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

The truck bounced along the crater-strewn road, the jolting so violently it felt like her internal organs were shifting. Qin Huairu gripped the truck bed tightly, her knuckles white. The scenery outside the window was even more devastated than when she left—the mountains looked like they'd been haphazardly dug out by giants, riddled with charred shell craters and exposed tree roots. The air was still thick with gunpowder and dust, but now carried a sweet, rusty, corrosive odor, like rust mixed with decay, clinging to her nostrils and refusing to dissipate.

She returned with a medical transport team. The reason was legitimate and honorable: the head office needed in-depth coverage of the Battle of Shangganling, requiring reporters to go to the front lines. She submitted her application, her words as earnest as a letter written in blood, and it was approved. Only she knew where she truly wanted to return to.

The vehicle stopped in a valley behind the regimental headquarters. It was several times larger than I remembered, with tents, shacks, and tarpaulin warehouses crammed into the valley. People came and went, yet it was eerily quiet, save for the sounds of footsteps, short commands, and suppressed groans. The sweet, fishy smell was even stronger.

A weary-looking officer wearing a Red Cross armband checked her identification, said nothing, and led her toward the cliff where the regimental command post was located. The entrance was hidden, requiring one to stoop and pass through a low wooden sandbag passage.

The command post was dimly lit and the air was thick with stale air. Several rough wooden tables were pushed together, with maps and documents piled up on them. Several staff officers were hunched over under the oil lamp, their eyes sunken. The sounds of telephones and radios rose and fell, interspersed with hoarse conversations. Qin Huairu spotted He Yuzhu standing in front of the maps at a glance.

He stood with his back to the door, his uniform stained with mud and dust, several dark stains resembling dried blood. His shoulders were taut and slightly hunched, as if carrying an unseen weight. He was speaking into the phone, his voice hoarse, each word squeezed out between clenched teeth: "...I don't care what method I use! If water doesn't get into the tunnels soon, people will die of thirst tomorrow! Have the Third Battalion organize a suicide squad to sneak through the cliff crevice on the back mountain—yes, the path the wild goats take!...Casualties? We can't worry about that! Execute the order!"

He hung up the phone, turned around, and only then did he see her standing in the shadows of the entrance. He was visibly startled, his brows furrowed, his eyes bloodshot like spiderwebs, his eye bags dark, and his cheeks so thin that his cheekbones protruded. Only the cold hardness in his eyes was sharper than he remembered, sharp enough to pierce.

"Reporter Qin?" he asked, exhaustion overshadowing surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Headquarters has sent me to find out what's going on." Qin Huairu stepped forward, her voice trying to remain calm.

He Yuzhu sized her up, his gaze like inspecting an out-of-place piece of equipment, then waved his hand impatiently: "An interview? I don't have time. Outside—" He pointed to the door, "the field hospital, the wounded evacuation point, go there. Ask those soldiers who've lost limbs but can still breathe, what their platoon leader's name is, who else in their squad is still alive. Ask the doctors and nurses how many days they haven't slept, if they have enough bandages. That's the kind of story you want, more real than listening to me yell on the phone."

His words came like machine gun fire, leaving no room for retreat. After speaking, he stopped looking at her, bent down to look at the map, and picked up the red and blue pencils.

The young staff officer beside him gave him an awkward wink. Qin Huairu's face flushed slightly, and he silently withdrew.

She wasn't angry. He Yuzhu's harsh words were like a key, shattering the frosted glass that had always separated her from her previous interviews. He forced her to see the truth—the bloodiest, most unbearable truth.

She actually headed towards the field hospital. It wasn't even really a hospital, just a few large tents and semi-underground shacks. Even before she got close, a sweet, pungent, putrid stench assaulted her nostrils, mixed with the acrid smell of disinfectant and excrement. Inside the tents, it was dark, with a thin layer of straw on the ground. The wounded were packed tightly together, barely enough room to step. Groans, coughs, and suppressed moans of pain filled the air like a never-ending, low background noise.

