War Photographer's Notebook

On August 1937, 8, there were sporadic firefights in and outside Jinmen City.

When Wei Ran, wearing a newsboy cap and a Chinese tunic suit, drove out of the British Concession in the devil car sent by Someya, he also saw smoldering ruins on the side of the road, and insects full of flies. corpses disposed of by others, and even displaced refugees affected by the war.

Compared with these tragedies, he also saw the devils and traitors who were posting promiscuous posters and slogans on the street.I also saw those ordinary people and even gangsters who waited for the devils and traitors to leave, and then immediately tore off those slogans and rolled them into a ball before stepping on them.

"Review one last time"

Wei Ran slowed down the speed of the car a little, "Why did I drive you in the Osaka Asahi Shimbun's car?"

"The evening before yesterday, a couple of men and women came and drove away my aunt's car, and stopped the car they drove."

Tao Canhua who was sitting in the back row immediately said, "I don't know who those two are, and no one is willing to explain to me, but Dumb Cao pushed the car into the yard. The car is messing around."

"Has your aunt come back?" Wei Ran continued to light a cigarette and asked.

"no"

Tao Canhua rubbed his thighs, then shivered again, "I didn't come back."

"Did Wei Ran not look for your aunt?" Wei Ran asked in a cold tone after taking a breath of his cigarette.

"no"

Tao Canhua shook his head, "He didn't want to go, and he didn't allow other people to go, and he kept the car keys under his control. He always thought that in case of any accident, he would be able to drive out of Jinmen immediately."

"Hit you?"

"No, no!" Tao Canhua immediately subconsciously covered the outside of his thigh and shook his head.

"Really?" Wei Ran asked again.

"With him, he beat me with a feather duster!"

After Tao Canhua finished speaking, he grinned and replied with a smirk, "But I also hit him hard on the head with an ashtray."

"Does it hurt?" Wei Ran asked in a calm tone.

"It doesn't hurt." Tao Canhua shook his head again, then gave a smirk, "It actually hurts a little."

"The whole play needs to be done," Wei Ran said apologetically, "I made you suffer."

"It's okay, it's really okay." Tao Canhua quickly waved his hands.

The place where his thigh was close to the buttocks was indeed whipped twice by the feather duster, but the person who did it was not Wei Ran but his own aunt Jasmine.

The reason is nothing more than yesterday's devil's servant came to warn Wei Ran not to detain Tao Canhua again.

In order to create an image of Wei Ran as a soft-bodied man who bullies the weak and fear the hard-bodied, and also to make Wei Ran and Tao Canhua have more and more irreconcilable conflicts on the bright side.

Yesterday, Tao Canhua could only bite the towel and bear the pain, and let Jasmine whip him twice, creating two bruises that could be [-] to [-] centimeters long.

"I know you hate devils, and I hate devils too."

Wei Ran turned his head and looked at Tao Canhua, and said in a more serious tone, "No matter how much hatred you feel in your heart, you have to suppress those emotions when you play the song. If Ueda finds out, all of us will be in trouble. "

"I know, don't worry."

Tao Canhua clenched his fists in response, and subconsciously looked at the suffering Jinmen people outside the car window, and asked in a daze, "Can I really help them by doing this?"

"Most definitely"

Wei Ran replied in an affirmative tone, "You don't need to be too proactive, and you don't need to do anything to try to gain Ueda's favor and trust. What you need to do is to be inconspicuous."

Speaking of this, Wei Ran raised his chin outside, "Look at the roof of the rice store on the left."

"I see, what's the matter?" Tao Canhua asked blankly while holding the car window.

"Did you see those pigeons falling on it?" Wei Ran further pointed out the target, and then slightly reduced the speed of the car again.

"I see, there are quite a few." Tao Canhua didn't know why Wei Ran asked him to look at those pigeons, but he took the initiative to count the number of them. whistle."

"Then did you notice the sparrows standing on the roof tiles?" When Wei Ran asked a new question, he also slightly increased the speed of the car.

