In his dream, he climbed to a very high position, and from there, the people he met were extraordinary and different. Only then did he realize that there were still practitioners of Ancient Martial Arts in the world, and a group of people with superpowers existed.
Lan Tian, which kind are you?
Rejuvenating, returning to your youthful twenties?
In his dream, he was even more blind. Tiantian, who was always around him, didn’t recognize her?
If it hadn’t been for this mission and accompanying his soldiers at the Military District Hospital and running into that woman, Mo Junhua would have thought it was just a dream.
Mo Junhua couldn’t help but reminisce about the origin of that bizarre dream. Everything started from then.
Last year, Mo Junhua’s artillery battalion was reassigned by the central government to head Southwest to participate in the defensive counterattack war. After the battalion commander returned from the combat conference held at the temporary headquarters, they had another combat conference with Mo Junhua and other company and platoon leaders.
Mo Junhua’s battalion received orders to cross the Boundary River and ambush behind enemy lines. At a fork in the forest beyond Boundary River, their task was to staunchly defend the route, cutting off the enemy’s reinforcements.
The situation now is tense, with the front lines expanding. Ambushing behind enemy lines to cut off the enemy support is risky; a wrong move could jeopardize the entire battalion. If successful, it could offer significant advantages to the overall situation.
The battle was brutal; the battalion commander and deputy battalion commander both died. Of the five company commanders, three died, two were injured, one seriously, and had been sent back for treatment. Now, at the Boundary River, only a company commander and Mo Junhua, a platoon leader, remained. They were provisionally tasked, the company commander was promoted to acting battalion commander, and Mo Junhua to deputy battalion commander, continuing to defend Boundary River.
The soldiers hid in trenches, nibbling on grass roots, resting in place; outside, artillery shook the sky, booming thunderously everywhere.
"Platoon leader, are you scared?"
The question was posed by a few rookie soldiers, heads of the squad, who had been with him since their enlistment. Mo Junhua licked his dry lips and retorted, "Still have energy for such thoughts, it seems you’re not going to die. Usually boasting about your perfect aim, when the enemy comes, just don’t screw up, remember to shoot more." The soldiers beside him chuckled.
Frowning, he rubbed his temples strenuously. Seeing his action, the others tightened up and gathered around him. "Platoon leader, is your head hurting again?"
"Nothing, it’ll be fine soon." Mo Junhua suppressed the irritation in his heart. Yet again, since he had been dazed by artillery days before, he kept having strange, fragmented dreams.
Seeing the crowd around him, he immediately dispersed them. "Why are you loitering around me? Go back to your posts. If we go three days without combat, the roofs will be torn off." The group laughed and scattered.
Mo Junhua held the letter against his chest, staring at the gray, gloomy sky above, wondering how Tiantian was.
The battle was devastating. After half a year defending Boundary River, practically the whole battalion was wiped out with fewer than a hundred of their battalion alive. Mo Junhua and the remaining troops were incorporated into another battalion and deployed elsewhere to continue the fight.
Afterwards, he occasionally had odd dreams, pieces here and there, messy without any clue. Mo Junhua thought it was just after-effects from the bombing and didn’t take it seriously. Until a month ago, when he sent a letter to Lan Tian and met the woman from his dreams at the clinic.
At night, lying in bed, he reassembled all the dreams. At Boundary River, the dreams related to war, including saving that person, all followed the dreams, and after that, he never dreamed again.
Since meeting that woman, these last few nights he started dreaming intermittently again, all about the woman. From an outsider’s perspective, Mo Junhua watched how the two met, fell in love, let go, and then how they entangled with each other, breaking up and making up, endlessly complicated and muddled, almost maddingly frustrating.
The man in his dreams must be sick! Seeing that woman, he knew she’s nothing good. Observing his later actions towards her, he didn’t seem to have much affection, more like destruction.
Today, seeing Lan Tian, some fragmented flashes passed through his mind; his earlier life was blurred, the most fragments being of a beautiful and haughty woman and a slick man appearing as a couple in Beijing.
Lan Tian now resembles her a bit, like a miniaturized version of her. As Lan Tian grows, her features will expand, slowly overlapping with the cold beauty from ten years later.