In an era of lack of entertainment, reading is undoubtedly the best pastime to pass the time.

   When Sokov had just read half of the book, the door was pushed open from the outside. He thought it was Anna who had come, and was about to ask her to pour some water for him, but when he looked up, he saw Yakov and Bezikov, who had not been seen for a day, came in.

"Major Bezikov," although the other party's military rank was much lower than his own, but the three of them stayed in the nursing home during this time, and they had to rely on the other party's subordinates to protect themselves, so he stood up and said politely: "You came!"

   "Hello, Comrade General!" Bezikov raised his hand and saluted Sokov, and then said, "I came here today because I have something important to report to you."

   "Important matter?" Sokov heard Bezikov say this, and said jokingly: "What important matter, do you want to change us to a nursing home with better conditions?"

   "No, Comrade General, you misunderstood. It is not to change you to a sanatorium." Bezikov replied with a wry smile: "It is the superior who is going to arrange a new partner for you."

   "New partner?" Sokov asked in surprise after hearing this: "Who is it?"

   "I'm sorry, Comrade General." Bezikov said: "Before your new partner arrives, I have no right to disclose any information about him. I was just ordered to inform you."

  Sokov heard what the other party said, so he didn't continue to ask who the coming person was, but just asked casually: "When will he arrive?"

   "Tomorrow morning." Bezikov answered accurately: "He will be here at ten o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Then where is he going to live?" Sokov took a rough look at the layout of the nursing home today. In addition to the small building where he lives and the small building where the restaurant is located, there is a smaller building at the back. There are only about a dozen rooms, which should be arranged for senior personnel: "Are we living in the same building, or the last building?"

Bezikov couldn't help raising his eyebrows when he heard what Sokov said, and then said: "Comrade General, of course he is in the same building as you. To tell you the truth, he has a disability, so it is not convenient for him to live alone. If we live together with you, we will take care of each other."

  After listening, Sokov nodded and said: "Okay, Comrade Major, then we will wait for this mysterious resident to officially enter our nursing home tomorrow."

After seeing Bezikov off, Sokov raised his hand and looked at the time. It was almost six o'clock, and he was very hungry, so he said to Yakov: "Yasha, it's getting late, let's go eat Let's have dinner."

  As soon as he walked out of the room, he met Asiya oncoming. Seeing Sokov and Yakov coming out of the room, she smiled and said, "I was about to ask you two to eat, but you came out first."

  Assia held Sokov's hand, and as she walked towards the restaurant, she said, "I just saw the Major Bezikov who sent us here. What is he doing here?"

   "Just to inform us that a new tenant will be admitted to the nursing home tomorrow."

   "New tenant?" Assia asked curiously, "Who is it?"

   "I don't know," Sokov shook his head and said, "Major Bezikov didn't say anything. But it doesn't matter. When the new tenant arrives tomorrow, we will know who he is."

   "Misha, can you guess who it is?" Yakov asked from the side.

  Sokov shook his head again and said, "I'm not a god, how would I know who it would be."

Yakov saw that he couldn't get the answer he wanted from Sokov, so he said to himself: "Major Bezikov said that the new tenant has a disability. Could it be that he was injured on the battlefield? The injury is good. After I died, I found that I couldn't return to the battlefield because of my physical disability, so I arranged to be recuperated in this nursing home?"

   "Physically disabled?" Asya heard Yakov say this, and her professional instinct was stimulated again: "How was he injured? Was he injured by a bullet or a shell?"

  Facing Asiya's question, Yakov smiled wryly: "Asiya, I don't even know who came here, how could I know how he was injured?"

  Sokov remembered what Bezikov said, so he said to Assia: "The new tenant will live in the same building as us. Major Bezikov asked us to take care of it."

   "That's no problem." Assia replied straightforwardly, "I'm a military doctor, so it shouldn't be a big problem to take care of a disabled person."

  Early the next morning, an ambulance drove in from outside, followed Bezikov's black car, and stopped in front of the small building.

