War Photographer's Notebook

Hanging with a rope?In the basement?
When he came back to his senses, Wei Ran, who was used to seeing life and death for a long time, pulled up the pale Sui who was frightened, stood up and took a few steps back, then opened the car door and pretended to rummage for a while. The flashlight was taken out of the notebook.

Returning to the edge of the pried open basement window, Wei Ran squatted down and turned on the flashlight, letting the dim yellow light shine in.

Without any effort at all, he saw something that frightened Sui Sui.This thing is really scary at first glance, but it is actually a set of Peking Opera costumes that look extraordinarily gorgeous.

This costume seems to be supported by a frame, the outermost is an almost transparent tulle, and the inner is a bright red cloak, and on the extraordinarily gorgeous helmet, the two slender feathers are almost touching The roof of the basement, at first glance, really looks like someone hanged himself in the basement.

Naturally, there are more than one set of gorgeous and frightening costumes in this large basement. As far as the eye can see, apart from a few load-bearing columns surrounded by green iron cabinets, there are also desks against the wall. A little farther away, there seemed to be some machines whose outlines could not be fully seen.

"Did someone hang himself inside?" Behind Wei Ran, Sui Sui asked in a frightened whisper, hiding behind the ginkgo tree.

"No, come and have a look." Wei Ran beckoned.

"What is it?" Sui Sui asked vigilantly while supporting the tree trunk, but didn't take a step forward at all.

"A set of costumes, quite nice." Wei Ran walked towards Suisui while speaking, and pulled her to the window.

Cautiously squatting down and turning sideways, Sui Sui quickly closed her eyes, and then opened them cautiously, seeing that what was enveloped by the light beam was indeed a costume, so she let out a long breath. "It scared me to death. I thought someone was hanging from the beam."

"You stay here, I'll go down and pick up the flashlight first." After Wei Ran finished speaking, without waiting for Sui Sui's consent, he leaned his upper body into the window.

After careful observation, he withdrew his upper body, put his legs in first, and jumped in while grabbing the window sill.

Bending down to pick up the strong flashlight accidentally dropped by Sui Sui, Wei Ran took back the metal book by putting it into his pocket while turning off the metal flashlight in his hand.

Adjust the strong flashlight to the floodlight mode, and most of the things in this four- to five-hundred-square-meter basement are also illuminated in detail.

He took out the lighter and lit it to test the oxygen content. Seeing that the flame was not extinguished, he put away the lighter and squatted down, and brushed away the thick layer of dust on the floor with his hand.

Contrary to his expectation, the floor of this spacious basement is not masonry, but solid wood floor.

Looking at the top of the head, the height of the basement can be at least three meters, and there are two rows of fluorescent tubes installed above the head.

Looking around, there are four load-bearing columns that can measure one meter square in this basement, and these load-bearing columns are all surrounded by metal cabinets one by one.And in the middle of the four pillars is the gorgeous costume that is worn on the wooden man's body and covered with a layer of tulle, with only two feathers exposed.

Wisely not touching the costume, Wei Ran cautiously opened the doors of the metal cabinets, only to find that there were only stacks of white papers that had turned yellow and some colored papers that had faded and stuck together .

Although nothing was found in these cabinets, there were two adjacent walls in the basement, and a row of machines and tables were placed against the walls and covered by canvas, only the lower half of which was exposed.

Gently lifting the greasy canvas, what he didn't expect was that there were printing machines with similar working principles and sewing machines on the two sides of the wall, as well as some printing machines when he was a child in a rural school. , I saw a simple mimeograph machine in the teacher's office and even helped the teacher to start it.

It's a pity that although these machines seem to be well preserved, after searching around, there is still no written record of a single word.

"Did you find anything?" Sui Suo, who poked her head into the window, asked in a low voice.

"no"

As Wei Ran said, he looked towards the corner near the wall. It was a concrete step that went up against the wall. There were carved wooden handrails on the edge of the step, but at the end above the step, it was built by pieces of red bricks straight up and down. Get up and completely block the only entrance that connects the first floor and the basement.

Taking a photo of the pile of red bricks that was obviously built in the later stage, Wei Ran turned around and looked at the place where the bottommost floor of the concrete steps was next to the corner of the wall. There was only one locked iron cabinet standing alone here.

