Ever since Zhou Haiyang broke through the layer of paper between him and Lin Nan and bravely confessed his love.

Since March 1978, the relationship between the two has heated up rapidly, and their correspondence has become more and more frequent.

On the first day of the summer vacation in 1978, Zhou Haiyang couldn't wait to get on the train from Yanjing to Yunnan and go on a date with Lin Nan despite being nervous about his studies. He didn't return to school until one week before the start of school.

Unexpectedly, starting from November 1978, the contact between the two was inexplicably interrupted.

All the letters sent by Zhou Haiyang to Lin Nan, including the letters finally sent to the troops for exploration, fell into the sea without any response.

For a time, various speculations were pondering in the minds of the six people:

"The self-defense counterattack against Vietnam has begun, and Lin Nan and his troops may also be preparing for war..."

"Under this situation, the troops must cut off all contact with the outside world..."

"It's the same with my brother and his troops. They haven't contacted my family for a long time..." Pei Xiaohong comforted Zhou Haiyang.

…

At noon the day before the National Day holiday in 1979, Zhou Haiyang suddenly received a letter stamped by the army.

After receiving such a letter, Zhou Haiyang couldn't help but feel startled, and an ominous omen suddenly struck him.

The moment he opened the envelope, Zhou Haiyang understood in his heart: Something happened to Lin Nan!

Because a brooch fell out of the envelope. It was a brooch with a camellia pattern that he gave to Lin Nan when he went to Yunnan in the summer of 1978.

Zhou Haiyang opened the letter with trembling hands. The letter read like this:

Hello ocean!

I am Lin Nan's comrade, let me call you that!

At the end of November 1978, our unit entered into pre-war preparations for a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam. Before that, all contact with the outside world was cut off.

In December, more than 220,000 troops, along with nine armies of the Chinese Army, entered the Sino-Vietnamese border in Guangxi and Yunnan.

In the early morning of February 17, 1979, the Chinese army assembled on the Sino-Vietnamese border, with twelve divisions, began to attack 11 counties in six provinces and eleven counties of Vietnam on the national border, launching a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam.

The curtain of war.

Our medical team, along with three infantry divisions on the West Road, occupied Lao Cai City, the capital of Hoang Lien Son Province in Vietnam, on February 20.

On March 5, the troops were ordered to withdraw into the country.

However, due to unpredictable reasons encountered during the operation with the large army, the field medical team arrived at the scheduled assembly point nearly three hours late.

It was because of this three-hour mistake that the field medical team was surrounded by a main division of the Vietnamese army who was so angry that they were pursuing them in a valley at the northern foot of Huanglian Mountain, which was called "Black Mist Valley" by the locals.

That morning, the fog was very heavy, covering the foothills of Huanglian Mountain like a thick curtain.

In the Huanglian Mountain area, the sky is never clear for three days, and the ground is never three feet flat. There are clouds and fog all day long, and sometimes the sky is covered with fog for more than a month.

Although we started retreating at two o'clock last night and walked for half a night, we still haven't left Huanglian Mountain.

However, what makes us happy is that we can leave Huanglian Mountain in half a day.

As long as you walk out of Huanglian Mountain, you will reach the border, and you can return to the motherland you have been away from for more than three months!

At this time, we were all very excited. All the comrades of the medical team got out of the car and rested in the bamboo forest on the roadside.

At this moment, a burst of fierce and dull gunshots suddenly came from the fog.

"The Vietnamese army is catching up!" A staff officer ran over and informed the medical team to retreat immediately according to the original route.

However, before the medical team's vehicle could start, fierce gunfire and the screams of Vietnamese soldiers rang out in front and on both sides, and we were surrounded.

The bloody resistance lasted for two days and two nights, resulting in heavy casualties.

In the end, all the female soldiers in our medical team became prisoners of the Vietnamese army and were taken to a prison in the northern suburbs of Hanoi.

From May 19 to June 22, China and Vietnam agreed to release all captured personnel on both sides.

China returned 1,630 Vietnamese prisoners of war as agreed.

However, the perfidious Vietnamese side only released 238 Chinese captured officers and soldiers.

And secretly transferred other captured Chinese officers and soldiers, including all female soldiers of our medical team.

