85: Chapter 86 No one organized it, but everyone came.

The third day after clearing the game.

Lao Zhou, the security supervisor of the Shenyang Martyrs' Cemetery of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, had been on the job for nineteen years and had seen it all—even during the busiest time of the Qingming Festival, the line would only be a few hundred meters long.

But when he was jolted awake by the phone in the duty room at four in the morning, the surveillance footage made him think the system had malfunctioned.

On the road outside the cemetery gates, there was a dense, dark mass of people.

"How many?" he asked into the walkie-talkie.

"Roughly... just over a thousand. And the number is still growing."

Lao Zhou threw on his jacket and ran out.

The line stretched from the main gate to two blocks away, quiet and orderly, with no shouting or shoving.

The vast majority were young faces, around twenty years old, wearing hoodies and sneakers, standing in the cold early spring wind and breathing out clouds of white mist.

Many held an apple in their hands.

"Did you... make an appointment in advance?" Lao Zhou stopped a girl at the very front of the line.

The girl shook her head.

"Who told you to come?"

The girl shook her head again. "No one told us."

Lao Zhou was stunned.

He called his superior; his superior was silent for over ten seconds before replying with one sentence.

"It's not just you. Most of the martyrs' cemeteries across the country are currently packed with people at their gates."

Lao Zhou stood at the gate clutching his phone, dazed for a long while.

Then he walked back to the duty room and opened the gates ahead of schedule.

—

Jack was in the middle of the line.

He wasn't livestreaming, had no phone stand, and wore a black jacket. With his buzzed hair and hands shoved in his pockets,

He had spent the whole night on a green-skinned train from Beijing; he couldn't get a sleeper berth, so he sat in a hard seat for six hours, and his backside was still numb.

In front of him in line was an old woman.

Her hair was completely white, her frame small and hunched, and she clutched a black-and-white photo with edges that were worn and frayed.

The old woman looked back at him.

"Young man, who are you here to see?"

Jack opened his mouth.

"Little Shandong."

The old woman blinked. "Who is Little Shandong?"

Jack paused, his voice dropping:

"I don't know his real name either. Sixteen years old. He died at Chosin Lake. His feet were frozen and rotted... yet he was always smiling."

The old woman said nothing.

She turned over the photo in her hand and held it out to Jack.

On the back of the photo was a line of words written in fountain pen, the ink faded to a faint bluish trace.

"Brother, it doesn't hurt."

Jack's pupils constricted.

The old woman took back the photo, her voice very soft:

"My brother. He entered Korea in 1950, over by Chosin Lake. His remains were never found—not in all these years."

She pressed the photo back to her chest and patted it.

"I come every year. There are more people this year, so the wait is a bit longer, but it doesn't matter."

Jack stared at the old woman's hunched back for a few seconds.

He pulled an apple out of his jacket pocket.

It was red and not very large, bought from a supermarket, with the plastic bag not even fully removed.

"Grandma."

The old woman turned back.

Jack handed the apple over.

"Could you help me place one as well?"

His Adam's apple bobbed.

"For... for everyone."

The old woman took the apple, looked into his eyes, and asked nothing more.

She held the apple and the photo together in her arms, turned around, and continued to shuffle forward slowly.

Jack lowered his head.

—

Dai Dai was in Nanjing.

At the Unknown Martyrs' section of the Yuhuatai Martyrs' Cemetery in Nanjing, she crouched before a nameless headstone and placed a small bag of parched flour on the base.

It was wrapped in kraft paper, something she had parched at home herself; she'd added a little salt to the flour and tied it tight with cotton string.

She wore no makeup. Her face was bare, her eyes were swollen, and her hair was tied in a simple ponytail.

A little boy about five or six years old was squatting nearby, wearing a red wool hat and tilting his head as he looked at her.

"Big sister, do you know this person?"

Dai Dai shook her head.

The little boy wrinkled his nose. "Then why are you crying?"

Dai Dai wiped her face with her sleeve.

She thought for a moment and said, "Because he knows me."

