Of course, this was not Wang Yan's first time coming to the military compound. He had even lived here before. The buildings were all the same; it was simply that the people living here had status.
Still, it had been many years since his last visit. Returning now put him in quite a mood, and he kept looking around at everything they passed along the way.
They made their way to Zhou Xiaobai's home, where he met Father Zhou and Mother Zhou.
"Honestly, you child—coming over is enough. Why did you bring things?" Mother Zhou mildly scolded him.
"It wouldn't be proper to visit for the first time empty-handed. I know you two lack nothing, so I just bought some apples. It's the thought that counts."
Wang Yan set down what he had brought and unfolded the painting he had already had mounted. "Xiaobai told me that you enjoy calligraphy and painting, Uncle Zhou. I know a little about such things myself, and I heard you were an old Red Army veteran who crossed snow-covered mountains and traversed grasslands. So I painted this Long March and wrote the Chairman's 'Seven-Character Regulated Verse: The Long March.' Please give me your guidance."
As he spoke, the scroll, fully two and a half meters wide, spread across the coffee table. The table was too short to hold it all, and part of the painting even dragged onto the floor.
Father Zhou looked surprised. "Whoa, it's this long?"
"Two and a half meters—just right for the twenty-five-thousand-li journey," Wang Yan said with a smile.
All three members of the Zhou family leaned in to examine it. It was an impressionistic painting, centered on the first generation of leaders, with Red Army soldiers around them and the route of the Long March in the background.