Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

"Alas, Director Nian, all those past events—"

"You're getting all worked up over a couple of compliments, you need a good beating." Director Nian chuckled and patted Slava's arm before unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the car door.

She got out of the car and walked towards the guesthouse, taking a couple of steps before turning back to look at him:

"Are you coming? The party is about to start. If you want something to drink, we can take a few bottles home after the party."

"Our strategy of taking advantage of others by drinking wine is a bit like that of a certain leader surnamed Wang that I know. Could we end up being trapped with the cosmological constant of 23662.22 rubles as well?"

"6"

Slava watched her retreating figure. Her silvery-white hair shimmered faintly in the twilight, and then he opened the car door and got out.

The lights outside the guesthouse were warm and inviting. Someone was playing the piano inside, and the music drifted out from the half-open window, mingling with the scent of grass and birch trees in the evening air. Several members of the Chinese delegation and their Soviet hosts were already on the lawn, exchanging pleasantries over drinks. Yu Hongliang stood in the crowd and clinked glasses with Sherov; from a distance, they looked like two old friends chatting.

Slava stood by the car and took a deep breath; the evening breeze outside Moscow ruffled his hair.

He is no longer just a pawn, or at least not entirely.

He walked towards the warm yellow light.

Chapter 26 The Part on Funeral and Wedding

Less than a month after Yu Hongliang returned to Beijing, the CPC convened its 12th National Congress in early September. In his report, then General Secretary Hu Yaobang mentioned the possibility of normalizing Sino-Soviet relations. Although he attached several conditions, his overall attitude was much more positive than any previous Party Congress report.

The first round of vice-ministerial level consultations officially opened in Beijing on October 5 and will continue until the 22nd.

This marks the first time since the talks were interrupted in 1979 due to the war in Afghanistan that China and the Soviet Union resumed formal negotiations at this level. Although the two sides still held their own views on the three major obstacles and there was no substantial breakthrough, this meeting had a more genuine dialogue feel compared to the rigid atmosphere of the past, where the two sides would read out political speeches as soon as they met.

The Soviet representative's rhetoric on the Cambodian issue softened, moving away from the old adage that "issues involving third parties should not be obstacles to the normalization of relations between the two countries," and instead showing greater sincerity.

"The Soviet side took note of China's concerns on the Cambodian issue and was willing to have an in-depth exchange of views on the matter."

Both sides agreed to hold a round of consultations every six months, alternating between Beijing and Moscow, with the next round scheduled for the first half of 1983 in Moscow.

On the night he learned of the negotiation results, Slava unusually opened a bottle of Georgian red wine and clinked glasses with Director Nian in the apartment. Director Nian took a sip and frowned, saying that this stuff was so sour it could corrode his teeth, but he still took another sip.

"Here comes the first step in defrosting!" Slava said as he put the cup down.

"The last leg of a journey is the hardest; comrade, you still need to work hard," Director Nian replied.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

It started snowing in Moscow in November.

Slava saw Brezhnev from afar for the last time in public on November 7, the 65th anniversary of the October Revolution.

Heron stood on the reviewing stand at Lenin's Mausoleum to receive the review of the troops, with Andropov, Chernenko and other Politburo members standing beside him.

Brezhnev was wearing a thick, dark overcoat, his hat pulled low, and a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. But even from hundreds of meters away on Red Square and in the cold November wind of Moscow, Slava could tell that the old man standing on the reviewing stand was completely different from the old man he had first seen on television two years ago.

Two years ago, Brezhnev was slow and slurred, but at least he could stand on his own. Now he needs two people to support him to keep upright, and when the troops passed by during the inspection, his hand fell down before he could even complete a full salute.

One detail from the military parade caught the attention of Western observers:

Politburo member Andrei Kirilenko was absent from the celebration.

Kirilenko was a member of the inner circle during Brezhnev's era, and his absence has been interpreted by many as a signal on the eve of the power transition.

Three days later, on November 10th, in the early morning Moscow time, Brezhnev died at home. The cause of death was a heart attack. His wife, Victoria, was beside him; he was found unresponsive.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Soviet Central Television gave a hint at this at 7:15 p.m. Moscow time.

The regular program and a concert that were playing were suddenly replaced with a documentary about Lenin, without any explanation or clarification; the scene on the screen just switched over like that.

A few minutes later, the hosts of the evening news program "Time" appeared on the screen, their usual formal attire replaced by dark mourning clothes.

The citizens of Moscow initially thought that Kirilenko, who had missed the October Revolution celebrations, had died—after all, he hadn't been seen for a long time.

But then the TV station's programming schedule began to show more anomalies: the scheduled ice hockey game broadcast was canceled and replaced by Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, "Pathétique".

That was a piece of music that all Soviets knew was only played during periods of national mourning.

Slava and Director Nian realized what had happened while they were in their apartment watching television. They exchanged a glance when the melody of Tchaikovsky replaced the hockey commentary on the screen.

Director Nian put down the bag of sunflower seeds in his hand, patted the crumbs off his hands, stood up and walked to the television.

“Good job!” she said.

