A courtyard house; Li Yunlong, a subordinate of the deputy director of Harbin Military Engineering I

In the wee hours,

Three American-made off-road trucks bumped along the makeshift road on the north bank of the Youjiang River.

In the back of the second car, Liu Haizhong was lying on the side panel, his face sallow, and sour water was gushing from his mouth.

He had lost count of how many times he had vomited; his stomach had been rumbling ever since he boarded the truck in Hankou.

He was now filled with deep regret, wishing he had never followed Zhang Rende south.

A few days ago, Zhang Rende received a telegram from his younger brother in Nanning saying that he was going back to Baise to pay respects to their ancestors. When Liu Haizhong heard that his "second uncle" was going to stay in his hometown for a few days, he immediately expressed his willingness to come along. He said that he was "paying respects to the ancestral master," but in his heart he was planning to show his face in front of the army commander.

A master is like half a father, and if my filial piety moves my second uncle, he might get me a minor official position.

He truly hadn't expected the road to be in such terrible condition. His journey south to Hankou on a military train was relatively smooth.

Once we arrived in Hankou and transferred to a truck convoy, the bumpy ride really started.

Once we entered Guangxi province, the highway was often destroyed by bombing, so we had to keep stopping and starting. Sometimes we even had to get out and push the truck. The truck chassis scraped against the rocks, and we trembled like a leaf.

On the way from Nanning to Baise, he felt as if his internal organs had been moved to different positions.

Zhang Guilin, who was standing nearby, laughed: "Brother Liu, you're being too timid..."

"Gui..." Liu Haizhong was about to retort when his stomach churned again, "Ugh!!"

The sound of vomiting had barely subsided when Yi Zhonghai, standing beside him, also grabbed onto the partition of the carriage.

"vomit!!"

He vomited even more violently, his face covered in snot and tears, and he curled up into a ball.

Yi Zhonghai originally did not want to come.

He was doing well at Lou's Steel Rolling Mill. Although Zhang Rende would chase after him with a shoe sole every few days, he had at least learned a lot of skills and his salary had increased twice.

He had been married for ten years, but Gao Cuilan's belly showed no signs of pregnancy. He had been to the hospital seven or eight times and taken several baskets of Chinese and Western medicine, but they still couldn't find anything wrong.

This time, Zhang Rende told me that there was a Zhuang village in his hometown in Guangxi Province, where a family surnamed Wei had a traditional remedy for infertility. The two provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong used to be the land of Baiyue, and they were skilled in using poison to fight poison.

Yi Zhonghai gritted his teeth and followed along, thinking he had nothing to lose.

The journey was fine so far, although it was a bit bumpy, but he could still handle it.

But once they entered Guangxi Province, things changed.

Scattered gunshots could be heard from time to time along the roadside. Sometimes they came from a few shots on a distant hilltop, and sometimes they came from nearby woods next to the highway.

I asked around and found out that there were bandits everywhere. After Bai Chongxi's 100,000-strong army was defeated, many stragglers went into the mountains and colluded with local thugs to become kings of the mountains and rob and plunder.

Although the People's Liberation Army has liberated this area, the work of suppressing bandits is not over yet, and small armed groups are still roaming around.

Liu Haizhong finally recovered from vomiting, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and complained bitterly:

"Master, your fellow villager Bai Chongxi is simply inhuman! He just abandoned 100,000 troops to become outlaws in the mountains. How many people have been harmed by this?"

So what if we lost? If I were Bai Chongxi, I'd just march straight to Burma, become a mountain bandit king, and be a king! Wouldn't that be better?

Zhang Rende, sitting at the very back of the carriage, leaning against the partition with his hands tucked into his sleeves, couldn't help but roll his eyes at him upon hearing this:

"You're just a dreamer. You think you can just go whenever you want? That's a country, after all! This is a diplomatic matter; what do you know about what Bai represents?"

He may have been verbally harsh, but he was actually more upset than anyone else.

I left my hometown 21 years ago, and when I came back, I saw it in this state.

He came from the Guangxi clique and knew all too well the nature of the Guangxi soldiers.

Those soldiers grew up in the mountains, their bodies honed through hunting, chopping wood, and roughhousing. In battle, one of them could take on three men, but their lax discipline was also notorious.

They might not be very strong when they're all together, but if they're scattered, they're like hungry wolves, capable of stealing and killing.

Once Bai Chongxi's 100,000-strong army dispersed and fled into the mountains, it would be strange if they didn't cause chaos.

He didn't bring any female relatives with him this time. Who knows what might happen along the way?

