There are quite a few comrades who served with Pan Jun in the army forty years ago still in Beijing. Apart from those who enlisted in Beijing and later retired, there are also those who have been serving in the military and later transferred to headquarters, as well as those who went to university in Beijing after retiring, and those who came to Beijing to seek their fortunes, among whom there are also many elites.

Now, except for a couple of individuals, the vast majority are retired.

Even those who haven't retired yet should be of the age to handle the procedures in the past year or two.

Hua Guoqing was playing computer games at home when he received a call from Pan Jun. It was too hot outside, so staying at home with the air conditioning on, drinking tea, and playing on the computer was quite nice. Recently, he had already declined several dinner invitations.

Pan Jun called to ask Hua Guoqing to find a good restaurant near Chongwenmen and book a private room. It was already around three in the afternoon, which felt a bit last minute.

Pan Jun continued on the phone: Hurry up, Guoqing, don’t waste time talking. Asking you to book a meal is a sign of respect.

The two have been classmates since childhood and later served in the same army, being close friends since they were young.

In fact, when Hua Guoqing enlisted in 1973, it was Pan Jun's parents who helped him through the back door. At that time, Hua Guoqing's father was under investigation due to being reported for historical issues.

His family had many children, and Hua Guoqing was the youngest and particularly mischievous. His older siblings either went to Shaanbei to work in the countryside or to the Northeast military corps. His mother was the head of the obstetrics and gynecology department at the military hospital. Although she carried a heavy political burden, she continued to work. She left home before dawn and returned around nine or ten at night.

Hua Guoqing became a wild child with no one to manage him, wandering around with a group of kids in the compound who were in similar situations.

Later, some of those kids went to the army, while others went to Shanxi and Shaanxi to work in the countryside as educated youth. Hua Guoqing was assigned to work in a factory, but he only wanted to join the army.

However, his father was laboring at a military farm at the foot of Huashan Mountain in Shaanxi, undergoing investigation, and was unable to help him enlist.

His mother, feeling helpless, wrote a letter to an old comrade who had returned to the old unit as the political department director of a certain army from the headquarters. In the end, Hua Guoqing finally got to wear a military uniform and join the army.

This old comrade was Pan Jun's father.

After Hua Guoqing enlisted, he still did not shed the mischievous nature typical of the children of military families. He had no problem with military training or maintaining order, but he was always talking, laughing, and loved to make reasonable suggestions. He often challenged the squad leader, who frequently reported him to the company.

The political commissar of the regiment heard about it and was also scratching his head, but he was tasked by the old political commissar to cultivate Hua Guoqing well, saying that Xiao Hua's father could not be reinstated to his original position, so he must not leave the army.

Pan Jun's father had previously served as the political commissar in this regiment when he returned to the army from the headquarters. This Red Army regiment was his old unit from when he enlisted at the age of fourteen in 1939, and he had worked in the Beijing Military Commission for six or seven years before returning to his old unit.

After the founding of the country, all the previous regiment commanders and political commissars of this infantry regiment were comrades or subordinates of Commissar Pan.

When the regiment commander heard that Hua Guoqing expressed a desire to join the regiment's film crew, he immediately discussed it with the political commissar and arranged for Hua Guoqing to join the film crew.

Hua Guoqing thrived in the film crew, as he had always enjoyed tinkering with various gadgets and could draw. He assembled projectors for the army's film screenings, created slides, edited music, and did voiceovers, impressing everyone with his standard Mandarin.

He became well-known in the division, and when the old film crew leader retired, he smoothly got promoted to take over the position.

Interestingly, a year later, Pan Jun was transferred back to the political department's propaganda section, and Hua Guoqing also moved to the film team of the political department.

Pan Jun and Hua Guoqing were born in the same year, with Pan Jun being a few months older. They were in the same kindergarten and the same class in elementary school.

When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Pan Jun's father was transferred back to his old unit as the division's political commissar, having previously been promoted from the position of regiment political commissar to Beijing, and returned to a familiar place five years later.

In fifth grade, Pan Jun and his mother left Beijing due to his father's job change.

From then on, Pan Jun and Hua Guoqing parted ways, only to meet again in the same army fifteen years later in 1981.

Pan Jun saw that Hua Guoqing was still so outgoing, talkative, and cheerful, but his willingness to help others and stand up for justice only developed after they joined the army and with age.

Pan Jun had always been quiet and reserved, the type of person who spoke little but was very perceptive. In the army, he wrote daily reports, and wearing black-framed glasses made his originally slender figure appear even more refined.

Strangely enough, Hua Guoqing, who had always been physically strong, was afraid of Pan Jun and often sought advice from him when facing difficulties.

While in the division's film team, Hua Guoqing encountered a major problem that nearly led to disaster. If it weren't for Pan Jun's timely intervention, Hua Guoqing could have faced expulsion from the party and military, returning home without his uniform.

Due to the irregular lifestyle from long-term film screenings and not being able to eat on time, Hua Guoqing developed acute appendicitis and nearly suffered a perforated intestine.

During his hospitalization at the division hospital, a young woman from the local area often came to visit him.

She was a teacher at a local middle school whom he had met when he was a projectionist in the infantry regiment's film crew before being transferred to the division.

At that time, the film crew not only screened movies for the soldiers in the barracks but also often went to the county town to show films to the local people.

Hua Guoqing met this young and beautiful middle school teacher while screening films on the playground of the county town's middle school.

The female teacher had a particularly pleasant name, Lin Yajing. She resembled the actress Xie Fang, who played the female lead Lin Daojing in the movie "Song of Youth," with big eyes, a pointed chin, and short hair. Teachers and those who knew her at school would call her Lin Daojing.

She graduated from a normal school in the city and was assigned to teach at the first middle school in the county, where she taught Chinese.

When she met Hua Guoqing, she was already married. Her husband was a driver for the provincial geological survey team, often working in the field and only returning home once every two or three months. Her in-laws and her own small family were in the city, so she lived in the school's single dormitory and returned to her city home once a week.

Yan Guoqing often went to the playground of the county's first middle school to screen films. Since discovering such a handsome PLA projectionist, Lin Yajing would always sit next to the projector to watch Hua Guoqing screen films, as she particularly loved to hear his standard Beijing-accented Mandarin.

Gradually, she got to know this military projectionist.

In Lin's eyes, this PLA comrade was her dream man.

After getting to know Hua Guoqing, she would always bring a small stool in one hand and a cup of freshly brewed tea in the other when she went to the school playground. The cup was a glass converted from a can, and it had a cup sleeve that she knitted herself.

This tea was specially prepared by Lin for Hua Guoqing, but she never dared to speak up, fearing that if Hua Guoqing rejected her, she would have no more chances.

Hua Guoqing and his comrades were screening films for the local people for free, and someone in the county was responsible for receiving the military comrades. Although Hua Guoqing had never drunk the tea prepared by Lin, he noticed that she had knitted many different and beautiful cup sleeves, changing them each time.

Lin firmly believed that this PLA comrade would surely understand her feelings and accept the tea cup from her hand.