Chen Yi returned to Pingcheng on March 4th. He and Shen Yu had just finished an overseas assignment. After reporting back to the unit, they drove seven hours from B City and arrived home late at night.
Pingcheng had developed rapidly these past few years. The old city buildings near Pingjiang Mansion had been earmarked for renovation by authorities above. High-rise buildings stood all around, elevated highways extended everywhere. Yet strangely, Pingjiang West Lane, separated from the mansion by only a wall, still stood tall amidst the surrounding prosperity, becoming the unique old city memory in this modernized area.
After eleven at night, Chen Yi got out of the car dressed entirely in black, his shirt hem tucked in neatly, his belt the standard-issue Type 07 from the unit. He stood tall and upright, his brow bones firm and well-defined.
Shen Yu, dressed the same way, sat in the driver’s seat, his arm pressed against the window frame, his neat and clean short hair unable to suppress the sharpness between his brows and eyes. “It’s so late, I won’t go in then.”
Chen Yi undid the two buttons at his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves with one hand, raised his hand and waved his fingers twice, saying casually, “See you.”
“Whatever.” Shen Yu laughed and cursed, then drove away. The black large jeep flashed its tail lights twice at the intersection before disappearing without a trace.
In the deep night, the sound of footsteps grinding against the ground was particularly clear. Chen Yi walked to the mansion entrance. The security guard on duty at the gatehouse recognized him, greeted him, and personally opened the door.
The Chen family lived in the southeast corner, a three-story Western-style house with a blend of Chinese and Western architecture inside and out. Even at night, the entrance was lit with lights. The main door had been newly changed to a password lock.
Chen Yi hadn’t been home often these past few years. He tried several passwords, all incorrect. After using up the last chance, the alarm next to it went off, sounding especially loud in the silence.
“……”
This flimsy door probably couldn’t withstand one kick from him. Chen Yi glanced around, walked leisurely to the corner on the south side, stepped back a few paces, then with a sudden rush, nimbly climbed over with his hands and feet.
The instant he landed, the family’s helper auntie happened to hear the alarm’s commotion. Throwing on clothes, she came out from inside the house. Seeing a dark shadowy figure at the corner of the wall, she was about to scream in fright.
“Auntie Zhang, it’s me.” Chen Yi took two or three steps and came out from the darkness, patting off the dust he’d gotten on his hands, smiling at the old woman. “I’m back.”
Auntie Zhang sighed with relief, both surprised and delighted. “You child, coming home perfectly fine but not taking the main entrance, insisting on climbing over the wall. What if you’d fallen and hurt yourself?”
Chen Yi smiled without saying much more, supporting the old woman’s shoulder as they walked inside. “Are Grandpa and the others all resting?”
“The old master went to bed early. The old madam has been in a meeting in the neighboring city these past few days. Your parents went out to handle some matters and haven’t returned yet.”
Chen Yi’s father, Chen Shuyu, had recently encountered some troublesome matters. One of the investors in a project under his management had gotten into trouble a while ago, been sentenced to death, and implicated many people. His project had already progressed halfway, but because of this matter, it could only be forcibly stopped to undergo investigation.
Chen Yi had heard a bit about this from his grandfather before returning, but he wasn’t too clear on the specific details of the matter. He only knew that a residential building in the B City suburbs had collapsed, causing quite an uproar.
As for the involved interests behind it, he probably didn’t understand as much as those gossip-watching masses.
At this moment, Chen Yi went upstairs to take a quick shower, changed clothes, and came downstairs with wet hair. Auntie Zhang heated up a bowl of chicken soup for him.
“Drink it while it’s hot, then rest early after drinking.”
Chen Yi walked over to sit down at the dining table. “It’s so late, you should go rest first. After I finish drinking, I’ll clean up myself.”
“Alright.”
Auntie Zhang returned to her room. Chen Yi hurriedly finished the soup, went to the living room and turned on the TV, keeping the volume at the lowest level, and found news about the B City residential building collapse from a while back.
The B City local station had done a comprehensive retrospective documentary report after the accident completely ended, from the frontlines of the accident to the subsequent trial of related personnel.
After watching for about ten minutes, Chen Yi heard the sound of a car entering through the gate. Before long, Chen Shuyu and his wife Song Jing walked in from outside.
The couple both froze upon seeing their son sitting in the living room. Song Jing changed into slippers first, walking inside while asking, “Why did you come back?”
Chen Yi paused the TV and turned his head to look at them both. “On leave.”
Chen Shuyu also came over. “How many days are you on leave this time?”
“About a week.”
Song Jing walked to the dining room to pour a glass of water. “Did you go to your grandfather’s place during this leave?”
Chen Yi’s grandfather was a retired old general, residing year-round in a military compound in a certain district of B City. Chen Yi currently worked at a military subdistrict in B City. When on leave, he usually went over to the compound.
“I went, stayed for a day.”
Chen Shuyu asked, “How are your grandfather and grandmother?”
