How did hiring someone to press a pig image during Chinese New Year become a top trend?

Xu An looked up, his eyes filled with a clear bewilderment. "The old man said he dared to drive a train without windows for two hundred miles through the snow."

Mr. Zhao sighed deeply, rolled down the car window a crack, and let the cold wind carry away the smell of smoke from the car.

"That wasn't just daring; that was risking your life. Back in the day, who in the locomotive crew didn't give Old Crazy Liu a thumbs up, while secretly calling him a stubborn mule?"

In the live stream room, there were still 800,000 people staying up all night to "cultivate immortality," and these people's hearing was as sensitive as radar.

[ID: Harbin Railway Middle School]: Holy crap! Could Master Zhao be talking about Liu Changqing? My grandfather used to work at his locomotive depot!

[ID Steam Engine Maniac]: Charging through 200 miles of snow without a windshield? At minus 40 degrees Celsius, that would freeze your eyeballs and cause them to crack!

[ID Official Culture and Tourism]: We have reviewed the internal files of the Harbin Railway Bureau. Lao Zhou and Liu Changqing were once the driver and co-driver of the same locomotive.

Xu An stared at the comments on his phone screen, and the social anxiety he felt was suddenly overwhelmed by a strange sense of dread.

He looked down at the blurry red handprint on the envelope, wondering: What kind of obsession could make someone endure two hundred miles in an ice hole?

As the SUV drove through Harbin's urban area, the breakfast stalls along the roadside had already lit up.

The warm yellow light shone on the steaming bamboo steamer, and the proprietress was waving a fan and calling out to the sanitation workers passing by.

Looking out the window at the figures struggling to make a living, Xu An felt that the beauty of this black soil was hidden in these smoking folds.

"Driver, stop the car, I need to buy some steamed buns," Xu An suddenly said, his voice soft but firm.

Master Zhao slammed on the brakes, stepping onto the snow. Xu An wrapped his coat tighter and burrowed into the cold wind like a fat penguin.

The old lady selling steamed buns was busy packing bags for the sanitation worker when she saw Xu An's outfit. She was taken aback at first, then laughed.

"Kid, you're the Henan kid who played the tune for the tiger, right? I saw you on TV, your coat looks great!"

Xu An blushed and scratched his head. "Auntie, I want to buy some steamed buns. It's a long way, and I need the kind that can withstand the cold."

Without saying a word, the old lady filled the container with ten large, white alkaline steamed buns and stuffed a jar of pickled vegetables in the middle.

"It's free! You can have the cranberries from Harbin, and you should also take the steamed buns from the old lady. They're still warm, so take them with you when you get there."

Unable to resist, Xu An took out five yuan from his pocket, slipped it into the coin box next to the old woman when she wasn't looking, and ran away.

Back in his car, clutching the steaming bag of buns, he felt as if his social anxiety had been evaporated by the heat.

The car continued driving into the suburbs, and the scenery along the road became increasingly desolate, with abandoned railway tracks becoming visible.

The railway tracks, half-buried in the snow, resembled scabbed scars, telling the story of the twilight of that era of roaring steel.

"Old Zhou said that the 'madman' had been guarding the maintenance room of the old North Station for thirty-eight years. He refused to leave because his car was there."

Master Zhao's voice became somewhat low, "Thirty-eight years ago, a massive blizzard blocked the railway line leading to the disaster area."

"At that time, relief supplies couldn't be delivered, and thousands of people were waiting for medicine and cotton-padded coats in the ice holes."

"It was that old madman Liu who drove that Victory-type steam locomotive that was supposed to be scrapped and smashed through the snow wall."

Xu An listened intently, and the envelope in his arms seemed to skip a beat in his heart.

"No windshield... what happened?" Xu An couldn't help but ask.

Master Zhao slapped his thigh, "Because the snow was too thick, the glass was frozen and cracked. Plus, it's an old car, so visibility is poor."

"In order to see the tracks clearly, Old Crazy Liu smashed the glass and stuck his head out, blowing it for two hundred miles."

"When he came back that time, half of his face was frozen numb, and his eyes were bloodshot from the ice shards."

In the live stream, the previously bouncing comments suddenly slowed down drastically.

[ID with extremely low tear threshold]: Thirty-eight years ago... that was the year I was born. It turns out that someone blew themselves into an ice sculpture so that we could live.

[ID Veteran]: This kind of hardcore romance could only be done by Chinese workers in that era. Is Lao Zhou trying to apologize with this letter?

[ID Xu An's Wife]: Anzi, this letter can't be opened, but we all want to see what that crazy old man looks like now.

Xu An touched the old cell phone in his pocket. It was the one his grandfather had asked him to bring out, and it contained photos of the White Rabbit canteen in Xujia Village.

He thought that if the heroes of those two eras could meet, they would have a lot to talk about.

The SUV eventually stopped in front of a dilapidated railway staff quarters.

Everywhere you look, there are mottled red brick buildings, and the air still faintly smells of burning coal.

Several streetlights were broken, casting flickering light on and off, reflecting the uneven footprints in the snow on the ground.

Xu An got out of the car and stepped onto the crunching snow, feeling a silence he had never experienced before.

