Author: Tongo
In April of 1984, on the border between two once incredibly close allies, China and Vietnam, a sudden conflagration shook the world. This story, which takes place on the eve of the war, is about four humble, humble people…
(i)
It’s dark again, and the buzz of mosquitoes circling around is like the roar of a propeller on an airplane just taking off.
Sprayed too much anti-mosquito agent, which only allows two people can lie side by side in the cave, the air in the stifling hot and humid fishy, but also more suffocating unorthodox an evil aroma.
It was pitch black outside the cave entrance, like the whole world was enclosed in a bottle of ink, drowning out even the barking of dogs and insects.
Less than twenty meters outside the cave there were wonderful patches of light jumping from the cliff head, on closer inspection there was nothing, the blackness was a muddy mess.
Zhao Laizi was vaguely seen with one hand on his rifle monitoring the outside of the cave, and one hand in his pants, carefully scratching, his mouth softly shushing.
“Bear with it, you can’t hit the seed later if you scratch it.”
“No,” said Laiko, “I need to pee.”
I scrambled up and hurriedly felt over an empty canning jar from the shadows, “Don’t you fucking piss like that, the hole is growing dog piss.”
We set up a “bed” with branches less than a foot off the ground, just to lie in the hole, under the body can be ventilated, but Lai Zi always turned sideways to pull out the bird on the pee, so that the hole always have a smell of urine.
“If you try to spill it, I’ll pull that bird off you.”
I yelled. Laiko took the empty canning jar and by the sound of it he did pee into it.
Another light flashed in the darkness, only to hear a dull popping sound at the head of the cliff. Immediately afterward, a few sounds of gibberish and curses in Vietnamese were heard.
Laiko ate and laughed.
Below the cliff, there was a valley less than twenty meters wide, and on the opposite side of the hill, there was the Vietnamese defense. Just over the cliff, there was also a Vietnamese forward post.
This is the frontier of frontiers. Two large mountains face each other close together here, and the valley floor is covered with uniformly fine gravel, which I fear was a river, or at least a stream, hundreds or thousands of years ago. On the Vietnamese side, on the hillside of a gully, the Vietcong had built a coffin-like outpost with sandbags, tree branches, and tin, and filled it with two Vietnamese soldiers. We are here, in this natural cave outside, as if from the sky down a boulder, precisely formed to the opposite side of a platform, this boulder is no more than three meters high, no more than two meters wide, cramped valley seems to be purposely built up half a stone dam, the Vietnamese are afraid of observing the “stone dam” on both sides, the outpost was built in precisely facing the cliff head.
This seems to be very offensive to the military, as we are sitting on high ground. In fact, these two outposts have no military value whatsoever, but are just to show that both sides are fighting for every inch of land. It was on the mountain behind the four of us soldiers, in the thick forest and thorn bushes, that a thousand armies were deployed, not only countless eyes watching each other’s every move, but also troops and heavy artillery strong enough to destroy the mountain and forest at the touch of a button.
Lai Zi whispered to me, “If we don’t pull out, the war won’t start for a while, and if Duo Zan tells us to evacuate quickly, in five minutes tops, a world-shattering news story will break out.”
His estimate was accurate. Every day, it’s just our Henan-accented platoon leader on the walkie-talkie asking four times on the dot, “Is there a situation?”
“No.” Laiko had those two words every time.
The platoon leader with a foreign accent would always say something, such as the enemy’s ambition to invade us is still alive, the danger of war is always there, but our principle is that we don’t make a mistake if others don’t make a mistake… You’re an honorable outpost, carrying the people’s trust and the Party’s confidence, and you’re showing that we won’t give up an inch of our land…
“He had nothing else to say.” Laiko put down his walkie-talkie, muttered, and then urged me to, “Put your clothes back on and pay attention to military discipline,” and then, out of the cave, down the cliff, patrolling…
The little old Vietcong over there, seeing us go down the cliff, also copied the gun out, so in this narrow ditch there appeared four soldiers with loaded guns who made their faces look like stone molds.
The ravine is quite long, more than 500 meters, no matter how cloudy day light, both sides of the ditch mouth always look at a piece of dense fog, out of the ditch on both sides are a few miles wide flat land. In the past, there are villages on both sides, who do rice poi lack of a stone percussion, to the opposite village to borrow, no need to play the application to be examined and other approval to sign what “exit permit”. Now, there is still a piece of flat land, but, the field is deserted, even thorn thatched grass are cut, only the two sides of the mountains in silent confrontation.
We were patrolling this very ditch. Four men lined up, walking from one end to the other, chest out, head held high, eyes unblinking… One of them was a veteran in his thirties, with a thin, waxy face, his cheeks covered with blood veins, while the other looked no more than sixteen years old, a head shorter than the veteran, with a round, pinkish-red face, a pair of rounded eyes, and a pair of big, fat ears… a blessed appearance.
Laiko and I gave them nicknames, calling the old soldier “Cavity” and the young soldier “Tulu” behind our backs.
“Hey, ‘Cavity’, ‘Tulu’…” Sometimes, Laiko called out to them with a serious look on his face. When they heard this, they were puzzled and one of them stretched his neck even more like a skeleton, while the other stared at him with his eyes wide open and his mouth tightly shut, making his face look like a rounded “dulcimer”. Zhao Laizi laughed his head off.
Still patrolling after a haha laugh.
Gradually, the patrols led to a little trick. As the four men walked along, I don’t know who took the lead and deliberately pushed each other to one side, and as they did so, all four of them came to one-half of the other side of the ditch, and then the other side pushed them to this side… In fact, without seeing any instructions from the higher-ups, all four of them always stood in a neatly organized line, and without anyone giving them any orders, they took a step on the right and then a step on the left together. One time, Tulku took a wrong step and took two steps backward, as if he were backing up a line. When he saw me looking at him, his little face immediately turned red and he lowered his head in shame for a long time, as if he was embarrassed to be caught taking a wrong step during a drill…
After the patrols, it’s all about watching each other’s backs.
“Fuck! Either the two sides of the peace talks, or a big fight, to a fish death net break, just like this dry boil, is to boil our cock to grow out of the horn not!” Lai Zi always annoyed.
I said to him, “Can’t you grow horns and still rot?”
Because of the strange heat and humidity in the cave, we have all begun to rot the crotch, vesicles, yellow water, strange itching, not paying attention to scratch off a piece of skin, revealing the tender red flesh, by the sweat, and then strange pain.
We are very hot behind the comrades, although they are also in a tense war preparations, but in the sunshine when the sunlight is sufficient, but also can take off a naked from the sunshine, sunshine and fresh air is the most effective treatment for rotten crotch medicine. We couldn’t, the company sent people to send supplies, contact tools, walkie-talkies, everything and so on, and we stood firm in that hole. We also built a thatched hut on the side of the hole, and sat there during the day to cool off and ventilate the air, but in that “cavity”
The military must be fully clothed and armed to maintain military discipline – the image of the soldier – within sight of the “toot” and the “toot”.
Lai Zi always chattered, “Fuck! Did you forget about us, why don’t you send someone to replace us.”
However, every day when he spoke to his foreign-accented platoon leader over the walkie-talkie, or when the company correspondent came to deliver something, he didn’t say a word.
We all know in our hearts that the continuation of this situation just shows that people have not forgotten us.
Zhao Laizi is from Hefei, Anhui Province, three years older than me, I’m twenty-one, he’s twenty-four.
I joined the army after three months of training, was assigned to the battalion headquarters guard platoon, Lai Zi is a publicity officer, and do film projectionist. Soon, the troops were transferred from the mainland to the front line in Guangxi, and the propaganda work was aggravated, because I had some expertise in art, so I was sent to be his assistant, to help him publish wall posters and draw slides.
Zhao Laizi was dark, with large kozo eyes and a straight, pointed nose, and he often boasted that his entire body possessed enough lines to be a mannequin.
The two of us occupied a ten-square-meter bucket room that served as both a dormitory and a studio.