As soon as the car stopped, Bezikov got out of the car and walked quickly to the door of the ambulance. After opening the door, he assisted the medical staff to lift a plainclothes man lying on a stretcher out of the car, and carefully carried into the building.

Sokov stood at the window and saw the ambulance coming in from outside, and stopped downstairs again. He was eager to know who was coming, so he said to Assia: "Assia, our new neighbor is here, we Go out and meet him."

  The two came out of the room and were about to go downstairs when they heard Yakov shouting from behind: "Misha, Asiya, wait for me, I will follow you down to see the new neighbors."

   Just like that, the three came to the lobby on the first floor.

With sharp eyes, Sokov saw that the three waiters, including Gurchenko, were all there, and the man who was carried out of the ambulance was sitting on a sofa at the moment, and Bezikov was standing beside him. He bowed his head and said something to him.

  Yakov saw the man, raised his hand and scratched the back of his head, frowned and said, "This man looks familiar, he seems to have seen it somewhere."

   Hearing what Yakov said, Sokov immediately realized that the identity of this person was not simple, otherwise Yakov would not have said that he had met him before, so he stepped up and walked towards the sofa.

   "Comrade General, you are here!" Seeing Sokov's arrival, Bezikov hurriedly said with a smile, "I'm really going to find you."

   "Comrade Major." Sokov nodded at Bezikov, and then asked politely, "Can you tell us about our new neighbor?"

"Let me introduce you," Bezikov approached the man and said respectfully, "This is General Sokov, the former commander of the 48th Army, and the lady next to him is his wife Asiya. She is a military doctor in the army. And the one behind is General Yakov, who was the deputy chief of staff of the Belarusian Third Front before he came here."

   After Bezikov introduced the identities of the three Sokovs to the men, he stood up straight and said to them: "Two generals, I solemnly introduce to you, this is Lieutenant General Lukin, the former commander of the 16th Army."

   "What, Lieutenant General Lukin?" Before Sokov could speak, Yakov who stood at the end said in surprise, "Didn't he be captured by the Germans?"

"You're right, General Yakov." When Bezikov answered Yakov's question, he couldn't help but secretly despised him, saying that you had been a prisoner of the Germans before, and it was Sokov in the end. The general personally led people to rescue you, but he knew his identity very well, so he didn't say anything rude, but said respectfully: "Lieutenant General Lukin was released from the concentration camp by the US military in Mosburg, France on April 25th. rescued from here."

When he found out that the disabled man sitting in front of him was actually the famous Lieutenant General Lukin, Sokov hurriedly stepped forward, stretched out his hands to him, and said respectfully, "Hello, Lieutenant General Lukin, it's a pleasure to meet you here. you."

Lukin held Sokov's hand and said with a smile: "General Sokov, I am very glad to meet you. I have heard many old friends mention you, so when the superior asked me to choose a recuperation place, I told you They hoped to arrange me and you together. I just had the mentality of giving it a try, but I didn't expect my superiors to actually agree."

  Sokov never dreamed that Lukin came after him, which surprised him very much. He tentatively asked: "Comrade Lukin, I wonder which friend you heard mentioned me."

Lukin chuckled and said, "Before the war broke out, I knew Ponegerin. He and I had been in the same army and fought many battles together. Later he was appointed as the commander of the 12th Army. member, and I was appointed commander of the 16th Army.

  After the war broke out, I heard that his troops were wiped out by the enemy, and his whereabouts were unknown, so I thought he died. For this, I have been sad for a long time. But I didn't expect that after being rescued this time, I actually got news about him, and even went to his headquarters and chatted with him for a long time. "

   When Lu Jin told his story, his face was very calm. Yakov and Asiya next to them looked shocked. In their memory, as long as they were high-ranking generals who were captured by the German army, they would be sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to be imprisoned first, and then they would be interrogated and interrogated slowly. screening. But like Lu Jin, he was not banned by the Ministry of Internal Affairs after he was rescued, and he was even able to meet his old friends, which is incredible. Yakov even thought in his heart, could it be that someone in the Supreme Command said good things to him, so that he escaped the routine review and screening?