This silence is different from that of the Red Star Forest Farm; the silence there is vitality, while the silence here is decline.

He followed the address given by Lao Zhou and arrived at the low house located at the end of the railway.

The windows of the house were covered with newspapers, with only a faint orange light shining through a small crack.

Xu An stood in front of the door. Due to his social anxiety, he took three deep breaths before mustering the courage to knock on the door covered with a thick curtain.

"Who is it? Is there trouble at the locomotive depot again?"

A hoarse, dry voice, yet with an extremely crisp quality, came from inside the room.

As the curtain was lifted, a stench of engine oil, coal smoke, and cheap tobacco wafted out.

Xu An saw an old man wearing blue overalls, missing an eye, holding a huge wrench and staring coldly at him.

The old man's face was covered with crisscrossing scars, especially around his eyes, where the skin and flesh had shrunk so badly that it looked like cracks in a glacier.

This is the "madman," Liu Changqing.

Xu An was so shocked by this decisive and ruthless aura that he took a half step back, and the words caught in his throat.

"Um... I'm Xu An from Xujia Village, and Old Zhou from the old North Station. He asked me to... pass on a message to you."

Xu An handed over the oil paper package with trembling hands.

The moment Liu Changqing saw the oil paper package, the wrench he had been gripping tightly slammed to the ground with a loud bang.

His one remaining eye suddenly emitted an extremely dazzling light, like the red light that illuminates when a steam locomotive enters a station.

"Zhou Defa... he's not dead yet?" Liu Changqing's voice trembled, but he didn't reach out to take the letter.

His hands were black, covered in indelible black grime—the medals of a lifetime spent working with steel.

Xu An didn't say anything, but stubbornly pushed the letter forward a little further.

Liu Changqing rubbed his hands vigorously on his thigh, a habit of top-notch workers who would dry their hands even before reading a crucial letter.

He took the oil paper package very slowly, as if afraid of disturbing the spirit that had been hidden inside for thirty-eight years.

Xu An suddenly realized that in this small room of less than ten square meters, there was not a bed, but a huge wooden model.

That was a 1:1 scale model of the Victory-type steam locomotive, with every screw and every connecting rod meticulously crafted.

The windshield of that model was also empty.

The two million viewers in the live stream witnessed this breathtaking scene through the miniature camera on Xu An's chest.

[ID: Descendant of the Railway]: Good heavens! For the past thirty-eight years, he's been driving his train from inside his house!

[ID Heilongjiang Culture and Tourism]: Old Crazy Liu... He was a special-class meritorious official that the province had been looking for. Back then, he refused all rewards and only asked for this old warehouse.

[Official ID]: Quiet, he's opening a letter.

When Liu Changqing opened the letter, there were no tears, but his breathing became extremely heavy, as if he were climbing a steep slope of several thousand degrees.

Because the letter paper was too old, Liu Changqing dared not use force, and carefully laid it flat on the old wooden table covered with machine oil.

Xu An stood guard at the door, neither leaving nor looking inside.

This was his rule, and also his dignity as a messenger.

Suddenly, Liu Changqing slammed the paper on the table and let out an extremely shrill laugh.

"Old Zhou, you've lived such a cowardly life!"

"Aren't you just trying to tell me that I didn't crash into the snow wall back then, but that you were the one who twisted the brakes and prevented us from falling into the ditch?"

Liu Changqing turned his head and stared at Xu An, his single eye red and swollen.

"He hid for thirty-eight years just to say 'I'm sorry' to me? That he was a coward back then and shouldn't have pulled the plug in the snowstorm?"

Xu An was completely bewildered by this sudden reversal.

Isn't this supposed to be a story of heroes recognizing each other's talents? How did it get mixed up with "pulling the plug" and "falling into a ditch"?

But looking at Liu Changqing's expression, Xu An suddenly had a flash of inspiration and whispered a reply.

"The old man said he was worried that you would drive too fast by yourself and not be able to get home."

These words seemed to shatter the thick armor Liu Changqing wore, forged from steel and ice.

Liu Changqing collapsed onto the simple stool like a piece of burnt-out railway track.

He covered his one eye, and a broken, mournful sound, like the whirring of a motorcycle, escaped his throat.

"Thirty-eight years... I've been waiting here for thirty-eight years, just to have him admit to me that he pulled the right switch..."

"If it weren't for him, I, Old Madman Liu, would have been a pile of scrap metal long ago."

Xu An stood in the cold wind, looking at this hero forgotten by the times, who had found his deputy in this dilapidated house.

At that moment, a modern high-speed train roared past on the railway line not far away, its streamlined body creating a huge gust of air.

This contrast between modernity and the past, silence and noise, is breathtakingly beautiful in the Harbin night.

He bowed deeply to the lone motorcyclist.

As he turned to leave, Xu An did not see the shadows cast by those red brick buildings.

Director Wang and several uniformed men were solemnly saluting Liu the Madman's house.

In the live stream, millions of netizens were frantically spamming the chat.

【ID Mission Accomplished】: This stop is not the end, but the search.

[ID Henan Fellow Villager]: None of the men in Xujia Village are cowards!