Lai Zi’s temperament is as active as a mouse that won’t stop idling. He is almost everyone on the joke, who can not estimate his belly loaded with how much tied into a circle tied hook words, he casually take over the words of others joke, the theme is always away from the navel three inches that the precious land.
When he handed someone something, he said, “Here’s a guy for you, and you’ll name him after you see the male and female in ten months.”
When he greeted the others to help, he said, “Come on, let’s do it, but you can wash it first.”
┅┅
He countered with a grin, “Yes, Shaw, that’s what I meant, it was supposed to be a stream from you.” He emphasized the word “you.”
I said, “It’s me…”
He laughed out loud, “Yes, that’s right, it’s according to you…”
In fact, in the barracks and elsewhere, the happiest topic of leisure time is also men and women, “food and color”.
When I got to know Laiko well, he called me a “bad boy”.
“I say, with you being a bad boy and not having hooked up with someone’s big girl, I don’t believe it!” Laizi said.
“I’m going to be honest and you’ll believe it even less, I’ve hitched a dozen ‘regulars’.”
“Blow.”
“Bluffing you is dead little old Viet.”
“Based on that statement, you should… have experienced some cloud and rain.”
“We’re not as worthless as you.”
“Bullshit! We’re… a boy!” He looked very pleased with himself.
“And a fucking ‘ginseng doll’?”
“That’s right!” Laiko laughed, “Nurturing people, do you eat?”
“Eat! I’m afraid you don’t dare…”
Even when he was taking a bath with me, when I was already undressed and on the bed, he would slap my buttocks coldly and laugh strangely, “What a nice little ass, it’s just for me, isn’t it? Haha…”
If, this joke as a total of what “mistakes” to pursue, that really is Su San into the Hongdong County – there is not a good person. Between the same sex to each other for sexual purposes jokes, almost open and universal, teasing, chasing, laughing and shouting: “I fuck your ass, you give me to stand still!” No one was offended, let alone penalized as a “hooligan”, and this was also true in the barracks.
Instead, my banter with Laiko developed.
Laiko began to make a pass at me, kissing me hard when he got the chance – and I was, to tell you the truth, pleasantly surprised.
I learned to appreciate this pleasantness when I was in middle school.
I’m tall and my seat is in the last row of the classroom and it’s in the corner.
At that time, there was already a lot of talk about sex among the classmates, which was not clear, but was referred to as “oozing oil”.
It was winter, and everyone was dressed in bloated clothes. Hongxiang, who was at the same table, whispered quietly to me, “I ‘shed oil’ last night
up.”
Already in class, he is very some God is not at ease, probably still thinking about last night’s events. As he thought about it, he used the cover of his cotton shirt to reach inside my pants. I tried to hide from him, but I couldn’t in the middle of a lesson, and the feeling was too much to ask for, so I stopped hiding. There was a kind of heat running through my body, a kind of floating, light and pleasant feeling…
In fact, it wasn’t just Hongxiang and I. Not only was it a popular topic amongst the male students, but it was also a popular game… Laiko and I had this game again.
And the thing that pushes the boundaries of this game happens.
I had just returned to the dormitory after taking a shower, and Laiko stared at me with a bewildered look in his eyes, and while I was packing up my bed behind his back, he violently pulled down my shorts…
I should have told the truth, I didn’t get annoyed, instead I teased him, “What, are you craving it, you really want to take a whiff of you?”
He smiled in such a strange way and said, “I’m really greedy, but I’m afraid that if you… get serious, you won’t be able to…”
“Shed, come on,…” I imagined the kind of pleasantness that I had already missed for a long time after breaking up with my tablemate Hongxiang.
Laiko was not like that. He swooped me down on the bed, pulling out the light in his hand, and he held me in his arms and kissed me wildly without a head.
My heart raced, and in the midst of my trepidation, there was also a surge of déjà vu greed, and I hugged him too, and the elasticity of his slippery skin and fuzzy, sweaty, furious muscles communicated to me through my hands with a kind of agitated, uneasy pleasure, and I went so far as to seek out his lips and tongue with my lips and tongue too – later, he said that this initiative of mine was something he hadn’t thought about –and so these lips and tongue bit and twisted together until they were satisfied and calm… “Shaw, tell me the truth, do you really like this?”
That night, Laiko and I squeezed into a bed, his skeleton reaching under my neck and wrapping around my shoulders.
“…” I didn’t reply.
“Really, if you don’t like it, in the future, I… promise to avoid it, never again.”
I twisted my head and licked his face and skeleton, mumbling, “I… don’t know, I really don’t know…”
“So… do you want a woman,…”
“I don’t know,… you… don’t ask, okay!”
“No. Shaw, I… I don’t want to harm you.”
“Harm me how?”
“Suppose, you… you hate this…”
I was silent. It seemed that for the first time I was forced by Laiko to think about myself… Did I think about women? I’ve thought about them, but not so deeply and tangibly. I can’t think of any woman who has ever entered into the kind of dreams I know I’ve had, and when I’ve had the impulse to have those dreams, it’s been both women and men, just visions of beautiful nudity, complete lines that fluttered around, and I’ve never seemed to focus on the kind of localized parts that are the focus of the human eye, and the lines that have aroused me have had a mixture of women’s softness and men’s strength… There was also the strength of a man… I was once attracted to a woman’s flowing hair, and I was also attracted to some of my comrades’ desirable bodies in the bathroom …Now, for the first time, Laiko and I not only touched a man of the same sex all over his body, but also kissed him and received his touch and kisses. I was happy, as if I had tasted it before but it was really the first time I had tasted it… And I didn’t think of him as any other person, I didn’t think of him as a woman… He was Laiko, Cho-Laiko, the active, easy-going Laiko I usually liked, the handsome Laiko with his shrewd manhood, the Laiko whose body was as athletic as that of a deer… Except that my usual liking had changed suddenly today. His bold attack, his recklessness, in return for my kissing his body, which made me suck the salty sweet scent of his body with pleasure… Did I like it or did I hate it? …
So, I said, “Laiko, anyway, by now, I know you’re Laiko, the man.”
“Shaw, I can’t believe it, you’re so subtle.”
“No, Laiko, I did just realize it.”
“What?”
“I don’t feel… bad… with you…”
┅┅
Laiko was very excited, he softly “ah ah”, the sound makes my feelings for him seem more real and more hazy.
(ii)
Since that day, between us in the occasion of other people, jokes instead of convergence, feel a little embarrassed, the two people together, but also do not feel is a joke, but a kind of intimacy without the intermediary.
One day he and I were sitting in front of each other under a lamp, sketching a set of slides praising good deeds. He suddenly looked up and said with great seriousness, “It looks like we’re having a… homosexual affair.”
“I was very surprised. Because I had only heard of the word, and I don’t remember having seen any text explaining it, except that I had heard that it was a kind of “perversion” of the human being, and I had never thought to look into it, and I even thought that it was like the Eiffel Tower in France or the Bermuda sea area, distant and mysterious.
“You’re just imagining things.” I said to Laiko, “Who are you and I a ‘sissy’ and who are we… that…?”
“Which?” Laiko was also filled with doubt.
“The kind… willing to let someone… be a woman.”
“But…” said Laiko, as if to himself, “but… aren’t we, in all honesty, in love?”
I had to think deeply. Indeed, before that night, we also take care of each other, but that is just the rough care between young friends, since that day, between the two people more kind of subtle nuance and lingering. A few days ago, I had acute enteritis, took the munams and had an adverse reaction, Lai Zi stayed up all night to guard me, and several times kowtowed and bowed to ask the doctor of the health team to come. He had to go down to the company to show a movie, the military order could not be disobeyed, and was in a hurry. That night, he walked more than forty miles up the mountain without eating and finally returned sweating through his entire body. When I tossed and turned to see him rush into the house, did not wait for him to try to see if I was still feverish hand pressed to my forehead, I stopped and hugged him, my tears came out of my eyes, my heart was so afraid that he would leave me for a minute and a second.
The feeling came out of nowhere in that moment, but the trigger that ignited the feelings came on that mysterious night when the two shared a bed.
