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

He Yuzhu stood by the hotel window for a long time, stunned, when he first saw Lake Geneva.

The water was so clear. So clear that you could see the stones at the bottom, and the fish you didn't know, slowly swimming from one patch of shadow to another. He had squatted by the Yalu River for three years, where the water was murky and yellow all year round; he had never seen it so clear.

Chen Dashan said from behind, "Director, the car is here."

He put on the navy blue casual suit and straightened his collar in front of the mirror. His face looked older than it had three years ago; there were more wrinkles around his eyes, and his cheekbones were more prominent. He looked at himself for a moment, then turned and went downstairs.

The hotel was in the suburbs, a forty-minute tram ride from the Palais des Nations. The tram wasn't crowded—people in suits, robes, all sorts of skin colors. He Yuzhu sat by the window, watching the street names he didn't know flash by, the pointed-roof churches, the low walls covered in vines, and the people drinking coffee by the roadside. They drank slowly, a single cup of coffee lasting an entire afternoon.

The meeting has been going on for two weeks.

Every day, He Yuzhu took the tram across Lake Geneva to the Palais des Nations. His badge identified him as a "technical specialist," and his seat was in the last row of the meeting hall, against the wall. Behind the long tables in front of him, people in suits sat, and people in military uniforms stood, while translators whispered among themselves. The place names they were arguing about—the 38th parallel, the 17th parallel north, Cao Dai, Dien Bien Phu—were all places he had measured on the battlefield.

But he couldn't understand a word of the language used in the arguments.

French, English, Russian, and occasionally Chinese. The simultaneous interpreter's voice came through his headphones, crackling with static, speaking translated versions of the languages ​​he couldn't understand. As he listened, his mind would sometimes wander, thinking of the snow at Chosin Reservoir, the scorched earth of Shangganling, and that rainy night in Kumsong—shells had turned the sky red, and his comrade beside him had called out once, never to call out again.

One day during a break, a man in a U.S. military uniform walked over.

"Which department are you from?"

He Yuzhu looked up at him. The man was in his forties, a lieutenant colonel, with a professional smile on his face. He stared at the man for two seconds.

"Translator."

The man nodded and left.

Chen Dashan later asked, "Director, when did your English become so good?"

He Yuzhu didn't answer. He couldn't say that it was something he had known in his past life.

In mid-June, it began to snow in Geneva.

It wasn't a heavy snowfall, but fine snowflakes that melted as soon as they hit the lake. He Yuzhu came out of the venue and stood under the eaves, watching the snowflakes fall. Shen Lian appeared beside him at some point.

"There's something you might find useful."

He pulled a brown paper bag from his briefcase and handed it to He Yuzhu.

He Yuzhu took it and opened it.

It was a photocopy. The cover was printed in English, and the title roughly translated as "Summary of the US Military Communications System Upgrade Plan in the Far East." He flipped through it, and his finger stopped on the third page.

The encryption protocol framework described there is exactly the same as the technical features of the Parker radio seized from the White Tiger Gang two years ago.

"Where did it come from?"

Shen Lian looked at the lake.

"Someone left it at my door."

He Yuzhu didn't ask any more questions.

For the next three days, he barely went to the conference venue. He stayed in his hotel room, reviewing the summary over and over again, more than a dozen times. Encryption protocols, frequency band allocations, equipment models—he compared them one by one with the notes he had copied from Parker Radio two years ago.

Where is the gap?

Frequency allocation table. This isn't just a framework description in the summary; it's specific—which frequency band will be used on which day, and which unit will use which call sign.

He went to knock on Shen Lian's door.

"Could you check if there are any communications personnel among the members of the U.S. military delegation?"

Shen Lian glanced at him.

"Yes. A major named Hunter, a technical advisor. He drinks coffee in the lounge every afternoon."

The next afternoon, He Yuzhu went to the lounge.

He sat in the corner, ordered a coffee, and drank it slowly. At 3:15, a middle-aged man in casual clothes walked in, took a coffee, sat by the window, and began to read a newspaper.

He Yuzhu observed him for three days.

On the first day, he noticed that before reading the newspaper each day, Hunter would take a small notebook out of his pocket, flip through it, and then fold it up and put it back. The size, thickness, and color of that notebook were exactly the same as the standard field logbooks used by the U.S. military.

The next day, he discovered that the page Hunter turned to always had a red sticky note tucked inside.

