[Crossing] Beacon Fire Dragon Line

〖We all continue to lose all kinds of precious things.Precious opportunities and possibilities, irreparable feelings.This is one meaning of existence.But we have a little room in our heads that holds these as memories.

——"Kafka on the Shore"〗

On April 4, the last German line of defense was breached.

On April 4, Berlin was blocked from the ground.

On April 4, the United States and the Soviet Union joined forces on the Elbe River.

On April 4, after the air raid in the early morning, the Soviet army launched the final general offensive.

On April 4, the Soviet army advanced to the center of Berlin, and Hitler committed suicide.

This was the last fierce battle between the Soviets and the Germans.

The entire city was obscured by smoke and dust at a height of 300 meters.Fighting was taking place in every street and every house, and Berlin was like a boiling cauldron, enveloped in flames and thick smoke from all sides.The sky collapsed, and the flames were like dysprosium.

Ironically, the Berlin authorities had already begun to retreat long before the Soviet army swept across the sky.While shouting "Fight to the last man", the government is busy distributing luggage and blowing lamps and candles.It's like when a ship on the rocks is about to sink, the crew jumped into the lifeboat and ran away first.

And it was the foreign SS who really fought to the end.

At this time, most of the foreign SS troops in Berlin were reorganized into the No.11 "Nordland" Division, and were ordered to stick to the 9th defense area where the Parliament Building in the city center was located.

For these foreign SS troops, the imminent defeat of Germany put them in an embarrassing situation.

On the one hand, their homeland was ashamed of the SS, and they became outcasts, already homeless.

On the other hand, they also had sufficient reasons to believe that surrendering to the Soviet Union was never a good idea.The Soviet Union did not sign the "Geneva Convention" and had no obligation to protect prisoners of war. In particular, it did not accept the surrender of the SS. The SS would be dragged out of the ranks of prisoners of war and shot directly.

For most of them, the only way out is hard work.Someone half-voluntarily and half helplessly chained himself to the base of the heavy machine gun, vowing to live and die with Berlin.

In the western suburbs of Berlin, a US military jeep was galloping.

Sheng Rui sneaked out from the nursing home.Because of his serious injury, the doctor refused to let him go. In the end, he had to repeat his old tricks, wait for an opportunity to escape, and tried every means to hitchhike north.Although he scrambled, crawled, and spent his life on the road, when he finally came to the Elbe River, the Battle of Berlin was coming to an end.

"Ray, I still think it's not an option for you to just run over like this." Harold who was driving said, "Even if you find him, God bless you, and then what? One of you is a deserter and the other is a war criminal." , how to live? Do you have any plans?"

"No." Sheng Rui said truthfully, "I'll think about it in the future." In what kind of situation will I meet Qi Han, and what to do after the encounter, it is completely impossible to predict now, we can only Play by ear.He made up his mind that if he couldn't leave alive in the end, he would rather die with him.

Harold sighed.He had been looking forward to returning to Philadelphia with Sheng Rui after the war, but now that Sheng Rui ran away, he became a deserter, and all his previous efforts were in vain.

A few kilometers away from Berlin, Sheng Rui said: "Hal, stop here." This is the edge of the safe distance, and if you go further, you will encounter refugees and troops leaving the city.

Before opening the car door, Sheng Rui turned around and said, "Hal, although it's useless to say this, I have always believed that this is not the only world. In a certain world, we will definitely go back to Philadelphia together, live in neighbors, and live together. Work in the company."

"Yeah. We were fined for being late together at work, and we watched the game together after get off work and chatted about the Eagles."

Sheng Rui went around to the side of the cab and hugged Harold through the door.

"Take care, Hal."

"Take care, brother." Harold hugged him back tightly.

Sometimes love is something that has nothing to do with time.Some people can be lovers for life after only getting along for a few days.Some people can be friends for life after only getting along for a few months.

However, for men, feelings are too difficult to talk about.So they talked about the game, about the war, but never about love.

When the general offensive started, Xue Yuan escaped from the main force unknowingly.

Not long after jumping into this space-time, he received a set of long-wave pulse signals compiled in a special way.He knew he had come to the right place.

However, it will take some work to trace back to the specific location of the signal source.He bumped around here and there, and finally came to Berlin, where he mixed into the ranks of the Soviet army.

Although street fighting was everywhere, in terms of the overall trend, the Soviet army's offensive was roughly in a spiral shape, starting from the southeast periphery where the defense was relatively weak, and advancing from street to house to the city center.

Xue Yuan followed the tail of this big spiral.He kept himself in position, trying to avoid the most heavily fired engagement zone, neither charging ahead nor falling behind the last guns that hit the War Overseer.When encountering a large-scale battle, he decisively rolled to the side of the road as a corpse.