Are we the mysterious and scary… “homosexuals”?
On more than one occasion, Laiko expressed his doubts about me – he said he thought we were “gay”.
Finally, the battalion’s deputy instructor brought me in.
He stared at me suspiciously before asking, “Shaw, what’s your impression of Zhao Laizi?”
I didn’t think twice: “He’s progressive, serious about his work, united with his comrades, concerned about the community…”
“Come on, come on,” but he stopped me, “I didn’t ask you to appraise him. I mean, you worked with him and lived in the same dormitory, did he… did he… did he have any problems in his life?”
“Nope.” I, however, was questioning it.
“Well… let’s get this straight… did he ever do anything nasty to you… for example, any kind of unseemly behavior or anything like that…”
I realized what he meant. But it’s true that Laiko and I, or I and Laiko, have never acted out of character.
I panicked but kept my composure and asked, “I don’t understand what you mean, can you make it clearer.”
The deputy instructor, who did not seem to want to play dumb, took out a letter from Laiko addressed to the editor of a magazine with a “Counseling” section. Under the pretext of inquiring on behalf of a friend, he asked for advice on what homosexuality was all about and how it could be corrected.
The editorial board from the people’s guards of reverence and concern, even the letter forwarded to the battalion, and especially emphasized that “the troops in the male concentration, should be strictly prevented from a very few perverts pulling corrosion, shaking the heart of the army, destroy my Great Wall”, and so on and so forth, and stamped with a big red official seal.
The deputy instructor showed me the letters.
I am frustrated. How could the Great Wall be destroyed by homosexuality? Is this homosexuality really more powerful than nuclear weapons?
I balked, “I don’t know what ‘gay’ means, and I haven’t seen Zhao Laizi act out of character.”
“Alright, no situation is good.” The deputy instructor carefully put away the two letters, “Note, this is where the conversation ends, don’t spread it.”
Walking out of his office, I saw that his correspondent had already called Laiko as well. Extremely nervous, I just had to signal him with my eye kozo that I hadn’t said anything, and that he should keep his mouth shut.
Just a moment later, Laiko returned with a sad face.
“What was said?” I asked apprehensively and urgently.
“Nothing, let me write a strong application to go down to the company as a soldier, to be tested by the organization in the line of fire.”
“Just because…?”
“Stop it, it’s hard to be confused.”
“I write too!”
“Don’t go along with it, you’re not tied to me by a thread, there’s no need for that.”
┅┅
But I wrote and submitted it behind his back.
When we were both authorized to go down to the same company, Lai Zi realized the details. He was almost furious: “You’re a fool, aren’t you? You… aren’t you saying… that we had… that we had…”
I came to a sudden realization, and the wood had been turned out of the fire.
As we sat in the truck taking us to the company, we could hear the rumbling of artillery from afar, and in the camouflaged truck compartment there was only Laiko and me, our hearts lurching along with the truck as we wondered what would happen to us on this trip. In the silence, our hands clasped together again, and we embraced and kissed… We were soon assigned to man this forward observation post, and Laiko, who was in the platoon, was my superior. The company commander’s reasoning was extremely sound, saying that the post was of great importance, that it had both national defense and diplomatic responsibilities, and that it needed the right people, and so on.
In fact, there are only two kinds of people who come down from the top to the company with some rank. One is those who are intentionally sent to the grass-roots level for “gold plating.”
The company’s staff will soon be looking for an opportunity to be promoted to a higher position than is practicable. This kind of person is sent down to the company, and there is a lot of special care from above. The other is to make some inexplicable mistake, this kind of punishment, than the formal punishment can make the file does not leave a stain, but also the impression of the mistake than the file on the black and white paper is more powerful spread to the minds of the people, and, far less than the file recorded in the wrong thing is clear, the conclusion of the clear. This kind of punishment will always make people feel that you have made mistakes, and if you pursue, they feel that “there is a reason for what happened, there is no evidence”, and anyone can teach you “to do more self-criticism, if there is, then change, if not, then increase the encouragement of the revolutionary warriors, as long as they are doing the work of the revolution, should be regarded as the organization of the trust and testing. and test.”
Laiko and I have been trusted to test this hole for three months.
“Lai Zi, if I squat for another three months, I’m afraid I’ll be squatting.”
I said to Laiko, not without acidity.
“On command.” Laiko wasn’t without a sour note.
Just into the cave, the two men closer and all the time together, Lai Zi sighs: “We do not want to be gay or gay, the same life love.”
The two of us resumed our embrace and kiss that had been suspended for some time.
At one point, he secretly gasped, “Shaw, if you really don’t hate being with men, then… I want you to come for real.”
I knew what he wanted and said, “No good!”
“Xiao,” he said, his voice trembling, “I’ve always thought that I’ve done you a disservice. Because… I don’t know… I… have always wanted… to be with a man… you… you met me. If you had really… confessed, at this point, if you were willing, I… we wouldn’t have suffered in vain…”
I agreed, from the bottom of my heart, because, instead of feeling any displeasure, the fullness and pleasure of feeling that I truly owned everything about Laiko, that a beautiful, living, same-sex life belonged to me, mesmerized me into oblivion.
Laiko has since regained some of his liveliness.
Sacred duties are then intertwined with the cheating and clueless dullness of these two young lads.
Those two Vietnamese soldiers were passing the day somehow.
I can always hear the “cavity” like a toothless old woman whimpering and singing an old tune, and the “tootle” is silent.
“Is the ‘doodle’ mute?” I asked Laiko.
“Poor thing, he’s only fifteen at best.”
“‘Cavity’ is quasi-fucking alcoholic.” I said.
“Drinking is possible, being horny… no conditions.” Laiko solemnly pondered and solemnly concluded.
“Almost as if he and ‘Tootsie’ were engaging in ‘homosexuality’ as well.”
“You, it’s enough to have me, what do you care about others.” Listening to Lai Zi’s tone, it was as if he already knew how those two Vietnamese soldiers were.
Laiko loves to tease and joke around, but he also loves to be serious.
Every day before each routine patrol, he also always have to pick up the head and feet meticulous. Once, when I unbuttoned my collar and shirt when I got hot at the bottom of a ditch, he gave me a stern look and shouted, “Tie it!” Because of his rotten crotch, I suggested many times that he shouldn’t wear shorts to protect himself from the wind, but he didn’t listen… Lai Tzu was a fine-looking man, with a fine body, a fine face, and fine eyes, and with his brand-new musket poking out of his hand, he looked better than an uncle of the People’s Liberation Army dressed up by a painter or a sculptor.
Squatting holes, stringing ravines, this world is only Lai Zi become my pleasure of a landscape, also seems to be only worthy of him to do I never tire of a landscape. This is fate and destiny, I think.
Only to be told that while the Sino-Vietnamese relationship was growing increasingly tense, and the company was practicing every day with an intensity that bordered on insanity, here we were (and the two little old Vietcongs across the street) like an old clock, only with a rhythm that made people drowsy.
“I’m going crazy with loneliness!” I yelled at the valley.
“A soldier’s duty is to obey orders.” Lai Zi, however, was extremely calm.
“Yes! We can still talk and relieve our boredom, but that ‘cavity’ and ‘toot’ are hard enough, what can they say to each other.”
“You,” Laiko laughed bitterly, “shed tears watching the Three Kingdoms…”
“Fuck you, little old sucking, shriveled, rattling mom!”
I twisted my head and cursed so hard at the cliff that the ditch rang out.
“Don’t make a big deal out of this…”
Laiko said, looking dementedly out into the inexplicable dimness of the cave.
On successive cloudy days, Lai Tzu’s rotten crotch became even worse, with an itching and a piercing pain. A few packets of “Six-one powder” were put on it, and the crotch turned into a muddy pond, and he was walking with his legs splayed out. When he was on patrol, he held his chest out and flung his arms in the air, but when he went back to his cave, he hurriedly took off his pants and took some Chai medicine and cotton balls to wipe it up, and as he did so, he inhaled… “Lai Zi, I can do it by myself when I go on patrol again, so you don’t have to go, Lai Zi…” I felt so sorry for him.
