August 2, 1990, Thursday.
When Li Ye arrived at the First Branch Factory, he heard his coworkers discussing some "big news."
"Did you know? Old Saddam in the Middle East sent troops across the border and has already invaded Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq War went on for eight years before this. Who knows how many more years this one will last?"
"It won't last that many years. I have a world map at home, and I specifically checked it this morning. Kuwait is no bigger than a speck of booger, while Old Saddam commands an army of a million. I figure the war will be over in a few months."
"Just a few months? Then there won't be much of a spectacle to watch."
Watching a group of coworkers cheerfully discuss that war ten thousand miles away—and even complain that it would not be lively if it failed to drag on—Li Ye could not help but sigh.
The country had protected its people too well. The war in the South had only just ended, yet it had not really affected the lives of people inland, leaving them utterly unaware of war's brutality.
Starting today, the people of Old Saddam's country would be plunged into a nightmare lasting decades. Slaughter, famine, and all manner of tragic events would take turns playing out, and only many years later would things barely stabilize.
What had once been a prosperous oil-rich nation would become a place of poverty within a few years. Even more despairing was that its people could not see any hope of waking from the nightmare.
Yet in the eyes of their fellow countrymen, something so cruel was merely a spectacle.
That was why Li Ye rarely joined such discussions. He only wanted to quietly do what he ought to do, silently