Not enough Japanese devils to kill? 1.4 billion people volunteer for the Battle of Shanghai.

The Eastern Theater Command General Hospital, 300 meters underground, is the main command center.

Everyone here—generals, officers, technicians, operators, even the armed guards at the door—was staring intently at the large screen.

Left side of the screen: Luodian, 1937, where the red flag planted on the tank cannon barrel flutters in the smoke and morning light.

On the right side of the screen: In 2025, across the country, people roared in unison, and the sound of "Long live the People's Republic of China" swept through every city like a tsunami.

General Wang Kangmei stands in the very center of the circular screen wall.

His figure wasn't tall; he was nearly ninety years old, and his back was already somewhat hunched.

But his voice remained as fiery as gushing lava:

"Did you see everything?"

"This is our country."

At that moment, even the air conditioning in the command center stopped.

Only the old man's magma-like voice flowed and burned:

"From the blood of 1937—"

"Climb out."

He emphasized the word "climb." Not walk, not stand, but crawl.

They crawled out of the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, from the deepest part of hell, inch by inch, by digging their fingernails into the scorched earth, biting at the gravel with their teeth, and pounding the ground with their broken bones.

"From the flesh and blood of the Great Wall of Resistance against Japan—"

"Turn it over."

The scene flashed before his eyes: Xifengkou, the 29th Army's big sword squad, using their flesh and blood to block gun barrels.

Many of those men didn't even have shoes; they ran barefoot on the Great Wall in winter. When their feet got frostbitten, they wrapped them in cloth and continued running.

He ran and ran, then collapsed, his blood staining the Great Wall bricks red.

"From the flames of fourteen years of war—"

"Burn it out."

Fourteen years. Not eight years, but fourteen years.

从1931年9月18日，到1945年9月2日。五千一百零七天。每一天都在烧——

The Northeast is burning, North China is burning, East China is burning, South China is burning, the Southwest is burning. Houses are burning, crops are burning, people are burning.

It burned out all the tears, all the blood, and all the hatred of a nation.

At this moment, Wang Kangmei's voice suddenly rose in pitch.

Like magma finally bursting from the earth's crust, like steel finally reaching white-hot temperatures:

"final--"

"Let us—"

He raised his hands and made a "straightening" motion.

"In the light of 2025—"

"Stand up straight—!!!"

Then, Wang Kangmei slowly lowered her hand, and her voice changed from the boiling of magma to a scalding, never-cooling vibration from deep within the Earth's core:

"In between—"

"For eighty-eight consecutive years—"

"An unbreakable bone."

"The blood will never stop flowing!"

"Unquenchable—"

"soul!!!"

The first sob rang out in the command center.

It wasn't just one person.

It is a piece.

Those soldiers, dressed in their crisp uniforms and usually so disciplined and self-controlled, all had tears in their eyes at that moment.

But no one felt ashamed.

General Wang Kangmei slowly turned around and faced the big screen again.

He raised his hand, a meter away, across eighty-eight years, across the glass of the screen, and gently touched the red flag of 1937 on the screen—

"This flag..."

"Where."

"where--"

"It's China!"

"The Japanese dare to touch—??"

"Then run them over—!!!"

"Crush it into powder—!!!"

General Wang Kangmei raised his head, looking at the Chinese sky in 2025, at this land soaked in the blood of martyrs, and finally blossoming into a prosperous age.

He shouted with all his might:

"The People's Republic of China—"

"Long live--!!!"

"Long live--!!!"

"Long live--!!!"

The young technician slammed his headphones on the ground and stood up, yelling.

The old staff officer took off his hat and waved it wildly, shouting.

The female officer flung her long hair aside and shouted through her tears.

The guard slammed his rifle butt on the ground, accompanied by a shout as he fired a gun.

Outside the command center—

Everyone passing by in the corridor stopped.

In the communications room next door, all the duty officers stood up.

Further out in the medical area, all the doctors and nurses rushed out.

The entire underground base, every floor, every room, every place where there were Chinese people—

The same voice rang out:

"The People's Republic of China—"

"Long live--!!!"

The sound reached every ward of the Eastern Theater Command General Hospital, and was heard by the recovering wounded soldiers who had been rescued in 1937.

Little Sichuan struggled to sit up, looked out the window, and roared in Sichuan dialect, "Long live the new China!!!"

The message reached the surrounding military camps—the soldiers who were training stopped, turned around in unison, faced the command center, stood at attention, saluted, and shouted that echoed across the training ground.

It was broadcast to every Chinese city that was watching the live stream.

Spread to even farther places...

The news reached Luodian in 1937...

Luodian, 1937.

Bian Yun stood on the turret of the "Qilin" tank, and the real-time audio from the command center in 2025 was coming through the earpiece of his personal radio.

He heard Wang Kangmei's roar.

I heard shouts from all over the country.

I heard the heartbeats of 1.4 billion people beating in unison.

He looked up at the flag fluttering in the morning breeze.

This flag.

There were tears.

There is blood.

There is fire.

There is steel.

There is a nation's entire journey from crawling to standing, from crying to roaring, from despair to hope.

Bian Yun smiled.

He smiled calmly.

He pressed the call button:

"General Wang, a Chinese soldier, has lived up to your mission!"

A brief silence.

The old man's suppressed sobs came through the earphones, but quickly turned into a steely, resolute voice:

"Bian Yun, you guys did a great job."

"That flag."

"I saw it..."

"All of China...saw it..."

Wang Kangmei paused, then his voice suddenly rose, like a military order tearing through time and space:

"Now--!"

"Let that flag—!"

"Float up—!"

"It's drifting all over Shanghai!"

"Spreading throughout East China—!"

"Spreading across every inch of China's mountains and rivers—!"

"Let it float for all the Japanese devils to see—!"

Tell them—!

"The People's Republic of China—is back—!"

"Carrying eighty-eight years of blood debt—!"

"Bearing the will of 1.4 billion people—!"

"return--!"

"The debt collectors are here—!!!"

Bian Yun stood on the tank, the morning breeze ruffling the hem of his combat uniform.

He looked at all the Chinese soldiers from 1937 before him, and his eyes lit up again.

That was seeing a glimmer of hope.

That was the light of knowing that "there will be people in the afterlife".

That was when we could finally take a gamble, knowing that the light of the entire future stood behind us.

Bian Yun took a deep breath, pressed the full-band broadcast button, and the sound, transmitted through the tank's loudspeaker, through the drone's suspended speaker, and through the interconnected individual radios, resounded throughout the entire Luodian position, across both banks of the Yangtze River, and throughout this awakening year of 1937:

"receive."

"red flag--"

"It will float up."

He paused, then spoke slowly and deliberately, each word like a vow:

"Drifted to Shanghai."

"Drifted to Nanjing."

"Drifted to North China."

"Drifted to Northeast China."

"Floating to—"

His gaze swept across every face, across this land soaked in blood:

"Every single place the Japanese devils trod."

"Every place where the martyrs fell."

"Everywhere—wherever the Chinese people are."

…………

This moment.

It is a nation that has weathered blood and fire and finally stood tall—this is the present tense.

This moment.

Two timelines.

The same voice.

The same ethnic group.

The same flag.

This is China.

It was, it is, and it will always be.

---

"When a flag flies simultaneously in two times and spaces, when a nation roars at both ends of eighty-eight years, the river of history will change course at this moment—not because it must change, but because it has finally waited for the time to change."

——王抗美将军，1937年10月7日10:00-10:45 / 2026年1月5号时空记录……