“That’s not good, in case something happens.”
“What can happen, I can handle anything that comes up.”
“I’m not worried… Shaw, I’m just looking forward to seeing you return from the war in one piece…”
“The world’s green hills bury the bones of the faithful, so why bother to return in horse hide.”
“Nonsense!” Laiko even growled in anger, “If you want to be a hero, you can do it when I leave or when I’m… finished first… it’s none of my business. I’ll watch you go back even if I have a breath!” Seeing that I was frozen, he slowed down his tone, “Actually, I don’t like to hear that, it’s awkward.”
“I understand, Laiko.” I stopped flailing.
I know his heart. He always thought that he had brought me down, and that I was being punished for it. But I don’t think so. To use the philosophical reasoning that my teacher taught me in my political science class at school, it was an inevitable consequence of chance; if I hadn’t met Lai Zi, or if Lai Zi hadn’t met me, and if I hadn’t been sent here to help him and had lived in the same room, what would have happened? Moreover, I think the battalion deputy instructor is not intentionally punishing us, he is to follow a practice, he has been transferred to the provincial city of the military command to do what the staff to go, his father-in-law is a Beijing enough status of a high-ranking official, his mind on the doorway to transfer away from the front line of the war is about to break out, he is not so much to the two of us little people this unsubstantiated “problems “He even does not believe that we will destroy the Great Wall of Arms that can drive Chiang Kai-shek into the sea and drive the American Empire back to the 38th parallel in Korea. I really don’t want Lai Zi always blaming himself for this, from the time I befriended him to the present, everything that happened between us was my willingness, and I will not blame him for what I have come to.
I told him that his worrying about it led me to grief instead.
“You don’t always say that bad luck, I hear it, my heart like a piece of tofu soft, annoyed.” He said, extremely serious.
“I get it.” I kissed him, “I get it, Laiko!”
How can I not get it?
(iii)
Before I broke the boundaries of this “game” with Laizi, I repeated the boasts I had made during my school days, whether intentionally or unintentionally, not only with him, but also with some of my close and not-so-close comrades… I always told them how many girls had fallen in love with me, and boasted that love between a man and a woman was no longer a mystery to me, and that it wasn’t new to me anymore…
I myself, and even those who heard it, knew that it was nothing more than the usual bragging among boys, just bragging.
Being loved only by your parents is a symbol of not growing up.
When you grow up, you deserve to be loved by others, you dare to love others, men love women, women love men.
An unloved person is not grown up. He is destined to be despised like a child.
In fact, since I was in junior high school, my classmates have been filled with such true and false bragging.
Accompanying this bragging was another kind of whispered punditry that filled the classroom.
Two close companions would be walking and talking, and one would suddenly say to the other, “Last night, I ‘bled’ again.
“That look was extremely smug and arrogant.
The male classmates begin to comment on which girl is pretty, and although they long for her, they have a standard that they subconsciously “assign” the pretty girl to a male classmate whom they consider to be pretty as well. Thus, “rumors” begin to grow.
Being attacked by this “rumor”, I was not annoyed, and I pretended to deny it half-heartedly – in fact, in my heart, I was happy to accept it, and I was happy for it to become a fact.
Boys who always go chasing around girls are looked down upon by their peers, and those boys who are talked about by girls to please them are jealously envied by their peers.
Those boys who were never noticed by the girls were also not lonely, and always chose the opportunity to make a mysterious melancholy look and spread among their peers, “Who is interested in me, what should I do?”
But then again, it’s often exchanged for backbiting from your peers –
“He looks like a potato. Blow it!”
“His ‘game’ is like a peanut…”
“He hasn’t grown any hair yet…”
┅┅
Loving and being loved begins with a hazy definition of what is beautiful about oneself to others to the opposite sex to the same sex.
Thus, the campus is filled with some self-importance handsome and like not yet castrated and not yet domesticated children’s horse eggs as arrogant and unruly boys. They are always big and bold rampage, hovering in the sports field, to show their fitness, on anything is a bluster cross comments, always love to rage their own fierce strong chivalrous sense of justice, always love to show the cynicism of the world extraordinary, they are tired of parents and teachers on their thousand and one like and love, they are tired of this kind of love as a gift, they feel that they are qualified to get the love of the extra, they have no mother-in-law to control them, they are not a good boy. They felt that they were entitled to some kind of love, love that was not so demanding, and in order to get it, they quietly “disciplined” themselves, their hair was no longer disheveled, their bodies were no longer filthy, their fingernails were free of black grime… the feeling of being beautiful was so overwhelming that they forgot all about it.
I am a little bit of this kind of temperament, but I am not beautiful, thin small eyes, and do not have the kind of people’s forehead wide enough to show intelligence. I’m just tall and white, and my favorite standard of human beauty is “white covers all ugliness”.
I only dabbled in this temperament, which made me not the best student in school in terms of homework and behavior, and the most obedient to teachers. I was a prima donna on the basketball court, and was most active in painting, but I never wanted to be a great painter, and never really went to a master, contenting myself with the glare of being in the classroom, painting murals, and decorating for the school. (Think of the haunting mystery in the girls’ eyes when they saw a well-built, clean-cut boy putting together random shapes of color with ease…) The feeling of being pretty made every boy, who had never been sloppy, sensitive and jealous, and in that jealousy, he also quietly envied and loved his peers who were pretty and prettier, and those who weren’t often lacked the admiration of their peers. Unpretty boys tend to lack the support of their peers, whereas handsome boys are always surrounded by their followers.
Even though Hongxiang was the “first” to lure me into that kind of game, I didn’t really like him. Hongxiang is 5’8″ tall, thin, dry, and has a rat-like face, but his hands are very white and slippery, and when he puts his hands in the waist of my pants during class, that tense and mysterious feeling of being manipulated by a pair of hands like that doesn’t make me hate him.
And in those days, I always thought of Summer in my class. It was no secret that he could truly afford to be pretty, that he was the centerpiece of almost the entire school’s female backstabbing, and that he was the central target of almost the entire school’s male secret jealousy. Summer plays a good double-barrelled game and is the school’s favorite soloist when they put on a cultural performance at a festival. In fact, his voice is really difficult to praise, with a boy’s voice when the change of the voice like the sharp and boring a duck accent, sing a song to the absurd board out of tune. But the female students applauded him for his awful voice, and one of them mobilized them to shout in unison, “Summer, come one, Summer, come one…”
Very some of the male students are sour because of this.
I was also jealous that he had such big, bright eyes under a broad, jutting forehead, and such a pair of wide, heavy eyebrows, and such broad, muscular shoulders and chest I would secretly grieve for my collapsed chest, for my small, thin eyes,… especially when swimming. Summer seemed to cherish the opportunity to dazzle his prettiness enough to dive in again and again, which would show off his guts and his body without hiding his prettiness underwater. I stared at Summer in his tight trunks, at his beautifully shaped ass, at the protuberance that seemed to hum like a brass bell that was created by the trunks under his belly and felt like it was incomparable to any other male student, and… A burning and regret was growing in my heart, and I wanted to engage in that kind of play with him, and I wanted to find out what kind of prettiness was still hidden in a beautiful form like that. This anxiety and regret lasted almost until graduation, when we all parted ways.
And come to the son of a meeting, I this burning and regret was ignited again, but extremely hazy – perhaps, this is because I do not have a clear identification of their own such, which makes it, although the existence of all the time, but always seems to be like a cloud haunting; perhaps, come to the son of his own easy-going to no special, without that kind of unparalleled glare. In fact, come son is very beautiful, although not summer kind of heavy, come son more agile and delicate, he loves to tease, we also love and he teased, chasing him to make trouble with him, at this time, he smiled and dodged left and right – I said – he is more like a leaping little deer.