The medical staff's gowns were so faded they were unrecognizable, splattered with dark red blood and yellowish pus. Their steps were hurried, their eyes numb, yet their movements were practiced and swift. Qin Huairu saw a nurse crouching beside a wounded soldier, carefully using tweezers to remove white maggots from a festering wound; a small clump had already accumulated in a nearby dish. The wounded soldier's eyes were closed, his facial muscles twitching, but he remained silent.

She tried to talk to a wounded soldier who could still speak. The soldier was young, perhaps younger than her, and had lost a leg, leaving his knees empty. He spoke incoherently, sometimes saying he missed home, sometimes murmuring "the squad leader took a shell for me," his eyes unfocused. Qin Huairu took notes, her pen trembling slightly.

A sudden commotion drew her attention. In a corner, several medical staff were performing last-ditch efforts around a stretcher. On the stretcher was an even younger soldier, his face still bearing the air of youth, the gauze on his chest soaked dark brown with blood. An older military doctor was futilely pressing on his chest, while another nurse held up a worn-out IV balloon.

Qin Huairu stood a few steps away, watching. The military doctor's movements gradually slowed, and he finally stopped, straightened up, wiped his sweat, and shook his head at the nurse. The nurse silently pulled over a dirty white cloth and covered the young but lifeless face.

The people around her dispersed in silence, continuing their work as if this were just the most ordinary of countless repetitions. Only Qin Huairu stood frozen in place, her mind blank. She stared blankly at the small outline under the white sheet until a medic came to sort through her belongings.

The medic took out a folded piece of paper, half of which was soaked in blood, from the pocket of the military uniform, carefully unfolded it, glanced at it, sighed softly, and casually placed it on the nearby storage box.

Qin Huairu approached as if possessed, his gaze falling on the note. The pencil writing was crooked, interspersed with pinyin and misspellings:

"Mom, we repelled three enemy attacks today. The platoon leader said I was brave and wants to recommend me for commendation. I just really miss the noodles my family makes. After the battle, I..."

The writing ends here, the last few strokes drawn out—perhaps due to excruciating pain, or perhaps because life was cut short in that instant.

Qin Huairu's vision suddenly blurred. Hot tears welled up in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. She bit her lip to stifle her sobs, but her shoulders trembled uncontrollably. Her stomach churned, and she abruptly turned and rushed out, grabbing onto the wooden support pillars outside and violently retching. Nothing came out, only tears and snot streamed down her face.

After a long while, she slowly got up and wiped her face haphazardly with her sleeve. Her face burned, but her heart felt as if a hole had been punched in it by those few crooked words and that piece of white cloth, and cold wind was howling in. She suddenly understood completely—He Yuzhu had once said, "Write about those people who can't go back," and where the unfathomable weariness and coldness in his eyes came from.

She walked back to the tent, found the medic, and asked in a hoarse voice, "That young soldier... what's his name? Where is he from?"

The medic glanced at her, his eyes a mixture of sympathy and indifference born of a lifetime of life and death, and checked the simple notebook in his hand: "Li Xiaotian, from Linyi, Shandong. Seventeen years old."

Qin Huairu took out her notebook and solemnly wrote down with trembling hands: Name: Li Xiaotian. Place of origin: Linyi, Shandong. Age: Seventeen.

Then, she raised her camera—which she had almost never dared to use here before—adjusted the aperture and shutter speed, aimed at the blood-stained note, the stretcher covered with a white sheet, and the numb or pained faces inside the tent, and pressed the shutter. The flash of the camera lens was blinding in the dim light, attracting a few blank stares, but she didn't care anymore.

She knew that what she photographed might never be made public. But she had to take the photos, she had to record them. This was not for reporting, but to fight against forgetting, to fight against the black hole of war that swallowed each and every real, vivid "Li Xiaotian" with unfinished letters home into cold numbers.

When she stepped out of the tent again, it was getting dark. She looked towards the hidden entrance to the regimental command post in the distance. He Yuzhu should still be inside, talking to the phone and the map, continuing that endless war of attrition, a war fought with lives and wills.

This time, she didn't try to interview him again. She just stood there, gazing at the faint light shining from the cave entrance. In the newly carved emptiness in her heart, besides the cold sorrow, a profound and unprecedented understanding gradually grew.