86: Chapter 87 Grandpa's Comrades

Su Yun followed the address given on his phone and walked for twenty minutes.

It wasn't a government compound or a hotel meeting room; it was a teahouse at the end of an old street.

The storefront was small, with half the paint on the wooden sign peeled off, and two locust trees planted beside it, their trunks thicker than a man's waist.

He pushed the door and entered.

There were no other customers in the shop.

Three people were sitting at a square table toward the back.

The first was a middle-aged man.

He wore a dark jacket, his hair was cropped very short, and he sat upright with both hands placed flat on his knees.

The moment Su Yun met his gaze, he felt an indescribable sensation at the back of his neck—this man possessed a certain temperament,

one very similar to his Grandpa.

That temperament wasn't something put on; it grew from within the bones.

The other two were elderly men.

They were very old. Their hair was completely white, and the wrinkles on their faces were deep enough to hold a cigarette.

One wore reading glasses and held a teacup in his hand.

The other sat in a wheelchair, with a military-green blanket draped over his legs.

It was empty beneath the blanket.

He had no legs.

Su Yun stood at the doorway and scanned the room.

The man surnamed Chen stood up and reached out. "Sit."

Su Yun walked over and sat in the empty seat.

The tea had already been brewed in blue and white porcelain cups, and the color of the tea was very pale.

There were no pleasantries.

The man surnamed Chen spoke, his pace not fast. "Su Yun, that game of yours has caused a great deal of controversy internally."

Su Yun's hand, holding the teacup, did not move.

"Some believe you are inciting nationalistic sentiment. Some believe you used military history materials without authorization. Some have proposed an official interview with you."

He paused for a moment.

"Others have proposed punishment."

Su Yun looked down at the tea leaves in his cup and remained silent.

His finger lightly tapped the side of the cup.

The man surnamed Chen glanced at him.

"But the final decision came down to eight words."

Su Yun looked up. "Which eight words?"

The man surnamed Chen's expression did not change. His lips moved, and though his voice wasn't loud, every word was clear.

"Merit in the present age, not to be publicized."

Su Yun did not react immediately.

He sat there holding the teacup, his finger rubbing the rim twice.

"What does that mean?"

"It means—" The man surnamed Chen leaned back slightly,

"the higher-ups won't give you a certificate of merit. They won't hang a banner for you. There won't be any public commendation. What you've done is too sensitive at the diplomatic level to be discussed openly."

The corner of Su Yun's mouth moved slightly; it was hard to tell if he wanted to smile or say something.

The man surnamed Chen continued, "But they admit one thing."

"What thing?"

"Your game achieved in three months what traditional patriotic education failed to do in twenty years."

The teahouse fell silent for two seconds.

The man surnamed Chen pulled a folded piece of paper from his inner jacket pocket, unfolded it, and placed it on the table.

"The latest survey data. The 18 to 25 age group."

He pointed to the first line. "The percentage who believe 'superheroes represent justice.' Three months ago: seventy-eight percent. Now: nine percent."

His finger moved to the second line. "The percentage who believe the 'Volunteer Army spirit is worth learning.' Three months ago: eleven percent. Now: ninety-four percent."

His tone was very flat as he read these two sets of data.

Like he was reading a weather report. 'Tomorrow will be cloudy with a high of eighteen degrees'—that kind of flat.

But Su Yun noticed a detail.

The fingertips of the hand the man surnamed Chen used to hold his teacup were trembling slightly.

Su Yun did not point it out.

He picked up the paper, read it twice, and set it down.

"And then?"

The man surnamed Chen had not yet answered.

The old man in the wheelchair spoke up.

His voice was unpleasant to hear. It was as raspy as sandpaper grinding against iron, every syllable carrying the dull pop of bursting bubbles.

"Your Grandpa's name is Su Zhenbang?"

Su Yun's entire body stiffened.

He turned to look at the old man in the wheelchair.

The old man's eyes were cloudy and the whites were yellowed, but the gaze he fixed on Su Yun was steadier than any eighty-year-old's should be.

"Your Grandpa," the old man said again,

"Su Zhenbang."

Su Yun's Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

"...Yes."

The old man nodded. The movement was very slow, and the tendons on his neck stood out.

"Winter of 1950. Chosin Lake."

His voice grew softer, as if he were afraid that speaking too loudly would shatter something.

"Your Grandpa took off his cotton shoes and gave them to me."

Su Yun's back straightened.

"Negative forty degrees. He gave his shoes to me. He wore straw sandals himself."

The old man looked down at the empty space beneath his blanket.

"In the end, my legs still couldn't be saved."