Mu Xiuhua and Yu Lin were both in Beiping. He set off alone with a few apprentices, prioritizing safety.

In the early morning, the convoy arrived at the Baise Military Sub-district.

After switching to a Jeep, the road conditions improved slightly, and Liu Haizhong and Yi Zhonghai finally caught their breath.

After driving for more than an hour, the car finally entered the village.

Yi Zhonghai squinted and peered ahead. Two rows of heavily armed People's Liberation Army soldiers stood in the village, their sentry posts neatly arranged, both visible and concealed. He lowered his voice and said, "Master, look, so many PLA soldiers. I think it's at least two companies, right?"

Zhang Rende recognized it at a glance, but his face remained expressionless, and he said casually:

"This configuration is at least equivalent to the guard company of a corps-level commander."

He said it lightly, but in his heart he actually clicked his tongue.

His younger brother is the deputy commander of the Yunnan Provincial Military Region in Kunming. When he went back to his hometown to pay respects to his ancestors, he brought two companies of soldiers to escort him. The entourage was indeed quite impressive.

Zhang Renfeng stood under the old banyan tree at the village entrance, his hair slightly disheveled by the morning breeze.

Seeing the jeep stop, he took two steps forward.

Zhang Guilin was the first to jump out of the car, calling out "Second Uncle." Liu Haizhong and Yi Zhonghai followed suit, both pale-faced and unsteady on their feet, as if they were walking on cotton.

Zhang Renfeng was somewhat surprised by the appearance of the two men. What were they doing here, risking their lives?

"Master Liu, Master Yi, what brings you here too? This road must be difficult to travel on!"

Liu Hai forced a smile that looked more like a grimace: "Second Uncle! I...I've come to pay respects to our ancestral master! You know, a master is like half a father, and my master's ancestors are my ancestors. I...I'm just being filial!"

He felt like vomiting again after he finished speaking, but he forced it back down.

Yi Zhonghai, hunched over, weakly replied, "Second Uncle, I... I've come seeking medical help. I heard there's a Zhuang village nearby with traditional remedies..."

Zhang Renfeng turned to look at his elder brother, Zhang Rende, who waved his hand: "Zhonghai can't conceive and is afraid of having no heir, so she said she'd come to Guangdong and Guangxi to try a secret remedy. I remember there's a Zhuang village in Youjiang, with the surname Wei, right? They have this stuff. How are things? Are all the villagers still around?"

Zhang Renfeng sighed inwardly and pursed his lips:

"Brother, I've already gone in to check it out. I asked some comrades from my old unit to help repair the Zhang Family Ancestral Hall, and the house we used to live in is now completely dilapidated."

There are very few Han Chinese families with the surname Zhang left. Back then, most of the men in the village were conscripted, just like you, brother.

Several of the younger men followed the rebel army, but now I'm the only one who's returned.

He paused for a moment, then lowered his voice: "The elderly in the village experienced famine; some fled, some ran away. Now, the people who have moved in are all Zhuang villagers."

Our Zhang family ancestral hall was small to begin with. After the uprising, some members went north, and the rest followed Comrade Wei Baqun to fight as guerrillas. After his sacrifice, the entire guerrilla force was wiped out.

The Wei family suffered the most; not a single direct descendant survived, and eighteen out of twenty family members perished.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Rende's legs went weak, and he slid down, only to be caught by Zhang Guilin's arm.

Ancestral halls are very important to the people of Guangxi Province.

"Father! Father, are you alright?"

Zhang Rende didn't respond to his son. He had something stuck in his throat, and his loud sobs carried far into the village at dawn.

Zhang Renfeng patted his elder brother on the back, his voice hoarse: "My comrades searched everywhere and finally found our second uncle. Sadly, he died of illness last year. His grandson was killed by a stray bullet in Hunan Province, and his family line ended completely. Brother, the revolution, in the end, is a tragic story."

He said those words, but what surged in his heart was more than just sadness.

Twenty-one years ago, when he followed the old political commissar, there were still sixty or seventy households in the village. The men worked in the fields, the women tended the fire by the stove, and the children chased chickens and dogs barefoot in the threshing ground.

Now, when I come back, all those familiar faces are gone, leaving only unfamiliar faces and dilapidated walls.

He commissioned the repair of the Zhang family ancestral hall, but most of the memorial tablets in the hall were empty; with the people gone, the incense offerings ceased.

If the ancestral land is gone, the roots are severed.

Zhang Renfeng fought for twenty-one years, from the Seventh Red Army to the Eighth Route Army to the People's Liberation Army, going through gunfire and crawling out of piles of corpses countless times, only to find that he didn't even have a hometown left to settle down.