Brezhnev's official death was announced at 11:00 a.m. the following day. Observers from Western countries found an ironic piece of circumstantial evidence of Brezhnev's passing—he had not sent a congratulatory letter to Angolan President dos Santos on Independence Day.

Soviet leaders never overlooked such matters; sending congratulatory telegrams to every ally on their national day was routine. The fact that they couldn't even do that meant that the hand that signed the telegram had stopped forever.

The national mourning lasted for five days.

On November 11, Andropov was appointed chairman of the funeral committee for Brezhnev. In the political tradition of the Union, this was not merely a ceremonial position; it was the first public confirmation of the new leader's status.

Western commentators almost simultaneously reached the same conclusion upon seeing this appointment announcement:

Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov will be the next General Secretary.

On the evening he learned that Andropov had been appointed chairman of the funeral committee, Slava went to the Lubyanka Building and met Andropov in the reception room on the fifth floor.

The old man sat in the old armchair he had sat in for fifteen years, with a stack of documents on the coffee table in front of him: arrangements for the funeral, condolence messages from heads of state, the schedule for the Politburo meeting, and a preliminary plan for the Central Committee plenary session on November 12.

Andropov's face was paler than usual, his eyes were sunken, but the light in his eyes was brighter than ever.

"Are you ready?" he said.

"Ready."

"You and Comrade Ivanova will both attend the funeral, and you will also participate in the reception of the delegation—China has sent Foreign Minister Huang Hua, which is the highest-level diplomatic contact between China and the Soviet Union since 1969. You know what this means."

“I know,” Slava saluted him.

Andropov picked up his teacup, took a sip, and then pulled a piece of paper from the pile of documents and handed it to Slava. It contained the draft agenda for the Central Committee plenary session on the 12th, which had only one item: the election of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.

There is only one candidate.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The funeral was held on November 15th.

It was a cloudy day in Moscow.

The temperature dropped to minus ten degrees Celsius just as dawn broke, and the gray sky hung low, as if it were about to touch the spire of the Kremlin.

A curfew was imposed in central Moscow starting in the early hours of the morning. Police and armed forces soldiers filled the main streets and intersections, all roads leading to Red Square were blocked, and guards stood in front of the Trade Union Buildings.

Brezhnev's body has been laid in state in the Column Hall of the Trade Union Building for three days for people to pay their respects. During those three days, long lines of Moscow citizens walked past his coffin—some were there to say goodbye, some were there on a political mission organized by their work units, and some were simply curious to see what an old man who had ruled the country for eighteen years looked like in the end.

Slava and Nian attended the funeral as KGB staff members. They were seated in a rather inconspicuous spot in the Red Square viewing area, surrounded by mid-level cadres from various ministries and agencies, all dressed in dark overcoats and leather hats, shivering in the cold wind and stamping their feet as they waited for the ceremony to begin.

As the coffin was carried out of the union building, the military band played Chopin's Funeral March. Following behind the coffin was a procession carrying medals—

According to Soviet custom, every medal a leader received during his lifetime was placed on a velvet cushion and carried by a senior official behind the coffin.

But Brezhnev's medals might have required a battalion of senior officers to carry them around.

So when Slava looked at the group carrying the medals, he had already thought through all the sad things in his life.

After all, laughing at a funeral will get you dragged away on the spot, but that scene was just too surreal:

Brezhnev received more than two hundred medals of various sizes throughout his life. Even though several were placed on each velvet mat, forty-four people were still needed to escort him.

As the procession marched across Red Square, it resembled a shimmering river. The gold, silver, and bronze medals reflected a cold luster against the gray sky. The officials carrying them wore solemn expressions and marched in unison, but each of them was probably thinking the same thing.

How many of these medals were truly earned through merit, and how many were pinned on the old man himself?

Director Nian lowered his voice and said to him, "How many bicycles do you think he could make if he melted down all these medals?"

“Shut up.” Slava nudged her with his elbow.

The coffin was carried to the pre-dug grave next to Lenin's Mausoleum.

Andropov, Ustinov, the president of the Academy of Sciences Alexandrov, and a worker representative delivered eulogies.

Andropov praised Brezhnev for "devoting himself to easing international tensions and eliminating the nuclear war problem facing humanity," and lauded his policy of détente.

Slava knew that these words of praise would soon serve their purpose as precisely as the countless documents Brezhnev himself had signed over the past eighteen years, and then be swept into the dustbin of history.

Brezhnev's wife, Victoria, stood beside the tomb. The petite woman was supported by two people and kissed her husband's cheek according to Russian custom before the coffin was lowered.

Politburo member Kirilenko broke down in tears during a meeting with Victoria. This old man, who had spent his entire life navigating the inner workings of power, suddenly became, in that moment, an ordinary old man losing a friend.

Seeing this, Slava pursed her lips, and Director Nian also fell silent.

As the coffin began to descend into the tomb, the military band played the Soviet national anthem.

The Kremlin bells rang out, their deep tones echoing across Red Square, intertwining with the melody of the national anthem.