“Both doing well.” Chen Yi glanced at them both, rubbing his ear. “When they quarrel, they’re not much different from you two.”
Song Jing said, “Nonsense. When have your father and I ever quarreled? It’s always him doing something wrong, and me stating facts with reason and evidence.”
Chen Yi laughed. “Alright, whatever you say is right.”
The TV in the living room was still on. Chen Shuyu glanced at it. Chen Yi followed his gaze. The phone screen was frozen on a doctor’s profile, but he didn’t pay attention at the time and asked, “Dad, is the matter with your project serious?”
“Serious what? First, we didn’t take bribes; second, we didn’t engage in private transactions. Everything is clearly written in black and white contracts.” Chen Shuyu wasn’t worried about the investigation results, just rather troubled by the delayed project progress. “Now we can only hope their side moves faster.”
Chen Yi also breathed a slight sigh of relief.
Song Jing sat beside him. “Since you’re back for so long this time, why not take a day to meet Auntie Zhao’s daughter that I mentioned to you before?”
Chen Yi thought to himself—I haven’t even finished this sigh of relief, and another breath has risen up. He played Tai Chi with his mother. “We’ll see. I still have other matters to attend to in Pingcheng these few days.”
“What matters could you have? Day in and day out staying in the unit, going out on missions all over the world. I haven’t even seen a single female mosquito around you.” Song Jing had always held a grudge about her son suddenly giving up a great future to join the military back then. “I just can’t understand—when you were in eleventh grade, your uncle wanted you to go to military school after graduation. You said no, you wanted to do physics. Fine, you joined the competition class and went abroad. We had no objections. But what happened? In your junior year, you ran back home without a word and enlisted. Chen Yi, what exactly are you thinking?”
Chen Yi met his mother’s questioning gaze, his eyes as resolute as always. “I’m just doing what I want to do, making the right choice.”
……
Chen Yi should be counted as having grown up in a military family from childhood. Most of the relatives on his grandfather’s side walked the path of the older generation.
Although he had admiration for that military uniform and had boyhood dreams of being a hot-blooded man, he still couldn’t understand what that military uniform truly represented, why his grandfather and uncle and those other uncles always said they must share glory and disgrace with that military uniform.
In his junior year of high school, he and his mother went to the Northwest to visit his father, who was working on a project there. Chen Shuyu’s astronomy group and the neighboring physics group’s research personnel lived in the same dormitory building. During his time in the Northwest, Chen Yi was fortunate enough to attend a lecture by an old professor about the development of nuclear physics in the country, which sparked his interest in physics.
After returning, Chen Yi collected relevant physics materials, rejected his uncle’s suggestion to attend military school, chose his own school and entered the competition class. After that, everything went smoothly, and he got his wish to attend the school he wanted.
During those two years at the University of California, Chen Yi had always been the prized student in the main course professor’s heart. The professor had him join the project team to learn and research difficult problems with senior colleagues.
But day after day of data recording and all sorts of messy relationships within the project team made Chen Yi constantly doubt whether his initial decision was correct, and was all this really what he wanted now?
All the changes happened during the second semester of his sophomore year.
Chen Yi and the professor went to a physics research institute built in the suburbs of Latakia City to give a presentation. On the way back, they encountered a riot instigated by local reactionaries. A group of over ten people were trapped in a dilapidated small hotel on the roadside calling the embassy for help. Outside, crying and gunshots were everywhere.
Chen Yi bandaged the professor’s wound from being accidentally injured. Blood stains covered his hands and clothes. The surrounding commotion made everyone’s hearts panic.
Night fell. The silent deep night magnified both fear and the surrounding movements. Rustling footsteps by the wall made everyone spontaneously pick up available tables, chairs, and vases as weapons for self-defense.
Wind drilled in through gaps in the windows. Chen Yi and several young, strong male students stood on either side of the main door separately, sweat sliding down from the corners of their foreheads.
At this time, a Chinese compatriot received a call from the embassy. After listening, they nearly cried out, “Outside are Chinese soldiers! They’ve come to rescue us!”
Chen Yi breathed a sigh of relief and repeated it in English. There were small cheers at the scene. Probably the people outside heard the commotion, knocked on the door and indicated in Chinese. After confirming safety, they rushed in from outside.
The group was quickly evacuated. The bus drove toward the distance. Through the window, Chen Yi saw the figures of those going against the tide outside the vehicle.
In that instant, he suddenly understood what that military uniform meant.
……
To avoid the blind date arranged by Song Jing, Chen Yi only stayed home for two days. On the third day, he and Shen Yu went to Pingcheng’s military subdistrict to attend a large meeting, then returned to B City afterward.
On the day of the Luolin earthquake, he went to the compound to visit his grandfather and grandmother. Late at night, he received an emergency assembly call and hurriedly returned to the unit. Ten thousand officers and soldiers completed all preparations for long-distance rescue missions before five in the morning, departing from B City to head to Luolin to participate in rescue missions.
