body temperature from it.

He really is gone.

Sometimes, once some people pass by, they really never see each other again.Even if we meet again in the future, we are already different people with different moods.

Perhaps in this whole life, what belongs to them is only these short four days and three nights.

At this time, Sheng Rui would not have imagined that a whole year later, there would be another tragic parting between them.At that time, their heads were not the bright starry sky of Florence, but the blood-stained steel sky of Berlin.