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

As the last layer of gauze was removed, He Yuzhu heard footsteps outside the window.

The footsteps pattered on the gravel path, approaching from afar and then passing by the doorway. Nurse Xiaolin paused, listening intently.

"What's all the noise outside?" she muttered, continuing to cut the bandages.

The last bandage was removed, revealing his left leg. The wound was healing fairly neatly, with pink new flesh covering the scar, curving from the knee to above the ankle like a stiff centipede. He Yuzhu tried to hook his ankle; he could move it, but the skin and flesh were taut.

"Don't rush it." Xiaolin threw the old gauze into the enamel plate. "A bullet hole won't heal in a couple of months."

He Yuzhu didn't respond. He stared out the window; the late July sun was blindingly bright, and the half-withered locust tree in the yard stood motionless, its leaves drooping.

It's too quiet.

It wasn't the tense, deathly silence before a night battle. It was something else entirely—as if a giant hand had abruptly silenced everything, leaving only a vacuum-like stillness. There was no background artillery fire, no sniper fire, not even the death-defying hum of enemy planes. The world was like an old gramophone that had suddenly snapped its strings at the climax of a song, spinning its empty record in vain.

A radio crackled and sputtered from the other end of the corridor, someone turning a knob. The signal flickered, sometimes near, sometimes far, finally settling on a clear, resonant male voice:

"...The Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army and the Commander of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army on one side, and the Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Command on the other side, hereby agree that, effective from 22:00 on July 27, 1953..."

The sound echoed back and forth in the empty corridor.

He Yuzhu's hand froze in mid-air.

Xiaolin stopped too. The scissors hovered above the enamel plate, forgotten to fall. All the footsteps running in the yard disappeared; everyone seemed to have been paused.

The radio continued reading the terms of the agreement, the demarcation line, and the prisoner exchange. The words entered his ears, but the meaning didn't register in his mind. He Yuzhu just stood there, listening.

It's stopped?

That's it... stopped?

A strange sense of emptiness gripped him. It wasn't joy, nor sorrow, but the weightlessness of the ground beneath his feet suddenly being pulled away. For three years, his world had been compressed into contour lines on a map, ammunition reserves, and the moment the bugle call sounded. Now, all these supports collapsed simultaneously. He was like someone pushing a boulder uphill with all his might, only to have the boulder suddenly disappear, the inertia nearly causing him to fall.

A scream erupted from the other end of the corridor. Someone had been holding their breath for too long, and finally, it burst from their throat. Then came a second, a third. Cries, laughter, the dull thud of a table being slammed, the crisp sound of an enamel mug shattering—all mingled together, flooding into the small hospital room like a tidal wave.

The scissors in Xiaolin's hand fell into the plate with a clatter. She covered her mouth, her eyes instantly reddening, and turned to run out.

He Yuzhu didn't move. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, his left leg dangling, his right foot on the cold cement floor.

The sunlight outside the window was so bright that he squinted.

He remembered that snowy night at Chosin Reservoir. Forty degrees below zero, his fingers were so frozen he couldn't straighten them, and he lay in a snowdrift waiting for the bugle call. He was a new recruit then, clutching his rifle, his teeth chattering. Not from the cold, but from fear.

He remembered the day Commander Song slammed the map in front of him. It was April 1952, the eve of the Battle of Shangganling. The commander's stubby fingers pointed at the contour lines of Wusheng Mountain: "This hill is yours. If you can't hold it, you'll come back with your head."

He looked down at the map. The contour lines circled one after another, like the rings of a tree. He traced the curves with his finger, memorizing every ridge, every high point, and every possible point of attack. He carried that map in his arms for two months, soaked with sweat and rain, its edges worn and frayed. He could locate any coordinate in the dark by touch—a muscle memory earned through seventeen days of steadfast defense and the loss of over three hundred lives.

He remembered the time Black-faced Li dragged him out of a shell crater. The shell landed a meter away, and the blast wave threw him three meters away, filling his ears with dirt. Black-faced Li dragged him while cursing, "He Yuzhu, you little bastard, are you out of your mind?" He didn't talk back because he saw that Black-faced Li's left arm was missing, and the sleeve of his cotton-padded jacket was flapping in the wind like a tattered flag.

He also thought of those who had died. He remembered some names, others not. But their final appearances were all similar—eyes open or closed, covered with the uniforms of their comrades or the raincoats of their enemies, left behind in foreign mountains, ditches, and forests. There was a young soldier, only seventeen years old, who couldn't even pull the bolt of his rifle properly when he enlisted. Before he died, he grasped his hand and said, "Commander, my mother is waiting for me to come home and get married."

He Yuzhu didn't tell him that he couldn't go back to his home. He just clenched the increasingly cold hand.

He recalled his first murder.

It was the second phase of the Fifth Campaign, a night raid. He led a squad to raid an enemy outpost. When the flashlight beam swept across, he hid behind a tree, his heart pounding so hard his eardrums ached. The sentry approached, his black leather shoes rustling on the fallen leaves. He leaped out, his bayonet plunging diagonally into his ribs.

