War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1540 The Well on the Eve

At 8:22 in the evening, Wei Ran finally finished telling the story by the Don River. The girl in his arms straightened up and gave him a slightly drunken passionate kiss.

After they separated again, Edelweiss laid on his shoulder again and whispered, "The woman who gave birth this afternoon died of complications from childbirth."

“Her children.”

"They died too," Edelweiss said, hugging Wei Ran tightly, "We didn't save any of us."

After a slight pause, Edelweiss murmured tiredly, "Help us keep it a secret from Rama. She is a kind girl. She will be very sad if she knows."

"I'll keep it a secret for you guys," Wei Ran whispered in the other person's ear and made the promise.

"Are we still sleeping in the car tonight?" Edelweiss's mood seemed to improve a lot in an instant. She straightened up again, put her arms around Wei Ran's neck and asked.

“No need,” Wei Ran replied with a smile, “We won’t sleep in the car tonight.”

"Sleeping in the dormitory?" asked Edelweiss, who had no intention of moving.

"No, let's go to the rented house to rest. The conditions there are better." Wei Ran said as he reached out to open the car door.

Seeing this, Edelweiss finally yawned, got off Wei Ran's legs a little clumsily, and jumped out of the cab by clinging to the door frame, "Shall I go call them out?"

"it is good"

Wei Ran responded, and watched Edelweiss climb over the window before he put away the kettle on the hood that was one-third empty, stretched his body, and got out of the cab.

After a moment, Edelweiss turned over again, stood by the window, and helped the three children and the cradle out of the window.

By the time the sewing machine had climbed over the window, Wei Ran had already wrapped his head with the scarf that the hot air balloon had given him.

"Should we wrap it up too?" asked Cradle.

"Ladies, wrap them up," Wei Ran thought for a moment and replied, "Forget it, just wrap them up."

"Where's the hot air balloon? Where did he go?" The sewing machine asked in a low voice while untying the scarf around its neck and wrapping it around its head.

"He went to meet his friend," Wei Ran said in a low voice, "Follow me closely and keep quiet."

  Hearing this, the others all became nervous. Edelweiss subconsciously held Rama with one hand and Wei Ran's sleeve with the other.

Seeing this, Wei Ran took the other person's hand and led them out of the side door of the hospital in the dark. He then followed his memory and found the narrow and pitch-black alley where he couldn't see his hand in front of him.

"Hold hands and follow closely, don't touch the walls on both sides."

Wei Ran whispered, "Sewing machine, you are at the end. If anyone notices that the person holding their hand has let go, speak up and warn everyone immediately."

After the adults and children responded, Wei Ran took Edelweiss's hand and walked slowly into the alley.

Although this alley seemed a bit scary and long for the women and children walking in it, fortunately Wei Ran had cleaned up the garbage and stumbling blocks on the ground when he came back in the afternoon, so no one fell, and no one made too much noise.

Walking slowly in the dark along the not-so-wide street, Wei Ran noticed from a distance a faint light in one of the windows on the second floor of the house.

"It seems that Mr. Hot Air Balloon has arrived early," Wei Ran said softly, while also slightly quickening his pace.

When they arrived at the door of the small building, the hot air balloon was already waiting for them inside the half-open iron gate.

"Come in quickly," the hot air balloon whispered, inviting them in.

"Have you been waiting here?" Cradle asked curiously.

"I guessed you would come at this time," said the hot air balloon proudly.

  You guessed shit!

Wei Ran muttered secretly. Even if he used the soles of his shoes to guess, he would know that this guy must have been aiming at them with the SVD. Maybe he had been peeking at them through the scope of the gun when he and Edelweiss were drinking, chatting and telling stories in the car.

The evidence that made him so sure was the huge Soviet-style 1PN51 night vision scope that could be used as a cold weapon in Hot Air Balloon's hand.

"Where did you get it?" Wei Ran asked in a low voice as he took the night vision goggles handed to him by the other party.

The hot air balloon was bought without reservation, "from my friend," "with the money you gave me."

“Is it also a black market?”

Rama looked up at the hot air balloon and asked curiously, "Mr. Veterinarian also bought a lot of things from the black market before."

"right"

The hot air balloon smiled and replied in a low voice, "It's also the black market. Okay, let's keep our voices down and go upstairs first."

