War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1496: The Little Lama's Confession and Song

"Gululu——"

Just when Wei Ran was about to fall asleep after tossing and turning, the little lama's stomach next to him made a loud rumbling sound.

Then, when he opened his eyes, the little lama had already climbed up, hurriedly put on his hat, and stumbled away.

After exchanging a glance with Nurse Ji who was sleeping on the other side of the little lama, Wei Ran pointed in the direction where the little lama left and whispered, "Go back to sleep. I'll go check it out."

After a slight hesitation, Nurse Ji nodded worriedly and lay down again.

Wei Ran climbed up quietly and waited until the blackening in front of his eyes disappeared before he put on his hat and walked into the rain with the help of a wooden stick.

Soon, he found the little lama squatting on the edge of the hill, who seemed to be running.

"What's wrong with you?" Wei Ran asked in Chinese.

Hearing this, the little lama waved his hands, and then there was a loud splashing sound and a foul odor in the face.

"Where does your stomach hurt?"

Wei Ran deliberately continued to ask in Chinese, although he knew the other party couldn't understand him.

He just hoped that the other party would be unable to help but blurt out a word in Zang language so that his language library could match the language he had just learned.

"I don't understand what you're saying. My stomach aches."

The little lama finally uttered a word in Zang language, followed by a crackling noise and an abnormal smell. This time, Wei Ran could finally understand it, and at the same time he confirmed that what he had learned this time was really Zang language.

However, when he opened his mouth to talk to the other party in Zang language and ask questions that had been accumulating in his heart for a long time, he found that although he could understand, he could not open his mouth at all.

I literally couldn't open my mouth, and this was undoubtedly due to the limitations of the metal notebook.

In desperation, Wei Ran had to use his fingers to draw a nine-square grid on his stomach, repeating in Chinese over and over again, "Where does it hurt? Does it hurt here?"

"It hurts here"

As Wei Ran asked again and again, the little lama finally came to his senses and gave the other party the answer he wanted in Tibetan when Wei Ran pointed to the position just above his belly button, and nodded at the same time.

"It should be acute enteritis. Could it be caused by the dried horse meat?"

Wei Ran's heart sank into the valley and he ran towards the small hill where they were going to camp.

Fortunately, when he came back, except for Nurse Ji who was looking at him worriedly, everyone else was still sleeping soundly and did not show the worst symptoms.

"Is the little lama okay?" Nurse Ji asked in a low voice with concern.

"Don't worry, it's okay."

Wei Ran responded with a reassuring smile, then he took out a kettle filled with boiled water from the bamboo basket, unplugged the new kettle that he had just cut before going to bed, handed it to Nurse Ji, and whispered, "Add some salt to it."

Hearing this, Nurse Ji did not ask any more questions. She took out the glass medicine of Monitor Liu from the bag in her arms, carefully put some coarse salt into her palm, and whispered, "Is this enough?"

"enough"

Wei Ran nodded quickly, and after the other party shook the pinch of coarse salt into the kettle, he immediately closed the wooden stopper and shook it vigorously to accelerate the dissolution of the salt grains.

Without much explanation, he took out two pieces of charcoal he had collected from the ashes before going to bed and returned to the little lama.

After a while, the little lama had stood up and was walking back unsteadily, leaning on a wooden stick.

"Open your mouth, ah - open your mouth." Wei Ran stopped the other person and spoke in Chinese, while performing a few demonstration movements in between.

Perhaps he was already familiar with this way of communication, the little lama opened his mouth very cooperatively, allowing Wei Ran to put the two pieces of charcoal as big as quail eggs into his mouth.

"chew"

After Wei Ran finished speaking, he made a gesture of chewing with big mouthfuls of food while winking at his face.

Seeing this, the little lama started to chew the two pieces of charcoal in his mouth with a crunching sound. When he had almost finished chewing, Wei Ran immediately handed him the kettle and motioned for him to drink some water.

After pulling out the wooden stopper, the little lama took only one sip before stopping, muttering in Zang language, "Why is it salty?"

"Drink, keep drinking." Wei Ran, who understood but couldn't speak, once again gestured the action of drinking water.

After hesitating for a moment, the little lama drank another gulp of salt water, and only stopped when Wei Ran gently patted his arm.

After taking the kettle and covering it with a wooden stopper, Wei Ran hung the kettle on the other person's shoulder.