Glancing in the direction behind him, seeing that the only window that had been pried open was tightly blocked by a load-bearing pillar, Wei Ran reached out and took out a bunch of keys from his pocket, then took out a kerosene lighter, pulled out the cotton ball inside and locked it. A few drops of kerosene squeezed out of his eyes.

After waiting for a while, he easily opened the padlock that looked very old with the lockpicking tool in his hand.

However, when he carefully opened the cabinet door, he couldn't help but frown!
At the bottom of the tin cabinet are two large brown glass jars with a capacity of three to four liters and frosted lids.

On the glass jars that looked extraordinarily thick, the scary words "potassium chlorate" and "picric acid" were written in vigorous calligraphy.

Fortunately, both glass jars were empty.Otherwise, once they are mixed together, the explosive power will definitely be much greater than that of black powder of the same volume.

Looking at the second floor of the metal cabinet, he felt his temples twitching. It was a Browning M1906 pocket pistol still glowing with oil and a devil's [-]-style pistol revolver!
"It's about to die."

Wei Ran glanced behind him again, without caring too much, took out the food box as quickly as possible, threw the two guns in at random, and immediately put away the food box.

It wasn't until this time that he noticed that in the tin cabinet, there was a poem written in red paint:

Orphans cry without tears, and mountain ghosts gather together.

Ancient linen clothes, empty curtains and white hair.

There is still a dream in Xunxing, but there is no one with negative rice.

Loyalty and filial piety, why ask about this body.

Scratching his head, Wei Ran, who had already returned Tang Poetry and Song Ci to his teacher, decisively took out his mobile phone and took a photo first. After confirming that there were some red medicine, gauze and other things in the cabinet besides the top shelf There were no dangerous items, so he breathed a sigh of relief, and walked to the center of the basement next to the costume worn on the wooden dummy.

Perhaps it has been left in this dark basement for too long, and the costume is already covered with dust. If you look closely, some parts of the outermost tulle have actually been slightly damaged, and the two plumes are also covered with dust. Bald, but the costumes inside still look graceful and gorgeous.

After observing in circles, Wei Ran carefully lifted the tulle, took out his mobile phone again, took a photo of the costume and sent it to Sui Sui who was still waiting outside the window, while walking towards the direction of the window He greeted loudly as he walked, "Suisui, send the photo to your grandfather just now. He likes to watch Peking Opera when he has nothing to do. He will definitely recognize who wore that costume."

"Is there any treasure in it?" Sui Sui asked while sending out the photo.

"no"

Wei Ran responded with feigned regret, "This seems to be a small printing factory, except for those machines, there is nothing valuable at all."

"I'll pull you up?" Sui Sui stretched out her arms to Wei Ran in the basement.

"I'm afraid I'll drag you down." Wei Ran tiptoed and handed the flashlight to Suisui, "Back back, I'll go up by myself."

Hearing this, Sui Sui immediately took over the flashlight to get out of the way, and Wei Ran easily grabbed the window sill after a run-up, kicked twice with his feet, and climbed out along the narrow and long window that was no more than half a meter high.

"Call the second uncle"

Wei Ran, who was like a mud monkey, said while patting the dust all over his body, "Let him help temporarily reseal this window."

"I'll call right now." Before Sui Sui finished speaking, she had already dialed her grandfather.

After some communication between the grandpa and grandson, Sui Sui hung up the phone and said, "I asked, my grandpa said that the costume seemed to be worn by Wang Zhaojun, what is Wang Zhaojun, the Daomadan in Concubine Han Ming, he said he also Not sure."

Wang Zhaojun?Isn't that girly?
Inexplicably, Wei Ran couldn't help but recall that Chen Guangling told himself that Mr. Tao was a pillar of the local opera troupe when he was young. Could it be that this Wang Zhaojun he sang?Shouldn't it?

While he was wondering, Sui Sui continued to say, "My grandfather said, let you take a few more photos for him to see."

"What else is this filming?"

Wei Ran jumped into the basement while talking, "I'll try to see if I can move it out, move it home and take a good look at it."