Hearing this, everyone didn't say anything more. They followed the hot air balloon and went up the outer stairs to the second floor.

While the lady and the children were assigning rooms, the hot air balloon called Wei Ran and the sewing machine to come downstairs, took them out of the courtyard and into the alley next to it.

"I opened the manhole cover," the hot air balloon whispered.

"what is inside?"

"What manhole cover?"

Wei Ran and the sewing machine asked completely different questions almost at the same time.

"Wait and see for yourself"

The hot air balloon said something vaguely and took them to the end of the alley in the dark, crossing a tattered carpet that was temporarily propped up with wooden sticks.

It was not until this time that Hot Air Balloon took out a kerosene lighter, lit it and put it aside, then used an iron hook to lift the cleared manhole cover, then picked up a torn blanket, shook it, and put it on his body to cover the manhole.

Before he could pick up the lighter placed at the edge of the well, Wei Ran, who had already squatted down, had already lit the flashlight and reached into the well.

With the help of the flashlight beam, he could clearly see everything under the well.

The space inside was much smaller than he thought. It was less than one and a half meters deep, and at the bottom were crisscrossed pipes and yellow sand that almost buried the pipes.

Fortunately, perhaps to facilitate maintenance, the diameter below is much larger than that of the wellhead, estimated to be about 1.5 meters.

Almost subconsciously, he began to calculate how many people could hide in this well with a small mouth and a big belly.

But no matter how he filled in the blanks, he found that at most the three children of Rama and two adults could be hidden in it.

Even so, I'm afraid it would only be possible if we "stack" them like Tetris blocks.

"I'll go down and take a look."

As Wei Ran spoke, he had already handed the flashlight to the sewing machine, supported himself with both hands and jumped down into the well.

"Be careful, there may be scorpions down there." The hot air balloon reminded Wei Ran a second before he jumped down.

When Wei Ran reacted, his feet were already on two iron pipes as thick as his wrists.

"You jumped too fast."

The hot air balloon gloated and warned, "Be careful, the scorpions here sting very painfully."

Hearing this, Wei Ran didn't say anything. He just took the flashlight handed to him by the sewing machine, checked the area around him first, then slowly squatted down and checked the surrounding red brick well walls.

Before he had even finished looking halfway around, he actually found a scorpion in a crack in the wall that was not sealed tightly with cement.

Without avoiding the two companions above his head, Wei Ran pulled out a picked up Mauser bayonet from his sleeve, stabbed it into the crack in the wall and crushed the fat scorpion to death, then continued his inspection with a normal expression.

After killing four or five scorpions in succession, he carefully used his bayonet to scrape the slightly damp yellow sand under his feet.

Fortunately, at least there were no poisonous snakes hidden in the yellow sand he had dug up. Unfortunately, his bayonet was blocked by the hard ground before it could penetrate the yellow sand completely.

When he dug up the yellow sand, he found concrete underneath. Obviously, time was running out and it was not realistic to continue digging. Moreover, the complicated pipes were built directly into the wall, so it was impossible to climb from one well to another.

Without wasting any more time, Wei Ran stood up straight, handed the flashlight to the sewing machine again, then climbed out of the well with both hands.

"What exactly are you two going to do?" It was only at this time that the sewing machine finally couldn't help but ask.

"Safe House"

The hot air balloon replied, "A general has just died outside. We have to make some preparations."

"Are they planning to occupy the refugee camp?" the sewing machine asked in a helpless smile.

“It’s their business to do what they love.”

Hot Air Balloon relit his lighter before Wei Ran turned off his flashlight, "But I don't want to gamble your safety that they won't do something to the refugees."

At this point, the hot air balloon had already lifted up the manhole cover. "Although this is a refugee camp, there is a high probability that nothing will go wrong, but I would rather be prepared in advance. Right, Mr. Dongfeng? I guess you think so too."

"That's right"

While Wei Ran was speaking, he had already lit his lighter. After observing for a while with the faint light, he pulled out a cracked car tire and several wooden boards less than one meter long from the pile of debris at the end of the alley.

"Don't rush to cover it, go back first."

As Wei Ran spoke, he had already placed the thing in his hand at the mouth of the well and turned off the flashlight.

