83: End of Chapter 84

The news was passed down before breakfast.

The administrator knocked on every barrack door in succession, saying only one sentence: "The signing has happened at Panmunjom."

The reaction on the training ground was much quieter than Jack had anticipated.

No one cheered. No one applauded.

Duncan squatted by the vegetable patch, the hoe in his hand resting motionless in the soil.

Tony leaned against the base of the barrack wall, head bowed, his fingers twisting and rubbing the corner of his clothes for a long time.

Wilson sat on a rock, staring at his own bare feet.

Roberts was the first to speak.

"So... we're leaving?"

The Translator nodded.

Roberts closed the Chinese pamphlet in his hand, tapped his knuckles twice on the cover, opened it again, and then closed it once more.

"When?"

"Repatriation procedures will be completed within three days."

Three days.

Jack stood at the edge of the training ground, watching the expressions of the group.

He couldn't quite describe what it was—it wasn't joy, and it wasn't sadness.

It was more like something unspeakable stuck in the throat, impossible to swallow and impossible to spit out.

At two in the afternoon, the U.S. repatriation team entered the camp.

Three people.

The leader was a Lieutenant Colonel whose uniform was pressed crisp and leather shoes were polished to a shine, completely out of place with the style of everyone else in the camp.

Behind him followed a clerk and a military correspondent; the correspondent carried a camera and began taking photos as soon as he entered.

The Lieutenant Colonel slapped a stack of documents onto the table.

"Everyone signs one. Once you sign, you can get on the truck."

Jack stood in the corner as the Translator read the contents of the document aloud.

His expression changed.

It wasn't a repatriation agreement. It was a "Statement."

The content roughly meant: During my time in the Chinese POW camp, I suffered abuse, brainwashing, and forced labor, and endured varying degrees of mental and physical persecution.

There was a line of small print at the bottom: Priority medical assistance and discharge compensation will be arranged after signing.

The Lieutenant Colonel handed the fountain pen to Sullivan, who was at the front of the line.

"Sign and you leave. Whoever signs first gets on the truck first."

Sullivan took the pen and looked at the statement. Then he looked at the Lieutenant Colonel.

"What's written on here is different from what I experienced."

The Lieutenant Colonel's smile remained unchanged: "You don't need to worry about the details, soldier. Once you sign, you're a free man."

"A free man," Sullivan repeated the words softly.

He looked back at the camp.

The Cook, who boiled their mixed-grain porridge every day, was chopping wood at the canteen entrance, his hands, cracked from the winter frost, wrapped in strips of cloth.

The Communication Runner who taught them Chinese walked over from the opposite side carrying a stack of books; seeing the scene here, he pushed up his glasses and stood still.

Sullivan put the pen back on the table.

"I'm not signing."

The Lieutenant Colonel's smile froze for half a second.

"Do you know what you're saying?"

"I know," Sullivan took a step back.

"The food I ate here was the same as what the people guarding us ate. Some meals were even better than theirs. You want me to sign 'abused'?"

He pointed in the direction of the Cook: "That man—he chewed on wild herbs himself so he could spare the mixed grains for us. You want me to sign?"

The expression on the Lieutenant Colonel's face changed, hardening.

"This is an order."

"Then find someone who can order me," Sullivan said, then turned and walked away.

The atmosphere in the line began to shift.

The second one called up was Duncan.

This son of a Leeds worker still had mud on his hands, and his fingernails were filled with black soil.

He didn't even look at the statement.

He pulled something out from his chest—wrapped in three layers of rags—and opened it carefully.

A radish sprout.

Green and tender, it had grown from the soil he had turned over three times himself.

Moist mud still clung to the root hairs.

He held the radish sprout up in front of the Lieutenant Colonel.

"Look, the people here taught me how to grow this."

Duncan's voice wasn't loud, but everyone on the training ground could hear it.

"A place that taught me how to plant vegetables, a place that taught me to find value through my own labor—and you insist on calling it hell?"

He wrapped the radish sprout back up and tucked it into his chest pocket.

"I'm not signing."

The Lieutenant Colonel's face had already turned ashen.

The third was Tony.

When Tony walked to the table, Jack noticed his steps were very steady.

Neither fast nor slow. His foot injury had long since healed, and he no longer limped when he walked.

The Lieutenant Colonel pushed the statement over.

Tony looked down at it for a few seconds.

Then he did something—he picked up the piece of paper and tore it down the middle.

The sound of tearing paper was exceptionally crisp on the quiet training ground.

"Are you crazy?!" The Lieutenant Colonel slammed the table.

Tony ignored him. He threw the shredded paper on the ground, looked up, and glanced at the Communication Runner standing at the corner of the barracks.

The nineteen-year-old Communication Runner stood there, books in his arms, his wire-rimmed glasses reflecting the afternoon light.

He didn't know what was being said over here, but he looked at Tony and recognized him.

The two men locked eyes from twenty meters away.

Using the worst Chinese pronunciation in the entire camp, Tony said two words.

"Péng—yǒu (Friend)."

The Communication Runner was stunned for a moment. Then he smiled.

Just like that evening on the training ground, he laughed loudly, his glasses nearly sliding down.

---

The last night before repatriation.

Tony found the Communication Runner at the barrack entrance.

The Translator stood in the middle, but this time he didn't say much.

The Communication Runner pulled something out of his breast pocket.

