War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1629 Another Exit of the Abandoned Mine

In the "inner room" of the abandoned mine, Wei Ran had just used the embers in the brazier to light the long-abandoned clay stove, when the Oroqen girl Unakan, unable to bear the fatigue of days of running around, fell asleep leaning against her luggage bag.

Glancing at the Ma Sihuan in the girl's arms and the flower-mouthed rake and three boxes in her left and right hands respectively, Wei Ran shook his head slightly, carried the empty brazier back to the living room, and filled it with a few lumps of dry and hard horse and mule manure.

After crushing the animal dung in the basin, he followed his memory and went into the mine with accumulated water. He dug out most of the silt, stirred it evenly, and then returned to the mud stove, carefully repairing the cracks that were smoking and emitting fire.

After everything was done, Wei Ran grabbed a handful of loose soil and rubbed his hands roughly, added some extra firewood into the clay stove, placed the two people's unfinished lunch boxes against the edge of the clay stove, and walked alone towards the outside of the mine.

Under the current circumstances, if he wanted to find Hu Bazhi and others, the most realistic way would be to ask the boss, Sun.

However, for an outsider like him who had only overheard a few words of the jargon, he had no confidence at all whether he could sneak into the enemy's territory.

  If all else fails, I'll just let the bandits kidnap me, and then send him directly to Sun Dazhang to arrest him!

Wei Ran made up his mind to take a risk and couldn't help but walk faster.

Before being caught, he planned to go and take a look at Hu Bazhi's shack. Maybe the other party had moved back there. After all, Cao Dazhangpanzi was dead, right?

I crouched down and walked through the low mine tunnel back to the "living room" outside. At this time, the mule was leisurely ruminating with its eyes closed, and the two reindeer were curled up on the hay bale, sleeping soundly with their noses buried in their crotches.

"Come on, let me ride you."

  Wei Ran patted the mule's neck while talking to himself, but he didn't expect that before he even untied the reins tied to the ground wedge, he heard the sound of chains coming from the direction of the mine entrance!

broken!

Wei Ran's heart sank and he quickly blew out the oil lamp. He took a few quick steps forward feeling the rock wall and hid in the corner before the iron gate at the entrance of the mine was opened. He pulled out his box gun and suppressed the large and small machine guns.

A moment later, a dim light slowly moved inside from the direction of the cave entrance. At the same time, he heard the creaking sound of the oil lamp swinging, the breathing of the horse, and even the sound of the horse's hooves slowly hitting the rocky ground.

As the light and shadows moved on the rock wall, a man wearing a dog-skin coat, a dog-skin hat, and a nine-dragon belt around his waist like himself, walked to the corner of the mine, holding an oil lamp in one hand and the reins in the other.

However, before the light of the oil lamp could dispel the darkness around the corner, a box gun hit his ribs.

Under this silent threat, the man who brought the horse in couldn't help but stop, but at the same time, he let go of the oil lamp in his hand.

However, he didn't expect that the man who was pointing the gun at him had already supported the bottom of the oil lamp with his other hand.

"I don't know which English"

"How did you find it?"

In the narrow mine tunnel, the two men spoke at the same time, but stopped talking at the same time.

"Brother Wei!"

"Zhao Jinyu!"

In the next second, the two recognized each other.

While Wei Ran quickly moved the gun barrel away, Zhao Jinyu turned sideways in surprise and took off his hat.

"Why are you here?!" They both asked the same question.

"Are you healed?" Zhao Jinyu asked excitedly as he let go of the reins in his hand.

"Okay, everything is fine, nothing happened."

Wei Ran, who was still holding the kerosene lamp, answered as he put the box gun with the closed nose back on his waist.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry! Look at this! Do you recognize it?!"

As Zhao Jinyu spoke, he picked up the reins and pulled it forward. Then, a black horse head came over and nestled into Wei Ran's arms affectionately.

"Is this the horse that bit me? Why is it so tall?"

Wei Ran subconsciously hugged the horse's head that was shamelessly pushing towards him, and then he found that it still had a bridle on its mouth. And just as he said, the horse had grown a lot taller, and its shoulder height was about 1.6 meters or more.

Of course, compared to this much grown-up biting horse, he also noticed that in the gun bag on one side of the saddle, there was still the Japanese Type 44 cavalry rifle that he had used in the past, and in the scabbard on the other side, there was a saber, a saber belonging to Zhao Jinyu.