On June 23, all captured female soldiers were transferred to Dien Bien Phu Prison in the Vietnam-Laos border area.

Although this prison has old facilities, it is the largest prisoner of war camp in Vietnam.

The female soldiers of the medical team became the first female prisoners of war in the history of this prison and were locked up in a small independent building in the prison.

The female soldiers feel that the crisis is approaching everyone day by day.

The head nurse comforted everyone and discussed: "We can't get in touch with the outside world, so we can only find a way to escape by ourselves."

Maybe it was because God had an eye. On the third day, a female soldier accidentally discovered a crack in the floor of the room while taking a urinate.

She immediately called the head nurse. When everyone took a look, it turned out that the bottom was a one-meter-square cement board with gaps around it.

Everyone turned over the cement board together, and a dark hole appeared underneath.

What is this hole used for? Does it lead to the outside? We don’t know!

But the desire to survive forces us to take risks no matter what!

We decided to go into the cave together that night. We were all determined!

No matter where it leads, it leads to death, and we must take this road too!

The head nurse told everyone: "If we can escape tonight, in order to narrow the target, everyone will run away.

But you must remember that if you keep running north, you will definitely be able to return to your motherland."

Late at night, a group of seven people began the most thrilling escape in the history of life...

Fortunately, this unnoticed underground cave actually leads to a former backup airport built by the French near Hong Ko, northwest of Dien Bien Phu Prison.

After escaping from the cave, we entered a bamboo forest.

Lin Nan, who had learned some military topography during the assault before the war, pointed out the direction to the north to his comrades based on the direction of the Big Dipper and the mountain slopes.

The head nurse led a group of four female soldiers, and Lin Nan led me and another female soldier into a group, and we ran north separately.

However, just as we were crossing a small river in the dark, we heard gunfire from behind.

It turned out that the guarding Vietnamese army discovered the secret of the cave and sent troops to catch up.

The three of us quickly got into the dense jungle and hid in a very secret cave.

I don't know how long we hid. When we were sure there was no danger, we climbed out of the cave. By this time, it was already dawn.

But outside there was only endless fog and nothing could be seen.

In order to avoid being pursued by the Vietnamese army, we could not take the main roads, or even the small roads. We could only choose places with dense woods and deserted human traces.

We ate and slept all the way, and as we moved forward, we finally came to the Hoang Lien Mountains in northern Vietnam, the same area where we were captured before we were captured.

Hoang Lien Mountain is densely covered with jungles and has dangerous terrain. The highest peak is 3,142 meters, making it the highest peak in Vietnam.

This place is uninhabited and wild animals are infested, but it is the best route for us to escape.

As long as we cross the Huanglian Mountains, we are only fifty kilometers away from the border with China.

However, it was this fifty-kilometer road to survival that we walked for a whole month, experiencing nightmare-like cruelty and danger...

Huanglian Mountain in July is in the terrifying and helpless rainy season.

The mountains and plains here are covered with tropical jungles. It rains constantly every day, and sometimes there are flash floods caused by heavy rains.

After several days of traveling in the rainforest, it seems that I have never left the jungle.

Because we saw again the banana leaf sheds that were once built here.

The virgin rainforest has torn us to pieces.

At this time, the female soldier named Wang who was with us unfortunately contracted a disease called "relapsing fever."

This is an acute infectious disease caused by relapsing fever spirochetes transmitted by insect vectors.

The high fever was accompanied by pain all over the body. Xiao Wang was tortured to the point of being reduced to a human shape and could no longer walk.

Lin Nan and I shed tears and kept encouraging her, supporting her, and moving on.

There are no roads in Huanglian Mountain, the forests are deep and dense, and the mountains are high and steep.

The mountains are high and the roads are slippery, and it starts to rain, making it even harder to walk.

In the mud, Xiao Wang slipped with us and rolled down the hillside.

By the time Lin Nan and I ran to her, she was already dead.

…

Perhaps because she had received labor training in the mountains and countryside, Lin Nan was relatively strong among these female soldiers.

Although she was hungry, cold and tortured all the way, she still seemed more energetic than the others and kept leading the way.

However, unfortunate things still happened!

That day, as we walked into another jungle, we suddenly heard Lin Nan, who was walking in front, scream and sit down on the ground with a thud.
To be continued...