War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1509 We Are All Family Anyway

Early the next morning, Wei Ran got up without even having time to eat breakfast, and said he was ready to go to the mountain castle to take a look.

"Are you leaving now?" Xia Shushi, who had also just got up, asked in surprise.

"Let's go now."

As Wei Ran spoke, he had already packed his small luggage. "I checked last night and found that there is no direct flight. It will be almost 10 o'clock in the evening when I get there. Besides, it is still quite far from the airport, so I'd better drive there."

"Drive over there?" Xia Shushi subconsciously glanced at the sky outside the window, "Why are you in such a hurry? We have..."

“It’s already September”

Wei Ran paused and said seriously, "Let's investigate everything before National Day. Just consider it as a gift."

Hearing this, Xia Shushi, who had been so lazy before, became more serious. "Okay, I'll help you search for literature later."

"Then I'll leave this to you." Wei Ran patted the other person's shoulder and walked downstairs hurriedly.

After saying hello to Grandpa Jiang, Uncle Jiang and Aunt Yangjin who had also gotten up early, Wei Ran did not mention that he was leaving. He just said he was going out for a walk and left the small courtyard filled with the fragrance of medicine alone.

After setting the navigation address to the Memorial Hall of the Battle of Shanchengbao, Wei Ran started the car and waited for a moment, taking the opportunity to take a cold medicine. Then he stepped on the accelerator and left the plateau town, following the direction of the Long March and driving to the meeting place.

The reason why he chose to drive there so hard was that being in a hurry was just an excuse. He just wanted to continue the journey that he and the little lama and others had not completed - in another time and space, in another way.

  If only there was such an easy road back then.

While Wei Ran was admiring the scenery along the way and the trucks and cars that passed by from time to time, he couldn't help but feel more and more sad in his heart. He couldn't help but think of the assumptions he made before entering that historical fragment.

If those soldiers who failed to walk out of the grassland could see the grassland today, and even the flat road and the busy cars on the road, they would sigh with regret or laugh with relief.

This time, he already had an extremely affirmative answer in his heart.

He walked and stopped along the way, and when he arrived at the Shanchengbao Battle Memorial Hall, it was already past one in the morning. Fortunately, the huge monument was less than two hundred meters away from him.

Parking the car on the side of the road beside the entrance archway, Wei Ran pushed the door and got out of the car, looked at the railway viaduct across the road, then turned around and looked at the towering monument behind him.

  Was this where Li Zhuang died?

Wei Ran looked around in a daze, searching for something. Although he and Xia Shushi had talked very logically, he could not figure out how Li Zhuang, a squad leader of the kitchen squad, could have died in this battle.

In the end, he had no choice but to get into the car, take out a bucket of instant noodles he bought at a service area on the road, then take out an oil barrel filled with boiling butter tea and fill the bucket of instant noodles half full.

I absentmindedly ate the butter tea instant noodles which tasted quite strange because they were put together so haphazardly.

Wei Ran was secretly looking forward to it. He hoped that after dawn, he could find the story about Li Zhuang, find his photos, or even his name.

After carefully finishing the last mouthful of soup in the instant noodle bucket and cleaning up the garbage, he simply laid down the seat back, covered himself with a Soviet cloak, and fell asleep.

That night, he had an extremely clear dream.

He dreamed that the young Li Zhuang and the equally young little lama were each carrying a bucket of water on a shoulder pole and walking hurriedly on the loess slope, but they could not hear his shouting at the top of his lungs over and over again.

He also dreamed that a bullet hit Li Zhuang and pierced the water bottle he was hanging on his body. He dreamed that the little lama was running while carrying the injured Li Zhuang on his back, crying. When he finally sent Li Zhuang to a cave, Li Zhuang had already stopped breathing.

"Bang, bang, bang!" The knocking sound on the car window woke him up instantly, and the clear dream turned into countless pieces like a shattered mirror.

Squinting my eyes and looking out the window, I saw that the sun had already jumped out of the horizon, casting a golden halo on the huge monument.

After rubbing his face vigorously to regain consciousness, Wei Ran sat up straight, lowered the car window, and looked at the security guard standing outside the door.

"Young man, can you please pull into the parking lot?"

The uncle's attitude was quite polite. "There are several students in large sedans coming later. I'm afraid it's inconvenient for you to park your car here."

"Okay, I...A-choo!"

Wei Ran quickly turned his head and sneezed towards the passenger seat, then continued, "I'll drive the car to the parking lot right now."

“I have hot water.”

The security guard pointed to his office enthusiastically and said, "The car is parked. Come over and have a glass of water to warm yourself up."

"Thank you"

As Wei Ran spoke, he fished out a pack of cigarettes he had bought on the road from his pocket, took out two cigarettes, and gave one to the security guard outside the car door.