Finally, on that night when he and I had our first kiss, he instantly made it clear to me the kind of determination I had made – why I was so overjoyed when I heard that I had been assigned to him as an aide-de-camp, that I practically trotted out of the battalion headquarters to report for duty, and couldn’t wait to move into his quarters on the same day; and why I was so careful to be submissive to him and curry favor with him while giving up the kind of arrogance that I had once been so proud of Why was I so careful to obey him and please him at work, giving up the kind of pride that I had once been so proud of… It could be said that it was still this impulse that drove me to call in my request to go down to the company to join the war effort even though I did not listen to his advice?
But, I also hate him a little.
He shouldn’t have written to the fucking editorial board and asked me about this fucking… “homosexuality” that I didn’t even think about.
From the moment I heard those three words, an uneasiness came over the pleasure I felt with him, and it spread like a poisonous fog: could it be that we were homosexuals, but who was as unmanly and demonic, as frivolous and licentious, as the legend had it that Laiko and I were? In any case, we were among the best of our comrades, we were serious about our work, we did it well, we were praised by our regiment, we were honored by our division, and… ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, and now, these three words, they’re, uh…
I have even identified with those three words. I should confess that since I had identified with those three words, I had become even more crazed with desire for Laizi’s beauty. Sometimes, I would already take the initiative to suddenly embrace him, shamelessly grinning, “Laizi, I have to have you, I can’t help it…”
And at that moment, there was a kind of vengeful pleasure in the fulfillment of carnal desire: I am gay! It’s not wrong to be gay when you can get this pretty lad like this! Laiko! I’m going to be gay with you… and I’m going to be gay!
Lai Tzu had also changed. Except for the necessary reminders, he had lost the “superior” attitude he once had towards me, and he was subservient to me, almost to the point of being unprincipled. Sometimes, when he was watching the cave with his rifle, I pawed at him with impunity, and I even imitated the tone of a hooligan making love to a woman, talking dirty to him and even forcing him to respond… He was silent at this point, and his expression was pained. He thought that he was the one who had seduced me, who had led me to this point where my future was uncertain and my life and death were uncertain, and he felt remorse and shame, and he endured the pain of satisfying me, and the pain of hoping that I would be able to separate from him, physically and spiritually, in life and in life, unharmed… He was so sensitive to his remorse that even the boring words of my bluffing that I wouldn’t hesitate to die in battle became so sensitive to his remorse.
How could I not understand, Laiko?
“I won’t say such nonsense anymore, Laiko,” I stroked him, “not only I want to go back safely, you want to go back safely, Laiko, we… it’s a fated love… I love you… you didn’t tease me… it’s because I want to… it’s because I love you since I was a child… it’s because destiny has given you to me… I love you…”
“Bad boy, stop, you… you… you used to flirt with girls like this, right?” He tried to joke, but his voice choked.
It’s dark again.
Again, I heard the thirty-something year old Viet singing forlornly.
The battlefield is silent, the battlefield is extremely quiet.
“Let me get you medicated while there’s still some light.” I said.
Laiko’s rotten crotch had a new potent medicine on it, and the torn area was crusted over, showing some of the vigor of a young man.
“Tomorrow the weather will be fine, so I’ll keep an eye on it, and you can spend half a day cuddling in the thorn trees at the back…” I instructed him.
But he heard a yell from that old Viet at the bottom of the cliff, and then heard him shouting endlessly, and heard the younger Viet saying something, with a sobbing voice.
“He’s bullying the kid again, probably hitting the kid.” Laiko listened, like he was talking to himself.
During the day, we saw the 30-something Vietnamese soldier beat up the young soldier for some reason, kicking him with his big American boots, pounding him with the butt of a new Soviet-supported rifle, and whipping him with a Chinese-supplied copper-head bull’s belt…
One of their roars and one of their complaints sounded even more true in the valley, which was oppressively dim with the fall of night.
“Fuck you little old Viet!” I then cursed as hard as I could at this inexplicable pitch blackness.
“Stop it!” Laiko stabbed me.
Their voices actually stopped. It was only when it was completely dark that the old soldier could be heard again singing that song that seemed to go on for the rest of his life.
“I’m sleepy, Shaw, wake up, and if you notice anything unusual, don’t delay, wake me up…”
“Go to sleep, Laiko, go to sleep.” I turned on my side and kissed him, and I was willing to make it clear to him that – I say I want to be gay, it’s not up to you whether you want to be or not; I don’t want to be, and you can’t do what you want to do, it’s none of your business.
Laiko was indeed sleepy, and he met my kisses, then actually just accepted them calmly.
I put his head in a position suitable for sleep before I stopped.
“I really love you, Laiko!” I said in my mind. Since both of us have rotten crotches, this kissing is the only way we love each other.
The night was too dark and too quiet, the wind was so strong that I could squeeze water out of a handful of it, and something was crawling on my buttocks, twisting and turning to write a foreign language, and I scratched at it, and it was so wet…
Outside the cave, still so dark, the bare cliff head also sleep dead in the thick black, seems quite dignified.
Finally I heard some kind of bug chirping.
What a hard night!
I fumbled around and thickly sprayed some insect repellent. I fumbled with taking off my son’s shoes and socks and unbuckling his pants, in order to give his body a little of this rare night air.
I feel sorry for him and hate his seriousness — during the day, in order to show the heroic posture of this Chinese soldier, he will not wear less than any of this full military uniform inside and outside; at night, for the sake of that military order of war readiness, he also refused to take off any piece of clothing that can be put into the battle at once. He resented the fact that mine was always bare-shouldered and bare-footed, even naked in the sun. I could see his displeasure, and I knew that if it had been anyone else, he would have put on his “superior” face. I’ve seen his “boss” face before, and it’s a little face that says, “This won’t work! The background is so sloppily drawn that it doesn’t bring out the atmosphere of the battlefield, no, redraw it.”
His shoes and socks were wet, so I was not afraid to “break the rules”, quietly slipped out of the cave (this is a private AWOL post ah), to the side of the cave of the creek for him to wash. He slept soundly. Last night, he did not wake me up to pick up his shift, his own top of the night, during the day, because the original three patrols added another one, his eyes did not blink, calculated, he is nearly forty hours without sleep. Hateful Lai Zi, you this seriously really hate my heartache ah!
I washed his shoes and socks, and quietly brought water to wash his stinking feet, which were as swollen and dead as oiled paper, and… I was so careful to wash them that I didn’t dare to make a sound for fear of waking him up. He was really deep in sleep, snoring quietly and not moving a muscle. My hand touched his feet, and my heart ached so much that I wanted to cry as I thought about the time before and after he had come down to the company and squatted in this damned cave, and about the change in his attitude toward me. Was Laiko such a stickler for himself? What about that bouncing little prune? He shouldn’t have become a young calf who was prematurely harnessed and driven to pull a heavy cart with a whip whistling? And I… shouldn’t have been part of the rope and whip and the heavy cart? I realized that I had tears streaming down my face.
I cupped his feet as if I were hugging him, I couldn’t help but kiss his feet with my lips and tongue, I wanted to tell him with my kisses that you don’t have to feel guilty about me, I’m willing to do this, I am! I like you even more than you like me.
His feet were salty and still stank, but I felt a real sense of comfort when I kissed them… Didn’t they say that homosexuality is a form of perversion? Well, let me be perverted! If my love for him, my heartache for him, and this fate-driven bonding is a perversion, I don’t want to seek a damn explanation for my perversion, one word is enough – I’m willing!
┅┅
(iv)
The next day, I saw Laiko’s face twitch in pain when he took a step on patrol.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“This…” he pointed to the crotch.
When I came back to the hole, I removed my pants and saw that a large hard scab had been rubbed off, revealing bright red tender flesh.
“What’s to be done?” I felt at my wits end. If I wanted to not wear it down, one was to just expose it and wait for him to grow out of it; I had been hospitalized for a small burn, so I knew that a wound like this should not be bandaged, and that exposing it under sterile conditions was the best way to go. But is this possible? Two… It is self-evident that if you say you are bandaging it, you will cover it up and make it worse.
The two were at a loss.
