Siheyuan (traditional courtyard house): Starting with the Korean War, returning home to take charge

The military train stopped at Andong station for an hour.

He Yuzhu sat by the window, watching people in cotton-padded coats running around on the platform. They were moving things, calling out, and smoking. It was completely dark, the platform lights casting a dim yellow glow that shrouded everyone's faces in a layer of gray. His left leg wound, which had been covered in the carriage all day, was now itchy. He rolled up his trouser leg, scratched it a couple of times, and his fingernails scraped against the newly grown granulation tissue, causing a numb and itchy sensation.

Chen Dashan was asleep across from me. His head was tilted to the side, his mouth was half-open, and a little drool hung from the corner of his mouth. He smacked his lips in his dream, I wonder what he was dreaming about eating.

The correspondent, Xiao Zhou, walked over from the other end of the carriage and stood next to him.

"Deputy Division Commander, someone is looking for you."

He Yuzhu looked up.

"Who?"

"They didn't say. They just told me to pass on a message to the guesthouse outside the station, room 302 on the third floor."

He Yuzhu stared at him for two seconds. Xiao Zhou felt uncomfortable under his gaze and scratched his head: "That person... was wearing casual clothes and glasses."

He Yuzhu pulled down his trousers, stood up, took his old cotton-padded coat from the luggage rack, and put it on. The collar of the coat was worn white, and there was an oil stain that couldn't be washed off.

"When will the car leave?"

"The dispatcher said it would take at least another two hours."

He Yuzhu nodded and walked towards the car door.

A gust of cold wind rushed into his collar as he got off the train. He hunched his shoulders and turned up the collar of his cotton-padded coat. The people on the platform were still busy unloading supplies and checking lists; no one gave him a second glance.

The guesthouse wasn't far from the train station. It was a three-story gray brick building, with large patches of whitewash peeling off the exterior, revealing the weathered, reddish bricks beneath. The sign at the entrance was faded and peeling, only the words "Andong" and "Guesthouse" vaguely discernible. He Yuzhu pushed open the glass door and went inside. The lobby was empty; an old man sat behind the reception desk, reading a newspaper. He looked up, his gaze lingering on He Yuzhu for a moment above his reading glasses, before looking away again.

He Yuzhu went up to the third floor.

The door to room 302 was closed, but light shone through the crack. He knocked three times.

The door opened.

Shen Lian stood at the door, still wearing those round-framed glasses, still with that expressionless face. He stepped aside.

"Come in."

There was only one table, two chairs, and a bed in the room. On the table were a thermos, two enamel mugs, and a stack of documents. Shen Lian pointed to the chairs and sat down on the edge of the bed. He Yuzhu sat down as well.

Shen Lian poured two glasses of water and pushed one of them over.

"Is your leg better?"

"That's about it."

Where is Chen Dashan?

"Sleeping in the car."

Shen Lian nodded, picked up the mug, and took a sip. The room was quiet for a few seconds. The distant sound of a train whistle drifted in from outside the window, drawn out and long.

"The ceasefire is over." Shen Lian put down the jar. "Regarding the organization of your special forces battalion, headquarters has several considerations."

He Yuzhu looked at him but didn't reply.

"First, retain it and expand it into an independent reconnaissance regiment, continuing to be under the command of the 20th Army Corps." Shen Lian tapped his finger lightly on the table. "Second, downsize it, with the core members being reassigned to the training corps of various armies."

He paused, looking at He Yuzhu.

What do you think?

He Yuzhu countered, "What do you think?"

Shen Lian didn't answer. He leaned back against the headboard, his fingers interlaced on his knees, his gaze fixed on a water stain on the wall, as if counting its shapes.

"Your investigation report during your two months on the committee was well-written," he said. "Have you considered changing your working methods?"

He Yuzhu remained silent.

Shen Lian pulled out three documents from the stack on the table and spread them out.

The first document lists places for students at the Nanjing Military Academy, a two-year program with the possibility of staying on as instructors after graduation. It has a red heading and is stamped with the General Staff Department's seal.

The second document was for a specially recruited technical personnel position within the General Staff Intelligence Department. The rank would remain the same, and the job duties were classified. It contained few words, thin paper, and only a serial number at the end.

The third document was from the Volunteer Army Combat Heroes Touring Report Group, which gave lectures across the country for six months, promising priority placement in local communities after demobilization. This document was the thickest, and it also included a drafted lecture outline and itinerary.

He Yuzhu read through the three documents.

Then he pushed it back.

"I'm going back to my unit."

Shen Lian looked at the three documents but didn't touch them.

"Which unit should I return to?"

"Special Forces Battalion"

"What if we downsize?"

He Yuzhu thought for a moment.

"I was transferred with them."

Shen Lian nodded. He put the three documents away and placed them back under the stack of documents. He didn't speak immediately, but slowly pulled another piece of paper from his briefcase and unfolded it. The movement was slow, as if giving He Yuzhu time to prepare.

"Domestic experts have examined your US military radio."

He Yuzhu's brow twitched.

"It's not the ordinary AN/GRC-9, it's an improved version with an added encryption module." Shen Lian handed over the paper. "They made a copy of the blueprints, and the original will be returned to you in a few days."

