In the blink of an eye, Ba Yi Army Day has arrived again.

The Navy Retirement Home is spotlessly clean inside and out, with the national flag raised and the military flag hung, even the air is filled with a festive atmosphere.

Yesterday, a delegation led by the Deputy Political Commissioner of the East Sea Base came for a visit.

This morning, two paired construction units came for a visit.

This evening, Binjiang Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, along with the Military District, are holding the Ba Yi Gala, and all the old soldiers from the retirement home are invited to watch, though none of this has anything to do with Old Ge, who moved here from Lang Mountain a month ago.

He is neither a retired soldier nor a retired military cadre, and even now he has no time to care, because just five days ago he was blessed with a daughter!

The main reason for moving to the retirement home was that it would be more convenient to look after his wife's postpartum recovery in the city. After all, Han Yu's mother-in-law "works" at the retirement home, and there's a health clinic there, making it easier to get medical attention if his wife and child feel unwell.

Han Xiangning is off today and came early to accompany the master's wife, looking at the "Junior Sister" wrapped in swaddling clothes.

The happiest of all is Little Han Han. Although Grandma Wei's newly born baby is actually of a higher generation, and she has to call the baby "aunt", she can eat the things sent to Grandma Wei and "little aunt". There are a lot of delicious foods.

Seeing her delighted look, Han Xiangning laughed and said, "Han Han, don't make a fuss, 'little aunt' needs to sleep, go out and play with Cheng Cheng."

"Oh."

Han Han isn't afraid of anything, except her mom.

When her mom speaks, she doesn't dare to make a fuss anymore. She picked up a bag of snacks and went to share them with the children at the retirement home.

Sister Wei, lying in bed, stuck her head out to look at her snoring daughter, and said with some embarrassment: "What 'little aunt', people will laugh at us for that."

"What's there to be afraid of." Han Xiangning chuckled, curiously asking: "Master's wife, have you named the baby?"

"We have, she's called Ge Siqi, Si as in thought, and Qi with the 'king' radical."

"Siqi, that's a good name, who thought of it?"

"Old Ge thought of it, I don't know how to pick names."

The name sounds both refined and stylish. Han Xiangning didn't expect Old Ge to come up with such a good name, and couldn't help but laugh: "Uncle Ge has a knack for this, such a nice name. Unlike Xiao Yu, who actually let their kid be called Croc!"

Sister Wei laughed knowingly: "Xiao Yu and Yu Zhen came by yesterday, with Little Crocodile."

"I know, they called me."

Han Xiangning sighed lightly and said helplessly: "San'er led the team to Qingdao Shipyard for the anti-smuggling boat's trial voyage, the earliest he'll be back is in half a month."

Sister Wei quickly said: "It's okay, he's so busy with work, work is important."

...

Meanwhile, Old Ge was in the living room entertaining Master Han, Master Xi, and Secretary Wang who came to visit.

They are all old comrades who participated in flood relief together, and they are all senior experts. It's rare for them to gather, chatting and laughing, it was very lively.

"Every Army Day, the city holds an army conference. If Salted Fish wasn't transferred to the Rescue Boat Team and continued to be the Camp Commander of the Linghai Reserve Camp, he would definitely have to attend."

"Linghai is holding an army conference, shouldn't Binjiang hold one too?"

"Binjiang should hold one too, but Salted Fish is on a business trip, even if they hold it, he won't be able to attend."

"These kinds of meetings are just formalities, there's nothing substantive about them, it doesn't really matter if he attends or not. Besides, San'er doesn't like meetings anyway." Master Han said with a smile, holding a tea cup.

"Indeed." Old Ge nodded, then asked: "Old Wang, have the Three Gorges immigrants arrived?"

Old Ge has retired from his main position but is not fully retired.

Even to this moment, he is still the Deputy Researcher of the Linghai City Government, his concern for the work in Linghai is normal.