Soviet troops paid their final respects to Brezhnev in his tomb on Red Square, and then the parade began—tanks and armored vehicles rumbled across Red Square, missile launchers dragged their massive missiles across the cobblestones with heavy thuds, and soldiers marched in perfect unison past Lenin's Mausoleum, the sound of their boots striking the ground echoing far and wide between the high walls.

Slava stood in the cold wind watching all this, his feelings far more complex than he had anticipated.

He disliked Brezhnev—this was clear from the first day he transmigrated; in his view, the old man had squandered the future of a superpower with eighteen years of stagnation.

His stability was essentially a form of slow suicide; his moderation only brought him a moment of peace. He awarded himself too many medals he shouldn't have, signed too many documents he shouldn't have, and chose not to make decisions when he should have, while making the worst decisions when he shouldn't have.

But standing beside his grave, watching the military band play the national anthem, watching his wife kiss his cold cheek, watching old comrades like Kirilenko weep, Slava had to admit that some things transcended political judgment.

A man dies, regardless of what he did; he existed in this world for seventy-five years and then ceased to exist. From then on, his wife woke up every morning to find the pillow beside her empty, and his colleagues, whether genuinely or not, stood for two hours in the minus ten-degree wind to bid him farewell.

Death itself is neither good nor bad; it is simply a period.

Director Nian seemed to sense something as well; she put her hands in her coat pockets and stood with her neck hunched. Her magenta eyes narrowed into slits in the cold wind, whether from the wind or something else, it was hard to tell.

As the crowd began to disperse after the funeral, Slava turned back for one last look at the newly filled grave—the soil was a fresh, dark brown, standing out starkly against the greyish-white snow, like a newly opened wound on the earth.

Lenin's Mausoleum stands quietly beside it, its gray granite appearing particularly austere under the gloomy sky, while Brezhnev's tomb is right next to it, and Khrushchev's tomb is only a few steps away.

He remembered the dream—the row of tombstones outside the hostel, the third one covered with medals.

Now its owner has actually moved in under the tombstone.

Meanwhile, the owner of the next tombstone is standing in the Kremlin's main hall, receiving greetings from guests from various countries. He is wearing a dark suit that always seems a size too big, and his expression is solemn.

Andropov was unanimously elected as the new General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee the day after Brezhnev's death. The voting process took only a few minutes, with no dissenting votes, nor could there be—at this point, all the maneuvering had already been done behind the scenes, and the plenary session was merely going through a procedure that everyone tacitly understood.

China also sent Foreign Minister Huang Hua to Moscow to offer condolences.

Andropov extended an exceptionally warm greeting to Chinese Foreign Minister Huang Hua. This detail was noticed by almost all the diplomats and journalists present.

Subsequently, Andropov and Huang Hua held a private meeting lasting about thirty minutes, which was the highest-level direct diplomatic contact between China and the Soviet Union since the Zhenbao Island conflict in 1969.

The full content of the talks has not been made public, but TASS later reported that both sides "expressed a shared desire to continue political dialogue."

After more than two decades of frozen relations between China and the Soviet Union, spring is on the horizon.

After leaving the Kremlin, Huang Hua said to his entourage:

"China hopes that through joint efforts from both sides, relations between the two countries can be gradually normalized."

This statement has spread throughout the world.

-

On the third night after the funeral, Slava and Director Nian had a slightly better dinner than usual at the apartment—Director Nian bought a small piece of beef and a few potatoes, and spent more than an hour in the kitchen making a stew that was barely edible.

They clinked glasses, but neither said who they were toasting.

After dinner, Slava sat by the window watching the snow outside. Night falls early in Moscow in mid-November; it gets dark as early as four in the afternoon. The streetlights cast orange patches of light on the snow, and occasionally a snowplow rumbles by, pushing the snow on the roadside into gray-white snow walls.

"Year Director".

"Ok?"

"We've been in Moscow for over two years, haven't we?"

“Two years and four months, if you count from the day you woke up in that interrogation room in Lubyanka.” Director Nian rolled over on the sofa and wrapped the blanket tighter around himself. The cold air from outside seeped in through the slightly ajar window.

“Two years and four months,” Slava repeated the time.

"From the interrogation room to now, Andropov is the General Secretary. Sino-Soviet relations have begun to thaw, the military's informatization reforms have at least been allowed to be studied, Britain has a new Prime Minister, and NATO has been weakened somewhat. The evidence in the Uzbek cotton case is still locked in a safe, waiting to be used."

What's our next step?

"I need to think about it."

“There’s so much to do now, more than in the last two years combined,” she said, opening a corner of the blanket. Slava crawled inside, and the two of them wrapped themselves tightly together.

"Andropov has taken that chair, but his kidneys won't automatically heal just because he's become General Secretary. How long will he stay in power? A year? Two years? Three years? Nobody knows. But one thing is certain—no matter how long he lives, we won't have enough time."

Slava knew she was telling the truth. In the history before his time travel, Andropov only ruled for fifteen months before dying of kidney failure, leaving behind a bunch of reforms that had just begun but hadn't had time to be implemented, and a power vacuum that Chernenko quickly took over.

His entire purpose in coming into this world was to change this outcome; he wanted to make this country take a few more detours on its path toward the precipice, at least before he became the helmsman.