"That's right. He has the bad habit of biting people. I wouldn't dare ride him without a bridle."

Zhao Jinyu said with a smile, "This horse is still young, it's in the period of growth, and I've been feeding it a lot of concentrated feed in the past six months."

Touching the tiny semicircular notch on the horse's ear that was made by a bullet, Wei Ran sighed and asked, "Why are you here too?"

"I"

Zhao Jinyu sighed, "Sister Shiyi has lost contact."

"What did you say?" Wei Ran couldn't help but shudder and subconsciously looked towards the depths of the mine.

"Since I escaped, I went outside."

At the edge of the dim light, Zhao Jinyu said worriedly, "I waited for more than two months at the place where I exchanged letters with the Yang family caravan, but no one showed up. I guessed something had happened, so I left a letter for my sister and rushed over.

Brother Wei, Brother Hu, and squad leader Xiaohu, are they all okay? "

Hearing this, Wei Ran shook his head and said in the face of the other party's panic and despair, "I just got here too, a few hours earlier than you. This place looks like it has been abandoned for a long time."

He had just finished speaking when the Oroqen girl Unakan came out from the deep mine with a gun in her hand, and looked vigilantly at Wei Ran and Zhao Jinyu who were surrounded by lights.

"Who is he/she?" Zhao Jinyu and Unakan asked the same question in unison.

"He is Zhao Jinyu," Wei Ran explained first.

"You are Zhao Jinyu?" Unakan said as if he suddenly realized something.

"Do you know him/me?" Wei Ran and Zhao Jinyu said in unison.

"The letter you sent to Zhao Jinshan was delivered by me and my father. Shopkeeper Yang even showed me your photo." Unakan took the initiative to explain as if he had found his backbone, "I came here to deliver the letter for Uncle Beard."

“Let’s go in and talk first,” Wei Ran greeted.

"You go in first. There's a horse outside. I'll bring it in as well."

As Zhao Jinyu spoke, he changed seats with Wei Ran who was standing at the corner. After Wei Ran led the horse in, he immediately went out.

A moment later, Zhao Jinyu came in leading a chestnut horse. Just by looking at the scars on the horse, Wei Ran could recognize that this was the horse Zhao Jinyu rode when he was in the cavalry company.

After tying up the horses, they waited for Zhao Jinyu to lock the iron gate at the entrance of the mine. Then, the three of them went back to the inner room of the mine with the help of the light of the oil lamp.

After sitting around the clay stove and communicating, the three of them had a general understanding of the cause and effect.

"Did Cui Da Huzi ask you to come to Langcaozigou to report the news to Hu Bazhi and the others?" Zhao Jinyu confirmed again with a frown.

Unakan nodded when he heard this, "And hurry up, it's urgent."

After thinking for a moment, Zhao Jinyu said, "I roughly know where they are."

"You know?" Una Kan was delighted when he heard this, and asked in unison with Wei Ran, "Where is it?"

"They are in this mine. Come with me, I will take you to find them." Zhao Jinyu stood up while speaking.

"What's going on?" Wei Ran asked.

"There is another exit in this mine, have you forgotten? I just remembered that when we were looking for the other exit, you were interrogating those two bandit masters."

"It seems to be the case," Wei Ran smacked his lips and said, it seemed to be the case.

"Come with me, I should still remember how to get there." Zhao Jinyu said as she stood up.

"Can we go there faster if we ride horses?" Unakan asked anxiously.

"It's on the other side of the mountain. What if we run into wolves or bandits?"

Zhao Jinyu explained, "And I'm not sure if they are there, so let's go through the mine tunnel first."

"Unakan, you go at the back."

Wei Ran stood up and said, "Jin Yu, walk behind me and help me show the way."

Zhao Jinyu was stunned for a moment, then nodded and pointed to the second fork in the mine on the right and said, "Go inside and go all the way to the end."

"Come with me"

Wei Ran picked up the oil lamp and adjusted it to the maximum brightness, asking, "Is it still snowing outside?"

"It's raining happily."

Zhao Jinyu, who was walking behind, paused for a moment and said, "I asked Lao Bai to send you back to Shanxi. Why are you here? I thought you were going to Sichuan with Brother Wangchuan and Qinghe."

"Why don't you go back?" Wei Ran asked as he entered the mine.

Zhao Jinyu was silent for a moment and then sighed, "I'm too embarrassed to go back."

"I guess Sui Wangchuan didn't return to Sichuan either."

