War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1532 The Reappearance of the Hot Air Balloon

At the scene of the accident, after the dusty Wei Ran waited for Edelweiss to crawl out first, he picked up the titanium alloy pistol from the same era as himself, took a few deep breaths, and then put it back into the metal notebook.

Trembling, he took out a cigarette box, lit a cigarette and took a few deep puffs. Then, trembling, he picked up the bullet shell and put it in his pocket. He lifted the heavy jack, held up the flashlight and climbed out of the small space. He didn't want to leave at all at this moment.

He didn't know how to face the questions of the sewing machine and the cradle after he crawled out, he didn't know how to face Dalal and Hanwad, and he didn't know how to face Rama.

But in the end, he still crawled out of the narrow triangular cave, letting the dazzling sunlight shine on his face, making him squint his eyes.

Before he could react, Rama, who was waiting at the entrance of the cave, had already extended his hand to him.

Subconsciously he reached out and held the other's bruised hand. In a sense, Wei Ran was pulled out of the cave by the other party.

"Rama."

"Don't blame you. My brother and I don't blame you."

Rama hugged Wei Ran, who was half-kneeling beside the narrow cave entrance, and kissed him hard on his dusty face. "Thank you for ending my brother Ed's suffering. Allah will bless him, and Allah will bless you too."

"I"

"I'm going to work. The boy you rescued is still alive. Mr. Sewing Machine and Mrs. Cradle are operating on him."

Rama pointed at the tent while reporting the good news, then turned to look at Wei Ran, "Also, mom asked you to go to the cab. She said she wanted to have a drink with you."

"I"

"I really don't blame you. None of us blame you. Okay, I'm going to work."

Rama, with tears clearly still in the corners of his eyes, said this, and he stood on tiptoe to hug Wei Ran again, then helped him take off the helmet he had lent him and put it on his own head.

As Wei Ran watched, Rama held his helmet in one hand and the Polaroid camera hanging around his neck in the other and ran into the tent filled with the smell of blood.

Almost at the same time, the old man who had gone to Wei Ran and the others for help also came over, helped Wei Ran up, hugged him tightly, and patted his shoulder hard.

Taking a deep breath, Wei Ran composed himself, walked to the front of the car, opened the passenger door and got in.

At this time, Edelweiss was sitting in the driver's seat. On the steering wheel in front of her was the Arab scarf with the wedding ring and grenade pull ring tied on it. On the engine hood between the driver and the co-pilot seat, Ed's clothes were stacked.

"We agreed to have a drink together last night."

As Edelweiss spoke, she leaned over and took out two wine glasses from the storage net bag above her head. She then took out the wine flask that Wei Ran had given her as a birthday gift from the inside pocket of her leather jacket.

"You just had a blood transfusion, you'd better not drink."

Wei Ran's kind reminder did not stop Edelweiss from stopping her actions. Soon, the limited amount of golden millet wine in the jug was evenly poured into two high-heeled glasses by her.

"Just one cup"

Edelweiss said, handing one of the wine glasses to Wei Ran, "In this place where there is no tomorrow, it seems that we don't need to care too much about our health."

With a silent sigh, Wei Ran took the wine glass and clinked it gently with the other party.

"Ed had expected this to happen."

Edelweiss took a sip of the spicy wine, “This is not the first time he has entered the ruins to rescue the wounded. He already knew that he would die here. Every child, including Rama, knows this clearly.

I want to say that this is not their destiny, it is just their choice.”

"I"

“You must have a lot of secrets.”

Edelweiss looked out the window and said with certainty, "I can see that you are in pain because you killed Ed, but this is not the only reason you want to commit suicide, right?"

"I"

"Can I have a cigarette?"

Edelweiss drank the wine in the glass in two or three gulps, wrapped the glass in newspaper and put it back to its original place while asking, "I want to try the taste of cigarettes. I might die here someday, so I want to try it."

Wei Ran opened his mouth weakly and drank the millet wine in the goblet in one gulp. Then he took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, took out one and gave it to the other party.

"Cough cough!"

As expected, Edelweiss choked and coughed after just one puff. Then she just followed Wei Ran's example and placed the cigarette between her fingers on the steering wheel, but she refused to take another puff.

"Want to tell me your secret?" Edelweiss asked, stroking the scarf tied to the steering wheel. "I'll keep it a secret for you. I might die tomorrow."

"What do you want to know?" Wei Ran took a deep puff of his cigarette, turned his head and blew out a cloud of smoke through the open car window.

"Like what about your true identity?"

Edelweiss looked at Wei Ran's side profile, which he was deliberately avoiding, and asked, "Whether it's the veterinarian or Mr. Dongfeng, or even the name 'Victor' you used when introducing yourself, that's not your real identity, right?"

