Strong Bones

In the smoke of the plains, sixteen-year-old Xiaobao tightened his grip on the polished bayonet. When the Japs' iron hoofs crushed the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, and when his parents fell into a pool of blood, what was beating in his chest was no longer the young man's heart, but inexhaustible anger and uncooled blood. "Follow me, and when there is food, there will be gunshots!" When the old squad leader patted his shoulder, the muddy water in the trench was up to his knees. From his trembling hand when he pulled the trigger for the first time, to dragging his comrades among the piles of corpses; from hiding in the green gauze tent and chewing tree bark, to reaching into the artillery building late at night and blowing up the Japanese ammunition depot, Xiaobao's spine became straighter and straighter under the gunfire, and the calluses on his hands were harder than the butt of the gun. He has seen the eyes of the villagers when they were bayoneted to death, listened to the low moans of the injured comrades in the cold night, and also counted the new scars on his body - each scar is engraved with a name, and every gunshot asks: When will the graves of my father and mother be filled with wild chrysanthemums? When the traitor's gun is pointed at his back, and when the last grenade pulls the fuse, Xiaobao suddenly understands that the "iron bones" mentioned by the squad leader are not invulnerable, but the naivety of rushing forward even though he knows that he cannot win, and the determination to save the last bullet for himself and push the hope of life to his brothers. At dawn when the smoke cleared, someone picked up half a piece of blood-stained red silk in the bomb crater. It was the peace charm that Xiao Bao Niang had prayed for him. And on the distant horizon, more teenagers like Xiaobao are holding guns tightly. When their bones are knocked, they are louder than the Japanese helmets and harder than the rocks of Taihang Mountain. This is not the story of a hero, but the answer made by thousands of "little treasures" made of flesh and blood: If our home is gone, we must use our bones to prop up the sky.