Wei Ran muttered something incoherently, and then asked before the other party could speak, "Didn't we fall into the water at the beginning? How did you run into Lao Bai? I remember I asked him to go back with Guardian Han."

“They are going back.”

Zhao Jinyu replied, "Not long after they left, they heard that there was another fight here, so they came back. Didn't we fall into the water at that time? Thanks to the black horse, it grabbed our belts and dragged us to the shore, then ran away again. When we came back, Lao Bai and his mare followed us."

"It's amazing." Wei Ran couldn't help but smacking his lips.

"Although the black horse has many bad habits, it is very human. And you can tell from its general pattern that it is an exotic horse, which is rare in a herd."

Zhao Jinyu muttered to herself, "After we drive away the Japanese, if it is still alive, I will pick some mares to mate it with. The foals it will give birth to will be bigger than ordinary horses. Brother Wei, you must give me a foal when the time comes."

"Okay, I'll even give you the horse." Wei Ran made a promise with a smile, "You have to survive."

"You have to survive too." There was a hint of smile in Zhao Jinyu's tone.

"It's the end." Wei Ran, who was walking in front, stopped and said.

"Go to the mine on the left," said Zhao Jinyu, "or go to the end."

Hearing this, Wei Ran bent down and crawled into the mine on the left. The mine was less than one meter high, and the three of them could only crawl forward.

Not only that, after crawling forward about less than a hundred meters, Wei Ran stopped.

"What's wrong?" Zhao Jinyu asked from behind.

"It looks like there's a trap, don't go forward and don't touch me."

As Wei Ran spoke, he raised the kerosene lamp and moved closer to observe the abnormality he had just noticed.

It was an inconspicuous-looking rope that extended from the crevice in the upper left corner. At the other end of the rope was a fish hook about the size of a corn kernel.

It is almost certain that if anyone climbing over here is not careful and their clothes are caught by this fish hook, they will definitely pull something out of the crevice.

  Carefully removing an egg-sized stone, he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. Stuck in the crevice was a Russian-made lemon grenade, and the rope was connected to its safety pin pull ring!

After a moment's hesitation, he did not remove the deadly grenade, but instead stuffed the rope with the fishhook into the gap and blocked it with the egg-sized stone. "Be careful," Wei Ran said, and continued to crawl forward holding the oil lamp.

Coming to the end again, there is only a cave entrance that is almost 90 degrees downward. There is a man-made gap in the rock wall at the entrance that can be used for stepping on.

Wei Ran was still in front and Zhao Jinyu and the other two were behind. After the three of them came down carefully, they continued to move forward under the guidance of Zhao Jinyu.

In addition to discovering a row of rusty but doubly lethal large animal traps from the bottom of the water that barely submerged his ankles when passing a flooded section of road, Wei Ran also noticed that not far from the puddle, there was a mountain spring flowing along the rock wall without stopping.

"Go forward and crawl through a crack and you will be able to get out." Zhao Jinyu said in a low voice.

Hearing this, Wei Ran nodded, led them through the puddle, and walked forward along the slowly rising mine tunnel for about one or two hundred meters. Finally, they saw a horizontal crack two meters above their heads.

"Don't touch that rope," Wei Ran pointed at the rope hanging from the crack above his head and reminded carefully.

"Are you a hunter too?" asked Unakan, who had not spoken much along the way.

"The one who arranged these is a hunter, an excellent hunter." Wei Ran said, and Yijin asked Zhao Jinyu to help build a human ladder. He stepped on the other's hands and held on to the rock wall and climbed up the crack carefully.

  Sure enough, there was a second Russian lemon grenade stuck at the other end of the rope!

Not only that, there was a stick as thick as an arm placed in the crack, with many branches left intentionally intact on the stick, obviously used as a ladder.

However, after this inspection, Wei Ran shook his head in a helpless smile. This seemingly kind ladder actually had at least a dozen saw cuts hidden on it. If any honest person tried to climb up on it, he would surely fall down and be pierced into a stick by those sharp branches.

Moving the wooden ladder aside, Wei Ran first pulled up Unakan who had climbed up by stepping on Zhao Jinyu's hands. Then he lay down on his side, bent one leg, and used his foot and knee as rock nails to get stuck in the crack which was three meters long but only half a meter wide at most. He then took off his belt and handed it to Zhao Jinyu.

After pulling him up, Wei Ran took the oil lamp that Unakan was carrying and still climbed in the front.