"Is there any?"

Tao Canhua knelt on the rear seat, looking through the rear window of the car, trying to find the sparrow that Wei Ran mentioned.However, as the car drove further and further away, let alone the sparrows, even the pigeons could not be seen so clearly.

"Maybe"

Wei Ran said ambiguously, "What you want to do is the sparrows on the roof tiles, what they can see is a little bit more than those pigeons, and the rice and wheat that can be stolen from the rice store are also a little bit less, But all the attention is on the pigeons with whistles, who will notice the sparrows that are the same color as the tiles?"

"I, I understand." Tao Canhua took a deep breath and responded seriously, obviously realizing something from Wei Ran's metaphor just now.

"Don't be in a hurry to prove yourself," Wei Ran continued, "Just play your role well."

"En!" Tao Canhua nodded vigorously.

When the topic came to this point, Wei Ran also drove the car to the door of the opium shop next to the edge of the Japanese Concession, and parked under the shade of a crabapple tree.

"Go down"

Wei Ran glanced at the balcony window on the second floor of the small building, took off his hat to reveal the small piece of gauze wrapped around his head, and unhurriedly lit another cigarette with the front door number, completely lowering the car window. Come down, aimlessly looking at the situation of the Japanese Concession in the distance.

It can be seen that in the previous three days of fighting, the Japanese Concession was also severely damaged, and just across the road, several opium halls were burnt down, leaving only a few walls.

But even so, the neighboring ones, and even the opium hall run by Xiao Su's mother and her ghost friend Gu Chuan, have now reopened, and from time to time, people can't wait to go in, or leave reluctantly.

In addition, at the intersection that was only tens of meters away, there was still a stinking dead body full of flies tied to the street tree.

His internal organs had already flowed all over the ground for that skinny and short corpse, and his body had turned black and swollen in such weather, but even so, Wei Ran still recognized it at a glance. It was sold at the entrance of Quanyechang the boy who smokes
Was he the companion called the third elder brother that Chen Pike wanted to save?

maybe
Wei Ran looked apologetically at the corpse in the distance. He knew very well that no matter whether the other party was the third brother Chen Gouyu didn't save, he could only look at it like this and could not collect the body of that brave child. .Even, if someone came over, he would make a gesture of disgust.

He secretly pinched the splint hidden in the sleeve at the fracture site, and the faint pain made him calm down a little bit.

Almost when the cigarette in his fingertips was about to burn to the cigarette holder, the overalls who had had a "sexy intelligence transaction" with him at the gate of the three-way theater before also rode a bicycle from the front Coming from the intersection, he looked around all the way, obviously looking for the milk-white car owned by the courtesan Meixiang.

"Hey! Who are you looking for for your special code?"

Wei Ran greeted the other party cursingly through the car window, and at the same time, he still didn't forget to pick up the newsboy cap that he took off on purpose just now and put it on his head to cover the wound that "was smashed out by his cousin with an ashtray".

"Oh! Grandpa! I'm just looking for you"

The overalls showed an expression of surprise immediately after seeing Wei Ran, but then asked in confusion, "Why did you get into the Asahi Shimbun's car? I remember that this car doesn't belong to Mr. Sometani?"

"Want to know?" Wei Ran stretched out his hand with a smile, "Chenghui 150 oceans, thank you."

"No, you can't do this." The overalls bowed with a mournful face, "Master, if you can't come up."

"Stop doing that, I have no friendship with you."

Wei Ran used his left hand to pinch off the cigarette butt that was about to burn out on the cigarette holder in his mouth, and slowly added another one, saying, "A question is 150 oceans, if you want to ask, ask quickly, if you can't guarantee it, the price will increase in two days It's over."

"It still has a price increase?" The overalls stared at Wei Ran with rounded eyes.

"This is not nonsense"

Wei Ran lit his cigarette again and took a sip, then waved his hand impatiently, "I'm in a bad mood today, if you want to ask a question, please ask quickly, if you don't want to ask, then get out of here."

