The Wall Between Us, 1937

Wang Huai, the sole “survivor” of the Battle of Nanjing.

To protect his family, he put on a Japanese military interpreter’s uniform and became the “number one traitor” cursed by everyone in the surrounding villages. But cracks ran through this “wall” all the same.

He sent his younger sister to join the New Fourth Army, arranged for his elder brother to marry the head of the Women’s Association, swore brotherhood with bandits, and played cat and mouse with the Juntong. Amid blood-soaked interrogations and knives flashing in the dark, he passed on genuine intelligence, forged false confessions, and walked a tightrope between the Japanese, the Juntong, and the Communist Party.

When he was reunited with his second elder sister, now a Japanese army major, he smiled and offered her sake. In the cup, a broken land was reflected.

After Japan surrendered, he was led to a public trial. As the crowd shouted abuse, the civilians he had secretly spared and saved over the years rose one by one, silently forming a human wall. There was no defense, no plea, only truths too dangerous to speak aloud, deafening in their silence.

Years later, the editor of the county gazette asked an old man, “How should we write about Wang Huai?”

The old man gazed into the distance. “The wall has fallen, but some still remember where it stood.”

This was a wall that protected others on its knees, died standing, and was ultimately buried by time: a silent wall.