After he climbed through the crack, which was about five or six meters deep, he found that most of the end had been blocked by rocks and mud, with only a window less than half a meter square left.

This man-made window is covered with a layer of newspaper on the outside, through which one can vaguely see light on the other side.

After exchanging a glance with Zhao Jinyu and Una Kan who were lying next to him, Wei Ran quietly extinguished the oil lamp. Then, he imitated the flower thieves in ancient TV dramas by sucking his fingers to wet them, poked a small hole in the newspaper soundlessly, and then put his eyes close to it.

Looking through the holes in the newspaper, he could clearly see that on the other side was a cave that looked to be about 20 square meters in size.

The height of this cave is about three meters, and now I am almost at the top of the cave.

Turning his eyes slightly and looking around, he saw stretched animal skins, ready-made boots, and some dried meat drying everywhere.

On one side of the cave, against the wall, there is a clay stove with charcoal burning in it. Next to the clay stove is a brick bed. On the bed, there is a person lying. He is covered with a skin blanket and there seems to be a towel on his forehead.

Apart from this man, there was no one else in the cave.

After thinking for a moment, he reached out and tore open the newspaper covering the escape window and peeked outside. He saw a wooden ladder outside. He immediately turned around, let his legs go out first, stepped carefully on the ladder, tried to put all his body strength on it and jumped.

Seeing that the ladder could bear his weight, he climbed down carefully.

Only when his feet stepped on the solid stone ground did Wei Ran finally breathe a sigh of relief, and then walked carefully towards the person lying on the earthen kang.

When he got closer, he immediately recognized that the person lying on the kang was Miss Hongxia!

He reached out and touched the other person's forehead, and the scorching temperature immediately made him realize that something was wrong.

Without bothering to check the situation around him, Wei Ran immediately uncovered the quilt covering the other person. At the same time, he picked up the towel, washed it in the wooden basin beside the kang, and put it on Miss Hongxia's forehead again.

“It’s Hongxia.”

Wei Ran spoke immediately when he saw Zhao Jinyu and Unakan coming over.

"It's really Sister Hongxia." Unakan panicked when he saw Miss Hongxia who was unconscious with a high fever.

"Unakan, can you completely trust us now?" Wei Ran asked at this time.

"can!"

Unakan nodded without hesitation, took off the roe deer horn hat on his head, bit off a thread with his teeth, took out an envelope with three feathers attached and a bloody fingerprint, and handed it over. "This is a letter from the bearded uncle, asking me to hand it over to Sister Hongxia personally or..."

"Believe first, don't rush"

Wei Ran pointed at Hongxia on the kang and said, "Unakan, Jinyu and I are having a hard time. Please help me wipe Hongxia's forehead, armpits, palms, and soles with a towel. If she keeps burning like this, she'll go crazy."

"it is good!"

Unakan simply took over the task. Wei Ran and Zhao Jinyu also turned around and kept their distance, while also observing this not-so-big cave.

"It's a pity that the medicine my sister gave us is gone."

Zhao Jinyu said regretfully, "At this time, give Miss Hongxia a pill of Angong Niuhuang Pill with ginseng soup, and her fever will definitely go down."

"Really?"

Wei Ran asked in surprise, his heartbeat even quickened - he clearly remembered that the second layer of the metal notebook lunch box contained the tin box that Zhao Jinyu's sister had given him!

"Not really."

Zhao Jinyu said, "In order to save you, I stuffed the tin box my sister gave me into Lao Bai's pocket. If I had known, I would have kept some of it. If nothing else, at least I would have kept the rhino horn."

"Rhino horn? There is still rhino horn in there?" Wei Ran asked in surprise.

"Why not?" Zhao Jinyu said confidently, "When you were seriously injured and had a high fever and were unconscious, I ground some rhino horn powder for you to eat to reduce your fever."

"I-I didn't notice"

Wei Ran paused, looked around, picked up a Japanese lunch box and said, "Jin Yu, go outside and get some clean water. Be careful and see if there is anyone else here."

"it is good!"

Zhao Jinyu did not suspect anything. He took the lunch box and walked out. At the same time, he pulled out a box gun from his waist - a box gun that once belonged to the Li brothers.

Without waiting for the other party to walk away, Wei Ran took out the food box under the cover of the animal skins drying nearby, and then took out the tin box from the second layer of the food box as quickly as possible.