"Okay, ask, I'll ask."

The overalls didn't have any temper for Wei Ran's unlucky and unlucky virtue. After looking around, he opened his purse and handed it to Wei Ran, "There are still two questions, the first question is the one just now, right? What's the matter with this car?

Let me say yes first, you can't fool me like last time, if you still don't explain clearly, I won't look for you next time. "

Hearing this, a trace of panic appeared on Wei Ran's face immediately, and then he dragged the small bag in the opponent's hand over and weighed it, but this time he did not open it for inspection, but pretended to be arrogant and said, " Seeing that you are quite honest, there are so many people in this place, so I won't waste time looking it up, but I can warn you, if you miss a big seed, next time you just let "

"You killed me with one shot," the overalls said with a smile, "Tell me, what's going on with this car?"

"At dusk the day before yesterday, that ghost reporter named Someya came to the door on his own initiative."

Wei Ran pretended to be mysterious and lowered his voice, and said with a proud face, "He seemed to be in a hurry to interview someone, and then the car broke down, so he asked us to borrow the car temporarily. There is a dumb person in our book apartment, you know Bar?"

"I know, I know, Dumb Cao, that man is not easy to deal with." The overalls nodded and said.

"Don't look at that dumb guy who can't kick half a fart, but he is a master at repairing cars." Wei Ran said and gave a thumbs up, "This dumb guy repaired the car that night."

Speaking of this, Wei Ran was still enduring the faint pain, and with his fractured right hand, he pointed to the two passports stuck on the glass of the co-pilot, "I'm not talking to you, these two pieces of paper are really special and easy to use! Those two patrolling devils who just passed by stood at attention and saluted me! What's the matter? Do you want to buy it?"

"Are you willing to sell these two passes to me?" the overalls asked in surprise,

"You are not afraid of Mr. Someya"

"Look what you said!"

The expression on Wei Ran's face became more and more smug and greedy, "To tell you the truth, I have a channel to get the pass, and I still have two at home. If you want it, as long as the price is right, it's not impossible to sell it to you. "

"You didn't lie?" the overalls asked.

"See that little building?"

Wei Ran pointed to the small building on the side of the road next to the smokehouse, and said arrogantly, "Mr. Gu Chuan, who opened the smokehouse, is my half-uncle. His old man has already given me two passes. "

"How much is it?" The overalls asked quite excitedly.

"Five no! One thousand!"

Wei Ran flipped his hands back and forth like a lion with a big mouth, and said, "One piece is worth a thousand oceans, but this time I only accept large and small yellow croakers."

"You're too dark, aren't you?" The overalls widened his eyes, and his tone was too high.

"black?!"

Wei Ran immediately became unhappy, and pointed towards the Japanese Concession, "Those devils standing over there, Bai, why don't you go and buy a pass from them?"

"I"

The overalls gritted his teeth, "I'll discuss it with the owner of our newspaper later, but you still need me a question."

"You're asking about the special code." Wei Ran said in a puffy voice, and the expression on his face also showed the disappointment of not being able to sell the pass.

"Has Miss Mei Xiang come back? If she hasn't come back, when does she plan to come back?" The overalls asked immediately.

"Your special code is a chicken thief." Wei Ran stretched out his hand again, "This special code is two problems, you have to pay me another 150 oceans."

"That's it." The overalls changed their tone and said, "When is Miss Meixiang going to come back?"

"I don't know." Wei Ran spread his hands and replied without waiting for the other party to speak, "But I reckon that she will definitely come back on the sixth day."

"You can't guess." The overalls rubbed his hands, "I spent money, you can't guess."

"Don't worry, she will definitely come back on the [-]th." Wei Ran's tone was much more certain this time.

"How do you know."

"I bought her the car myself."

Wei Ran seemed to realize that he had slipped his tongue in the middle of his speech, and he waved his hand holding the cigarette arrogantly, "Rolling, you don't have to talk to me, you can pay if you want to ask."