Sokov, who had such an expression, clearly remembered the records about Lukin: Because of his performance in the early days of the Great Patriotic War, Lukin was treated differently from other prisoners of war. When he returned to Moscow, he was treated like a hero. Welcome, and even shortly thereafter, was appointed deputy commander of the Odessa Military District until his retirement in 1946 for health reasons.

I only heard Lukin continue to say: "My old friend Ponejielin told me that if you hadn't repeatedly vouched for him, Kirillov and others behind the scenes, I'm afraid they are still in the prison of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A chance to avenge the Germans himself."

"General Sokov," Bezikov waited for Lukin to finish speaking, looked at Sokov respectfully and said, "Starting today, Comrade Lukin lives in this small building and has become neighbors with you. If it's convenient for you, please take care of him."

"No problem." Sokov knew very well in his heart that Lu Jin has lost both legs and can only sit in a wheelchair. There must be special caregivers by his side. The so-called letting him take care of him does not mean letting him serve him. Instead, go to talk to him when you have time, or push him for a walk in a wheelchair. So he said bluntly: "Lieutenant General Lu Jin has always been an idol in my heart, and I will take good care of him."

Then, Bezikov pointed to two people in white coats, a man and a woman next to him, and said: "These two are the nursing staff assigned to Comrade Lukin by the superior, and are responsible for his daily life. If you have time, come here Chat with him, or push him out for a walk."

Sokov secretly said that Bezikov was smart. By introducing these two nurses, he told himself in a disguised form that the so-called taking care of Lukin was not to serve him, but to chat with him and so on. , then nodded again and said: "No problem, this is just a matter of little effort."

Sokov originally wanted to say that there was no separate bathroom and toilet in the house, which was very inconvenient for Lukin, but looking at the male and female nurses standing on both sides of the sofa, Sokov said again. Swallowing it into the stomach, let alone the bathroom and the toilet are on the same floor, even if it is one or two kilometers away, the caregiver will not find it troublesome.

  The three of them chatted with Lu Jin for a while. Seeing that the other party looked tired, Sokov asked two guards to take Lu Jin back to his room.

  After Lukin left, Sokov asked Bezikov: "Comrade Major, I wonder how long Lukin will stay here?"

"It's hard to say." Bezikov sighed and said, "Comrade Lugin's legs were injured in the war, and because he didn't receive timely medical treatment, he was amputated in the concentration camp. What was the German concentration camp like?" I just won’t mention the medical conditions, but you can probably guess it. As for the injury on Comrade Lu Jin’s leg, it was because of repeated delays that it caused repeated infections and even endangered his life. Inject him with special anti-inflammatory drugs to ensure that his leg wound no longer festers and he can gradually recover."

Hearing this, Yakov couldn't help interjecting and asked, "Major Bezikov, I don't know if Comrade Lukin will stay in the army after his injury recovers, or arrange for him to change jobs and go to work elsewhere? "

Bezikov heard Yakov's question and said with a wry smile: "General Yakov, I'm just a small major. A former general like Comrade Lukin, what job will he arrange for him in the future?" , how could I possibly know?"

   Yakov asked a few more questions on the sidelines, but Bezikov cleverly avoided them, which made Yakov feel helpless.

   Bezikov was worried that he would continue to stay, and he didn't know how many problems Yakov would have to deal with, so he quickly found an excuse, left in a hurry and left.

  After Bezikov left, Assia asked Sokov curiously: "Misha, do you know the deeds of Lieutenant General Lukin?"

"Of course, Assia, of course I know." Sokov nodded and said: "In the early days of the war, if the troops under his command had not successfully blocked the advance of the German army, the defense of Moscow would have been fought even more. hard."

Sokov's words aroused Asiya's great curiosity: "Misha, can you tell me the story of Lieutenant General Lukin?" She might be worried that Sokov would evade, and she specifically emphasized, "Anyway, we are here I also have nothing to do every day, so just tell me stories for entertainment."