The man didn't have time to scream. Blood gushed out from the scald groove, scalding his hand and making him tremble.

Afterwards, he squatted in the bushes and vomited for a long time, emptying his stomach and bile completely, and was still dry heaving. The squad leader handed him a water bottle, said nothing, and just patted him on the back of the head.

Later, he got used to it. Then, pulling the trigger became an almost instinctive calculation—angle, wind direction, lead time. The war dulled a part of his humanity, while sharpening another. Now, this blade, forged under duress, has suddenly lost its sole target.

He recalled witnessing the explosion.

On the third day of the Jincheng counterattack, he led a company to capture an unnamed hill. Just as the engineer platoon was carrying ammunition into the main position, a bomb dropped by an enemy plane hit the pile right in the middle.

He stood in the trench thirty meters away, watching the wooden crates disintegrate in the flames. The shockwave slammed him against the trench wall, the back of his head hitting the wall with a loud thud. By the time he struggled to his feet, the ammunition handler, Xiao Chen, was gone.

Only half of the body remained. The upper body had flown away somewhere.

The night before, that kid had asked him for a cigarette, saying he had saved up three months' worth of allowance to buy his sister a pretty dress after the war.

He Yuzhu stood there for a long time. The deputy company commander tried to pull him away, but he wouldn't budge. He searched through the ruins for twenty minutes and only found Xiao Chen's half-burnt liberation shoe.

He stuffed his shoes into his bag without saying a word.

He thought about evacuating.

That was last winter, on some unnamed hill. They held out for six days and six nights, their entire company reduced from 137 to 31. They had only half a basic ammunition supply left, and supplies couldn't be sent from the rear. The order from above: Retreat.

He was the last to leave.

As he left the position, he glanced back. The snow was falling heavily, seeping into the shell craters and onto the seventeen bodies that hadn't been moved in time. A blanket of white quickly covered them.

He suddenly wondered if they were cold.

The noise in the corridor gradually subsided, turning into a suppressed, continuous murmur. Someone started singing "The Song of the Chinese People's Volunteers," but went off-key after a couple of lines. No one laughed; everyone just hummed along. As they hummed, their voices began to tremble with sobs.

He Yuzhu used the edge of the bed to stand up. His left leg couldn't bear the weight, and his knee felt like it was being stabbed with a knife. Without holding onto the wall, he moved step by step to the window.

The courtyard was filled with people. Wounded soldiers who could walk, doctors, nurses, and support staff all came out. Everyone just stood there, looking up at the sky, as if they were seeing for the first time how blue the sky could be and how white the clouds could be.

A young soldier with a missing left arm squatted under a locust tree, his face buried in his knees, his shoulders trembling. An old soldier walked by and patted him on the back with his good hand.

He Yuzhu watched all of this.

He thought of the dead. They couldn't see this scene.

But he has to watch for them.

Look at the sky, look at the clouds, look at this clumsy and messy peace that has finally arrived.

When darkness surges in, what arrives even earlier is a chilling clarity.

There was no sound, no light screen, only numbers floating up on their own. Like the ink-printed casualty statistics in battle reports, cruel yet precise.

Chosin Reservoir, the Fifth Battle, Shangganling, Jincheng. These place names are followed by a string of numbers that were once burning hot, but have now turned cold. Twenty-one million, eighteen million four hundred thousand, twenty-four million. Added together, they exceed fifty million.

He spent three years, with blood, fire, and countless lives, earning 50.5 million points—that thing called "points."

Another 48 million was spent. In return, the bombing routes were corrected, penicillin was obtained, and the blueprints and tactical advice were quietly sent out.

In the end, only two and a half million remained. Like the few coins left in one's pocket after a high-stakes gamble.

This is the path he has walked. A path of blood and fire, measured in numbers.

Progress: 50.5 percent.

Rating: Excellent.

He Yuzhu scoffed inwardly. He wasn't sure if it was at this "excellence," or at himself for actually settling scores at this moment.

He opened his eyes; the sunlight outside the window was still blinding.

Something was digging into his hip in his pocket. He pulled it out; it was a photo of Yu Shui and the deaf old lady. The edges of the photo were worn and frayed, but Yu Shui's smile, despite his missing front tooth, was still so bright.

He stared at the photo for a long time.

Then he raised his head, and with all his might, straightened his body, which was trembling slightly from his injuries, and slowly, with perfect precision, raised his right hand towards the north—the direction of Changjin Lake, the direction of Shangganling, the direction of countless nameless hills and the direction where his comrades who would never return were buried.

His knuckles were pressed together, his arm like a spear. He had done this thousands of times. This time, it wasn't for orders, not for victory, not for any abstract words.

Just to say goodbye.

For those who remain forever on the road.

It's also for that version of myself who was once walking on the road, but now doesn't know where to go.

The singing outside the window started again, this time more synchronized:

"With heads held high and chests puffed out, we crossed the Yalu River..."

He Yuzhu lowered his hand and leaned against the window frame.

The journey is over.

But life goes on.