But after a while, the little lama's expression changed again, and then he returned the kettle to Wei Ran and hurried away.

After taking the kettle, Wei Ran could only wait patiently, while also praying silently that the others would not fall down after eating the dried horse meat.

This was also the reason why he had left the whole piece of horse jerky that was given to him uneaten. He was preparing for this very moment. In case everyone had diarrhea, there had to be someone who could still move.

After standing in the continuous rain and waiting for more than ten minutes, the little lama staggered back to Wei Ran, leaning on a wooden stick, and saw that the latter was already waiting for him with two pieces of charcoal.

Apart from anything else, the little lama had special trust in Wei Ran. He opened his mouth without thinking and let the latter throw the charcoal block into his mouth. He chewed it again with a crunching sound, and then drank a few mouthfuls of salt water as if he was familiar with it.

Fortunately, he did not continue to have diarrhea this time. What made Wei Ran even more fortunate was that when they returned to the campsite, Zhang Erwa and Li Zhuang had already woken up, but neither they nor Nurse Ji had any symptoms of diarrhea.

This is undoubtedly good news, at least it proves that the horse meat jerky is edible.

After explaining the little lama's situation to everyone, before Zhang Erwa and others could say anything, the little lama had already covered his stomach and ran away.

"Erwa, squad leader, do you think he can still walk like this?" Li Zhuang asked worriedly.

Seeing Zhang Erwa looking at her, Nurse Ji hesitated for a moment and then replied, "How about letting him rest for another night to relax? If we leave now, the little lama will definitely not be able to keep up, and we can't walk far either."

"It can only be this way"

Zhang Erwa said worriedly, "We can't just sit there and wait. Nurse Ji, you stay and take care of the little lama. Li Zhuang, Wei Ran, let's go look around to see if there are any wild vegetables or firewood that can be burned."

"Let Comrade Wei Ran stay"

As Nurse Ji spoke, she stood up with the help of a stick and gave a reason that Wei Ran and the other two could not refute, "After all, it is more convenient for him to take care of the little lama than me. Besides, I know more edible wild vegetables than he does, so I should go."

"That's good too." Zhang Erwa agreed to Nurse Ji's request, "Comrade Wei Ran, you can stay and take care of the little lama."

"give it to me"

Wei Ran readily agreed. He didn't want to take the opportunity to be lazy, but he also wanted to take advantage of this time to see if he could get something out of the little lama - even if he could only understand Zang language but not speak it.

Before the three of them walked away, the little lama came back, holding his stomach, with a pale face.

Pointing in the direction of Zhang Erwa and the other two, the little lama looked at Wei Ran and asked in Zang language, "Where did they go?"

“I went to look for wild vegetables.”

Wei Ran answered in Chinese, and at the same time asked him to sit down in the tent. He reached out and casually pulled out a piece of grass, made a chewing gesture near his mouth, and then pointed in the direction of Zhang Erwa and the other two.

Seeing this, the little lama who had just sat down stumbled to his feet and said in Zang language that he thought only he could hear, "I'll go too."

"You should stay"

Wei Ran pulled the other person to sit down again, waved at him, and then motioned him to lie down on the horse skin which was smelly but could block a considerable amount of moisture.

"Why did you follow into the meadow?"

Wei Ran asked in Chinese, pointing at the little lama, and then pointed in the direction they came from, and uttered the few Chinese words that the little lama knew and often said, "revolution, anti-Japanese, comrades and Jiangbagesang."

"Revolution, anti-Japanese, comrades and Jiangba Gesang," the little lama repeated again, and at the same time patted his bony chest hard, making a "bang bang" sound.

Hearing this, Wei Ran pointed in the direction they came from again, then pointed at the little lama, and then pinched the shoulders of the tattered Red Army uniform the other person was wearing and gently lifted it up.

After thinking for a while, he took off the hat he wore on his head to keep out the rain, pointed to the words "Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" on it, and finally pointed at the little lama again.

"Yes, yes! I want to join the Red Army!" The little lama said hurriedly in Zang language, nodding vigorously, and then he once again blurted out the Chinese words he knew, "revolution, anti-Japanese and comrades".

"bang bang"

The little lama patted his chest again and said proudly, "Jiangba Gesang!"

Seeing this, Wei Ran sighed helplessly, patted the other person's shoulder gently, and gave up the idea of ​​continuing to ask.

Similarly, the little lama also became depressed. His originally straight back bent down. He stared blankly at the heavy rain outside the tent and fell into silence.

