Remember me, stranger. My surname is Duan and I am from Hangzhou, Zhejiang. My name is Duan Yijun.
When I was eighteen years old, I joined the army and was admitted to Whampoa. Three years later, I graduated and joined the war and won the Zhongzheng Sword. This year...1942, I am twenty-five years old. I'm a major battalion commander. Remember me.
It's June now. I lay in the unknown jungle north of the Salween River in Burma, with a Japanese bullet piercing my helmet.
Unfortunately, I don't have many friends - except for two people who have disappeared. One is my deputy battalion commander, who just now was holding my bullet-pierced helmet and crying like a heir; the other... Is the translator. College student, only twenty-one years old. Envy? As humble as I am, I actually know a college student who can translate Su Dongpo's poems into English.
June is the rainy season in northern Myanmar. I thought, before I go home, I have to become fertilizer in the strange forest.
I don't have many friends. Perhaps, except for the ants on my body... Dear stranger, you are the only one who will die for me. So do yourself a favor and remember my story, and remember them too.
——I don't want to die yet. If I am lucky enough to survive this calamity, I will spend my whole life repaying those who have looked at me.
So please keep your eyes on me. Please keep your eyes on them.
I will live until the story is told.