red moscow

Chapter 2680

Coincidentally, Victoria lived downstairs from Sokov.

Victoria opened the door, and Sokov carried the things in. When he put them down and was about to leave, an old voice came from the direction of the bedroom: "Victoria, are there guests at home?"

"It was my neighbor upstairs. She helped me bring back the things I bought." Victoria said towards the bedroom, and then explained to Sokov in a low voice, "It was my great-grandmother."

"Your great-grandmother?!" Sokov asked curiously, "She must have been very old, right?"

"Yes." Victoria nodded and gave Sokov a positive answer: "I am 99 years old this year and will be 100 next year."

“That’s longevity.”

Sokov's eyes swept across the living room and inadvertently saw a photo frame on the cabinet against the wall, which seemed to contain quite a few old black-and-white photos.

Victoria noticed where Sokov's eyes were resting and said, "The frames are all pictures of my great-grandmother. She participated in the Great Patriotic War."

"So, your great-grandmother is a hero." Sokov vaguely saw the people in the black-and-white photos, with medals hanging all over their chests. He wanted to go forward to see more clearly, so he asked Victoria tentatively: "Can I go over and take a look at those old photos?"

"Of course." Victoria readily agreed to Sokov's request: "My great-grandmother loved to let people see her old photos. But in recent years, as her old friends passed away one after another, almost no one looked at these photos with her, and her spirit was getting worse day by day."

Sokov walked to the wall and carefully looked at the old photos in the frames.

When he saw the photo of three people in the middle, he was stunned.

The person standing in the center was himself, with Major Lida, the head of the women's anti-aircraft artillery regiment, on his right, and Captain Ulanova, the political commissar of the regiment, on his left. If he remembered correctly, the war correspondent took the photo of the three of them just after he promoted Lida from battalion commander to regiment commander. He never dreamed that he would see this photo again after returning to modern society.

"Victoria," Sokov turned and asked Victoria, "Who is your great-grandmother?"

"Look, that's her." Victoria pointed at Lida and said, "She's my great-grandmother..."

"Lida, your great-grandmother's name is Lida?" Sokov asked eagerly, "right?"

"Yes." Victoria looked at Sokov in confusion and asked, "How do you know my great-grandmother's name?"

"Then the other female officer should be the regiment's political commissar, Captain Ulanova, right?"

Victoria looked at Sokov as if she had seen a ghost, and asked in shock: "How did you know? You know, I didn't tell you my great-grandmother's name. Also, how do you know Captain Ulanova, the political commissar beside him?"

Sokov realized that he had lost control of his emotions after seeing his own photo, and accidentally let the cat out of the bag. When Victoria asked him about it, he quickly said, "I don't know how it happened, but when I saw this photo just now, I felt very familiar with it. I must have seen it in the War Museum in Victory Square. The reason I was able to call out their names was entirely because there was a note under the photo at that time."

Victoria was skeptical of Sokov's seemingly reasonable but far-fetched explanation. She looked at Sokov carefully, trying to tell from his expression whether what he said was true or false.

"Officer Victoria, it's getting late. I'll take my leave now."

However, just as Sokov turned around and prepared to leave, he heard an old voice behind him: "Misha, Misha, is that you?"

Hearing this voice, Sokov was shocked and instinctively turned his head to look behind him. He saw an old lady with staggering steps walking into the living room. When she saw Sokov looking back, she said excitedly: "You are really back!"

"Great-grandmother, are you sick again?" Victoria hurried forward to support her, "I'll help you go back to the house and lie down."

Unexpectedly, the old lady broke free from her hand, took two steps towards Sokov, and continued, "Misha, although your appearance has changed, your speaking habits will not change. I can be sure that you are the Misha I know."

"Great-grandmother, please go back to your room and have a rest. The Misha you know is not here." Victoria explained to Sokov: "Misha, I'm so sorry. My great-grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's disease two years ago. Sometimes she is lucid and sometimes confused. She must be sick again now."