Seeing Wei Ran didn't say anything, Edelweiss blew on the cigarette between her fingers, and after the ash fell off, she continued to ask, "How about at least telling me where you are from and what your name is? Are you recruiting nuclear personnel? Or..."

"Huaxia, I'm from Huaxia."

Wei Ran turned his head and looked at the other person, "My Chinese name is Wei Ran."

"Wei Ran?"

Edelweiss repeated Wei Ran's name over and over again, and then asked subconsciously, "You have participated in many wars, right?"

"I"

Wei Ran sighed, took a deep puff of his cigarette, flicked the cigarette butt away, and reached out to gently take the cigarette from the other party's fingers. "When I first joined the war, I didn't know how to smoke like you."

"And then?" Edelweiss asked, curling her legs up on the seat and clasping them with her hands.

"Nothing, nothing more."

Wei Ran trembled uncontrollably, took a big puff of his cigarette, and changed the subject, asking, "That scarf."

"It was left by Ed and Lamar's parents."

Edelweiss explained, "In order to protect them, their father used a grenade to kill himself along with the people who wanted to hurt them. The wedding rings, the grenade pull ring that his father dropped, and the Arab scarf are the only relics left to them by their parents."

Wei Ran opened his mouth and was about to say something, but he heard the voice of the sewing machine coming from the tent at the rear of the car, "Veterinarian, I don't want to disturb you, but if you are okay, come over with Edelweiss to help. This child needs surgery on both legs!"

In the cab, Wei Ran and Edelweiss looked at each other, pushed open the door in unison, and ran quickly to the operating room at the rear of the car.

"Are you really okay?" Edelweiss asked finally while helping Wei Ran change into surgical clothes.

"I'm fine," Wei Ran nodded, "I won't let Ed die in vain."

Hearing this, Edelweiss didn't say anything else. Before helping him put on the surgical gown, she suddenly took off her mask, stood on tiptoe and gave Wei Ran a passionate kiss that caught him off guard.

"So this is what kissing feels like"

Edelweiss muttered as she put her mask back on, "Remember your promise. Don't let Ed die in vain."

"well"

While Wei Ran put on the mask, he subconsciously licked the teeth that had just been hit.

There was no time to figure out whether this sudden kiss was a reward, encouragement or consolation. Wei Ran, fully dressed, stood beside the operating table with Edelweiss, taking charge of the other leg of the rescued young man.

There were still several steel bars on his leg. Those steel bars, as thick as fingers, penetrated his skin and would cause heavy blood to flow out if he moved even the slightest.

Fortunately, there was a man in his twenties or thirties giving him a blood transfusion next to the young man.

Behind this man, there were several other people waiting in line to give him a blood transfusion. The ones in charge of this were Dalal and Rama, who had no time to grieve.

After looking at Edelweiss, whose face and neck still seemed to be flushed, Wei Ran reached out and took the scalpel handed to him.

Over the next hour or nearly two hours, the people who gave the blood transfusion were replaced one after another. Wei Ran and the sewing machine opposite also removed one steel bar after another from the young man's legs, and carefully sutured the torn wounds and skin.

During this period, the excavation of the ruins never stopped, and from time to time, Edelweiss and the Cradle had to be withdrawn to open a new operating table to treat the seriously injured.

Finally, with the last wound sutured, the little boy with multiple fractures and puncture wounds in both legs was taken off the operating table and sent to the hospital by a stretcher team organized by Rama.

Several accumulated wounded were rescued one after another, and they finally got a moment's respite. The small generator on the front of the car finally stopped working temporarily.

But the excavation and rescue work here has not stopped, so they simply did not withdraw to the hospital and continued to wait for the wounded here.

"Ed he"

“We all know it”

Sewing Machine, who had just taken off his surgical gown, patted Wei Ran's shoulder gently, "Rama has already told me, veterinarian, no one here will blame you."

"I" Wei Ran took a deep breath, "Thank you."

"Sir, we should thank you."

Rama generously gave him a warm hug again, but Wei Ran clearly felt that unstoppable tears flowed from the cheeks of this little angel to his own cheeks. This child should be the saddest one and the one who needed comfort the most.

  Just at this moment, a rumbling noise came from far away, and Wei Ran subconsciously tensed his nerves. That was the unique sound when the tracks rolled over the road!

Is it a tank?

Everyone subconsciously looked in the direction where the noise came from. Edelweiss, who had just been deliberately avoiding Wei Ran, also subconsciously took Rama and hid behind Wei Ran.

Just as Wei Ran was hesitating whether to order everyone to hide temporarily, a yellow bulldozer in the shape of an open tractor rumbled towards them at the intersection. Although it was far away, Wei Ran and others noticed the off-road motorcycle on the bucket of the bulldozer, and even more so the bulldozer driver's iconic afro.

