[Crossing] Beacon Fire Dragon Line

〖Everyone has a fairy who can make a wish, but only a few people remember the wish he made. ——"Berlin Childhood"〗Turning the corner, Greta was waiting there.

In such a cold weather, she only wore a woolen long coat.Qi Han walked over and put his uniform windbreaker on her body: "You should wear more."

"I was in a hurry when I came out." She smiled, took out a crumpled brown paper envelope from her pocket and handed it over: "Here, this is it."

The letter was sent half a year ago, when Rome was still occupied by the Germans.The war and chaos on the way made it wander for so long before finally finding the person who received it.The seal has been opened, revealing a thin note.

"I didn't open it. It came like this," Greta explained.Now the letter inspection rate in Germany is almost [-]%, and people are well aware of it.

"It's okay." Qi Han took out the letter paper and looked at it. It was just a few ordinary words, but he stared at the signature at the end for a long time.

Greta turned her head slightly: "Is it a very important person? Your eyes are different."

"Well, a friend." Qi Han put the letter into the inner pocket of his uniform, "Thank you for your hard work, I will send you out."

The two started walking side by side towards the outside of the camp.Greta limped on one foot, and Qi Han walked very slowly.They are very close but avoid physical contact with each other.

At the checkpoint, Greta handed over the family pass, and the guards opened the door for them.

"When are you leaving?" Greta broke the silence.

"next week."

"Oh." Greta tucked the scarf with her red fingers, "Be careful."

"Is there enough money?"

"Well, that's enough." Greta raised her head, "Don't send me any more, just keep it. You've always paid me all your salary, how can you live by yourself?"

"I have a ration ticket." Qi Han looked around and lowered his voice: "Don't save too much money, try to exchange as much food as possible." The Reichsmark will not be in circulation for long, and the days after the war for her and her family will be very difficult.

"I will remember." She sighed softly, cast her eyes on the fallen leaves in the air, and waved her thin hands blankly in front of her face, as if trying to chase away an invisible fly: "I——I really don't Know how long I can last. Mom is still so hysterical all day long, waiting for another letter from Dad from Romania. Everyone is in a mess. Isn't it funny? Everyone has their own problems. Even when the war comes, we all work together I’ve been through so much and nothing has changed.”

He listened to her talk, silent.Finally he said, "At least you're still together."

"Yes." Greta smiled, "This may be the only comforting thing."

They stopped in front of the station, waiting for the next tram.Greta hugged him gently: "I'm sorry, Hans, you have never been allowed to go to my house for such and such things all the time. Even if we are just a couple in name, it should be your home .”

"it's nothing."

"If there is anything else I can do for you, please tell me."

"Well... there is only one thing. If there is any news about this person—" he pointed to the letter in his pocket, "please tell me."

"Okay, as long as I can find you." She glanced sadly across his face, "We don't have much time together. Take care."

"You too."

The tram carrying Greta drove away, Qi Han turned and returned to the camp.

Passing by a building, through the window glass, he saw a family sitting at a dining table.Housewives in aprons are ladling turnip soup from a small steaming pot and pouring it onto crude but polished white china plates.The steam cast a thin white mist on the windows, making one think that the room must be very warm.

It was happiness that he could not understand.

Greta knew he was going to be transferred elsewhere next week, but didn't know he was going to the Western Front.

The war is coming to an end, and his agreement with Greta is about to expire.Even Hanover, his nominal home, was about to cease to belong to him.

The streets of Berlin were desolate.Citizens have become accustomed to the bombing, with insensitive faces hurrying through the rubble-filled streets, the city is as blurred as the people.Everywhere is gray, just like the world in his eyes when he was a child.

He grew up in Kreuzberg, southeast of Berlin, one of the most immigrant and least German districts.In Berlin, outside Germany.

And the whole world before he was ten years old was just his small room, a place he almost never stepped out of.Books, books, books everywhere, paper and electronic, Chinese and German, surrounded by a non-existent land isolated from the world.Later, he read the English text "Book of Lost Things" in school, and the room in it always reminded him of his hut full of books.

He remembered that he used to practice a piece of Bach's equal temperament on the old piano in the corner. His grandfather was cutting cabbage in the kitchen.The window panes were mottled, and the air was sweet with the sweet mid-spring fragrance in the cool wind from the Landwehr Canal to the south.

After becoming an adult, he has forgotten many past events, but this unremarkable fragment often emerges clearly, gently enveloping all his senses.

That was his childhood in Berlin.All his memories of "home".

There is a lawn outside his window, and when spring comes, it is full of unknown flowers.Grandpa said they were pink and beautiful in one big piece, but to him it looked like just a layer of gray.

Once, he saw several children running to pick the flowers and lick the honey in the stamens.After they left, he also secretly ran over, imitating their appearance and licking the nectar, which was sweet.He was very happy and felt that he knew what pink was like.

He has since used flavors and notes to define the colors of his imagination.Sweet is pink and sour is purple. "do" is blue and "re" is yellow.His favorite Brahms lullaby is green, because his grandfather told him that his eyes were this color, and he thought this peaceful piece should be like his eyes.Later, when he went to school, his color blindness was corrected, he saw the color, and thought that perhaps this piece should be more navy blue, but he still preferred to "see" it as green.