Hearing this, Hot Air Balloon was prepared and took out a Coke bottle from his pocket and handed it to Wei Ran, "I pumped the gasoline out of the car."

"You two are really in sync," said the sewing machine strangely as it stood up.

Upon hearing this, both Wei Ran and the hot air balloon tacitly avoided responding to the conversation, just as he had said.

Watching the sewing machine and the hot air balloon leave, Wei Ran threw the tire he had just picked up and the broken wooden boards into the wellhead, poured a small amount of gasoline on them and ignited them, and hung up the manhole cover before the fire got bigger.

After waiting for a moment to make sure that the fire inside was not extinguished, Wei Ran simply turned around and left this inconspicuous alley, leaving the dark fire and thick smoke to burn the insects, snakes, rats and ants in the well.

Back in the yard, the hot air balloon was still waiting for him inside the iron gate.

"Do you know any inside information?" Hot Air Balloon asked in a low voice while fastening the iron door.

Enduring the burning sensation at the base of his left hand, Wei Ran replied calmly, "I don't have any inside information. I simply don't trust the Yishe Lie people and those Long Spear Party members."

“We are highly consistent on this point.”

Hot Air Balloon gave Wei Ran a cigarette, and after lighting his own, he walked out the stairs while saying, "What are your plans for tomorrow?"

After trying to open his mouth to make some arrangements to no avail, Wei Ran suppressed his frustration, regained his spirits and said, "There is no plan, just do whatever you want."

"In that case, I want to take some pictures tomorrow," said the hot air balloon. "It will be too dark in the afternoon."

"It's up to you," Wei Ran said, and walked up the outer stairs.

"I'm very glad to have a teammate like you," the hot air balloon finally said.

"But what about in that time and space without me?"

Wei Ran sighed heavily in his heart, and while walking up, he was also thinking about another problem. He was very sure that he had gathered 20 people, but he was not sure, and he didn't understand whether he had completed the language task, and if so, what language he had learned.

"It's better to faint. This is making it more difficult for me."

Cursing inwardly, Wei Ran pushed open the wooden door of the second floor, and then saw Edelweiss sitting cross-legged on the sofa in the living room, writing her medical notes by the candlelight.

"The room by the door is yours"

Edelweiss yawned as she finished speaking, "Your luggage has been taken in for you."

"What about you? Sleeping on the sofa?" Wei Ran asked casually, and then realized that this casual question seemed to have some ambiguity including "invitation element".

Fortunately, perhaps because of intoxication, or perhaps because she was busy writing notes, Edelweiss didn't seem to hear the ambiguity in the words, and just answered along the topic, "I'm next to you, with Rama and Dalal.

On the other side of the door is the room of the hot air balloon and Hanward, and next to him is the room of the sewing machine couple. "

Taking a breath, Edelweiss pointed downstairs and said, "If you want to take a bath, you can go to the well downstairs. Hanward and Dalal have just filled those buckets with water."

"Forget it today. Do you want another drink?" Wei Ran immediately changed the subject after the other party finished speaking.

"Can you please pour me a glass and fill up my birthday present?" Edelweiss, who seemed to be in a much better mood, asked in a deliberately pretentious tone.

"Of course, my pleasure."

Wei Ran responded in the same pretentious tone, and as the other party covered his mouth and chuckled, he took out the kettle under the cover of his shirt, first poured a coffee cup of red wine for the other party, and then used cigarette paper to make a simple funnel to fill up his own portable wine flask.

Without disturbing the other party any further, Wei Ran went into his own room, opened the window to let the night breeze in, and looked out the window at the side door of the hospital across the road, secretly worrying about what would happen tomorrow, especially how many people would die.

This is destined to be a question that has no answer for the time being, but it is difficult for people not to think about it.

After waiting for a while, Wei Ran locked the door and closed the window. Then he took out the Type 81 rifle from the metal notebook in the dark, disassembled it, wiped it carefully part by part, and reassembled it in the dark.

At the same time, in another room on the other side of the door, Hot Air Balloon, who came back only half a cigarette later than Wei Ran, was also wiping the weapons that Wei Ran gave him and those he got himself in the dark.

Obviously, even though he didn't know as clearly as Wei Ran what would happen next, his keen intuition and experience as an outlaw veteran made him subconsciously alert.