White Olive Tree

Chapter 1

The day Song Ran met Li Zan was an ordinary day.
On June 3rd, Ale City, located in the north-central part of the Eastern Kingdom, looked the same as usual every day.  At eight o'clock in the morning, Song Ran opened the window of the hotel, and a north-south street downstairs led directly to the elementary school at the end.  The commercial buildings on both sides of the road are short and flat, and the high and low residential houses are hidden behind the trees.
As far as the eye can see, the streets are dusty, and there is no one to clean up the confetti and fallen leaves.  But the sky is blue and the sun is shining brightly.
Downstairs in the restaurant, a young mother wearing a headscarf and a black robe was sitting at the table with her young son having breakfast; the owner of the shop was standing behind the booth, cutting the barbecue with one hand and throwing the pastry with the other.  The smell of grilled meat, boiled beans and flatbread wafts through the streets.  In the repair shop across the street, a few middle-aged men pushed motorcycles and crowded at the door of the shop early, chatting with the repairman, speaking the Dongguo language that Song Ran could not understand.  A whistle sounded not far away, the bus stopped on the side of the road, and a group of elementary school students in school uniforms rushed out of the bus, chattering and running towards the school.  The bus driver rolled down the window and chatted with the police patrolling the roadside.
Everything looked the same as every day before, but it was different.
The local restaurant is still open, but KFC has long been closed; the dental clinic is opening, but the mobile phone store has been closed for more than a week.  A new model of a certain Chinese mobile phone brand was posted on the door. The posters were in tatters, and the pieces of paper trembled in the morning wind.  A stray dog ​​is curled up in a pile of torn newspapers in the corner.  The glass window of the clothing store next door was also covered with a layer of dust, and two mannequins could be vaguely seen inside the window, one with a black robe and scarf covering his face, and one with a white shirt and floral skirt.
The morning breeze swept over the fallen leaves and confetti, but could not move the still skirts in the window.
Song Ran sighed for no reason, a faint melancholy in her heart was like that piece of dusty glass.  This is her last day in the country.  Today her mission is over and she is about to return.  It took 4 hours to drive from Ale City to the capital Gamma, and the plane back home was at eleven o'clock at night.
She leaned against the window and swiped the internet with her mobile phone. It's afternoon in China, and netizens are discussing topics such as celebrity cheating, the most beautiful tofu Xishi, and so on.
At half past eight in the morning local time, it was almost time to pack up.
Just as she folded the tripod, the floor under her feet suddenly shook, like an earthquake.  But it's not an earthquake!  She grabbed the camera and pressed the switch and rushed to the window, and there was a thunder and explosion in the sky.
But everything in the world outside the window is as usual. People on the street looked up like a flock of bewildered geese.  Soon there was another loud bang, one after the other—cannonballs.
The war has begun.
The street boiled instantly, people shouted loudly and fled in all directions.
Song Ran rushed to the top of the building with her camera, tripod and communication equipment on her back. Looking at the wasteland outside the city, she couldn't see any troops.  But the artillery fire continued.  It was Haru City, tens of kilometers northeast of Ale City, where one of her male colleagues was stationed.
The cell phone signal was cut off.  The first step in the war destroyed the communication base station.
Song Ran set up the equipment, turned on the satellite phone, and only then did he connect. Then he said about the domestic affairs: "The government army and the rebels are fighting outside Haru City. What's the situation on your side?"
Song Ran turned the camera angle and held his breath: "I am now on the roof of a hotel in the northeast suburb of Ale City, an important town in the central part of the Eastern Kingdom. I can hear the clear sound of gunfire coming from the direction of Haru City. The building under my feet is still shaking.  The photographic picture is also unstable. In the Ale area where I am, there were cars and pedestrians downstairs a minute ago, but now the street is empty. The direction of my finger on the opposite side is an elementary school, and you can see..." She zoomed in on the picture, "  The teachers took the students to evacuate from the teaching building to the playground. The number of students studying here has dropped from more than 300 a few months ago to more than 100 now. Many families have already moved to the south, near the capital Gamma  ..."
After she finished her report, the cannon fire from the other end disappeared.  I don't know if the fighting stopped or turned into a gun battle.
Song Ran waited on the roof for ten minutes, but found nothing new.
The sky was as blue as washed sapphire, the sun was brighter, and the world was as weird as if nothing had happened.
The notice from above was that Song Ran would return to China as usual.  But the war suddenly broke out, and the communication line may be completely blocked.  Going back is not easy.
The car she rented was returned last night.  And the driver who had made an appointment to take her to Gamma today wanted to take the family of six south, so he broke the appointment.  In special moments, there is no way to blame the other party.
Around 9:30, Song Ran contacted a reporter friend in the United States and learned that they had a car and could take her along.  But they were in Shuri City, more than ten kilometers northwest of Ale, and set off southward at 10:30 in the morning.
At this moment in Al, the streets were crowded with people fleeing with their families and their families in cars and motorcycles.  The road out of the city was blocked.  The sound of whistles, cursing, shouting, and crying of children can be heard endlessly.  Song Ran ran for more than a dozen streets under the scorching sun, looking for a motorcycle all over the city, but at this time the means of transportation were hard to come by.
On the way back, her eyes got wet several times.  It is impossible not to be afraid.
Back at the hotel, the driver who broke the contract was waiting for her in the front hall.  He sent a motorcycle.
At ten o'clock in the morning, Song Ran changed into a black suit, put on a hat and a mask, tied the equipment box and suitcase to the back seat, and rode a motorcycle straight to Su Rui City in the northwest.  Motorcycles are men's, heavy and difficult to handle.  She fell a lot when she first came, but now she is very familiar with it.
The road is high and wide, and occasionally a few fleeing vehicles going south pass by.
She drove very fast, and arrived at the suburb of Su Rui in about a quarter of an hour.  The streets and houses are empty, and the wind blows garbage everywhere, like a ghost town in the daytime.
Just after walking down a street, there was a faint gunshot in the distance.  Song Ran's palms were drenched with sweat, and he hurried to the other end of the city.