Chapter 24: With National Enmity and Family Vendettas, How Could One Ever Yield!

"Long live the people!"

When this slogan first resounded across the land of the Dragon Kingdom, it was like a thunderclap in early spring, instantly shattering the ice and snow of a bitter winter.

Before that moment, no one had ever spoken such words.

Across the nation, countless households fell into a profound silence. Many elderly people sitting before their televisions remained speechless for a long time. In the minds of countless souls, time seemed to fold back fifty years, transporting them to that great city tower to hear that deafening, thunderous roar once more.

This time, the silence in the numerous online chat rooms lingered even longer.

"Where are the trolls now?"
"Keep throwing mud at the old hero if you dare!"
"You are not worthy of tarnishing the innocence of a veteran hero!"
"Grandpa Ye never even looked your way from the very beginning; all of this has been nothing but your own pathetic self-amusement!"

The netizens who supported Ye Yuan, having been stifled with indignation, finally began their counterattack. As for the paid trolls who had been relentlessly mocking him, they had all retreated into silence. Even those who had been swayed by the trolls—those who believed Ye Yuan was merely a "god" artificially manufactured by a propaganda machine—could not help but reflect on their own judgments.

Could someone who speaks such words and holds such noble, revolutionary ideals truly be the "villain" they had painted him to be?

"Well said!" Xiao Bo could not help but stand up and exclaim.

Beside him, Sun Ping pulled at his sleeve helplessly. "We are in the middle of a live broadcast, why are you shouting?"

Xiao Bo smiled awkwardly and sat back down. The others in the studio also snapped out of their trance, and a burst of dense, enthusiastic applause erupted.

Tears shimmered in Sun Ting’s eyes. Controlling her emotions, she turned back to Ye Yuan. "So, is the society we live in today what you had hoped for?"

"If it weren't," Ye Yuan countered, "do you think I would be sitting here?"

Sun Ting laughed, tears still streaming down her face—a smile born from the release of pent-up emotion.

Ye Yuan turned his head to stare directly into the camera. "Other than this one time, I have never been a deserter. Even when I was captured by the invaders and they used every imaginable method to interrogate me, I never once thought of betraying the revolution."

This statement struck like a bombshell dropped into water, triggering an immense reaction. Ye Yuan had actually been captured? Everyone looked at him in disbelief. Everyone knew well how cruel and terrifying the invaders were. How had he managed to escape from their clutches?

Sun Ting, living up to expectations, asked, "Grandpa Ye... could you tell us about that?"

Ye Yuan did not speak immediately. Instead, he lifted his hands to undo his buttons. He didn't open his shirt completely, revealing only his shoulders. Yet, even just those shoulders, covered in a dense map of scars, were enough to make one’s heart tremble.

Ye Yan'an’s eyes filled with tears, and she was already sobbing uncontrollably. She had asked her grandfather about those scars more than once, but he had never been willing to tell her. Now, she finally had the chance to learn about her grandfather’s past.

Ye Yuan raised a finger and pointed to his left collarbone. "Here, the invaders drove two iron rods through me, suspending me in mid-air. Then, they lit fires under both ends of the rods to force me to reveal the location of our main forces."

Sun Ting looked where he pointed and indeed saw a deep, circular scar.

"My flesh was roasted bit by bit. It was truly painful, but whenever I thought of my parents and my siblings—all of whom had died under the beasts' atrocities—the pain simply vanished." Ye Yuan recounted this in a calm, steady voice, as if he were telling a story he had heard from someone else.

Sun Ting bit her lip, her fingertips trembling as she reached out to gently touch the scar on his collarbone. How could it not have been painful? It was only through a hatred forged by the suffering of his country and family that Ye Yuan had summoned a superhuman strength of will to resist the enemy's cruelty.

"The old hero is too great!"
"If it were me, I would have cracked the moment they described how they were going to torture me."
"You think that now, but if you truly experienced everything the old hero did, you wouldn't feel fear."
"A country broken, a home lost! That era was just too difficult..."

The chat room was buzzing, and with the trolls silenced, the atmosphere had become remarkably earnest.

"As for the tiger bench and chili water, they used those on me, too," Ye Yuan continued. "But in my opinion, the most insidious method was when they refused to let me sleep. I almost couldn't hold on."

Sun Ting fell silent. This was a form of torture with a long, dark history—sleep deprivation. Even a person of iron-clad will would usually break under such torment.

"But I didn't confess a thing. The invaders were at their wits' end, and because they were reluctant to kill such a 'high-ranking official,' they just kept me locked in a cell." Ye Yuan spoke slowly, a look of reminiscence on his face. "Later, I seized an opportunity. When the interrogator came to press me for information, I used a pair of chopsticks I had hidden to subdue him, and that was how I managed a difficult escape."

"Good!" Cong Gui slapped his thigh, letting out an involuntary cheer.

Xiao Bo glanced sideways at him. "Old Cong, mind the discipline."

Liu Ping gave Xiao Bo a helpless glare, wondering who had been standing up and applauding just a moment ago.

"What happened to that interrogator?" Sun Ting pressed.

"I held him hostage until we reached a bridge, where the invaders didn't dare get too close," Ye Yuan said with a cunning glint in his eyes. "I jammed a chopstick into his throat and jumped off the bridge. The invaders fired down at me from above, but they missed. I drifted in the water for a long time before crawling back to shore and reuniting with my unit."

"It’s just a pity—I heard that interrogator didn't actually die; he only suffered some throat damage. If I had known, I should have sharpened that chopstick a bit more."

"That is truly a shame..." Sun Ting said with a look of genuine regret, then quickly asked, "Do you know who that interrogator was?"

"Who could remember? It was all sorts of messy, tongue-twisting names. But..." Ye Yuan suddenly grinned. "I did snatch a medal hanging on his chest. It had some of those 'bird-language' characters from the invaders on it, and I ended up throwing it into the pit latrine at my house."

Sun Ting stared at him, stunned, never expecting such a playful, childlike side to the old hero.

Off-stage, Xiao Bo, Liu Ping, and Cong Gui exchanged glances. Seeing Cong Gui dazed, Liu Ping nudged him. "What are you waiting for? Why don't you send someone to go look for it? That’s a precious historical artifact!"

Cong Gui snapped out of it, though he was reluctant to leave his seat. "I'll arrange for someone to go as soon as the show is over."