He is also in a mess now.The half-length blond hair that was always neatly tied behind his head had long been hastily cut off, and a mess of muddy hair was curled up on his head.There is a long scar on his left cheek from a stray bullet in Budapest two months ago, almost to the eye.

After another round of charge, the surrounding area was quiet.

Xue Yuan pushed away a dead body, crawled out after confirming it was safe, and hid in a bunker.

Not far from him, a pile of rubble slammed slightly.A young Asian man also wearing a Soviet military uniform with cat eyes jumped out like a wild cat, jumped up half of the broken wall without a sound, looked around for a while, and then disappeared into the street in a flash.

After a while, Xue Yuan met this person again.Their routes seemed to coincide, both advancing in circles towards central Berlin.

In an environment of insecurity, people will spontaneously hope to find companions.Xue Yuan's intuition told him that this seemed to be a guy who could be with him, so he decided to go over and develop a friendship.

He sneaked over and reached out to pat the opponent on the shoulder.

Because of exhaustion, Sheng Rui failed to maintain the vigilance he should have. He only focused on scouting the front, and didn't watch out for someone fraudulent behind him. Three of the seven souls were scared away, and his mother tongue blurted out: "Damn!! Don't scare me!"

"Are you Chinese too?" Xue Yuan knelt down beside him, "What's going on ahead?"

Xue Yuan has always been used to not wearing military uniform properly, and now he is wearing a Soviet military uniform with the neckline open to reveal his collarbone. Anyway, no one cares about checking his appearance on the battlefield.When he looked left and right, he inadvertently revealed the cross-shaped pendant on his chest.

To others, it's just an odd-looking accessory.But Sheng Rui knew this thing.Regardless of whether it was abrupt or not, he grabbed it and held it in front of his eyes for a closer look.A black pendant resembling a Latin cross, with subtle metallic textures on it.I will never admit my mistake, it is exactly the same as the one Qi Han is carrying.

Xue Yuan was taken aback by Sheng Rui's sudden action: "Hey, don't touch this!"

And what Sheng Rui said next surprised him even more——

"Do you know Qi Han?"

In the 9th defense area of ​​the Capitol, Nightingale hugged the empty Mauser K98k rifle, leaned against Qi Han, and cowered in the corner of the underground bunker.Around him, there were more than a dozen people sitting scattered.

An editor, there are only so many people left now.These days, they tried their best to hold a evacuation channel for citizens, allowing a large number of refugees to flow out of the city.

Now, everything is coming to an end.The Soviet army had crossed the Brandenburg Gate and was just a step away from the Reichstag.

The teacher looked around and wanted to say something, but before he could speak, he felt dizzy.

It's over, it's over.All of Germany has fallen, and the empire is coming to an end.In the burning streets outside, he could still see visions of past glory, like a fleeting bitter dream.

He held onto the table beside him, trying his best not to look weak and desperate, but the dry voice betrayed him.He heard his own uncharismatic voice: "Thank you for everything you have done for Germany."

No one answered.Several soldiers raised their dull eyes to look at him, then lowered their heads immediately.

"Now, I announce that you are rescinding your oath." He paused, and repeated: "I am rescinding your oath. Break out to the west and surrender to the American army." In the Vistula River Army, he had witnessed Thousands of German soldiers died in the hopeless counter-offensive.Enough is enough, there is no need for more unnecessary sacrifices.

The USSR did not accept the surrender of the SS, but the US now accepts it.This is their only way out.

A dozen soldiers stood up for the last time and lined up, saluted the division commander, and walked outside the bunker.Behind them, there was a gunshot and the sound of something heavy falling to the ground.

No one looked back.

At a crossroads, the attacking Soviet troops were stopped.The German army on the opposite side had several MG42s forming a cross-fire blockade at the intersection. Without heavy weapons to clear the way, it was impossible to pass.

Sheng Rui and Xue Yuan were also mixed in this team.

Taking advantage of this short interval, Sheng Rui asked Xue Yuan, "How can you find him?"

Xue Yuan pointed to his pendant: "This thing can search for the location where he sent the signal, but the effective range is a radius of three kilometers."

Sheng Rui nodded: "So, we're going to the city center." With that as the center, it can almost cover most of Berlin.

They both deliberately avoided talking about a possibility - if Qi Han died, his pendant was taken away by others as a trophy, and the two of them would have no way of knowing.Maybe in the end, what they found was only the pendant, not Qi Han himself.

"What will happen to me after you leave?" Sheng Rui asked.

"You will go too, but I don't know how long it will take. It may be a few seconds, or it may be several years. I really want to tell you an exact time, but I really don't know." Xue Yuan replied.

This is similar to what Qi Han once said.Sheng Rui didn't ask any more questions.

A stray bullet suddenly flew obliquely from behind them, and plunged into the wall not far away with a puff.This wall-drilling method is unique to Soviet bullets.Xue Yuan glanced back, shocked: "Fuck! The war supervisor is here, hurry up and charge!"