"Commander, where are you going at this time?"
Qi Yong saw Lu Ziqing pick up the map from the table and walk away again, and hurriedly called out.
Lu Ziqing, with his back to Qi Yong, replied,
"I will send you the specific action plan by phone, and I entrust you with full command here."
Having said that, Lu Ziqing had already disappeared around the corner.
The command hall was silent, Qi Yong took a deep breath, "Everyone, continue with your tasks!"
Song Lili felt terrible, the two kicks she received were increasingly painful, and the two blows that followed seemed to have broken her body into two or three pieces.
Her clothes, soaked in sweat, clung coldly to her body.
"Xiao Liu, gather everyone here!"
Duan Shen had come back and immediately gave the order in a deep voice.
Song Lili leaned against a corner, her ears buzzing, Duan Shen’s voice even sounded overlapped, she tried her best to stay awake, afraid that if she fell asleep, she would never wake up again...
The noise of the crowd slowly faded again.
"Negotiations failed."
Duan Shen said calmly, "The President doesn’t care about this woman’s life!"
"Then kill this woman first, chop her into pieces and send them to the President Mansion!"
Duan Shen raised his hand to interrupt,
"There’s no time to chop her into pieces now, the President has ordered that the hostages’ fate is irrelevant, their primary mission is to raze our base and arrest us!"
Song Lili listened to Duan Shen’s words, silently gazing at the uneven ground in front of her, somehow her vision blurred...
"Wen Xiaonian, don’t cry, look how lucky you are to share a birthday with me, we will celebrate together every year from now on... you won’t be alone anymore!"
"I’m not crying, and I don’t care about celebrating birthdays."
Wen Nian sat on the stairs, wiping the tears in his eyes.
"Ouch, my Xiao Kenian... don’t talk like that! Birthdays are supposed to be fun!"
She sat beside him, her little short hands wrapped around him, gently patting his back, and soothingly cooed,
"Later, when dad comes back, he’ll bring a really big cake, and we’ll split it in half, and as for birthday candles; I’m seven, you’re thirteen, seven plus thirteen is... eighteen, nineteen, twenty! We’ll put twenty candles! What do you say, sounds good?"
"When is your dad coming back?"
It had gotten dark, and they were still sitting on the stairs... she leaned on him...
"Just wait a bit longer..."
"Ah... why isn’t dad coming back to celebrate my birthday this year?" she asked naively.
People say that memories before the age of five are very blurry, but Song Lili’s were not; she vividly remembered those sole five years spent with her mother, unwilling to forget even a single day.
After her mother died, her aunt took care of her, but since her aunt had her own children, her ability to care for Lili was limited.
On her sixth birthday, her father had promised to come but didn’t; only her aunt brought a small cake.
On her seventh birthday, her father broke his promise again.
Back then she didn’t understand, but Wen Nian did, he said, "That’s how adults are..."
"Let’s go, I’ll take you to the cake shop."
Wen Nian pulled her downstairs, and at the cake shop, the spirited young boy boldly declared, "Give us a big cake! And twenty candles!"