But the walkie-talkie buzzed, and again the platoon leader’s accent: “Hello, Comrade Zhao Laizi, is there a situation?”
“No… no situation.” Laiko said as he couldn’t free his hands and tilted his body to put his mouth close to the walkie-talkie sitting on the floor.
I caught him off guard, grabbed a walkie-talkie in one hand and yelled, “We have a situation!”
“WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT… WHAT?
“Zhao Laizi was wounded and his cock is half rotten… Cock… you have an object that grows on you too…”
“You…” said Laiko, defiantly, coming for the walkie-talkie.
“Okay, okay…” I could hear that the foreign-accented platoon leader was gritting his teeth, “You wait, I order you to wait…”
The walkie-talkie was buzzing, apparently not turned off.
“You’re a net troublemaker!” Laiko complained with a face full of pain.
I helped him sit up. He held the walkie-talkie in both hands, the corners of his mouth twitching. I picked up the cotton ball and ambled over to wipe his crotch.
I could hardly bear to do it. Among the black and purple, a dozen or so bean-sized patches were bright red, and when I wiped them, the flesh shook a little. The damp, stifling heat was unbearable, and I felt the sweat on my forehead and body desperately trying to break through my pores… I threw away the sticky cotton ball and replaced it with a new one. I held the skin in my palm, taking care that the cotton ball didn’t touch the torn areas where the flesh was exposed, and gently wiped away the dirt that I didn’t know whether it was medicinal paste or pus and blood… The skin of the lai tzu shivered in my palm, and the shivering turned it into a wave of electric currents…
“Hey, hey, is that Laiko?”
The walkie-talkies went off again, and the foreign-accented platoon leader moved the instructor.
“It’s me…”
“Laiko, is Xiao Xiao next to you? Xiao…”
Hearing me called out, I looked up and answered, “In the miles.”
“Lai Zi, Xiao Xiao… what are you talking about? We all know what we’re talking about… Oh, I’ve just asked the regiment’s health team, and they’ve got a new batch of medicines for crotch rot, specially developed for the front line. Xiao Xiao had better take some medicine regularly, to cure diseases and prevent diseases. I’ve also brought you a semiconductor… It seems to be quite a problem for our radio station… Just listen to it, as long as there’s a sound, don’t you think? Also, I’ve arranged for someone to talk to you every day for no less than half an hour, so keep an eye on it with your watches, and if there’s not enough time, I’ll penalize him for embezzlement. Hey, something new happened in 2nd Platoon last night. That ‘Jiangxi fart’ drew a map on his bed… Hey, Laizi, Xiao Xiao, did you hear what I said? Did you hear what I said?
“Hear… hear clearly…” choked Laiko.
“Shaw, Shaw, did you hear me?”
“Uh, yes, Instructor…”
“Listen, now, every soldier has a hole in the ground, and… you… I’ll give you both credit for guarding until the moment you’re ordered to evacuate!”
“Yes!”
“Xiao Xiao ah, is there anything else you want?”
Lai Zi looked at me with tearful eyes and handed the walkie-talkie to my mouth. I mumbled, and after a long time, I gritted my teeth and said, “When the time comes, let me join the commando team, and I’ll get out of this mess.”
┅┅
After a good half day had passed, Laiko sighed and said to me, who had been sullen, “The instructor is a good man and knows how to be considerate.”
“Well, good.” I replied.
After half a day’s silence, he muttered to himself, “The Instructor even said that he would give us credit. From his attitude, it doesn’t sound like…”
“Not like what?”
“It’s not like… knowing about us.”
“We… what is it?”
“Knowingly.”
I suddenly became furious: “I’m going to ask, and I’m going to listen to what you have to say out of a dog’s mouth! You… you make me hate you so much. I’ve told you so many times, but you don’t take it to heart… you… don’t you just keep those three words locked in your heart? I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you till I die, I’m in love with you all my life, and after this life, I’ll be in love with you again in the next, I’ll be in love with you forever and ever… just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that, just like that…”
Lai Tzu didn’t speak, his face was pale, he looked a little shocked at first, and then a layer of misery slowly spread over him, he looked like a child in danger with no hope of help, tears appeared in his eyes, and then big drops of tears fell in silent strings… but he didn’t move, he didn’t move at all…
Looking at Laiko’s handsome face, which was even more like a statue because of its pallor, and at his grief and tears, my anger was like wisps of cloud caught in a gusty wind, drifting away… “Don’t take it personally, I’ve bullied you again. Come, lie down and let me give you some medicine,…” In fact, I felt bad and wanted to cry too, but I couldn’t bear to add to this heartbreaking discomfort in this world of two people, so I forced a smile on my face, “Lai Zi, I believe in fate, even you are a few years older than me, and it’s fate that you have to give in to me as my big brother. Lie down. If you don’t listen to me, I’ll be in a hurry. Don’t blame me for being an asshole again…”
Laiko obediently lay down.
“Don’t move! Let me take off your pants for you, who made me… I’m really in love with you like two people,…”
Laiko choked back her sobs and opened her mouth, “Xiao, don’t coax me, I know your heart,… I really want to, before you hit me hard.”
“Just wait… one day… when I see you with someone else, annoyed with me, resentful of me, and I think I can bear to do something to you, I… I won’t just beat you, I’ll kill you!”
┅┅
(v)
The silence in the valley remained the same, and Laiko and I remained together.
To my quick relief, Laiko began to come back to life.
When he saw me naked in the sun, he called out, “Or it’s always cloudy, the sky dog is drying his eggs.”
He had to wake me up, so he came to poke me in the ass with his finger and groggily yelled, “Poke it in and pretend to snore!”
He started to call me all sorts of names: “Bad Boy”, “Sun Da Sheng” (meaning I had a golden rod), “Di”, “Wandi”, “Boy”… I was not afraid to call him “Pai Zai” (Zai, meaning his ass). I called him “Pai Zai” (Zai, meaning his ass), “Boss”… Of course, I didn’t show any weakness and called him “Pai Zai” (Zai, meaning his ass), “Chiu”, “I’ll give you a piece of my mind”, and even “Chun’s wife.” He laughed and said, “From now on, I’ll call you ‘little son-in-law’…”
Laughing and joking, the war situation was escalating dramatically.
The instructor informed us on the walkie-talkie that the situation was no longer just a case of “if you don’t offend me, I don’t offend you; if you do offend me, I will offend you”, but had reached the acute stage of “if you can tolerate it, you can’t tolerate it”. He said in a commanding tone that there should not be the slightest slackening of surveillance on the Vietnamese side, and that there was no need to tolerate any provocative behavior on the part of the Vietnamese side, and that they should report to him at any time. Moreover, he told us without hesitation that if the situation changed, Lai Zi and I could throw down anything (preferably destroyed) and evacuate quickly on our own with our weapons, and he had his correspondent send us a map of the evacuation route, which was of a “top secret” level, in order to prevent us from accidentally hitting the thickly planted mines. This unmined channel was left just for me and Laiko.
Along with this roadmap, there are also two “China” cigarettes, which are said to be specially supplied to Zhongnanhai.
Laiko put on my long-lost “boss” face and gave orders – this cigarette can only be smoked on patrol.
“Yes, sir, take a seat.” Instead, I was inexplicably relieved to see his “boss” face.
The battle is tense, but nothing in this valley has changed.
Patrols are still routinely conducted every day.
That day, when the patrol came to the mouth of the narrow ditch, we and the two old Viets rested on the rock wall, which was no more than ten meters away from each other.
Lai Tzu took out his Zhonghua cigarettes, and the carton appeared in the sunlight in a brilliant red color… and the two old Viets leaned against the stone wall on their side.
“Cavity also took a cigarette and held it in his mouth (I’m afraid Tulku didn’t smoke, as I’ve never seen him do so), and then rummaged around… apparently he didn’t have any matches with him.