Old Wang doesn't particularly like Old Ge putting on the airs of a city leader, but when talking about work under his "jurisdiction", he said: "They arrived, more than eighty households, over two hundred people. The Reservoir area organized to bring them by boat, we picked them up at the Binjiang Passenger Terminal. Mayor Wang and Mayor Shen personally went to the terminal to welcome them, and they were very touched at the time, but in the end, they are not familiar with the place and find it hard to adapt."

"Didn't you do a good job with the resettlement work?"

"The houses are all newly built, one two-story building per family, we've allocated land to them, arranged for their children to go to school. Considering farming isn't profitable, we've tried to arrange jobs for them, but as they are unfamiliar with the place, it's difficult to adapt and integrate."

Seeing the three old comrades deep in thought, Old Wang sighed: "I've visited their old homes, it's in a mountainous area, all mountains over there, their land is not as good as ours. Considering they might not know how to farm, the city arranged agricultural technicians from each township to assist, but it might take some time to really get the hang of it."

Master Han thought of the situation when transferring people during flood relief and lamented: "It's hard to leave a poor home, difficult to leave one's native place."

Master Xi is a Beihu person, having lived and worked in Jiangnan Province for many years, could understand the feelings of those immigrants, and said softly: "The problem isn't about living conditions, Linghai's conditions must be better than their old homes. The reason they find it hard to adapt, I think, is mainly because relatives and friends are now far apart, the living environment and habits have changed completely."

"Yes, I asked a migrant, they said Linghai is very lonely, there isn't even anyone to talk to."

"Isn't there any neighbors in the village?"

"Yes, but maybe the young people have all gone out, the village is mostly older people, they don't speak Mandarin, and the immigrants' Mandarin isn't good either, it's hard for them to communicate with each other. Besides, our people in Linghai just know working to earn money, they don't have much time to chat with the immigrants."

When relocating, they considered not having enough land for so many people to live together, and there were concerns that the immigrants might band together to cause trouble, so they were separated and resettled.

More than eighty households were resettled across several villages in four townships and streets, directly leading to them feeling very lonely.

Thinking of this, Old Wang smiled bitterly: "You might not believe it, but some people sneaked back less than two months after arriving. We can't say anything, saying anything would imply our reception and resettlement work wasn't done well, we can only pretend not to know. The same goes for their hometown, when media reporters asked if any immigrants returned, their officials also said no."

Transferring millions of people isn't an easy task.

As the upper levels said during the promotion, it was a world problem solved.

People find it hard to live in a foreign place and quietly return home, everyone has to pretend not to know, or else wouldn't it be a slap in our own face.

Master Han was silent for a moment and asked in a low voice, "What about over at the East Sea?"

"I don't know about the distant ones, I just know that there are people who have returned to Zhuangming."

"Returning is fine, we're not without arrangements."

Old Ge didn't want to continue the heavy conversation and turned to smile and ask, "Master Xi, how's Hao Qiusheng doing now?"

Master Xi didn't expect him to ask that, and promptly replied, "He's doing quite well now. With the help of several boss officers, he pulled together a construction team and is working on a project subcontracted to him by the Water Resources Engineering Company."

"How many workers does he have now?"

"Over three hundred."

"So many!"

"He's been a manager at the Road and Bridge Company for so many years, has quite a few friends, it's not difficult for him to pull together a construction team."

Confirming that his old subordinate was rising again, Old Ge finally breathed a sigh of relief and started discussing national matters.

In the past few months, he's been watching TV news on Lang Mountain, NATO and South Alliance went to war, at first he found watching the war quite exciting, even hoping that NATO ground forces would soon invade the South Alliance to see how their troops would fight against the US-led NATO Alliance.

As he kept watching, he unwittingly turned from being an observer to a "participant".

The US army actually bombed our embassy in the South Alliance, causing casualties.

The nation was filled with righteous indignation, students took to the streets to march, even the Binjiang Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government held meetings to strongly condemn it.