After starting the car and driving into the parking lot, Wei Ran pushed the door, got out of the car, and finished smoking the cigarette that the security guard had just helped him light, then walked towards the display board not far away.

But then, after he went all the way from the display boards to the exhibition hall and finally to the monument, he panicked.

He did not find the stories of Li Zhuang, the little lama, or Nurse Ji here, nor their photos, or even their names.

  How could there not be?

Wei Ran stood in the square and looked around blankly. There was no trace of Li Zhuang and others, not even the photo he found in the bamboo basket. The only thing that answered his doubts was the whistle of a high-speed train speeding past on the viaduct in the distance.

  Forget it

Wei Ran sighed and walked towards the parking lot not far away. He decided to go to the coordinate point more than 200 kilometers away immediately.

When he walked to the car, he found that the security guard in his fifties or sixties was waving at him with a thermos in his hand. There were two stacked paper cups on the hood of the pickup truck.

"Come on, come on, have a cup of hot water to warm yourself up."

As the security guard was talking, he had already poured a cup of hot water for Wei Ran and was busy counseling him, "I saw your car when I got up last night. Young man, where are you from?"

"Ganchuanshu," Wei Ran took the cup and replied, "I came here to take a look on the way. I'm sorry to trouble you."

“No.” The security guard waved his hand and also scattered a Lanzhou to Wei Ran.

"Thank you. I'll have a cigarette for you." Wei Ran quickly put down the paper cup, took the cigarette with both hands, and helped the other person light it.

"You are such a polite guy"

The security guard took a puff of his cigarette, pointed at the pickup truck's license plate, and asked casually, "Did you drive here?"

"right"

Wei Ran nodded, "We're going on a self-driving tour, and we're going to go to Yan'an to have a look."

“I really envy you young people.”

The security guard said with a smile, "Nowadays, living conditions are better. You can drive wherever you want. It's not like our time when not everyone had a bicycle."

"yes"

Wei Ran pointed to the viaduct in the distance where a high-speed train was passing by, "If you don't want to drive, there's still the high-speed train. That thing is very fast."

“Not very fast”

The security guard seemed to have rarely met someone willing to chat with him, and he said, "It was gone in a flash, like a flash of light."

"yes"

Wei Ran paused, changed the subject and asked, "Uncle, I want to ask you something. Is there no martyrs' tomb here? Is there a martyrs' cemetery or something?"

"The Martyrs' Tomb?"

"The Tomb of the Red Army Martyrs who Attacked the Mountain Castle"

Wei Ran raised his hand and pointed at the monument in the distance. "A lot of people must have died at that time. Where are their martyrs' tombs?"

“Where is the martyrs’ tomb?”

The security guard pointed to the loess hills in the distance that were still green and golden with harvest, and said, “When the Red Army fought here, they fought in the valleys around here, and those who died also died in the poor valleys around here.

When I was a child, my grandfather told me that it was difficult to get water in those days, and there was chaos and war, so how could anyone think about building a martyrs' cemetery? Many of the Red Army soldiers who died here were buried with the help of us ordinary people.

"Where is it buried?" Wei Ran asked hurriedly.

"Where is it buried?"

The security guard pointed around again, "They are everywhere. Some are buried in the ravines, and some are buried in the villagers' own graves. I heard from my grandfather that there are more than a dozen buried in my family's grave.

In those days, we couldn’t take photos like we can now, so we couldn’t tell who was our ancestor and who was a member of the Red Army.”

The security guard threw the burnt cigarette butt under his feet and crushed it, then bent down to pick it up and put it in his pocket, saying as a matter of course, "We are all family anyway, and Anda was even sent to the Red Army in my family's cemetery as his godson by my grandfather.

I am almost seventy years old, and I still get up early at festivals and holidays, bringing fruit cakes, cigarettes and good wine to kowtow. "

At this point, several buses drove over, and the security guard said quickly, "Drink the water in the kettle as much as you want, and leave it here after you finish it."

Before he finished speaking, he had already run towards the entrance of the parking lot, directing the buses to park in order.

As the car door opened, little kids wearing school uniforms and red scarves, who looked about seven or eight years old, came down carrying schoolbags of various colors, babbling and playing. Under the exhausted command of the teacher, they formed a not very neat formation and marched towards the monument that seemed to be holding up the sky.

After taking a last puff of his cigarette and drinking the last sip of hot water in the paper cup, Wei Ran took out the half-pack of cigarettes in his pocket and placed it on the thermos lid as a token of thanks. He waved goodbye to the security guard who was helping the young teachers maintain order, and drove away in response to his wave.

"Di-"

A high-speed train passing by here blew its whistle as usual, as if expressing its longing.