With a glance at him, I took out my electronic lighter, weighed it in my hand, and with a flick of my wrist, I struck it with a click, lit the cigarettes for Lai Tzu and myself, and inhaled deeply… “Cavity”‘s eyes lit up, and he put down his gun, got up and moved towards us… I winked at Lai Tzu, smiled a little, and put out the lighter I flicked the lighter a dozen times… The red flames were so vivid… “Laiko’s” eyes were glowing blue, but “Tooru” tried to stop him. But then he stopped…
“Hey, soldier, light a fire…”
“Cavity” spoke Chinese fluently by accident.
“Duluo was right behind him, his round face turned into a tomato, red and green, both hands gripping his gun… Laiko and I stared at each other and exchanged glances.
I approached “Cavity” carelessly and held out my lighter to him… “Cavity” laughed dryly and tried to take it, but I didn’t give it to him, instead I clicked the lighter on, he laughed awkwardly again, and as he lowered his head with his cigarette in his hand, I retracted my arm…
“Cavity” lost his smile and was filled with annoyance.
Instead, I took out my “China” and handed it to him along with a lighter.
At the sight of the “cavity”, immediately turned from anger to joy, said “thank you”, and reached out his hand to take it. However, “Dulu” said something, and reached out his hand to block “Cavity’s” shoulder.
“Cavity” put him a hard shove, a push hat, tilted his head out of a hundred don’t care about the veteran frame, reached out and took the cigarette, close to my lighter lit, with an eye to inhale a mouthful.
A small squirrel emerged from a thorn bush at the edge of the ditch, looked at us in wonder, and then darted across the ditch, squeaking, and disappeared.
“What? Much better than your cigarettes, right?” I asked.
“This cigarette, I’ve smoked it.” He was a little unconvinced, but pulled out his cigarette case – one of those big green packs they had in common – and carefully packed the unlit one back in.
Laiko hemmed and hawed. He doesn’t have the guts or the inclination to be such a “naughty boy”. I asked for his opinion with my eyes, and his acquiescence made me determined to continue this rare “entertainment”.
“This cigarette of yours, I’ve smoked it.” “Cavity” repeated, still unconvinced.
“Of course,” I added, pointing to the big, tumbled leather boots on his feet and the “liberation shoes” on Tulu’s feet, “of course, you’ve seen the world. You’ve seen the world. These shoes on your feet are old and beautiful, yes. The shoes he is wearing were given to him by us… You may still have French goods in your warehouse. What else do you have from Russia?”
“Cavity glared at me and blurted out, “We Vietnamese… can fight…”
“Ha,” I said, deliberately tilting my head and shaking my leg in a soldierly manner, “Look at you, a cannonball flying over here, even if it doesn’t blow you up, it’s going to knock you off your feet. Look at him… He didn’t eat milk just now, and that thing… You know, it hasn’t even grown any hair yet…”
Laiko burst out laughing.
“Cavity’s” thin, yellow face reddened as he squinted up at me and smoked in tight puffs.
“Tootsie” was filled with horror, and the tip of his round nose was topped with a fine, rolling bead of sweat.
“Cavity” finally finished his cigarette, suddenly threw it away, took off his hat and threw it away, pushed up his sleeves and stared at me, “Let’s wrestle!”
I glance at Laiko and he squeezes his eyes at me.
“Drop it!” I said, about to take off the gun I was carrying.
Next to him, Tulku rushed forward and stepped between me and Cavanaugh, and the most annoying thing was that his gun was no longer held across his chest, but was pointed flat at me. Cavanaugh tried to push him again, but he failed. But he didn’t. He shouted something hoarsely to “Cavanaugh” and held his gun even flatter…
“Forget it, forget it…” Laiko walked by with a smile, pulled me back from my eagerness to try, wagged his little finger at Cavity, and with a smile and a glance at the tense Tulku, he said to me “He said to Cavity, “Forget it, look at your partner, he doesn’t even know how to joke, he doesn’t know how to fart!”
“Yeah, no more wrestling,” and with that I found myself a pedestal, “he doesn’t understand any farts!”
“Cavity huffed and puffed in annoyance. “Tootsie, however, still held his rifle leveled at us, his finger on the trigger, and stood still.
“Cavity” picked up his hat, smacked it on his leg, picked up his gun and walked towards their post, taking a few steps and shouting angrily at “Tulku”, who was still standing there in a bit of a panic. “Go back with him, not excluding a harsh curse,” he said…
So, Laiko and I leaned against the stone wall again, lit up cigarettes, and hummed… “My sister is looking for my brother, tears are flowing, my heart is sad when I don’t see my brother…”
This night, only to hear the two of them sometimes loud and sometimes whispering quarrel in the middle of the night, I think the “cavity” is very for the daytime and I was not able to wrestle with me, the heart is extremely feel awkward.
Laiko and I, however, felt a rare sense of coziness. I said, “Lai, those two are not as good as we are. They are afraid that they are talking about ‘fighting a divorce’, that they are a ‘tied couple’,…”
Lai Zi said, “You are bad! You have to let the rotten crotch rot away your evil vigor, so you’ll be honest.”
Probably, “Tulu” had been scolded by “Cavity”, and for several days in a row, he was tired of accompanying “Cavity” during patrols.
next to us, not even daring to look us in the eye.
“Cavity” is quite a god, I do not know where to get a lighter, but also electronic, walked to the mouth of the ditch and pulled out the click click click click to play endlessly, extremely proud.
“‘Cavity’ is demonstrating to us.” I said.
“Hmph, he’s got nothing better to do.” Laiko said.
So, when I was patrolling, I purposely raised my legs and flung my arms high, my soles of my feet kicked up, creating a gust of wind, and when I saw an opportunity, I extended my little finger towards “Cavanagh”, drew a circle on the ground with my foot, spit, and then pointed with my toes… Cavanagh and Duluo were puzzled. “Tulu” were puzzled.
“You’re really something. You even remembered the ‘dumb Zen’ that kids in open pants play… You’re really something…”
“Do they understand?”
“Who knows!”
┅┅
(vi)
Patrols remain the same.
But the air of the Great War was growing thicker and thicker, and the Chinese government’s stern protests against Vietnam’s military provocations were heard on the radio with fewer and fewer gaps each day, and in increasingly pointed terms.
The instructor also officially informed us to destroy as much as possible of what we shouldn’t leave behind, to pack light, and to evacuate whenever we heard us firing…
It was clear to me and to Laizi that the significance of this post no longer existed. We were a little happy that we could put an end to this tedious stay together, but we also felt sad that we would be leaving after the withdrawal, and that our future was uncertain. We both avoided talking about what would happen after the withdrawal, and left the crotch cuddling to us as a form of intimacy. At this moment, we said significantly less, and any words were just superfluous; we just wanted to receive a little more of each other’s breath and heartbeats, and to convey to each other, through these breaths like a lingering gasp, our unrequited feelings, and our bewildered blessings and hopes… However, neither of us had expected to find out that because of the solemnity of the trivial, the subtle, the noble, the insignificant, the sublime, and the subtle and the sublime, that the post had to be withdrawn. A trivial nobility, a lowly self-respect, a helpless triumph that drove us to the moment of evacuation.
It was a sunny noon.
On this day, just as we were descending the cliff, we saw “Cavity” creaking out of their “coffin lid” and staggering towards us with a canteen in his hand, followed by “Tulu”, in a state of panic. Tulu followed him, panicked and confused.
We both rushed to stop them and were hit with the smell of alcohol.
“Cavity” was pulled to a standstill by “Tulu”. His thin face was red, his neck red, and he raised the water bottle and shouted at us: “Chinese soldiers, drink up… our… drink up… and let’s wrestle… Vietnamese, Chinese…”
Laiko stopped me from confronting him with a wink.
I smiled at Cavity and said, “Let’s talk about it when you sober up. You’re drunk like this, and even if I win, it’s like bullying you.”
“Cavity” stared at me with a deathly look on his face as he held the canteen up to his nose, sniffed it, and then passed it straight to me: “Drink! Drink, soldier…”
I didn’t pick it up and subconsciously took a step back.
