Chen He sat in his chair dumbfounded, but Kahesha ignored the shock he was experiencing, because it had been expected.

"Actually, the Horns don't know that we call them Horns, which is a label that the earthlings have put on their wishful thinking. They call their planet Dark Matter because every 100 Earth years, Dark Matter Star can only be at peace once for less than three Earth months, and the rest of the day, they can only spend the rest of their lives in an extremely terrible and catastrophic environment. ”

At this point, Chen He didn't have the patience to listen, let alone ask questions. He came to a decisive conclusion about the meeting with Kahesha: the whole morning of precious time was wasted on a madman, and the mayor of a town had played a trick on a foreign madman who was beautiful and charming in appearance, but was actually insane!

Politely sent Kahesha to the door, and the most satisfying sentence Chen He heard so far was that Kahesha said that she was very busy and it was impossible for her to come to Natalie Town in the future, so it was up to Chen He to plan the fire to the forest. If he doesn't have the ability to do it, he will have to reap the consequences, and in short, after this trip, she will never feel uneasy about her conscience again. No matter what she has done before, she has now made amends, and she can live with peace of mind in the future.

After Kahesha left, Chen He did not mention her visit to anyone, not because he also thought that this great secret should not be divulged out, but because he was afraid of falling into the eyes of others - the venerable mayor could not even recognize a madman, and he talked with her respectfully and politely all morning.

But Chen He has a good habit that he has maintained for decades, which is to keep a diary, and that night, before going to bed, he wrote down jokes about Kahsha in his diary. He couldn't remember the principle of fireflies emitting light, and he still didn't understand what a physical virus was, so he only wrote down the metaphor of the chicken farm in detail, and wrote a funny but somewhat bloody story.

Closing the dark green hard-shell diary, it was already one o'clock in the morning, Chen He yawned and prepared to sleep, and when he walked to the bedside, he thought about it, turned back to the desk, and reopened the diary.

At the end of his diary, he added that it would be nice if there were aliens in this world, at least if only their planet could provide us with refuge while the Earth was in the midst of the pain of war. Anyway, I plan to tell this crazy story that Kahesha made up to my little grandson, and maybe when he grows up, when he stands in the birch forest and counts the fireflies, those shining beetles can replace the stars in the sky and send the aliens from the fairy tale to him and talk to him.

After that day, the fact that an alien wanted to use a little firefly to blow up Natalie Town completely left Chen He behind. The birch forest is still lush, and the villain neighbor named Er Mazi has not appeared, so let alone dissuade the townspeople, even Chen He himself often runs to the birch forest, not to plan how to set fires, but to visit an old man named Ivan and send him some daily necessities.

The birch forest is a primeval forest covering an area of more than 100 hectares. Although it is only a child looking up to giants compared to the Great Khing'an Mountains and Changbai Mountain, it is a treasure trove of abundant natural products for the residents of Natalie Town.

Ivan is the guardian of this treasure house.

Even Chen He himself can't figure out when Ivan lived in Lao Lin, and how old he is so far this year. In short, whenever you see him, you will feel like an old tree with cracked bark, so old that it is difficult to count the rings on the trunk.

The birch forest pressed against the border between China and the Soviet Union, divided in two by a 27-kilometer-long border. Ivan's wooden house was built in the middle of the forest, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he was in a rather awkward position - nationality was difficult to define.

No matter which end of the forest he went, he would be stopped by the soldiers at the border post, who would ask him for the same crossing documents, and of course he would not be able to get them.

After the establishment of the Suifenhe Municipal People's Government, he sent people to Ivan's wooden house many times, saying that the Chinese government could grant him citizenship rights if he wished. Like China, on the other side of the border, in the Soviet city of Vladivostok (Vladivostok), there was a special person who contacted the old man and expressed his intention to accept him as a Soviet citizen.

However, Ivan seems to be old and weak, but his mind is harder than a thousand-year-old tree. He had no intention of joining any nationality, nor did he want to get out of that green forest. He volunteered to take on the task of guarding the forest without any pay, until he was buried under a birch tree a hundred years later, and since then he has become a mountain spirit, continuing to protect the nature he loves.

No one can force an old man to do what others want, and with no family, it is even more difficult to find a way to persuade him. After several unsuccessful attempts, the governments on both sides of the border had to give up, and Ivan became the freest and least free man in the world - no government could restrain him, but the birch forest also became his cage, and even if he walked out of the forest, he could be shot as a stowaway.

Every Friday afternoon, Chen He would visit Ivan with a large bag of groceries and two bottles of 52-proof sorghum wine, which has been the norm for decades, rain or shine.

This kind of care for the elderly has nothing to do with his position as mayor of the town, because Ivan's persistence and deep affection for nature make him admire the old man. In the border cities where the wind of trade is blowing and money worship is rampant, there are indeed not many people who are content with mediocrity and selfless dedication.

One Friday afternoon two months after Kahesha left, Chen He walked into the birch forest and walked to the smoky cabin.

After Ivan applied insecticide to a small budding sapling, he sat on the stump in the doorway and smoked an old cigarette in his mud-stained leather overalls and vinyl leather galoshes. In fact, he was waiting for Chen He's arrival.

When I first met Chen He, he was a young man under thirty. The two of them talked very well, and after they got married, they sat together every Friday and drank, and they drank for almost 30 years. Seeing that Chen He already has a grandson and is gradually entering old age, Ivan also has a constant affection for this loyal northeastern man.

Seeing Chen He coming from afar, a hint of a smile appeared on Ivan's expressionless wrinkled face, and after exhaling a few puffs of white smoke, he let the smiling Chen He into the house.

The two chatted while drinking. Although the summer in the northeast is not as scorching as in the south, you can sweat a lot when you walk in the sun.

However, sitting in the forest hut, it seems to be back to the pleasant spring, and the hot and spicy soju passes through the intestines, and it will not feel too dry.

To the left of the hut is the door, which opens in the direction of Natalie, and to the right is the window, and if you can see through the dense forest, you can see the Soviet military post with the five-pointed star red flag of the hammer and sickle.