After hearing what I had to say, Doctor Song brought an extra coil of rope, and together we carried a makeshift stretcher to the crevice.
He went down first to examine the man and found that, besides his ribs, his leg was also fractured. He was showing signs of severe blood loss.
Doctor Song and I tried everything we could think of to secure him to the stretcher and carry him out.
But the crevice was too deep, and the bottom too narrow. Darkness was approaching, and visibility down there was already poor. We tried over and over, but nothing worked.
Throughout all this, the man repeatedly refused our help, telling us to leave him and go.
But we couldn't bring ourselves to abandon a living man right before our eyes.
Finally, he stopped us from trying again.
Then he stared for a long time at the red armband on Doctor Song's left arm and the five-pointed star on my military cap before asking:
"Can I trust you?"
At first, we didn't understand what he meant.
Seeing his breathing grow weaker and weaker, as though he was about to die, Doctor Song hurriedly said:
"Comrade, I've been on the battlefield and fought the Japanese. I've been a Party member for years! Do you... is there something you want us to pass on?"
Afraid the man wouldn't believe him, Doctor Song even lifted his clothes to show him his gunshot scars.
I'd only been in the army for a little over a year then and had no accomplishments worth mentioning. I hadn't even joined the Party yet.
Just as I was struggling with what to say, the man spoke:
"Young comrade, there's no need. You don't have to prove anything! You came back instead of abandoning me! You've done everything possible to save me. I'm willing to trust you!"
We both thought he had some last words he wanted to entrust to us.
Instead, he revealed a shocking secret..."
At this point, Lu Changqing began to cough.
Song Ning stood up, poured him a glass of water, and placed it in his hand.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Only after drinking some water did he lower his voice and continue:
"You may find what I'm about to say unbelievable, but it's the truth!"
Lu Changqing looked at Song Ning and lowered his voice, something dark seeming to swirl in his eyes.
"That man told us this reservoir dam failure had been deliberately caused!"
"Deliberately?" Song Ning was startled.
"Doctor Song and I were shocked too. But when we thought it over, the widespread reservoir dam failures had begun on August eighth, and the disaster reached its peak within a single day. As soon as the flooding eased a little, the rescue troops began clearing the waterways. It took just two days to finish blasting channels to release the floodwater.
"After that, most of our work involved search and rescue, resettlement, and transporting relief supplies.
"There were a few smaller reservoir breaches afterward, but they all happened during that week before the torrential rain stopped completely. This time, more than ten full days had passed. The rain had long since stopped, yet we received news of another reservoir dam failure.
"And it happened in the mountains north of Ye County, at a higher elevation. We really were rather surprised at the time."
"We never expected that man to tell us... it had been deliberate!"
"Then, with his life hanging by a thread, he entrusted us with a 'mission,' begging Doctor Song and me to complete it for him!"
"When we learned what the mission involved, Doctor Song and I were utterly shocked! I immediately told him I'd report the matter to our commanding officers as soon as possible, so the organization could complete the mission for him!"
"But to my surprise, he did everything he could to stop me..."
Lu Changqing looked at Song Ning, his gaze solemn.
"He said he'd been entrusted with a special mission. He'd intended to take it to his grave, preferring death to revealing a single word. But in the final moments of his life, he wavered!
"He chose to trust us, but only Doctor Song and I could know about this mission! If we couldn't complete it before we died, we were to... take it straight to our graves!"
Song Ning's expression grew grave too. "He... didn't trust the military?"
Lu Changqing lowered his voice to a near whisper and said each word distinctly:
"He said he'd seen it with his own eyes. Military personnel had caused this reservoir breach! An entire squad! They'd quietly engineered this disaster! There were enemy agents within our ranks!"
Only then did Song Ning understand what Lu Changqing had meant by "unbelievable."
Right now, she truly found it unbelievable!
Military personnel had gone into a disaster-stricken area and caused a dam breach?
Why?
Why create another disaster in the middle of a disaster zone?
"Why?"
When Song Ning asked this question, Lu Changqing shook his head.
"Song Ning! All I can tell you is that this dam breach, disguised as a natural disaster, quietly claimed the lives of more than thirty of that man's colleagues. Years of painstaking work were destroyed just like that!"
"That's all I can tell you about the mission. If you ask Doctor Song about it, he'll give you the same answer!"
Song Ning didn't press him. She thought for a moment, then asked another question.
"North of Ye County? Was the place where you found that man on Crouching Tiger Mountain?"
A little surprised, Lu Changqing nodded. "It was indeed on Crouching Tiger Mountain. How... how did you know?"
"I've studied a map of Hua Country." Song Ning offered no further explanation.
Crouching Tiger Mountain lay north of Ye County, which meant Xiaolushan Town wasn't far away either...
Song Ning had a rough idea now why the mission that man had entrusted to Lu Changqing demanded such caution...
In this era, it truly was among the most closely guarded secrets.
But Song Ning came from modern times and was well versed in military affairs, so she knew that Xiaolushan Base 06, code-named "720," was a top-secret underground military command hub from the Third Front construction period.
Construction had begun in 1968, employing two divisions of engineering troops at enormous expense. The project was concealed deep within Crouching Tiger Mountain.
With Xiaolu Mountain at its core, the surrounding areas were all key locations in Henan Province's military-industrial planning.
One of the underground military command centers had been handed over to the local authorities after 1985 and developed into a revolutionary-history tourist attraction.
But that was years down the line.
With Henan Province suffering a natural disaster, it was entirely possible that enemy agents would try to exploit it to sow chaos and steal or destroy state secrets.
Even setting everything else aside, that flashlight alone had stayed lit for three days after being submerged. At the very least, it qualified as some sort of cutting-edge research product. The tin-cased, battery-powered flashlights of this era could never have done that. That alone proved-
That man's identity was anything but ordinary, and the colleagues who had died were no ordinary colleagues either.
It seemed that, through sheer chance, Lu Changqing and Grandpa Song had been entrusted with that "mission" in a moment of crisis.
Watching Song Ning sink into thought, Lu Changqing grew a little uneasy.
"Song Ning, do you... think I'm making this up?"
Before you continue