Qichao Alternate Ending

Qichao was absorbed by the dirt around him. Rising from the dusty ground, they flew upon slight breezes to cake his clothes, face and hands. He looked at his hands, the brown had become deeply ingrained within the lines of his palm, roughened and blistered from the handle of the hoe. He turned them over, they were tanned a deep, deep brown, the lines obvious, old hands, incongruous with his youthful face. His back was aching from being bent over constantly, his feet pricked by sharp stones, the bottom of his trousers ragged, from the fields. On this rare lunch break, he was again seized with that strange feeling. Anger, frustration, bitterness, it was a strange mixture, all muddled and tumbling over each other. He did not know why he felt like this, but recently, it seemed as if a steel claw of want had taken a hold of his insides and pinched. He felt almost pain from these strange feelings of wanting, needing something, but he did not know exactly what.
Suddenly, loud voices dragged his attentions from the internal and he looked up to see a constant stream of strangers, mostly men,
“But, aren’t you scared? I heard you’ve already walked 1000 li.”
Back to slowly polishing his rifle, Chuangyi shook his head, “I might be scared, but for the first time in my life I am doing something that will mean something. I will get to leave my mark on the wall,” with that, he gave his weapon one last careful wipe and headed inside. Qichao was deeply thoughtful, staring blankly at the illuminated patch of dry earth beside him, the normal dirt seeming to take on a luminous life of its own, rising in response to some invisible breeze.
The next morning, as the 4th Regiment of the Red Army departed for their headlong rush to beat the Kuomintang to the Luding Bridge, their numbers had increased by one young