At the same time, Luolin, thousands of miles away, had already become a field of rubble. The local province’s transportation routes in all four directions—east, south, west, and north—were completely cut off. The tall mountain ranges became the most difficult obstacle for rescue teams to enter the severely affected areas.
In the disaster zone, after the seismic activity ended, Ruan Mian and that batch of medical personnel who had come to attend the training spontaneously organized to become the earliest batch of medical teams at the time, commanded by Meng Fuping and Qilu General Surgery Department Director Jiang Jinhai. But due to the shortage of medical supplies, some critically ill patients had already stopped breathing before they could receive treatment.
Luolin was about a hundred kilometers from the severely affected area of Luosen. The earliest batch of armed police officers arrived at Luolin’s outskirts at four in the afternoon, using nearly five hours to open up a rescue passage.
At that time, it was nine in the evening. The medical team on site had recorded over two hundred deaths.
The armed police medical team quickly joined the rescue work on site. Officers and soldiers went onto the rubble to begin rescuing the wounded trapped underneath.
Ruan Mian served as the first assistant for Meng Fuping, consecutively performing two major surgeries lasting over ten hours. For the final suturing, Meng Fuping handed it to Ruan Mian.
She was brought onto the operating table by Meng Fuping. Meng Fuping never worried about incision suturing with her.
The surgery completely ended at five in the morning the next day. By then, the rescue teams on site were no longer just that initial batch.
By noon, two more small batches had come. In the afternoon, while taking turns resting with the military medical team, Ruan Mian learned from Lin Jiahui that one of these two batches had rushed over from B City.
At that time, the rain in Luolin had stopped and the sky was clearing. The haze in the air had been purified considerably.
Ruan Mian hurriedly finished eating the compressed biscuits distributed to her, gulped down two mouthfuls of mineral water, and threw herself into other rescue work.
After seven in the evening, the rescue team rescued a batch of children from a collapsed disability welfare institution in the north district of Luolin and urgently sent them to the temporarily built medical center.
After examination, the injuries of these dozen or so children weren’t serious—only partial soft tissue contusions and scrapes. Ruan Mian only learned later that the reason these children hadn’t suffered too serious injuries was because when the earthquake occurred, eleven teachers at the disability institution had used their bodies to build a safe zone for them, exchanging their own lives for theirs.
That evening, these children were arranged to rest in the same large tent. Considering their special circumstances, the medical team arranged for two doctors who knew sign language to stay inside with them.
Ruan Mian was one of them.
These children were already very sensitive due to their physical disabilities. Combined with this sudden disaster and upheaval, it was very difficult for them to fall asleep for quite a while. Some even secretly hid under the covers crying. It wasn’t until the middle of the night, unable to resist sleepiness, that they gradually settled down.
The other female doctor sat on a low stool leaning against the bed dozing off. Ruan Mian was also somewhat sleepy and prepared to go out to wash her face with cold water. A little girl with congenital mutism tugged at Ruan Mian’s clothes, her big eyes blinking twice.
Ruan Mian stopped and communicated with her in sign language, only then learning she needed to use the bathroom.
She dressed the little girl, carried her to the temporarily built bathroom outside, and when they came back, the little girl pulled out a storybook from under the pillow, wanting Ruan Mian to tell her a story.
Ruan Mian moved over a low stool to sit by the bedside. Afraid of disturbing the other children, she kept her voice very soft.
At night, people occasionally walked and ran outside the tent. Today’s welfare institution rescue work had Chen Yi as the main commander. After the children were sent to the medical center, he went elsewhere. Only now, after finishing work, did he remember to come over and take a look.
Walking to the tent entrance, he heard a voice coming from inside. “……’You silly fat pig!’ Little Monkey patted Little Fat Pig’s face, which was covered in bruises, and said mischievously, ‘This is the best gift!’ Little Monkey climbed up the hickory nut tree and picked many hickory nuts. It brought the hickory nuts back home and invited Little Fat Pig to eat them together. They both loved eating hickory nuts!……”
Chen Yi found it amusing. He reached out to lift open a gap in the tent curtain. From this angle, he could only see half of the speaker’s profile.
He inexplicably felt it was somewhat familiar, but it wasn’t appropriate to rashly go in. He released his hand, turned his head to see teammates who had gone to other places for rescue today returning, and lifted his foot to walk over there.
Before long, Ruan Mian came out of the tent, rubbing her sore and swollen neck, and went to the water basin to wash her face. The instant cold water splashed onto her face, she heard someone behind her shout.
——”Yi!”
Ruan Mian paused for a moment, turned off the tap and looked back, but only saw a man wearing military uniform walking over there, his back tall and unfamiliar.
She withdrew her gaze without paying much attention.
—
**Author’s Note:** /This time I noticed you first/
Chen Yi’s profession is relatively sensitive and inconvenient to write in detail, so I’ve processed it vaguely. The regions mentioned in the text are the same.
Next Mei You Ren Xiang Ni – Chapter they’ll definitely talk to each other =v=
Note: The fairy tale is “The Little Pig’s Gift”