It's a hot air balloon!

Even Wei Ran recognized the person driving the bulldozer! At the same time, the hot air balloon driver who was driving the bulldozer also stood up and waved enthusiastically at them.

"I thought that bastard had already run away!" Cradle cursed with a smile.

"I've said it before, he's more trustworthy than anyone else." The sewing machine said while waving at the hot air balloon.

"But where did he get the bulldozer?" Edelweiss, who had just been hiding behind Wei Ran, also poked her head out and asked curiously.

“He always has a way”

The sewing machine clapped its hands. "Okay, let's quickly find a place for the tent and the ambulance."

After coming to their senses, everyone immediately started to work.

While Wei Ran, the sewing machine and the cradle were packing up the medical equipment, Edelweiss was the first to start the ambulance. With a rough style that was completely contrary to her temperament, she operated the ambulance flexibly to make room for rescue.

Soon after, the medical tent was lifted to the side with the help of people around and placed at the rear of the ambulance.

When Wei Ran and the other two, with the help of the children, brought all the medical equipment over at once, even the stretcher serving as the operating table was lifted up by the people around them and sent into the tent first.

At the same time, Hot Air Balloon also drove the bulldozer to the edge of the ruins, hurriedly greeted everyone, and handed a backpack to the sewing machine. Then he took a few cardboard boxes from the hood of the bulldozer and handed them to Hanward, Dalal and the cradle who came over.

Without much communication, and even before he came down from the hot air balloon, the man had already switched to Arabic, asking the people around him to help push his SUV aside, and then he began to get busy.

With the help of that not-so-big bucket and amid the cheers of the people around, pieces of collapsed floor were either lifted up or pulled away, and the wounded or dead bodies were carried out one after another - including Ed.

"That's Ed? What happened?"

When Hot Air Balloon saw the body, he screamed, jumped off the bulldozer and ran to Ed's body, shouting angrily, "Why is there a mark on his head?"

The sewing machine, which had just completed an operation, covered his mouth in time, making him swallow the second half of his words, and then explained in his ear.

A moment later, Hot Air Balloon strode to Wei Ran, who was giving emergency treatment to the injured. After he was done, he hugged him tightly and patted his shoulder vigorously, "Thank you, my friend, thank you for everything you have done.

I know it's hard, but don't feel guilty, you and Ed saved two lives, and he will go to heaven."

"Thank you"

Wei Ran, whose hands were covered in blood, was silent for a moment and said, "I will continue to rescue the wounded."

"Allah bless you"

The hot air balloon sent out a blessing in Arabic that Wei Ran could barely make out, and finally patted Wei Ran on the shoulder, turned around and climbed onto the bulldozer again.

After looking at Edelweiss, Wei Ran walked over to Ed's body, picked him up, and carried him to the shadow of the ambulance.

Meanwhile, Edelweiss and Rama also got Ed's clothes from the cab and helped him put them on.

There was still no much communication. Wei Ran and Edelweiss turned and walked towards the wounded who were sent out one after another. One did triage, one carried out preliminary emergency treatment, and the other once again took on the job of translation. From time to time, her immature but clear and powerful voice was heard from the tweeter on the roof of the ambulance.

From the dawn until it got dark again, all the people who might still be alive in the collapsed building were finally rescued.

Of course, this is just speculation. They just dug up everything they could.

For those places that cannot be dug even with the help of the only bulldozer, the only options are to either give up or use anything you can find to chisel away the extremely hard concrete bit by bit.

This is undoubtedly a job that requires patience and time, but the people buried underneath may not be able to wait. The survivors who have been cut off from water, electricity, and food supply and are about to face massacre probably will not be able to really complete the job.

But even so, the men, women, old and young who came from the surrounding areas to help spontaneously did not give up. The bulldozer brought by the hot air balloon also did not shut down. Even Wei Ran and others did not leave from beginning to end.

At the edge of the ruins, Wei Ran waved the engineer shovel he took out from the metal notebook, shoveling away the broken bricks and tiles one by one, and finally cleared out a small hole that was barely big enough for him to crawl into.

He used wire cutters to clean up the surrounding steel bars, and then Wei Ran replaced the wire cutters with a flashlight, which was like a multi-functional tool box.

However, when he shone the beam of light into the narrow hole, the first thing he saw was a child who was almost deformed by the floor.

In her arms, she was holding a stuffed doll that was also squeezed and deformed, and was full of the blood of its little master.

With a weak sigh, Wei Ran reached his hand in with difficulty, helped the other person close his lifeless eyes, and then stood up shakily.

He knew that there were no survivors, at least in this direction.