But compared to his comrades who sacrificed their lives on the road, he is extremely lucky. At least he is still alive and can still stand here.

The two brothers planned to dig up their parents' grave in a couple of days, collect the bones, put them in a water vat, and then reposition them.

After a simple ceremony, Zhang Renfeng accompanied his elder brother as they strolled around the village, stopping frequently to make their way around the front and back of the village.

Zhang Guilin followed behind, while Liu Haizhong and Yi Zhonghai were also tucked into the group.

Although Liu Haizhong was still nauseous, his obsequiousness towards his superiors remained undiminished. He walked along, glancing around, when suddenly pointed at a tree by the roadside and exclaimed, "Guilin, could this be lychee trees?"

The tree was laden with clusters of bright red fruit, small in size, with a bright skin that gleamed with a moist sheen in the morning light.

Zhang Guilin scratched his head: "I don't know either. I grew up in Beiping (Beijing). Lychees would rot long before they arrived there, and ordinary people couldn't get them at all."

After vomiting several times, Yi Zhonghai's stomach calmed down a bit. He straightened his back and struck a pose of someone who had seen it all:

"Eating three hundred lychees a day—"

Just as he was about to carry it down, Zhang Renfeng reached out and picked two bunches from the tree, handing them to Zhang Guilin.

"This is a lychee, locally grown. It's not very big, and we call it Guiwei. Give it a try."

Zhang Renfeng broke one open, revealing the tender white flesh, with juice dripping down between his fingers.

Liu Haizhong was the first to reach out and grab two, then his eyes lit up after tasting them: "Wow, so sweet!"

Yi Zhonghai also tried one, nodded in agreement, and then couldn't stop eating them.

It's normal to be curious since it's my first time in the South. Besides, the lychees really do taste sweet and refreshing.

That night, instead of returning to Baise County, they stayed at the guesthouse set up by the military sub-district in the town.

The conditions were rudimentary; each person had their own small room with a straw mat on a wooden plank bed and mosquito coils burning in the corner.

Zhang Renfeng and his elder brother lived across the hall from each other. They talked for a while in the evening and then went to bed.

In the latter half of the night, something happened to Yi Zhonghai.

He ate too many lychees during the day, and coupled with the change in environment, his stomach couldn't adapt to the hot and humid climate of the south.

He started having a fever around 11 p.m., curled up in bed shivering, and mumbling incoherently.

Liu Haizhong slept next door to Zhang Rende. He heard a noise in the middle of the night, got up to check, and was so frightened that his legs went weak. He scrambled to knock on Zhang Rende's door.

"Master! Master! Yi Zhonghai is in critical condition! He has a high fever! He's delirious!"

Zhang Rende rushed over, still wearing his clothes, and reached out to touch Yi Zhonghai's forehead. The heat made Yi Zhonghai recoil.

"Go get a doctor quickly!"

He yelled at Liu Haizhong, who staggered out and asked the local soldiers on guard for help.

The town clinic only had one sanitation worker on duty, who came over to take a look and shook his head repeatedly:

"The fever is too high. Our resources here are limited, so we need to go to the neighboring village to ask an old Zhuang doctor. His family's herbal remedies are quite effective."

The medic pointed in a direction and said that the man's surname was Wei, and he was the most famous traditional doctor in the area.

The soldiers on duty rushed to find the person.

The old man was in his sixties, thin and short, with a slightly hunched back, looking like he hadn't had enough sleep before being forced to take up his post.

When the old doctor entered the room, Yi Zhonghai already had blisters on his lips from the fever, and he was delirious, repeatedly muttering the words "extinction of the family line."

The old doctor took the pulse and examined the tongue coating, his expression growing increasingly grim.

He let go of Yi Zhonghai's arm, shook his head, and sighed deeply.

"He can't be saved."

Yi Zhonghai was semi-conscious, but those four words pierced his ears like needles. He suddenly opened his eyes, grabbed the old doctor's wrist, and said in a hoarse voice, "You... what did you say?"

The old doctor pried his hand open, his tone carrying the composure characteristic of a traditional healer: "Your stomach and intestines are already weak. You ate too many lychees and caught a cold, causing the heat toxins to accumulate inside and not be able to come out. In addition, your heart fire is too strong, and this sudden attack of fire has made the illness come on too suddenly."

"So, even a god couldn't save us."

Yi Zhonghai's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto the bed, tears streaming down his face...

"I...I haven't made any plans for the future..."