The last time he opened the tin box, he just took a quick glance and didn't look closely. Now, after taking out the wild ginseng wrapped in red cloth from the tin box, he noticed that there was a thick white cloth under the red cloth. This white cloth wrapped a rhino horn that was about as thick as a cigarette box in later generations, but about one-third narrower than a cigarette box.

The three edges of this rhino horn were exceptionally round, and it was obvious that it had been played with and polished frequently. However, one side looked as if it had been hastily sawed with a saw. Not only was there burrs on the rough cross-section, but even the caviar pattern on the other side could not be clearly seen.

Not only that, on one side of the rhino horn, there is a half-broken plum blossom carved. It seems that not only the sawed-off half contains a part of the plum blossom, but there is probably also a matching half.

  So what is this object?

Before Wei Ran could figure it out, Zhao Jinyu had already run back with a lunch box full of snow.

"This thing is here with you?!" Zhao Jinyu asked in surprise after seeing the tin box in Wei Ran's hand.

"Your sister also gave me one."

Wei Ran explained, then shook the rhino horn in his hand and asked curiously, "Is this a rhino horn? What did you saw it off from?"

"Can't"

Zhao Jinyu said, "That's half of a pair of paperweights, and it's considered the treasure of the old man of the Ma family.

My sister wrote to me at the time saying that the old man sawed the pair of paperweights in half and left one half to my little nephew.

The other three pieces were given to you, me and my brother-in-law respectively, so that we can keep them to save our own lives and the lives of the soldiers in the cavalry company."

"The righteousness of the old man of the Ma family"

Wei Ran sighed, "What a pity, Captain Ma is gone..."

"The dead cannot be resurrected, and now is not the time to talk about this."

Zhao Jinyu spoke hurriedly without waiting for Wei Ran to finish, he seemed to be avoiding this matter.

"Right"

Wei Ran nodded and handed the tin box to the other party, "How do you take these medicines?"

'She's hurt'

Before Zhao Jinyu could speak, Unakan, who was wiping Miss Hongxia's body, spoke in panic.

"Where are you injured?" Wei Ran asked immediately, and walked over quickly.

"On the legs"

Before Unakan finished speaking, Wei Ran and Zhao Jinyu had already run over.

At this time, the trouser leg of Miss Hongxia's right leg had been pushed to the knee, which allowed Wei Ran to see clearly that her leg seemed to have been fractured at the calf bone.

Not only that, there was a wound on the calf that, although bandaged, was still festering and emitting a foul smell.

Obviously, the reason why she had a high fever and was even in a coma was most likely because of this wound.

"Can you cure it?"

Zhao Jinyu asked, "I see a Japanese medicine box hanging outside."

"Really? Bring it here!"

Wei Ran immediately breathed a sigh of relief. As long as he had a medicine box and medicines, everything would be easy.

"I'm going right now!"

Before Zhao Jinyu finished speaking, she had already put down the lunch box and tin box in her hands and ran out again.

Not long after, he came back carrying a Japanese medical kit. Wei Ran recognized it at a glance. This was the one that Big Beard Cui had snatched from the driver when he rescued Yang Shiyi.

After opening the lid of the medicine box, Wei Ran breathed a sigh of relief. Not only were there surgical instruments in it, but there were also several anesthetics. This was absolutely great news.

“Cureable”

Wei Ran said confidently, and then quickly added, "I mean, I can treat her fractures and wound infections, but I don't have much of a cure for her high fever."

"It's okay. I'm sure."

Zhao Jinyu said as she picked up the lunch box filled with ice and snow, "I'll make ginseng soup right now!"

Without wasting time, Wei Ran took out the steaming and sterilizing tray from the medicine box, poured the box of surgical instruments into it, added some snow, covered it with a lid, and placed it on the clay stove to roast.

During this time, he checked the medicines in the medical box again.

The news is mixed. All kinds of injections are still available, but they are likely to have expired.

In addition, there was only a bottle bottom less than two fingers high of iodine left, there was no alcohol at all, and most of the other oral medicines were incomplete.

  I hope the medicine prepared by Zhao Jinyu's sister can work.

Wei Ran sighed secretly and reached out to carefully knead the swollen flesh at the broken bone.

After a checkup, Wei Ran, who already had an idea in mind, first found an axe and used the firewood piled beside the clay stove to chop out a few splints. Then he called on Una Kan to help hold down the unconscious Hong Xia, and under the other's horrified gaze, he pinched Hong Xia's broken bones back little by little and aligned the broken ends.