16: Will everyone in China be able to have enough to eat in the future? (Part 2)

"In the future China, will everyone be able to eat their fill...?"

Chen Xi repeated the words, his throat feeling as if it were blocked by a mass of searing cotton, painfully dry.

He wanted to smile to lighten the heavy atmosphere.

But he found that he simply couldn't.

He looked at Chen Shusheng's clear eyes, which were shimmering like starlight, and at the faces behind him—some young, some old—all looking back with the same expectant gaze.

These faces were blackened and yellowed by smoke, thinned by the torment of hunger, and exhausted, shrouded in the shadow of death.

But their eyes were bright.

They were as bright as torches, searing Chen Xi's soul.

He couldn't lie.

Slowly, he moved his gaze away from those faces and looked toward a bullet hole in the warehouse wall.

Beyond the bullet hole lay the heavy night.

Shanghai under the night sky was like a giant beast that had been disemboweled, silently bleeding.

Distantly, the glow of fires reflected against the sky in a nauseating shade of dark red.

And further away, in places unseen, were countless broken families and eyes weeping in the darkness.

Chen Xi took a deep breath.

The air, a mixture of blood, gunpowder, and decay, filled his lungs, yet it brought a strange sense of calm to his chaotic heart.

"The future China..."

He spoke again, his voice soft yet exceptionally clear.

"First of all, everyone will be able to eat their fill."

These words were like a small pebble dropped into a calm lake.

The eyes of the surrounding Soldiers flickered slightly.

Eating their fill.

To them, those three words were already as distant as a myth.

Chen Shusheng broke off a piece of the pancake in his hand; it was as hard as a rock. He swallowed hard and asked in a low voice, "Will we be able to eat white flour steamed buns for every meal?"

"White flour steamed buns?" Chen Xi smiled, and this time, it was a genuine smile. "Nobody will care about those anymore."

"You'll have whatever you want to eat."

"In the morning, you can have Tianjin's Jianbing Guozi; at noon, you can have Lanzhou Beef Noodles; in the evening, if you want a change of pace, Sichuan Hotpot or Guangdong Roast Goose can be delivered to your doorstep by plane in just a few hours."

The Soldiers didn't understand most of the terms he used.

But they understood "morning," "noon," and "evening."

They understood the confidence of being able to eat whatever one desired.

A veteran leaning in the corner with his rifle couldn't help but lick his cracked lips, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"What about houses?" a Soldier interjected. "Will they all be like the Western-style buildings in the Concession?"

"Western-style buildings?" Chen Xi shook his head. "They'll be much taller than that."

"Future houses will be built very, very high—dozens of stories, hundreds of stories—so high they'll pierce the sky. Living up there, you'll be able to see the lights of the entire city."

"Lights?"

"Yes, lights." Chen Xi's gaze became distant. "At night, the whole country, every single city, will be lit up. Thousands upon thousands of lamps, brighter than the stars in the sky. No piece of land will ever be dark again."

He paused, as if reminiscing about such a scene.

"We will have vehicles as fast as iron that can run on the ground, traveling from one end of the country to the other in a single day."

"We will have iron birds faster than real birds that can fly in the sky. You could be drinking soy milk in the morning and eating lunch thousands of miles away by noon."

"We'll also have... massive machines that can go down to the deepest oceans and up to the moon in the sky."

To these Soldiers, most of whom had barely even ridden a train, these words were nothing short of a fairy tale.

But not one of them spoke up to contradict him.

They just listened quietly, as if listening to the most moving legend.

Their eyes grew brighter and brighter.

They seemed to see the buildings soaring into the clouds, the cities bright as day, and the massive Chinese machines that could traverse the heavens and the earth.

"Then... what about people like us?"

A Soldier who had lost an arm pointed to himself with his remaining hand, then pointed to the brothers around him, asking in a raspy voice.

"When the war is over, what... what can we do?"

Chen Xi's heart felt as if it had been pricked by a needle.

He looked at the Soldier and said solemnly, "You?"

"You are heroes."

"The country will remember every single one of you. Your names will be carved into monuments, and your stories will be written in books."

"Your families will receive the best care. Your children can go to the best schools without paying a single cent."

"They will learn arithmetic, Natural Sciences, and the most profound truths. They can become officials, doctors, teachers, or build those iron birds that fly to the heavens..."

"They can become anyone they want to be."

"They will never have to live with their heads on the line like us, trading their lives for a tomorrow that might never come."

Silence.

A deathly silence.

In the warehouse, only the suppressed breathing of the wounded and the faint sound of distant artillery remained.

"Ugh..."

A heavily suppressed sob came from the corner.

The veteran clutching his rifle buried his face deep into the crook of his arm, his shoulders shaking violently.

No one mocked him.

Because many people's eyes had turned red.

Most of them were illiterate and didn't understand grand theories.

They only knew that being a Soldier and fighting was to protect their homes and country, to keep The Japanese from bullying their families.

But what was a 'country' like? And where was 'home'?

They didn't know.

They were simply groping forward in the darkness, fueled by a surge of bloody courage.

But now, Chen Xi had painted a picture for them.

A picture that was incomparably clear and brilliant.

In that picture were their parents, their wives, and their children.

In that picture was the era of peace and prosperity they were buying with their lives.

Was it worth it?

It was worth it.

Chen Shusheng had been listening quietly the whole time.

His eyes were terrifyingly bright, as if two small flames were burning in his pupils.

After hearing everything, he finally seemed to make a decision and stood up abruptly.

He gripped his old rifle so hard that his knuckles turned white.

He looked at Chen Xi, then glanced around at his red-eyed brothers.

His voice no longer held its previous shyness or bashfulness; instead, it carried an unprecedented, resounding firmness.

"That's wonderful..."

He sighed from the bottom of his heart.

Then, he threw out his chest and shouted with almost every ounce of strength in his body.

"We are holding our ground here so that our descendants can live the kind of life you described, Brother Chen!"

This shout was like a sudden clap of thunder, slamming hard into everyone's heart.

In the warehouse, the air that had become somewhat stagnant due to despair and exhaustion seemed to be reignited at this moment.

The weeping veteran looked up, wiped his face haphazardly with his sleeve, and stood up as well.

The Soldier with the missing arm pushed off the ground with his remaining hand and struggled to his feet.

More and more people stood up.

They didn't speak.

They just silently checked their rifles and fixed their bayonets, the previous confusion and fatigue gone from their eyes.

Only a steel-like light remained, a light called 'conviction.'

Chen Xi watched this scene, unable to say another word.

He only nodded heavily, again and again.

He knew that from this moment on, this Lone Army had found its true soul.