On the third day, he noticed that Hunter went to the bathroom at a fixed time—3:50 p.m., when he was reading the third page of the newspaper.

On the fourth day, when Hunter went to the bathroom, he left the notebook on the table.

He Yuzhu stood up and walked in that direction. His pace was neither fast nor slow, his gaze sweeping over his surroundings. There were still seven or eight people in the lounge; some were reading newspapers, some were talking in hushed tones, and no one paid him any attention.

He paused in front of that table for three seconds.

I turned the page and found the one with the red sticky note. Twenty frequency bands, thirty call signs, belonging to six divisions and three independent communications battalions under the Eighth Army Group. The numbers and letters, like a carving knife slicing through a stone slab, stroke by stroke, were all etched into my mind.

He closed the notebook and continued walking. He went to the restroom, washed his hands, and came out.

Hunter had returned to his seat, the notebook still on the table, which he was flipping through.

That night, He Yuzhu wrote down the page he had memorized. Referring to the summary, he filled in the frequency bands and unit numbers one by one. At two in the morning, he put down his pen and looked at the pages on the table.

The system interface lit up in my mind.

[Key intelligence link detected. "Breaking the Net" side quest progress update: currently 100%.]

[Mission complete. Mission reward points: +5,000,000.]

[Current total points: 55,000,000 + 5,000,000 = 60,000,000 points.]

He stared at the number. Sixty million. Forty million short of one hundred million.

The interface continues to display new content:

[Activation conditions for the "Rise of Yanhuang Plan" updated: 70% met.]

[Two hidden conditions remain to be met—]

[Condition 1: The host must personally facilitate at least three "Post-War National Development-Level Technology Import/Research Projects". Current completion status: 2/3.]

[Condition 2: You must have accumulated no less than 000 million points in system-approved "Civilization Inheritance" type actions. Current points accumulated: 830 million.]

He Yuzhu closed the interface. He walked to the window and opened it.

A cold wind swept in, carrying fine snowflakes. He gazed at the dark, still surface of the lake in the distance, recalling the numbers he had just scribbled down. In a few months, these frequencies would become channels for radio waves to travel over North Korea. And the person who wrote down those numbers was probably sleeping in some room right now, unaware that his little notebook had been read.

He stood there for a long time, until his thin shirt was soaked with snowflakes.

The Geneva Conference concluded in July 1954.

Discussions on the Korean issue yielded no agreement. The United States, along with fifteen other countries, issued the Sixteen-Power Declaration, and Zhou Enlai's last-minute proposal for reconciliation was rejected. However, a ceasefire was reached on the Indochina issue—with the 17th parallel north as the boundary.

He Yuzhu returned to China with the delegation.

The plane was an old-fashioned propeller plane, slow and noisy. He sat by the window, eyes closed, listening to the engine hum. The person next to him was reading a Russian technical dictionary, the pages turning softly.

The plane jolted. Then it jolted again.

The dictionary slid off the seat next to me and fell into the aisle.

He Yuzhu opened his eyes and bent down to help her pick it up.

He raised his head.

She was looking at him too.

Qin Huairu.

It had been many years since they last met. She was wearing that blue Lenin suit, her hair was shorter than before, and her face was still the same, only thinner. Her cheekbones were higher, and her eye sockets were deeper. She looked at him, her lips moved, but she didn't say anything.

He Yuzhu handed over the dictionary.

She took it, her fingers touching his; it was cold. He remembered an old scar on the web of her hand. Years ago, in a ravine near Shangganling, she had been wounded by shrapnel, and he had bandaged her wound.

"...You." She spoke, her voice a little hoarse.

He Yuzhu nodded.

"it's me."

The plane lurched again. Outside the window, above the clouds, the sunlight was blindingly white. She held the dictionary, looking at him for a long time. He looked at her too. Neither of them spoke; only the engine hummed.

Then she glanced out the window.

"You've grown taller."

He Yuzhu didn't speak. He looked out the window at the blindingly white sunlight, and at the cotton-like clouds that slid past the wing. The sunlight outside was so bright that he could barely open his eyes.

But he didn't close his eyes.

He remembered that winter, the same sunlight shining on the snow-covered ground of North Korea. She stood in the ravine, glanced back at him, and then followed the group. He thought it was the last time he would see her.

She heard the sound of pages turning beside her. She opened the dictionary and continued reading.

He Yuzhu turned his head and closed his eyes as well.

The buzzing of engines could still be heard. The plane flew above the clouds, heading east.