That fountain pen—the most expensive thing on his person. There was a crack on the cap that he had glued back together himself.

He handed the pen to Tony.

The Translator said, "He says this is for you. When you get back, write whenever you have time. Don't give up on learning Chinese halfway."

Tony took the pen, holding it in his hand, his thumb rubbing the crack on the cap.

"I have nothing to give you," he said.

The Communication Runner shook his head and made a gesture, meaning it wasn't necessary.

Tony remained silent for a while.

"You're nineteen," he said.

"You eat worse than I do, and your clothes are more ragged than mine. You taught me to say 'Hello' and 'Friend'. You haven't even finished building your own country, yet you're already worrying about how we—the people who fought you—are doing."

He paused, his voice lowering.

"When I get back and someone asks me—what are the Chinese like? I'll tell them there was a nineteen-year-old kid wearing cloth shoes with peeling soles who gave his fountain pen to his enemy."

The Translator relayed this passage.

The Communication Runner's smile faded. He stood there, motionless, his lips pressing together slightly.

Then he reached out his hand.

Tony grasped it.

Two hands: one covered in chilblain scars, the other worn with thick calluses.

Jack saw this scene from a distance.

He didn't go over. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took a puff, and shielded the flame in his palm.

As the smoke drifted away, the system panel lit up.

Su Yun had started a holographic livestream in the background.

It wasn't for the camp—it was for the outside world. The globe.

The image was exactly what Jack saw before his eyes:

A training ground, a group of people dressed in rags, standing in the thin mist.

No music. No narration. No filters.

Only two soldiers shaking hands.

One was the attacker, and the other was the attacked.

Su Yun sat in the studio, watching the emotion panel.

The numbers were jumping.

It wasn't "Shock," and it wasn't "Anger."

The column jumping the fastest was labeled—

"Warmth."

In the background data stream, Su Yun saw the draft headlines prepared in advance by several mainstream Western media outlets:

"Ironclad Evidence of Brainwashing in POW Camps," "A Forced Peace Farce."

He did not respond.

He simply switched the livestream to another camera angle—the Cook was preparing the final meal for the prisoners who were leaving early tomorrow morning.

Mixed-grain porridge was boiling in the pot on the stove, and the Cook added an extra handful of rice to it.

With his hands wrapped in cloth strips, he poured his own portion from his bowl into the large pot.

Su Yun closed the draft previews.

No rebuttal was needed.

The image itself was the answer.

Early morning.

Trucks were parked at the camp entrance. The sound of engines rumbled in the cold air.

The prisoners lined up to board the trucks.

Duncan took one last look at his vegetable patch.

The radish sprouts had grown another notch taller.

He leaned over to pluck a leaf and tucked it into his pocket.

Wilson stopped for a moment as he passed the young soldier.

He squatted down, took off one of his military boots, and handed it over.

The sole was still good, far better than the toe-exposing cloth shoes on the young soldier's feet.

The young soldier waved his hands in refusal.

Wilson forced it upon him and climbed onto the truck with one bare foot.

Roberts stood at the back of the truck and looked back at the Translator.

"You were right. I learned Chinese before I enlisted," he suddenly spoke, his voice very flat.

The Translator didn't speak.

"Crash course. Three months," Roberts said. "I was originally sent here to do other things."

He didn't continue to say what those "other things" were. Jack had a good idea.

Roberts pulled the notebook filled with Chinese characters from his pocket and flipped to the last page.

Four crooked characters were written there—Jack couldn't recognize them all, but the Translator read them for him.

"Long Live Peace."

Roberts closed the notebook, jumped onto the truck, and sat down.

Tony was the last one.

He stood on the step at the back of the truck, the cracked fountain pen pinned to his chest.

He took one last look toward the camp.

In the thin mist, the Communication Runner stood by the training ground, hands behind his back, thin as a bamboo pole, the patches on his cotton coat turning white in the morning light.

Tony raised his right hand.

It wasn't a wave goodbye.

He brought his five fingers together and raised them to his temple.

A standard military salute.

A salute to a young man who dressed worse than a prisoner, ate worse than a prisoner, and at nineteen was already worrying about the people of his entire nation.

The Communication Runner stood there and saw it.

He didn't return the salute—he probably didn't know if he should.

He just pushed up his glasses and nodded firmly toward the truck.

The truck started up.

Exhaust and dust swirled up.

Jack stood where he was, watching the convoy disappear at the end of the dirt road.

The system panel flashed in the corner of his vision.

[Server-wide Announcement]

Main Campaign: War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea—Ended.

The final server-wide assembly order has been issued.

All surviving players, please proceed to Pyongyang Railway Station and board the train.

Jack looked down at these words.

Dai Dai had walked up beside him at some point, her eyes red, her nose sniffing.

"Is it over?" she asked.

Jack didn't answer.

Brother Bao walked over from the other side, hands in his pockets, his face expressionless.

But the way he walked was completely different from when he first entered the game—his back was straight, his chin was tucked, and his steps were steady.

The three of them stood on the empty training ground as the fading sound of the truck engines came from afar, getting smaller and smaller until it vanished.

Jack let out a breath.

"Let's go," he said. "To the railway station."

As he took his first step, his peripheral vision caught the vegetable patch in the corner of the training ground.

Duncan was gone.

But the row of radishes he had planted remained in the soil. Green, tender, and crooked, they grew quietly in the morning light.

No one would harvest them.

But they were there.