"Is anyone alive?" asked the sewing machine not far away in a hoarse voice.

"no"

Wei Ran answered in the same hoarse voice, and at the same time wiped it inconspicuously on a piece of concrete, trying to wipe off the sticky and smelly blood on his hands.

“I don’t have this direction either.”

  The sewing machine murmured to itself. After trying to lift a large piece of concrete to no avail, he sat down angrily and lit a cigarette with trembling hands. "I swear on my father's barbecue restaurant that this is definitely not caused by an unexploded bomb. What kind of unexploded bomb would suddenly explode at 4:30 in the morning!

Ha! Did that damn unexploded bomb wake up because it had to pee? "

"Rama asked the people around him"

Wei Ran also stopped and walked a few steps towards the sewing machine. He picked up a piece of debris and sat down. He lit a cigarette and replied, "People around here said that there was indeed an unexploded bomb in this building, but the fuse was removed several months ago."

"Once the fuse is removed, it won't explode even if it is burned by fire." The sewing machine said confidently.

“But it just exploded.”

Wei Ran said in the swirling smoke, "An explosion occurred in a state where it was impossible to explode, and at a time where it was impossible to explode.

I specifically asked Rama to help me check, and there are no followers of the Cross Play religion in this street, let alone this building."

"But why?"

The sewing machine muttered to itself, "Why do this? There are only some civilians living here, what's the point of doing this?"

"I I don't know"

Wei Ran rubbed the tattoo on the base of his left hand seemingly casually. How could he not know?

The current situation is easy to guess.

If this "accident" was not an accident, then the only purpose of the explosion was not to create conflicts, but to create casualties, or to create "survivors", survivors with hatred.

As long as we follow this line of thought and continue to analyze what will happen tomorrow, it will be easy to guess the intentions of the mastermind behind the scenes.

Creating casualties seems to be an attempt to seize medical resources, consume medicines, consume the energy of medical workers, and even consume the lives of medical workers.

He could even guess that today, September 1982, 9, Beirut, which had been cut off from water, electricity and food supply, must have had many "unexpected misfortunes".

But what about tomorrow, the 14th, after the 200-kilogram bomb explodes?

Perhaps everything that happened here today is both one of the alternative answers to "reason for revenge" and a "breeding ground for avengers."

So many "insignificant people" died here, the father who lost his children, the husband who lost his wife, or "he is the only one in the family who survived."

Among so many identities, just pick any one of them and package it a little bit, and it would be enough to take the blame for tomorrow's explosion.

For the people behind the scenes, an obedient Falangist is far less "well-behaved" than a Falangist who "dies together with the refugees."

A fence controlled by "obedient Falangists" is far less desirable than continuing the civil war for ten years until all the people on both sides are wiped out and only a "promised no-man's land" is left.

As for the historical records of later generations, Wei Ran was more willing to believe Mr. Culp's meaningful speculation at this time - that was just a way of shifting the blame after the conspiracy went wrong.

Regardless of whether this accident was an accident or not, and regardless of how dirty the purpose behind this accident that cost human lives is, for those who are still busy at this moment, they just want to lift up all the floors that have not been lifted up as soon as possible and rescue all those who may still be alive.

As dusk approached, the hot air balloon that had been busy all the time called Wei Ran and others to the medical tent at the rear of the ambulance.

"Gentlemen"

Hot Air Balloon said as he opened the backpack he brought with him, "I found a way to leave here. Tomorrow at 5:30 pm, a ship will leave Beirut, and the destination is Limassol, Cyprus."

At this point, Hot Air Balloon had already taken out a few lunch boxes from his backpack. "This is the food I bought from that ship. Eat it now before it goes bad."

"How do you know we haven't eaten?" the sewing machine asked as it opened a lunch box and handed it to the youngest, Rama.

"I actually arrived here not long after you guys got here, specifically to look for you guys."

Hot Air Balloon pointed to the motorcycle parked beside the tent entrance, and while handing the second lunch box to Dalal, he continued to explain, "I also used the motorcycle to help you send a few injured people to the hospital. Later, I saw that the rescue efficiency here was too low, so I went to find my friend in the Long Gun Party and rented the bulldozer at a high price."

"Thanks to the bulldozer you brought." Cradle handed the third lunch box to the dusty Hanward.

“I’m still late.”

The hot air balloon continued to distribute lunch boxes while apologetically saying, "If the bulldozer had come a few hours earlier, maybe..."

Maybe something, the hot air balloon didn't say it, but everyone knew the answer, especially Rama who had just picked up the spoon. Big tears rolled down her eyes again uncontrollably.

But even so, the little translator still held the spoon in her hand and ate with big mouthfuls, as if... as if she wanted to eat herself into an adult with just one meal.

Adults are really needed here.