The little boy didn't understand.

Dai Dai added, "He died for me once."

The little boy blinked, pulled a White Rabbit Creamy Candy out of his pocket, placed it on the base of the monument, and ran off.

A passerby nearby held up a phone and captured this scene.

Two hours later, this video was forwarded over ten million times.

There was no title, no copy. The most liked comment in the repost chain was only six characters long—

"They know us."

—

Brother Bao didn't go to the cemetery.

He did something that no one had expected.

At two in the afternoon, he posted an update with only one image—a screenshot of a bank transfer.

Recipient: China Association for the Promotion of Honoring Heroes and Martyrs (Martyrs' Families Fund).

Amount: 7,200,000.00 Yuan.

The memo line read: "To The Most Beloved People. Respectfully, Xie Dabao."

Seven point two million.

All the donation income from his live stream over the past three years.

He didn't keep a single cent.

Within three minutes, a hundred thousand messages flooded the comment section.

Not a single "Big Brother is awesome."

Not a single "Tycoon 666."

Every single one was the same six characters.

"Salute to The Most Beloved People."

Brother Bao didn't reply to anyone. He turned off his phone, fished a pack of Blue Liqun out of the cabinet, and sat on the balcony smoking all afternoon.

By the time the ashtray was full, night had fallen.

—

Su Yun sat at the computer in the old house, staring at the backend data.

The curves on the screen were unlike any normal trend he had ever seen.

Over the past seventy-two hours, searches for "Captain Eagle Country" across the entire internet had plummeted by ninety-three percent.

The popularity of terms related to "Superheroes" had dropped to the lowest value the monitoring system could display.

They were replaced by three high-frequency terms—

"War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea."

"Volunteer Army Unit Number Search."

"Martyrs' Cemetery Reservation."

Su Yun scrolled down.

Real-time sales data from an e-commerce platform popped up. Seven-day sales of the superhero merchandise series: 47 units.

A canvas bag printed with the words "The Most Beloved People": 8,127,000 units.

No one had promoted it. No one was livestreaming it. The traffic source analysis showed that seventy percent came from "organic searches."

Su Yun leaned back in his chair and stared at the number for a long time.

He didn't smile, nor did he have any look of triumph.

He simply reached out and touched his Grandpa's medal on the corner of the desk, his fingers resting on it for two seconds.

Then he closed the page and clicked on another monitoring module.

A video was spreading across the entire internet.

The filming location was a central square in a certain city at night, under the pale glow of the streetlights.

A three-meter-tall bronze statue of Captain Eagle Country stood in the center of the square,

The base was engraved with the four gilded letters "HERO". This was a city landmark sponsored and erected by Spark Interactive Entertainment three years ago.

The video quality was poor, recorded by a surveillance camera.

In the footage, a high school student in a school uniform walked up to the base of the statue.

He didn't smash anything. He didn't spray paint. He didn't hang any banners.

He pulled a potato out of his backpack.

Frozen solid.

He placed it at the feet of the statue.

Then he turned and walked away.

By the next morning, the base of the statue was piled with potatoes.

Hundreds of them.

All frozen solid.

The municipal department sent two sanitation workers to clean it up. One of the workers crouched in front of the pile of potatoes for a long time before setting down his broom.

He fished an apple out of his own pocket.

He placed it there.

Su Yun closed the video.

The room fell silent.

The plane trees outside the window rustled in the wind; a leaf pressed against the glass for a few seconds before being swept away.

Su Yun's phone rang.

He looked down at the screen.

The caller ID was a number he had never seen before.

Area code 010.

The last eight digits were all zeros.

He stared at that string of numbers for three seconds.

He picked up.

A middle-aged man's voice came from the other end. It was calm and steady, his tone even, but every word felt as though it had been carefully weighed.

"Mr. Su Yun."

"...Speaking."

"Is it convenient to meet?"

Su Yun gripped the phone, not answering immediately.

His gaze fell on the portrait of his Grandpa on the desk. The young soldier in the photo was smiling at him.

"When?"

"Now."