After finally waiting for the United States to apologize, things stirred up again in Taiwan.

Master Han lightly sighed, "The Central Leadership doesn't have it easy, you know how many things happened this year, first the Qigong practitioners caused trouble, then the US army bombed our embassy, and now Taiwan is restless again."

Old Ge nodded, agreeing deeply and said, "The military bears the greatest pressure, the commander from the East Sea Base demanded Salted Fish and the rest take their reserve duties seriously and always be ready to fight."

"Will there be a fight?"

"How would I know? But I think the likelihood is low, after all, the disparity in strength is too great."

The international environment hasn't been favorable, the superior has paid great attention to the reserve forces these months.

The six power boats from Linghai Reserve Camp were just finished and participated in a Nanjing Military Region maneuver, mainly responsible for building bridges over water for the participating active forces.

Right after, Salted Fish took them to the Zhuangming Island areas for sea training, mainly training for landing assaults.

In any case, whether or not there's a fight, the forces must always be ready to fight.

Master Han didn't want to discuss these anymore and raised his head with a smile, asking, "Ge Diao, you're different from us now, your responsibilities are heavier, what are your plans next?"

Old Ge was stunned for a moment, then replied, looking embarrassed, "Children are only hard to raise, not to grow, don't be fooled by their small size now, before you know it, they'll be going to school. Old Wei and I can't 'wander' like before, we're planning to buy an apartment in Binjiang."

"Where are you planning to buy?"

"The houses in the city area are too expensive, I can't afford them, I can only go to the development zone to buy."

"How could you not afford it?"

"Don't laugh at me, I really can't afford it, even buying in the development zone would require a loan."

Cadre salaries aren't high to begin with, he lived quite "carefreely" these years, lacking substantial savings is quite normal.

As Master Han was unsure of how to continue, the phone issued to him by the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee Water Meteorological Forecasting Office suddenly rang, glancing at the caller ID, it was his son-in-law from far away Qingdao.

"San'er, what's up?"

"Dad, Ningning's phone isn't connecting, I can only tell you, I just received an urgent notice from the superior, I've got to lead a team for an urgent task, might not be home for a while."

"What urgent task?"

"It's classified."

"Which superior assigned you this task?"

"Provincial Military District and East Sea Base." Han Yu took a deep breath and added, "Ma Guan and Political Commissioner Zhou should have received the notice too, those here on trial and receiving anti-smuggling boats are all participating, none will return home."

An urgent notice from the Provincial Military District and East Sea Base, implies it's a military task.

Master Han was shocked, just contemplating if war was on the horizon when Old Ge's phone rang too.

"Director Feng, it's Ge Weidong, is that so? Alright, I'll head back to Lang Mountain immediately! Old Wei is fine here, Xiao Qin is on summer break, she's helping out with care-taking, besides, Director Xiang is also at the retirement home... "

"Ge Diao, what's going on?" Just as Old Ge put down the phone, Master Xi asked urgently.

Old Ge was unsure of how to explain, when Old Wang's phone suddenly rang too.

Old Wang glanced at the caller ID and instinctively stood up, "Jianbo, what's the matter? So urgent, I'm at the Navy Retirement Home, at Ge Diao's place. No need to send a car to pick me up, no need to notify Master Han and Master Xi either, they're right next to me."

"Secretary Wang, what's happening?"

"Linghai Reserve Camp has an urgent task, we're all members of the expert team, Yang Jianbo asked if we have time, if we do, quickly head to the camp for a meeting."

There hasn't been a flood like last year's, with simultaneous urgent tasks at the rescue boat team and Linghai Reserve Camp, it goes without asking that it's related to military undertakings.

Old Ge didn't dare delay a moment, quickly went inside to tell his wife, then packed his bags to leave the small building alongside Master Han, Master Xi, and Secretary Wang, requesting leadership at the retirement home arrange cars to take them separately to the rescue boat team and Linghai Reserve Camp.