"Okay, then I'll come back to you next time." The overalls seemed quite satisfied with the clues he had just obtained, with a smile on his face, implying that there was still a chance for a second transaction.

"Wait a minute" Wei Ran waved to stop him, "What's your name?"

"My surname is Ding, Ding Rongfu." The overalls replied with a nod and a bow.

"Remember to ask your boss if you want to buy a pass."

Wei Ran reminded rather unwillingly, "If you buy it, it will still be at this point tomorrow, and it will still be under this tree. I can tell you, after passing this village, there will be no such store."

"Okay, I'll definitely ask." Ding Rongfu said, got on his bicycle again, and disappeared at the intersection where the front of the car was facing.

At the same time, Wei Ran who was sitting in the car immediately took off the hat covering the wound, raised the window and locked the door in this hot weather, greedily opened the small bag he just got, and put those He took apart all the silver dollars and inspected them with a smile on his face.He didn't seem to realize that someone was looking at him with binoculars on the second floor of a smokehouse across the road.

After doing enough drama, Wei Ran, who was already drenched in sweat, hid the purse again, then opened the car door to light a cigarette again, and fanned the wind with the hat he just took off.

After about an hour or so, Tao Canhua, who was carrying a piano bag and carrying an erhu, came out of the small building. Behind him was the maid in kimono who had visited the door yesterday.

"This is your performance fee"

The maid handed two French coins to Tao Canhua in front of Wei Ran, "Mr. Ueda asked me to remind you that Mr. Tao is a performer he respects very much. If you bully him again, he will chop off your hand. "

"How can I, how can I bully my cousin!" Wei Ran said with a smile.

"preferably not"

The maid said, and handed a bundle to Wei Ran, "This is the kimono that Mr. Ueda prepared for Miss Meixiang. He hopes that Miss Meixiang can wear this kimono when she attends the ball on the [-]th."

"When my cousin comes back, I will pass it on to her." Wei Ran happily accepted the burden from the other party.

"If Ms. Meixiang fails to attend the dance on the 6th, you will definitely not survive until the next day." The maid left a last warning, turned around and walked towards the small building, leaving only the scar on her face. Wei Ran with a look of panic.

"Get on, get in the car!"

Wei Ran stammered and shouted at Tao Canhua, got into the car with the baggage, threw it on the passenger seat, and before Tao Canhua got in, he started the car and stepped on the accelerator.

"What should we do?" Tao Canhua asked immediately after the car started running.

"What should I do?" Wei Ran asked indifferently.

"Let aunt change into devil's clothes and go out, she will definitely be scolded to death." Tao Canhua said worriedly.

"This matter made her feel bad." Wei Ran asked while increasing the speed of the car, "What did I ask you today?"

"I asked what everyone was doing these days during the war, and I also asked my aunt if she had contacted the people in the book apartment, and if you bullied me."

Tao Canhua paused, then continued with a blushing face, "I also asked a devil woman to apply some anti-swelling potion on my buttocks."

"Yo! Isn't it good fortune?" Wei Ran teased happily, "Is that devil girl good-looking? Couldn't she be that old girl just now?"

"Don't make fun of me." Tao Canhua waved his hands embarrassingly with a blushing face, "It's not her, it's another one, who looks like he's three or four years older than me."

"Does it look good?" Wei Ran asked with great interest.

"I didn't watch it," Tao Canhua stammered in response.

"Don't be fooled by devil girls." Wei Ran's tone was a little more serious this time, but it was still mostly joking.

"What are you talking about!"

Tao Canhua immediately became anxious, "What do you think of me, how can I be fooled by devils and girls! I wish I could kill them with one knife!"

"I said something wrong, and I apologize to you." Wei Ran secretly heaved a sigh of relief while responding.

"Oh." Tao Canhua sighed, "I really wish I could kill them all."

"Don't worry, there must be a chance." In Wei Ran's tone this time, only seriousness remained.

Hearing this, Tao Canhua was stunned for a moment, and then nodded vigorously.