He Yuzhu took it. He couldn't understand the circuit diagram on the paper, but he could understand the Chinese characters marked on it—"encryption module location", "frequency band expansion interface", "backup power supply slot"... He stared at those words for a few seconds, unable to imagine how those experts had stayed up for several nights working on this thing.

He raised his head.

"What else?"

Shen Lian looked at him. His eyes narrowed slightly behind his glasses.

"The Shenyang Institute of Materials has issued a report on the samples you seized at Shangganling last time."

He Yuzhu's fingers tightened slightly on his knee.

Shen Lian took out a thin, unmarked brown paper envelope from his pocket. He placed the envelope on the table and pushed it in front of He Yuzhu.

He Yuzhu looked down at the envelope. He didn't open it, nor did he ask any questions.

Shen Lian picked up the enamel mug and took a sip of water.

"Director Qian said he accepted the gifts."

He Yuzhu raised his head.

Shen Lian didn't look at him, his gaze fixed on the dark night outside the window. After a few seconds, he said again, "He also said that there are many people who deliver spoils of war on the battlefield, but you are the first person to deliver 'teaching materials' to him."

The room fell silent.

He Yuzhu sat there, looking at the blueprint on the table, at the unopened envelope, and at Shen Lian's eyes, whose depths were unreadable behind his glasses.

He knew what was in the envelope—perhaps he knew what the envelope represented.

Those Kevlar fragments. Those high-energy-density battery samples. Those things sent out under the guise of "captured US military experimental materials," things that didn't belong to this era.

It's flowing to places he doesn't know. Flowing to certain people, certain blueprints, certain laboratories that are still figuring things out as they go.

"Is there anything else?" he asked.

Shen Lian shook his head.

"That's all. Let's get back in the car, it's about to leave."

He Yuzhu stood up. He folded the blueprint and put it in the inside pocket of his cotton-padded coat. He picked up the kraft paper envelope and put it in as well, pausing for a moment when his fingers touched it.

He walked to the door and grasped the doorknob.

"Old Shen."

Shen Lian didn't move.

"Those things," He Yuzhu said without turning around, "if they're really useful, don't tell me who sent them."

Shen Lian remained silent for two seconds.

"Know."

He Yuzhu opened the door and went out.

1953 October.

The special forces battalion's new location was on the outskirts of a small, unnamed town in western Liaoning. The barracks were old Japanese military barracks, rows of gray brick bungalows. The doors and windows had been replaced with new ones, but the bullet holes in the walls remained, dark and unfilled.

When He Yuzhu got out of the jeep, he saw two rows of people standing at the entrance of the barracks. The line stretched from the entrance all the way to the middle of the parade ground. Everyone was there, not one missing—Old Zhou, Veteran Zheng, Veteran Liu, and the two new recruits rescued from the mine. Chen Dashan stood at the head of the line, his left arm still bandaged. Seeing He Yuzhu get out of the vehicle, he stood at attention and shouted:

"Attention! Salute!"

Everyone raised their hands.

He Yuzhu stood there, looking at those people.

Some were familiar, some were unfamiliar—he didn't know the new recruits after the expansion. But they were all looking at him, and he recognized that look in their eyes—on the battlefield, in the tunnels, when he crawled out of piles of corpses.

He walked forward, slowly passing in front of the line. He looked at each person and nodded to them.

He stopped at the end of the line. He turned around and stood at attention.

salute.

Everyone put their hands down at the same time.

Chen Dashan walked over and stood next to him.

"Commander," he said in a low voice, his gaze sweeping over He Yuzhu's face, "you've lost weight."

He Yuzhu didn't speak, but turned to look at him. His gaze lingered for a moment on his left arm, which was still wrapped in bandages.

Chen Dashan grinned: "It doesn't hurt anymore. Old Soldier Zheng is even more ruthless when changing dressings than the American devils."

He Yuzhu's lips twitched, as if he wanted to laugh, but he didn't. He turned his head and looked back at the soldiers, at the newly painted white walls, at the bullet holes in the walls, at the bare mountains and the hazy sky in the distance.

That night, He Yuzhu sat alone in the house.

On the table lay the blueprint Shen Lian had given him, the letter that had never been opened, and the notebook filled with all sorts of notes from the past three years.

He didn't sleep.

He sat for a long time. Then he pulled a wooden box from under the bed, unlocked it, and took out something wrapped in oilcloth from the bottom.

The tarpaulin was lifted to reveal a thick stack of documents. The cover was made of kraft paper with German printed on it, and next to it was a small note in his own handwriting: "Primary Industrial Machine Tool".

He placed the documents on the table and began writing a letter.

The letter was long, three pages long. It described the disparities he had witnessed on the battlefield, the "bottleneck" issues he had heard about, and how he didn't know if these things were useful, but since "Director Qian" had said thank you, they were probably useful.

He paused at the end. The pen hovered over the paper, he thought for a long time, and then added another line:

"Don't ask where these things came from. I can't explain it either. Just see if they're useful. If they are, keep them; if they're not, burn them."

After finishing writing, he sealed the letter and documents together in a file folder.

In the recipient's address field, he only wrote three words:

Director Qian.