Atop the Snow-Capped Mountains, a Young Soldier Completed His Own "Coming-of-Age Ceremony"
Atop the Snow-Capped Mountains, Candlelight Bears Witness to Growth
■ Zeng Xiande, PLA Daily Special Correspondent Yan Ziyi
At the birthday party, officers and soldiers blow out the candles together. Photo by Wang Shiquan
Deep in the Kunlun Mountains, the cold wind cuts like a blade and the snowfields stretch endlessly. This is Kangxiwar, at the westernmost edge of the motherland's territory—a high-altitude training station for a unit of the Xinjiang Military Region, connected to the outside world by only a single winding, precipitous mountain road.
It was in this "forbidden zone for life" that a simple yet warm birthday party quietly took place, with its guest of honor being Private Song Chengxin, who had just turned 19.
This was Song Chengxin's first birthday spent in the military camp. Squad leader Liu Junye had recorded this special day early on in the notebook he always carried. With the training station at high altitude and far from supply routes, fresh cake could not be transported up the mountain in time, and giving a new soldier a birthday with candlelight and cake was no easy thing to arrange.
Song Chengxin's home is in a southern city, and he had been posted to the plateau immediately after joining his unit. The squad leader had originally worried he would not be able to hold on, but Song Chengxin displayed a toughness beyond his peers—something that put Liu Junye greatly at ease and made him want to give the young soldier some encouragement.
A "secret operation" quietly got underway while Song Chengxin was on sentry duty. Deputy squad leader Pang Jingze stacked compressed biscuits layer by layer to form a cake base; Sergeant Liu Ke carefully spread condensed milk as frosting and decorated it with a few fruit candies; Private First Class Tian Shengfei folded a birthday hat out of colored paper; and Sergeant Chen Fuhao found several candles. Liu Junye dipped a toothpick in jam and carefully wrote out the four characters for "Happy Birthday"—the whole squad pitched in, and a one-of-a-kind "cake" was born.
This inventive plan had its origins in something that had happened a few days earlier. That night, Song Chengxin's altitude sickness suddenly worsened; he lay awake with a pounding headache but gritted his teeth and endured, afraid of disturbing his comrades' rest. Liu Junye noticed, quietly got up, went over to check on him, brought the altitude medicine kept on hand, and draped his own military overcoat over Song Chengxin.
When Liu Junye woke the next morning, he found that at some point during the night the overcoat had been placed back over himself. In that moment, the veteran soldier's heart was warmed through, and his resolve was set: the whole squad would act together to give this considerate young man an unforgettable military-camp birthday.
Song Chengxin returned from sentry duty and froze when he pushed open the door—faint candlelight flickered, reflected in the smiling faces of his comrades, and illuminated that extraordinary "cake." A song rang out, cutting through the sound of the wind outside the barracks, and the birthday wishes struck him in the heart.
Just as he was about to blow out the candles, a comrade handed him a phone—on the screen was the familiar face of his father, 3,000 kilometers away: "Son, happy birthday!"
Song Chengxin instantly recalled that morning before he enlisted, when his father had taken an old military uniform, washed to a pale white, from deep in the wardrobe, with a medal of merit pinned to the chest. His father had also been a soldier; the words "family and nation" (家国) were engraved on his chest as well.
"Everything at home is fine. You are guarding the border on the plateau—we are proud of you." In the frame, his mother was wiping away tears at his side. "This birthday spent in the military camp is especially warm," Song Chengxin said, his own eyes reddening. He looked at the comrades around him and said to his parents in the camera, "This is also my home."
The candles were blown out, the "cake" was shared, and the camp gradually grew quiet. But Song Chengxin's heart remained unsettled for a long time.
After his college entrance examination, he had chosen to enlist, boarded a westbound train, and set off all the way toward the Kunlun. Now, he truly understood the hardship of a soldier's steadfast duty—the upright bearing in the biting wind, the unyielding resolve to press through snow and gale on patrol. In this moment, the birthday candlelight his comrades had lit for him let him feel a bond of comradeship (战友情) that was pure and genuine.
The wind had not stopped, the night had grown deep, yet warmth flowed through the barracks. Atop the snow-capped mountains, the young soldier had completed his own "coming-of-age ceremony" (成人礼).