A short, raspy breath escaped his throat.

"But this life of mine was traded for by your Grandpa's shoes."

There was no sound in the teahouse.

Even the kettle on the stove didn't dare make a noise.

Su Yun sat there, his lips pressed tightly together, his nasolabial folds deepening, the muscles on his face frozen.

But his eyes were turning red. Not slowly, but starting from the corners, they reddened all at once.

The old man pulled a cloth bundle from beneath the blanket.

It was blue coarse cloth. It was very old, with white threads frayed at the corners.

It was wrapped in several layers, each one folded neatly.

His hands were shaking.

It wasn't the shaking of nervousness, but of old age, uncontrollable.

One layer.

Two layers.

Three layers.

Inside was a pair of cotton shoes.

They were black. The soles were worn through, and there was a hole in the right sole where the straw padding inside could be seen.

The uppers had several patches, the stitches were crooked, and loose threads were still hanging out.

On the inside of the shoe collar, two words were written in ink.

part of the name Su Zhenbang.

Su Yun stared at those two words.

He reached out to take them.

The moment his fingers touched the surface of the shoes, his hand gave a violent tremor.

His entire shoulders shook along with it.

He cradled the shoes in his hands.

He lowered his head.

No one in the teahouse spoke.

The man surnamed Chen turned his face away to look out the window.

The other old man pulled an old handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes with his sleeve; the handkerchief went unused.

A long time passed.

Su Yun raised his head.

His eyes were red.

But there were no tear tracks on his face. It wasn't that he hadn't cried; he had forced them back.

His voice was a bit hoarse, as if something were stuck in his throat, but every word was steady.

"Thank you."

He held the shoes to his chest.

"On behalf of my Grandpa's shoes... thank you for walking for seventy years."

The old man didn't speak. He reached out a withered hand and patted the back of Su Yun's hand twice. His palm was cold, his knuckles were large, and his bones were prominent.

After patting, he withdrew his hand and adjusted the blanket.

The man surnamed Chen waited for a moment, then cleared his throat.

"There is one more thing."

He took a document out of the briefcase by his feet and pushed it in front of Su Yun.

Su Yun looked down.

The document header bore the red seal of the Ministry of Education. The title was very long, but the core content was just one sentence—

Seeking opinion on authorizing parts of the visual materials from 'ice and snow world' for use in national primary and secondary school history teaching.

Su Yun flipped through two pages.

The first item of the proposal: Expand the textbook coverage of the 'War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea' from the current two pages to an independent unit.

His finger stopped on this line.

"The people on the textbook editorial committee said that the level of restoration in some scenes of your game is higher than the visual materials they currently have on hand,"

the man surnamed Chen said,

"especially the Chosin Lake segment."

Su Yun did not sign it.

He closed the document and placed it on the table.

"I have one condition."

The man surnamed Chen raised an eyebrow.

Su Yun's finger pressed against the old cotton shoes, his fingertip resting on the two words 'part of the name Su Zhenbang' inside the collar.

"Don't mention my name in the textbook. Don't mention this game either."

His voice wasn't loud, but every word was absolute.

"Just write about them."

He looked down at the shoes in his hands.

"Just write about the people who wore these shoes."

The man surnamed Chen was silent for a few seconds.

Then he picked up a pen, wrote a line in the blank space of the document, and signed his name.

"Fine."

—

By the time Su Yun returned to the old house, the sky was pitch black.

He placed the cotton shoes next to his Grandpa's portrait.

The medals were still there, arranged one by one; Su Yun placed the cotton shoes on the far right, side-by-side with the medals.

Old cotton shoes, old medals, old photo.

He stood before the table and watched for a while.

Then he sat down and opened his computer.

The backend interface popped up. He prepared to check the server status before going to sleep.

But there was a log entry on the home page.

A log he hadn't triggered.

In the automatically generated system records,

all logs had clear trigger sources—player operations, scheduled tasks, server heartbeat checks. Every single one could be traced back.

This one could not.

The sender was labeled: "Unknown Source."

The timestamp was 3:17 AM today.

The log content was only one line.

"The last scene has been unlocked: This prosperous age is as you wished."

Su Yun's hands hovered above the keyboard.

He stared at that line of text.

The light from the screen reflected in his eyes, and his pupils contracted slightly.

He slowly turned his head and looked at the old cotton shoes next to his Grandpa's portrait.

Under the light of the desk lamp, the ink of the two words 'part of the name Su Zhenbang' on the shoe collar appeared dark blue.

Su Yun's fingers fell onto the keyboard.

He did not close that log.