My mom is waiting for treatment, and you're summoning me to be a hero?

In the early morning at Tiananmen Square, before the sky was fully bright, the area in front of the flagpole was already crowded with people.

It was still a bit chilly in early spring, and many people were wrapped in down jackets, their breath condensing into white mist under the lights.

Zhou Sheng stood alone in the front row, his posture ramrod straight.

He had no bodyguards, nor was he wearing that eye-catching cashmere coat; he was only dressed in a dark, old-fashioned wool coat, the collar buttoned up meticulously. Several early-rising tourists were talking quietly beside him.

"This old gentleman looks familiar," a young man holding a small flag whispered.

The middle-aged man wearing glasses next to him glanced in the direction of his gaze and immediately lowered his voice: "You don't recognize him? The chairman of the Zhou Group. I heard he's been coming to watch the flag-raising ceremony every day for the past three days."

Before he could finish speaking, a commotion arose ahead, and someone whispered a reminder: "Stop talking, the national anthem is about to be played."

As soon as he finished speaking, the national anthem began to play.

Zhou Sheng's expression turned solemn, and his body straightened.

His eyes were fixed on the red flag that was being slowly raised, without blinking for a moment.

Everyone around stood ramrod straight, and some hummed along softly.

Beside Zhou Sheng, there was a soul that only he could see.

That spirit was also dressed in a crisp old-fashioned military uniform, but its eyes were brighter than anyone else's in the square.

He stood in the wind, watching the national flag rise with the most resolute gaze. His lips moved slightly as he silently sang the national anthem, each word so heavy, as if he wanted to sing in the flames of war eighty years ago and the dawn of today.

The song was carried away by the morning breeze and scattered into the vast sky above Tiananmen Square.

Zhou Sheng didn't turn his head, but the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes trembled slightly.

He knew that this was his grandfather's last wish, and a moment that Zhou Yue had waited for far too long.

……

Several more months passed.

In another city, at the gate of an ordinary middle school, people thronged the area during the afternoon dismissal time.

The road outside the school gate is not wide, and it's always a bit chaotic after school.

Today, however, a large crowd had gathered here, leaving a large empty space in the very center.

A car was parked diagonally on the side of the road, with a dent in the right side of the front and spiderweb-like cracks covering the windshield.

The car owner had long since disappeared, leaving only the car and a few glaring bloodstains on the ground.

A little girl lay on the ground, her school uniform covered in dust, her hair scattered in a pool of blood.

One of her shoes flew off, her schoolbag was still under her, and the pages of the book inside the zipper were sticking out and rustling in the wind.

The crowd was in chaos. Some people were calling for emergency help, some were shouting "Is there a doctor?", and some wanted to go forward to check but were afraid to touch anything.

A boy in a school uniform ran across the street.

He ran very fast, his face was deathly pale, and his schoolbag swung back and forth behind him.

He squeezed into the crowd, frozen in place as if his soul had been ripped out.

"Tian...Tian Tian..."

He rushed over and knelt beside the pool of blood.

His sweetheart had her eyes closed, as if she were asleep, but her face was no longer the color of a living person.

Blood slowly seeped from the back of her head and under her arms, flowing into the cracks in the concrete floor.

Gao Yang wanted to hug her, but he didn't dare to use force, so he just stretched out his hand and trembled in the air.

He couldn't cry; it felt like a metal skewer was stuck in his throat, and he could only let out a few intermittent, incoherent breaths.

He didn't know who to call out to, nor who to hate.

He just felt as if the sky had suddenly collapsed, and it collapsed silently, leaving him alone trapped underneath.

Above, unseen by the crowd, Tian Tian's soul was slowly drifting out of her body.

She looked down at herself lying in the blood, then at her brother kneeling beside her, who looked completely drained, and tears streamed down her face.

She reached out, wanting to touch Gao Yang's head, but she couldn't reach it no matter what she did.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

One was below, the other above, separated by the heaviest door in the human world.

Just then, an innocent voice rang in her ear: "Don't cry, let's go home together."

Tian Tian raised her head.

Another soul, exactly like hers, stood before her.

The same short hair, the same eyebrows and eyes, only with an extra layer of very faint milky white light around her.

She reached out her hand and offered it to me gently but firmly.

Tian Tian looked at her through teary eyes.

He placed his hand on it, seemingly understanding but not quite.

Two translucent little hands clasped together, like one river finally flowing into another.

The two souls quietly merged, transforming into a clearer and brighter light and shadow.

The light was no longer afraid, nor did it drift away. It turned around, swiftly swooped down, and disappeared back into the motionless body on the ground.

Gao Yang was crying so hard she couldn't make a sound, her fingernails almost digging into the cement floor.

Suddenly, he heard a very soft voice: "Brother, I'm fine, I just missed you."

He looked up sharply.

Tian Tian opened her eyes and was looking at him.

Her face was still pale, and she was covered in blood, but she was smiling at him, the corners of her mouth slowly curving upwards, just like when she used to wait for him at the school gate after school.

Gao Yang was stunned for a moment, then burst into tears. This time she was really crying, crying without any restraint.

He rushed over and gently picked her up, opening his mouth several times but unable to utter a complete sentence, only repeating himself over and over.

"It's alright...it's alright..."

Further away, above the sky.

A translucent soul floated silently between the clouds and the sunlight.

That was Gao Yang, the middle-aged Gao Yang who had experienced three thousand years of madness and loneliness.

He stood there, like a stone that had been weathered for too long and had finally reached its end.

He watched as the boy below picked up his sister and cried like a child.

He watched as Tian Tian reached out to wipe away the tears on the boy's face.

Then he lowered his head and smiled softly.

That was a smile he had never seen in three thousand years, a smile filled with the warmth of relief, as if he had finally woken up from a dream that had been too long.

He slowly, very slowly closed his eyes.

"Thank you, Lin Mo."

After he finished speaking, he transformed into countless soft points of light, which scattered into the entire sky with the wind.