But the old lady was still struggling, and she kept saying, "Victoria, let me go. I am sober now, more sober than ever before."

After hearing what the old lady said, Victoria had no choice but to let her go and let her fall in front of Sokov.

The old lady came to Sokov, held his face with her wrinkled hands, and said with tears in her eyes: "Misha, I had a dream yesterday. I dreamed that I was promoted by you. I didn't expect you to show up today."

Sokov thought that there might be some telepathy between him and the old lady, otherwise it would be impossible for her to recognize him at a glance after he returned to the modern era, even though his appearance was different from that during the Great Patriotic War. He wanted to refuse at first, but then he thought that he could not figure out what happened after he was wounded in March 1946 just by relying on the diary of someone he was not familiar with. If he could communicate with this old lady, he might be able to get more useful information.

"You are Lida, right?" Sokov said carelessly, "You are right, I am Lieutenant General Sokov, the former commander of the 27th Army!"

After hearing Sokov admit his identity, the old lady threw herself into his arms and began to cry: "Misha, after you were seriously injured and sent back to Moscow to recover, I completely lost contact with you. I thought I would never have the chance to see you again in this life, but I didn't expect you to come to me today."

Victoria, who was standing nearby, was stunned. She didn't know what was going on.

After the old lady let go of him, Sokov helped her sit down on the sofa in the living room and explained, "Victoria, have you heard of reincarnation?"

Victoria didn't know how to answer Sokov's question and could only shake her head blankly.

Sokov naturally would not tell them that he had traveled back to the Great Patriotic War and served as Lida's superior. He could only perfunctorily say, "When a person dies and reincarnates, the memory of the previous life is not erased." He wanted to say that it was because he did not drink Meng Po soup, but then he thought that the Russians must have never heard of such a high-end thing as Meng Po soup, so he simply did not say it.

Victoria listened to Sokov's explanation and said, "Misha, you mean that although you are Chinese, you still have Russian memories in your body. Am I right?"

"That's right." Sokov followed Victoria's meaning and said, "Don't you think that my Russian is quite standard? If you didn't meet me in person and just listened to me speak, you would definitely think I was a real Russian." "That's right." Victoria agreed with Sokov's statement: "When I dealt with you this morning, I felt that your Russian was quite authentic. I also want to ask you if you grew up in Russia, otherwise you wouldn't be able to speak such good Russian."

"In fact, I have only been in Russia for a few years." In order to convince Victoria, Sokov continued to make up stories: "My Russian level was not good at first. But one time when I was traveling abroad and passed by an old battlefield, I suddenly felt a splitting headache, and then countless fragments of memories that did not belong to me flooded into my mind..."

Following a common plot in time-travel novels, Sokov told Victoria how he learned about the Great Patriotic War, leaving her stunned.

After he finished telling the fabricated story, he took advantage of Victoria still digesting what he had said and sat directly next to the old lady: "Lida, when did you retire?"

Even though the old lady was almost a hundred years old, her hearing was still good. She could hear clearly what Sokov said without him speaking loudly: "I retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1946, and was assigned to the Industrial Bureau in Moscow as a section chief."

Sokov glanced at Victoria standing next to him and asked curiously, "When did you get married?"

Unexpectedly, when Victoria heard this question, she said, "Misha, my great-grandmother was never married."

Sokov was stunned. You have never been married. Did you, the younger generation, pop out from cracks in the rocks?

Victoria saw Sokov's doubts and hurriedly explained: "Misha, you should know. At the end of the war, there were many orphans. My great-grandmother adopted four children in the orphanage, three boys and one girl, including my grandfather."

"Are your grandfather and his family still alive?"

"My grandfather passed away in the early 1990s." Victoria continued, "My parents died in a car accident two years ago. Now only my great-grandmother and I are left to depend on each other."

