"What did you say? Wang Yan voluntarily applied to join the fighting?" Hao Shuwen, in Beijing, held the phone in disbelief. Her eyes widened in an instant, her heart beginning to race with the panic of someone who seemed to have already lost a loved one.
At that moment, she could even picture Wang Yan's smiling face, hear him saying, "I'm not dead yet. What are you mourning for?"
Over in Mengzi, He Xiaoping had more or less realized she had said the wrong thing. She had assumed Hao Shuwen already knew, but what was said was said. All she could do was bounce her mischievous son in one arm while holding the receiver in the other and responding.
"Hao Shuwen, don't get worked up. Everything's fine right now. The fighting only started two days ago, didn't it? Didn't Wang Yan always claim he was unbeatable throughout the Kunming Military Region? Liu Feng told me Wang Yan was an excellent shot and a great fighter. This time, he'll definitely become a combat hero.
"Liu Feng also said Wang Yan had told him himself. He was such a capable fighter and had such a big reputation—if he didn't go to the battlefield, he wouldn't be able to hold his head up in the army afterward. The soldiers would look down on him. Liu Feng said Wang Yan was a proud man, and his father was a martyr. He didn't want to disgrace his father.
"Besides, Wang Yan knows so many senior officers. They'll look after him too. And everyone knows his situation. If anything really happened to him, Liu Feng would definitely be the first to hear about it. There hasn't been any news at all, which means Wang Yan is doing fine. You don't need to worry."
He Xiaoping was