Z7, who was covered in sweat, crawled out from the basement. He stared perplexedly at the living room, as well as the fan standing in the corner of the living room, but it wasn’t working; he asked his comrades, “We’re out of diesel? Lin Feng, is there any place we can get some diesel? Where’s the underground pipes? Should we go and extract a few barrels?”
Ye Jian was the first one to realize the Z7 was the one whose shirt was drenched in sweat and quickly came to her senses about how he came back.
She quickly got up and found the storage room that housed the diesel generator, the machine stained black with diesel oil stood quietly in the room; the words “DongFeng Machinery Factory” were stenciled on the aluminum plates on top of it, with a red paint across the top.
After examining for a moment, she picked up the Z-shaped crank handle, and inserted it into the diesel generator, and started cranking it.
“Rumble… rumble… rumble rumble rumble rumble….” The machine with enough diesel inside started picking up speed; outside, the lights in the living room lit up, and the blades of the fan started to spin while gathering wind and cooling down the air inside the living room.
Z7 then knew that they weren’t out of diesel. Instead, his bunch of comrades had forgotten about the diesel generator; he had almost suffocated to death.
“I almost got carbon dioxide poisoning down there, so hot and stuffy, I was a few seconds away from passing out.”
Z7 turned off the lights in the living room, then politely turned to the four scientists: “Let’s save some electricity; I’ll go see if we can manage to connect with home.”
At the very least, send back information of their progress so that those at home knew that they were currently arranging for the four scientists to return back to China.
Father Fu looked at this bunch of young faces, even though they were young, but his daughter standing amongst them looked even younger, so it was hard for him not to feel heartache. After getting into a special forces team like this one, who knew how much she had suffered.
When kids from other families suffered or got injured, they could go to their parents and vent there, but where should his daughter go to vent with her father?
If it wasn’t because Jin Nian had paid attention. Otherwise, god knows when would he meet his daughter.
Heart aching extremely badly, Father Fu no longer disturbed Ye Jian’s watch-duty, he silently laid down on the blanket that smelled like camphor, and a quiet sigh could be heard from him.
The other three scientists around him had already closed their eyes and gone to sleep, too tired, nerves tensed up too tightly, with a bunch of special forces soldiers standing watch, they who had spent nearly three days without a wink of sleep went into slumber the moment they hit the pillow.
Father Fu gradually submerged into slumber; after his sigh, in no time, a shallow smile appeared on the edge of his lips.
He didn’t raise his daughter to adulthood, didn’t teach her how to walk, didn’t teach her how to read and write… These were regrets that he would not be able to make up for in this lifetime; then, all he could do next was stay by his daughter’s side and attentively remedy his daughter’s fatherly love that she hadn’t experienced for twenty years.
As well as his wife, he would definitely tell her, after missing each other for twenty years, he’ll definitely walk with her to the end of their times in their remaining days.
If… just if…
What came next ‘if,’ Father Fu didn’t dare to think too deeply, neither did he want to think deeply, doesn’t matter what comes next, in his heart, he had only one wife for now and forever, no matter if she had married another person, his only wife would be Red Plum.
Even if… Red Plum had married another guy; he wouldn’t resent her for that.
In that day and age, having a child out of wedlock was something that was frowned upon by everyone, something that would draw the curses and mockeries of others; Red Plum could withstand the pressure and have given birth to their daughter, that already made him extremely satisfied.
If she had really married another… after they returned home, he’d start asking his daughter the details; there are too many things that he hadn’t had the time to ask yet, neither was this a suitable time for those questions, everything could wait until they returned home.
His wife, even if the Red Plum in his heart had married another, then it must’ve been something done as a last resort, and she only chose to marry another without a choice, precisely because of the culture back then, for their daughter, she would only choose to marry another that way.