“Cavity” hehehe laughed, the more he laughed more tightly laughed out of tears, he laughed, hunched over, and gulped a sip, he choked on his drink, tearing up the lungs of a good coughing staff, snot and tears, he wiped a hand to shake off, body swaying, “Duolu” to help him, was desperately shoved away, and shook the water bottle towards me and Laizi closer. He was shaking the kettle again and approached me and Lai Zi.
“Tulu’s face was white in the sunlight.
“To be a soldier… to fight and drink is to be a soldier… to drink… to drink, to be a soldier…”
He screamed and yanked his shirt off, revealing a washboard chest… He laughed again, a sad, contemptuous, chilling laugh…
“If you’re a soldier and you don’t even dare to drink wine, how can you fight in a war? Drink… wine… there’s no poison in it… drink, drink…”
“Cavity’s” hand was shaking as he reached for the kettle, and he came closer and closer, smiling, his mouth grinning, but large teardrops were pouring out… “We’re all soldiers, we fight, we drink…”
His muffled voice was sobbing for no apparent reason.
My heart was also beating inexplicably. When I looked at my son, he was looking at the kettle with eyes and lips clenched in solemnity.
“Drink…”
When I looked at the kettle in Cavity’s hand, I felt that it was expanding indefinitely, that the dead black-green color was almost like a thick fog blocking everything in front of me and filling up the narrow ravine, and the feeling of being a lowly human being was squeezing my ears as if someone was squeezing my neck and making it impossible for me to breathe…
I looked at Laiko again, but he wasn’t looking at me. I gasped hard and reached for the kettle… “Cavity” was happy… silent, but I could tell it was real.
Suddenly, “Tulu” leapt forward and violently opened the kettle with his gun. The kettle flew out of “Cavity’s” hand in a dark green arc and landed noiselessly on the sandy ground at the bottom of the ditch, and before his eyes, a stream flowed out of the kettle. The ditch was filled with the smell of wine…
I took a step back from Laiko, but I don’t know what Laiko was thinking, but he reached out to help me, as if I were drunk and about to fall down… It was Cavity, however, who, after only a moment’s hesitation, let out a long howl and reached out and grabbed Duluo. “Before he could hear Duluo make a sound, he was already dragged to the ground by “Cavity”. The drunken “Cavity” was so energetic that he dragged Duluo by his belt and pulled him to the ground. “Doo Loo” by the waistband to lift him half a person high, hard towards the ground, a few falls, he lifted his foot to “Doo Loo” rolled on the ground, “Doo Loo” can not stand his big American shoes, and screamed, “cavity”. “But “Cavity”, without thinking, grabbed “Tulku’s” gun and hit him with the butt of it… “Tulku” rolled and dodged. Now, “Duluo” was furious. With bloodshot eyes and screaming, he recklessly chased after him and stomped on Duluo’s stomach, trying desperately to hold him down.
“Tootsie” wailed!
His voice was a child’s childish voice, absolutely childish!
I saw Laiko’s face turn white, and just as “Cavity” swung his gun like a madman and slammed it down on “Tooru,” he leapt forward and held the gun in “Cavity’s” hand…
“Why don’t you run away and wait for him to kill you,…”
Bleeding from the mouth and nose, the dumbstruck “Tulu” got up in a panic and subconsciously ran towards us.
Laiko and I were trying our best to subdue “Cavity”. Suddenly, “da da da da”, an amazing gunshot shook the valley.
It was “Cavity” who pulled the trigger in the midst of the riot.
The sound of the gunshot shocked me and shocked Laiko, who shoved Cavity to the ground, grabbed me and ran backwards.
The sound of a gunshot shocked Tulu, who stopped dead in his tracks and touched his gun, forgetting that it was in the “cavity.”
Hands.
The sound of the gunshot shocked “Cavity”, who stopped going crazy and dropped to the ground on his butt, with a wisp of smoke from the muzzle of his gun.
The moment Laiko and I brushed past the “doo-doo”, I don’t know which side of the big hill on either side couldn’t wait to fire.
Guns whistled over our heads.
Running back into the cave, the platoon leader with a foreign accent shouted over the walkie-talkie, “Zhao Lai Zi, we’re under cover, emergency evacuation, emergency…”
Laiko grasped the walkie-talkie for a long time before answering, “Yes!”
The gunfire was denser and louder, and swarms of locusts raced back and forth over our heads in the sunlight.
“Go!”
There was nothing long in the cave. Lai Zi put on the walkie-talkie and picked up the semiconductor. I just feel blank in my mind, I feel like this “emergency evacuation” order is no different from the foreign-accented platoon leader asking about the situation every day.
“Go!” Laiko urged me.
When we got out of the cave, neither of us wanted to run, but we walked step by step to the path among the thorns and hazelnuts on the side of the cave. I could hear nothing but the cries of children’s voices, and I could see nothing but a black and green color that flickered in and out before my eyes…
“Someone’s crying!” Laiko, however, stopped in her tracks.
When I looked back, a two-foot-thick layer of smoke had been deposited at the bottom of the ditch, the sky was cloudless and the world seemed to be silent, except for the swarms of locusts running back and forth on the opposite side of the mountain… At the bottom of the ditch, “Cavanagh” was still sitting with his gun in his hand, and beside him was “Tulku”, who had come running back to him again. “Tulu”, standing upright…
They were covered in layers of deposited smoke.
“It’s a ‘toot’ cry, isn’t it?” Laiko asked me.
I listened carefully, but all I could hear was my own thumping heartbeat.
All I could do was shake my head. (Postscript) After we withdrew to the company, we were indeed separated. Lai Zi was appointed instructor of a “reinforced company”, while I was recalled to battalion headquarters and appointed communications platoon leader. Soon after, the Great War broke out, and my brother Lai Zi lost his legs to a landmine.
In a flash, two years passed and I was demobilized.
I went to see him – he was fitted with prosthetics and was placed in a middle school as a vice-principal in charge of logistics.
I can’t bear to describe him any further here.
The meeting was a surprise, but just the usual chilling. It was only when they got to his dormitory, when their hands were clasped together again, that the familiar fervent anticipation was rekindled.
Laiko was awarded a first class merit and a third class merit. He is now a fifth vice-principal at the deputy section level, and is celibate.
He’s not even thirty years old.
I was outraged to see how he was dressed and how spartan his quarters were.
He said blandly, “To think that at that time the mountains were full of dead ones with doll faces, and that I was alive, like this, was enough!”
He asked me how I was doing, and I told him that I was demobilized and assigned to the management committee of a small development zone, which was quite flattering.
He asked in a pretense of bashfulness, “Got a girlfriend, right? Or, married, right?”
I replied, “No.”
“Not married?”
“No, not in love.”
“…” He hesitated, and after a long time, he said, “It’s time to engage.”
“No,” I finally ran out of patience with this meandering, “Lai, you should know why I came to see you.”
“…” He laughed bitterly and sighed in a small voice, “Why are you looking for me? Look at me, do I look like a human being?”
“No, I’m not the same Xiao Xiao now, either… now, I’m… quite indulgent, can you believe it? Do you… do you dislike me? I understand better now that I myself… was originally… a… a little male-loving pervert,…”
It took him a long time to whisper, “I… am… done,…”
“Why?”
“Need you ask? Shaw, half a man,…”
“Do you… do you still, always blame yourself?”
“No. When I think about being with you… I really think about it that way, it’s enough for my life. It’s just that I… I… always think of that ‘Duluo’, who was even more pathetic than we…”
“We’re not going back to war.” I said.
“Yes…” Laiko lowered his head, and for a long moment, his voice choked, “but I… will also never have that passion of love and hate again, ever… my heart will be like a dry well,…”
I embraced him, I was in tears, I wanted to kiss him,…
But he avoided it, muttering, “I don’t deserve you anymore,…”
“Nonsense, you’re nonsense, in this life… the only person I’ve ever really loved with all my heart is you, only you…”
His body gradually went limp, and he murmured, “Enough of this, in my life, enough of this,…”
The repressed sobs of two men who had lived through the deadlands of war were silently entwined.
We’re back in the war!