dognovel Chapter 938 Sick
Chapter 938 Sick
When the leaves of the sycamore trees fell all over Zhuque Street, Gu Mingyuan's hand holding the pen trembled slightly. The ink spread on the manuscript paper of the Central Daily News, smudged the words "Battle for the Defense of the Capital", like blood dripping on rice paper. "Mingyuan, the editor-in-chief is calling you." The voice of colleague Lao Zhou came from behind, with a suppressed tremor, "The Japanese plane has arrived in Wuhu." The air in the office froze instantly. Gu Mingyuan looked out the window, the outline of Purple Mountain was blurred in the twilight, like a giant beast with its soul sucked out. Three months ago, he went south from Peking, thinking that he had escaped the smoke of war in North China, but he didn't expect to plunge into a more violent storm. The door of the editor-in-chief's office was ajar. When Gu Mingyuan pushed the door, he heard the cough of the old journalist Wang Bo. "Sit down." Uncle Wang took off his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes bloodshot behind the lenses, "The higher-ups want us to publish three morale-boosting editorials every day." He paused, "But the people in Nanjing are fleeing out of the city." Gu Mingyuan recalled passing by Confucius Temple this morning. The once bustling Qinhuai River was now only left with the closed doors of shops. Old man Zhang, who sells sugar paintings, was carrying a load and walking out of the city. His cloudy eyes were full of despair: "Little Gu, I'm afraid this Jinling city can't be defended..." Back in the editorial office, Gu Mingyuan spread out the manuscript paper, with the tip of his pen hanging in the air. Suddenly, a shrill air raid alarm sounded outside the window, and the whole building was shaking. He instinctively crawled under the table, but saw Lao Zhou rushing into the basement with a stack of manuscripts. "These are all news archives from these years!" Lao Zhou roared, "If Nanjing is gone, these will be history!" The explosion came from far and near, shaking the glass windows. Gu Mingyuan grabbed the camera and rushed out the door. In the lens, the crowd on Zhongshan Road was like a frightened bird. A woman in a blue cloth shirt fell to the ground holding a crying child. Gu Mingyuan rushed over to help her up, but heard a sharp whistle from above his head - "Get down!" The huge air wave knocked him over, and the world fell into darkness in the roar. When he woke up, the pungent smell of gunpowder filled his nose, and there were broken walls and ruins in front of him. The woman in the blue cloth shirt had disappeared, leaving only broken porcelain pieces on the ground, shining coldly in the sunset. When night fell, Gu Mingyuan returned to the newspaper office. The editorial office was in a mess, and Wang Bo was sorting out the scattered manuscripts. "Xiao Gu," Wang Bo handed him a note, "Go to Jinling Women's University, where many refugees are taken in. Go take some photos and let the Chinese people see the atrocities of the Japanese." Outside the wall of Jinling Women's University, refugees lined up in a long line. Gu Mingyuan raised his camera. In the lens, the white-haired old woman held her dead grandson with empty eyes; the young girls huddled together, their faces full of fear. Suddenly, the crowd became agitated, and several Japanese soldiers rushed in, their bayonets gleaming coldly in the moonlight. Gu Mingyuan's finger pressed on the shutter, but was suddenly pulled back. "Don't shoot!" It was Teacher Wei from Jinling Women's University, her eyes were full of bloodshot, "They will kill you!" But it was too late. The Japanese soldiers found him and rushed over, yelling. Gu Mingyuan turned and ran, the camera shaking violently in front of his chest. He walked through the narrow alley and heard the footsteps behind him getting closer and closer. At the corner, a hand suddenly stretched out and dragged him into the dark room. "Hush!" A female voice whispered in the dark. Gu Mingyuan looked closely and saw a woman in a cheongsam, holding a pair of scissors in her hand. The hem of her cheongsam was covered with dust, but her eyes were firm: "I am an underground party member. There is a secret passage here. You go through this." The secret passage was damp and cold. Gu Mingyuan crawled with the woman for a long time and finally got out of a cellar. "My name is Shen Qingru." The woman tidied up her messy hair. "The Japanese have entered the city. The days ahead will be more cruel than you can imagine." The night in Nanjing was torn apart by flames. Gu Mingyuan and Shen Qingru hid in an abandoned old house and heard screams coming from outside. Shen Qingru clenched her fists: "They are massacring the city..." She took out a notebook from her arms, which was densely filled with the atrocities of the Japanese army. "These must be known to the world." Gu Mingyuan picked up the camera and aimed the lens at the flames outside the window. At this moment, he suddenly realized that as a reporter, his mission was not only to record the prosperity, but also to hold up a torch in the dark. In the following days, Gu Mingyuan and Shen Qingru risked their lives to record the atrocities of the Japanese army. They hid photos and texts in the refugees' packages and sent them to Chongqing. Every time they went out, it was a test of life and death. Once, they were stopped by Japanese soldiers on the Qinhuai River. Shen Qingru cleverly used Japanese to negotiate and got away. "How do you speak Japanese?" Gu Mingyuan asked curiously afterwards. Shen Qingru was silent for a long time: "My father studied in Japan in his early years, and I learned from him since I was a child. Who would have thought that these words would be used in such a place now..." Her voice choked, "I saw them shoot my father with my own eyes, just because he said 'Chinese people are not easy to bully'." The winter in Nanjing was particularly cold. Gu Mingyuan and Shen Qingru searched for survivors in the ruins and rescued the injured people. Once, they found a dozen children in a dilapidated temple. The oldest was only twelve years old, and the youngest was still in swaddling clothes. The children were so hungry that their faces were pale and thin, but their eyes showed the desire for life. "Let's take them away." Shen Qingru said. Gu Mingyuan nodded. They took the children and took advantage of the night to move forward along the path beside the Yangtze River. Along the way, refugees continued to join their team. The team was getting longer and longer, but the hope was getting slimmer and slimmer. Finally, at dawn, they saw the flag of the Chinese army. At that moment, Gu Mingyuan burst into tears. He knew that the suffering of Nanjing would not be forgotten by history; those lost lives would be forever engraved on this land. Many years later, Gu Mingyuan flipped through the yellowed photo album, which showed the ruins of Nanjing City, the desperate eyes of the people, and the little flames of hope in the darkness. He wrote in his diary: "The broken dream of Jinling will eventually turn into the power of national awakening. The brilliance of humanity that bloomed in the pool of blood will always illuminate our way forward." In the autumn of the 13th year of the Republic of China, the locust leaves of Beiping City swirled and fell on the eaves of the theater. Backstage at Guangde Building, Lu Qinghuan was drawing eyebrows in front of a bronze mirror, but the rouge on her fingertips was slow to fall off - the sudden sound of firecrackers outside startled her hands and caused the vermilion rouge to spread in the corners of her eyes, like a tear that had not dried yet. "Miss Qinghuan! The third young master of the Fu family is here!" The little maid hurriedly lifted the curtain and entered, "He said he came to book the theater to listen to your "The Drunken Concubine"!" Lu Qinghuan tightened her hand holding the eyebrow pencil. Fu Mingyuan, the young master of the Fu family who returned from studying abroad, was first seen at the celebration banquet three months ago, and he booked the front row every day. He always wore a neat suit,