Chatting along the way, how to kill Ueda if there is a chance is an exciting topic. When Wei Ran drove the car back to the book house, he found that Dumb Cao was already waiting anxiously at the door.

"What's wrong?" Wei Ran, who realized something was wrong, opened the car door and asked.

Hearing this, Cao Muba pointed at the small building and signaled Wei Ran to go in quickly.

Seeing this, Wei Ranzhi asked Tao Canhua to help take the small bag containing silver dollars and the burden containing kimonos in the car, while he himself ran into the small building quickly.

"Something is wrong with the younger brother of the Xu family brothers!" Jasmine said immediately when Wei Ran entered the door.

Hearing this, Wei Ran's heart sank, and he immediately ran into the storage room.Follow the small door into the hidden basement.

When he passed through the curtain opened by Qiu Shi who heard the movement, he immediately frowned.

At this time, the younger brother of the Xu family's little brothers, the little boy named Xu Kejian, had his teeth clenched tightly, with a wry smile on his face, and at the same time his nerves tensed up, writhing uncontrollably under the pressure of Mei Xiang and him. Guan Linglu's thin body was pressed together.

"It's Tetanus"

Seeing Wei Ran coming in, Andy immediately said in German, his tone was extremely flustered, "What should we do?"

Hearing this, Wei Ran didn't answer in a hurry, first checked his wound, then sighed secretly.

What he was worried about yesterday was tetanus, so after directing Andy to complete the debridement, not only did he deliberately not suture and bandage the wound, but he also directed Andy to wash the three wounds with hydrogen peroxide and repeatedly. even so
"What should we do?" Andy asked anxiously in German again.

"anesthetic"

Wei Ran said bluntly, and then walked to the side of the child to have a look. After Andy handed over the syringe that had sucked the medicine, he first injected the child around the joints of the limbs and the position of the mandible. A small amount of anesthetic was given.

Under the incomprehensible gaze of the people around him, Wei Ran waited for the morphine to take effect, then pulled the child's jaw joint away with difficulty, and then directed Jasmine, who came down with her, to help him find a wooden board and tie it firmly to the child. on Xu Kejian's back.

"Does this work?" Andy asked, still in German.

"A dead horse is a living horse doctor"

Wei Ran's answer was in the mother tongue that everyone could understand, then turned to look at Uncle Meng and the brother of Xu's brothers who had woken up, and then looked at the wounded people including Feng Maoyun and Guan Bingwen. Everyone said in a serious tone, "Be prepared in advance, there is a high probability that we will not be able to save him."

After finishing speaking, he squatted beside the iron frame bed shared by Xu Keqin and Chen Gouyu, and looked at the two children with red eyes seriously, "My next words will be cruel, but you are frugal." Brother, so I think, of all the people present, only you have the right to make decisions for your brother.

At the same time, this is also the situation that all the wounded here, including me, may face.So I hope everyone is prepared as well. "

"Brother Wei, you, tell me." Chen Gouyu said first, and Xu Keqin also wiped away his tears and nodded.

"He had tetanus, and it was very difficult for us to save him from such a quick attack. Even if he was saved, his prognosis would be very poor."

Wei Ran paused, and continued, "We don't need to consider the situation that we can be rescued. The situation we are facing now is that no matter whether he can be rescued or not, he will be in great pain next. First, his facial muscles are tense, and then his body muscles are tense. It will become tight and then it will be difficult to breathe. At that time, I will need to cut his trachea to prevent him from suffocating to death.

But this is not the end. In the late stage of tetanus, he will develop opisthotonos, which is an excruciating torture. He even reversed his spine in excruciating pain. "

Speaking of which, Wei Ran's voice has become much hoarse, but he still stood up staggeringly, and while walking to the dark passage outside, he uttered the cruelest urging, "While he is not in such pain Let’s help him make a decision as soon as possible. We have enough morphine, at least I can guarantee that he won’t be in pain when he leaves.”