Stop it, the country really can't fit any more bans on the domestic entertainment industry.

In the darkness, only the pale light from the phone screen illuminated the hands, their knuckles white from excessive force.

The musty smell in the air seemed even stronger, making it hard to breathe.

"Stop shaking...stop shaking..."

The middle-aged man clenched his teeth, repeatedly telling himself to control his unruly hands. But the more he tried to control them, the more violently they trembled, causing his entire body to sway on the worn-out sofa.

Beside him, his wife's sobs leaked through her fingers, intermittent and like the straining of a broken bellows.

"Dad, we shouldn't have run away back then..."

The daughter-in-law looked up, her swollen, red eyes filled with despair, her voice hoarse, "If we had called the police back then...wouldn't...wouldn't things be different now?"

"Call the police?"

The middle-aged man gave a bitter laugh, as if he'd heard a joke. His voice was dry, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "If we'd called the police then, Dad would already be in jail. He's so old, and his mind isn't clear. Once he's in there, do you think he'd come out alive?"

That one sentence shut his wife up.

Silence fell over the room once again.

Only on the cot, the old man in his seventies turned over and mumbled something incoherently in his sleep: "The road... is repaired... everyone, let's go..."

Upon hearing this muttered remark, the couple's bodies stiffened simultaneously.

The middle-aged man closed his eyes in anguish, and two streams of turbid tears slid down his weathered face.

Memories were like a rusty knife, slowly sawing at his nerves.

The story begins a few years ago.

Back then, the old man was still in good health. Although he had been retired from the army for decades, he always stood up straight. The old man was a man who couldn't sit still and had a warm heart. After retiring from the army, he started a business collecting recyclables, and he did it for the rest of his life.

It was a few years ago that the old man started to act strangely.

At first, it was just a matter of being forgetful, like forgetting to bring their keys when going out or forgetting to turn off the stove when cooking. At that time, the couple was busy working outside to earn money, so they didn't take it too seriously, just thinking that they were getting old and their memory was getting worse.

It wasn't until later, when the old man started talking to thin air and putting his shoes in the refrigerator, that they realized he might have Alzheimer's disease.

It was around that time that the road at the village entrance became a source of great anxiety for the old man.

That dirt road had been in disrepair for years, and it became extremely muddy on rainy days. The elderly and children in the village often slipped and fell while walking on it.

When the old man was lucid, he kept saying, "This road needs to be repaired. If it's not repaired, how will everyone get out of the house?"

But road repairs require money, and the village didn't have any, so the matter was put on hold.

No one expected that during the period when the old man's condition worsened and his cognition began to become confused, he would actually take matters into his own hands.

At that time, the family didn't stop the old man from continuing to collect recyclables so that he would have something to do.

The old man was particularly diligent during that period, getting up early and working late every day, pushing that wheelbarrow around the village.

They thought the old man was collecting scrap, but actually, he was "preparing materials".

He dug out all the "good stuff" he had collected throughout his life from various sources—some he had picked up in the mountains in his early years, and some that others had sold to him as scrap metal, which he had never been willing to sell and had kept hidden in his cellar.

To normal people, those things are like death warrants that can send someone to their doom.

But what was that in the eyes of the old man, whose understanding was confused at the time?

Those were solid lumps of iron, hard roadbed stones, the best material for road construction.

then.

On many quiet nights.

While the whole village was asleep.

This elderly man, over seventy years old and already mentally confused, pushed his creaky little cart, like the legendary Yu Gong who moved mountains, and began his great undertaking of moving mountains.

He laboriously loaded the aerial bombs and mortar shells, weighing dozens or even hundreds of kilograms, along with boxes of hand grenades, onto the truck and transported them to the muddy road at the village entrance.

He took the iron shovel and dug a hole, one stroke at a time.

Then, like laying stone slabs, with utmost care and meticulousness, they buried piece by piece in the soil those things that, once detonated, could level half a village.

To make the road surface smooth, he also filled the gaps with soil and tamped them down firmly with his feet.

Just thinking about that scene now makes middle-aged men's scalps tingle and their hearts feel like they're going to jump out of their throats.

In just a few months, the muddy road that the villagers had complained about for over a decade actually became sturdy and easy to walk on thanks to the old man's "selfless" dedication.

The old man, having done all this, forgot about it as soon as he finished.

The family members were busy making a living, and when they saw that the road at the entrance of the village had become easier to walk on, they just assumed that someone in the village had done a good deed by filling in the soil, and they didn't think about it in any deeper.

Until recently.

That day, the middle-aged man was tidying up the cellar at home, preparing to clean out and sell the old man's messy junk.

In a moldy cookie box, he found a yellowed letter.

There were a few lines of writing crookedly written on it. It was a habit the old man had developed when he was in the army: he always had to keep track of everything he did.

Road construction material usage record:

[Large, round iron lumps: Twenty-three.]

[Forty-five long iron rods (with tails).]

......

[Small iron melon (with handle): Three boxes.]

[Note: The roadbed at the village entrance has been completely buried; the road is now complete, sturdy, and durable. Actively responding to the national call: "To get rich, build roads to the heavens."]

I must say, the old man was quite perceptive; this was his first reaction.

However, he felt that his father was not very educated and had misspelled the words. The correct word should be "If you want to get rich, build more roads."

But when he looked more closely at the other contents of the note...

The middle-aged man was stunned for a moment, not realizing what these code names meant.

"A big lump of iron? A long iron rod?"

He muttered to himself, thinking it was some scrap metal part that the old man had picked up.

He didn't pay much attention to it, but a couple of days ago, his grandfather regained consciousness and told him what those things were.

He suddenly rushed out of his house, grabbed a shovel, and ran like a madman to the village entrance.

It was noon, and there was no one on the road.

He found a secluded corner, and with trembling hands, he dug down with a shovel.

I only dug a few times.

"when."

A muffled thud.

He threw down the shovel, lay down on the ground, and used his hands to dig away the loose soil.

When that huge, spindle-shaped creature, covered in red rust, lay quietly in the soil, revealing its ferocious appearance.

The middle-aged man plopped down on the ground, his crotch instantly becoming wet.

At that moment, he felt like the sky had fallen.

He finally understood what was written on the note.

That's a bomb!

That's an arsenal big enough to execute their entire family ten times over!

And his own muddle-headed old man actually used these things as paving stones, paving a so-called road to heaven for the whole village.

Where is this road to heaven?

This is clearly a road to the underworld!