After an unknown amount of time, Jiangba Gesang said to himself in Zang language, "I want to join the Red Army, I don't want to be a lama."

After he said this, Wei Ran also sat up and looked at the other person in surprise.

The little lama was startled by Wei Ran's movement, then he hugged his knees and continued to look at the rain outside and said, "I saw the Red Army last year. At that time, everyone said that the Red Army would take away all our things and kill all the lamas."

At this point, the young lama sneered, "I also heard from the chieftain that the Red Army wants to kill all the lamas for food, burn down the temples, and smash the Buddha statues."

Wei Ran opened his mouth and continued to listen quietly to the little lama talking to himself.

"Later, when the Red Army was about to arrive, the great lama took us to the mountains. We took yaks, barley, scriptures, and everything in the temple.

That’s not all. We also took all the serfs and hid in the mountains, leaving only the chieftains and their family soldiers to guard the place.

Everyone was afraid that the Red Army would take their belongings, that they would be captured and eaten as food, and that Buddha statues and temples would be smashed.”

"What happened next?" Wei Ran asked subconsciously in Chinese.

Turning his head to look at Wei Ran who seemed to be in a daze, the little lama continued to talk to himself, "Later we heard that the Red Army did not eat people or rob things, but distributed some of the chieftains' land and property to the serfs.

Even though the barley in their homes was harvested by the Red Army, some people found silver dollars in the barley fields, and some found wooden boards with words written on them.

The great lama could speak Chinese, and he said that it was an IOU from the Red Army, and he wouldn’t let me tell the serfs about it.”

After a short pause, the little lama rubbed his belly and continued, "Before I was sent to the temple to be an Enqiong, I had a good friend named Ram. Her father was a serf owner's mount. Later, because he accidentally fell while carrying the serf owner, his tendons in his hands and feet were cut and thrown into a wolf den.

The serf owner also arrested her mother, cut out her tongue, and chopped off her feet.”

Hearing this, Wei Ran shuddered, but the little lama continued, "The serf owner gave that woman to his youngest daughter as a mount.

And my friend Ram, a pretty girl, a year younger than me, didn't survive either.

The serf owner made her into a thangka, and her skull was made into a wine bowl, which was hung in the serf owner's house and placed on the serf owner's table.

"What mistake did she make?"

Wei Ran and the little lama said the same sentence almost at the same time, the only difference was that one used Zang language and the other used Chinese.

"She did nothing wrong. She did nothing wrong."

The young lama showed a bitterness that was not in line with his age on his face. He clenched his fists and murmured in pain, "The thangka on her body was painted by my master. The serf owner also used that wine bowl to entertain my master."

Wiping his eyes, the little lama continued to talk to himself, "I have heard many stories about King Gesar from wandering monks.

I think the Red Army may be the magic army of King Gesar. I believe that the Red Army can definitely save those serfs and more Rams. So I also want to join the Red Army, join the revolution, fight against Japan together, and save more Rams with my own hands. "

"You can, you definitely can." Wei Ran nodded in response, "The Workers and Peasants Red Army definitely can."

"Last year, a young lama from our temple joined the Red Army."

The young lama stretched out the half-set of Red Army uniform that belonged to the deceased patient Jiang Yu. "At that time, he wore such clothes, leggings, straw sandals, and carried a big knife. He looked so majestic. The generals under King Gesar in the story were just like that.

From that time on, I wanted to join the Red Army. I wanted to wear such a uniform and carry a big sword. I didn’t like turning the prayer wheel, but I was willing to pray for the Red Army and to follow the Red Army in the revolution to save the poor. ”

At this point, the little lama patted the box gun still on his waist, looked up with an unstoppable smile and imagined, "When I am a Red Army soldier, when I come back with the main force, I will definitely capture the serf owner who killed Ram's family with my own hands.

I want to make his skin into a thangka and his skull into a wine bowl, and have my master make it himself."

Looking at the tear sliding down from the little lama's eye along with the rain, Wei Ran sighed silently. He only hoped that the little lama could really realize his dream in the future.

In the rain, the little lama sang a ballad full of despair in Zang language, "There are ownerless beasts on the mountain, but there are ownerless people under the mountain. Even if the snow mountain turns into ghee, it will be owned by the lord. Even if the river water turns into milk, we can't drink a sip. Although life is given by parents, the body is owned by the government..."