Later, when my grandfather fell ill, he was lying on a wooden bed in the corner of the room, and wrote many mottoes from ancient and modern China and foreign countries on small slips of paper, and asked him to choose one.

"Can I only pick one?" he asked.

"Well, people can't think too much. If there are too many things, you will mess up. If there is chaos, you will make do with it. If you make do with it, you will make do with it. Life is over. Remembering one reason for a lifetime is enough."

He looked and looked, and finally settled on "Alsichkann (doing my best)".Since it takes so long to remember for a lifetime, he thinks it is easier to remember shorter.

"Oh, not bad, not bad." Grandpa was very satisfied, "Can you keep doing it?"

"Yes." he said.

The doctor came and went, the calendar turned day by day, and my grandfather became more and more ill.

In the last days, his grandfather stroked his head and said in a panting voice with lung sounds: "Hans, even if you are alone in the future, don't be afraid. Remember that sentence, alsichkann. Whenever, if If you don’t know what to do, just do one thing well. As long as you do one thing well with all your strength, the whole world will help you.”

That night, my grandfather stopped breathing.

He watched as many people came to their cabin and removed books from the shelves.They explained to him that the books had been donated to a school.Later someone came to take him away and sent him to a school as well.So he knew that he was also donated.

Since then, he has set a rule for himself: do his best and follow all the rules that can be followed.Because if you don't, you don't know how to control every moment, how to maintain your unsustainable life alone in this confused human jungle.

Alsichkann.

Alsichkann.

At midnight, it began to rain.This is the last rain in Berlin this winter.

The raindrops with snow particles crackled and knocked on the window, like the whisper of an insomniac.

Qi Han lay on the hard bed in the barracks, tossing and turning for the first time, unable to fall asleep.Under the pillow was the letter from Rome, signed at the end, "Love your brother".

He remembered that day in the outskirts of Florence, he stopped the car and waited for Sheng Rui to wake up.In the narcissus bushes slanted by the setting sun, Sheng Rui's beautiful face looked like a sleeping king.

His last chance to have a family has been missed.He couldn't say if he regretted it.

The rain never seemed to stop.

Geilenkirchen, Germany.

The splash of mud and sand was like hail, and the steel helmets clanged.After a pause in the rain of bullets, Sheng Rui slightly raised his head and looked at where the big stick was.

Since the phone was not working, reinforcements could not be called, so they could only rely on the strength of the three squads in this area to defend the position.

More than 20 meters away, there was still a previously dug trench on the ground, and the big stick commanded them to retreat to the nearest traffic trench: "The first team covers, the second team and the third team alternately move to the left!"

With an order, the second squad jumped out of the bunker first, and rushed to a few trees seven or eight meters away.

After they took cover behind the tree, Harold called out, "Attention, shift three! Three, two, one, go ahead!"

Following the exit of the last syllable, more than a dozen people divided into two rows, filed out quickly, leaped forward in one breath, and hid in the previous position of the second class, and the second class continued to move.

After three alternate advances, the two squads jumped into the trenches and quickly took positions at the individual shooting positions built by the trench to provide fire cover for the first squad.The big stick was the last one to run over. The German army on the opposite side had reloaded and started a new round of shooting. The flying bullets rubbed his heels and caused mud flowers.

"Quick! Quick!" Harold yelled.

The big stick lay down on the spot and rolled forward.The people in the trench immediately dragged him in with all their might.

It's a mess.Everyone was loading, cocking, shooting, screaming.There are such voices all around.

They didn't even have a heavy machine gun, so they could only rely on their Garand rifles to resist the opponent's powerful fire suppression.The only good news is that due to the muddy ground, the tank tracks cannot walk.Otherwise, a few Tiger tanks would crush them ferociously, and they wouldn't have to think about anything.

Sheng Rui didn't have a weapon in his hand, so he couldn't do anything, so he had to lie on the bottom of the trench.

The trench is T-shaped, and everyone is concentrated on that vertical, facing east.

Suddenly, a flame came from their left side, igniting the dead grass beside the trench along with the wind.With the rattling sound of a series of rifle fires, the rain of bullets pierced through the flames, and several soldiers on Sheng Rui's left fell down before they could even make a sound.

That flame is the effect of a flamethrower.The U.S. military often uses this thing to "wash" out the German troops hidden in fortifications and bunkers, and the Germans hate it deeply.They probably seized a batch in the battle a few days ago, and they came here specially to retaliate against the U.S. military.

"Damn, move!" The big stick commanded his subordinates to move to the side of the T-shaped trench.

Sheng Rui realized the seriousness of the problem—not only did they face a strong enemy now, but they were also outflanked.

Big Stick looked back and saw that their left side had no cover and was completely exposed to the fire range of the German army.The flamethrower and rifle raid just now severely damaged the troops on the left, leaving only one "temporary worker" cultural relic soldier.

If you can't catch fish, you can get shrimp.

He stretched out his hand and pointed at Sheng Rui: "You, push me up too!"