"Where are your grandfather's brothers and sisters?" Sokov remembered Victoria saying that Lida adopted four children, and continued to ask: "Where are their descendants?"

“Although my great-grandmother adopted four children, my grandfather was the only one who grew up.”

"Misha," Lida held Sokov's hand and said softly, "You know all the children I adopted."

  "I know them all?" Sokov looked at Lida in confusion, thinking, how could I know your adopted child?

"Misha, have you forgotten the four children we rescued in the Battle of Stalingrad?" Lida may have worried that Sokov had forgotten about it, so she reminded him: "I still remember that we rescued them in October 1942. The three boys were 10-year-old Vadim, 4-year-old Anton, 7-year-old Daniel, and 5-year-old girl Lilia. Victoria's grandfather was Daniel, who was years old at the time."

"Oh, I remember now." Sokov nodded slowly after listening to Lida's words: "They are the children I asked the reporters to take away."

"That's right." Lida nodded with a smile and said in a positive tone, "It's them."

"Victoria, what are you still standing here for? Go and pour tea for Misha!" After sending Victoria away, Lida continued, "After I retired, I met that female reporter by chance."

"Are you talking about Kopalova?"

Lida stared into Sokov's eyes, nodded slowly, and continued, "Her name should be this. When I met her, it was in 1951. She had a little boy with her who looked a bit like you. I asked her who the father of the child was, but she refused to tell me."

Sokov's breathing became rapid. If what Lida said was true, then Kopalova's child might really be his.

Thinking of this, he asked cautiously: "Lida, do you know where Kopalova is now?"

Lida shook her head slowly and said, "I met her only once, and then we never had any contact again. I don't know where she went later. Whether she stayed in Moscow or went somewhere else, I don't know."

"Misha, please have some tea!" Victoria placed a cup of hot tea in front of Sokov and asked curiously, "What are you talking about with my great-grandmother?"

"Let's talk about the war years." Sokov sighed and said, "To me, those things are just like what I saw in a dream."

After saying this, he turned to Lida and asked, "By the way, is your political commissar Ulanova still alive?"

Lida shook her head and said bitterly, "She died two years ago. Since her death, no one has come to visit my house. Every day I sit on the recliner in the bedroom, staring out the window, wondering when I can go see my old friends."

"Great-grandmother, you are in such good health, you can live for at least another ten or twenty years." Victoria said beside her, "Now you have a new friend named Misha, who can come and chat with you often."

Hearing Victoria say this, Lida grabbed Sokov's arm with her wrinkled, skinny hand and pleaded, "Misha, when you are free, you must come and chat with me more. I have a feeling that my days are numbered."

"Lida!" Sokov patted the back of Lida's hand and comforted her, "I think Victoria is right. Your body is still so good. You shouldn't have any problems living another ten or twenty years."

After chatting for a while, the elderly Lida fell asleep without realizing it.

Sokov helped carry Lida back to the bedroom, gently placed her on the bed, and then came out to say goodbye to Victoria: "Officer Victoria, I'm so sorry to have stayed in your house for so long."

"Thank you, Misha."

"Thank me for what?"

"I haven't seen my great-grandmother so happy in many years." Victoria said to Sokov politely, "If you are free, I wonder if you can come and chat with my great-grandmother and talk about something that interests her so that she can stay in a good mood."

Sokov originally wanted to find out what happened after 1946 through Lida. Since Victoria took the initiative to invite him, he naturally wanted it: "Officer Victoria, don't worry, as long as I have time, I will come over to chat with your great-grandmother."

"Then thank you in advance." Victoria took out her phone and said to Sokov, "Misha, please leave me your phone number so that I can contact you if there is anything in the future." Perhaps to dispel Sokov's concerns, she also emphasized, "If you encounter any trouble, you can also call me. As long as it is within my authority, I will definitely help you solve the problem."

Sokov readily left his phone number and said with a smile, "Officer Victoria, we'll keep in touch at any time."