War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 168
In the early morning of January 1th, after Wei Ran sent the lightly dressed Sui Sui to the airport, he immediately rushed back to the studio in disguise.

Now the travel agency next door has not accepted the vacation, and the neighbors Mr. Nicholas and Jima a few hundred meters away have still not returned. This is a rare good opportunity.

He drove the car directly into the studio and locked the shutter door. Wei Ran didn't even turn on the light, and reached out from the glove box to take out the pistol carefully wrapped in flannelette.

"Beacon smoke and blood stained the rivers and mountains, and the Japanese will not be destroyed and will not return to Sichuan. Xu Guo is not afraid of death when he fights, kill all the Japanese invaders and build the capital." Wei Ran silently read the inscription on the gun with special seriousness, and then summoned the cowhide book without hesitation .

With a soft clattering sound, the cowhide notebook automatically turned to the blank eighth page, and the metallic luster quill brushed out a big hand that seemed to be stained with blood. On this hand, it was loose and weak Holding a 20-ring potbellied box.

With a soft "click", the metal quill fell onto the cowhide book, but the writing that appeared under the pattern made Wei Ran frowned.It was different from any other time before, this time the handwriting turned out to be bright red!
Character identity: Cangyuanzhai apprentice Wei Ran

Conditions of return: stick to Teng County

Teng County?Where is Teng County?Why is there no photo task?

Before Wei Ran could react, his vision was enveloped by intense white light. Immediately afterwards, he heard an old voice saying, "Sui'an, come in with me. Wei Ran, close the door and come here, today is not It's business."

As the footsteps went away, Wei Ran's sight finally returned to normal, and then he saw a thin figure in a green shirt, a black melon skin hat, and a cigarette pouch stuck in the back of his neck, opened the cotton curtain, limped Turning around, he walked into the inner room next to the counter.

And behind him, followed by a young man who seemed to be about the same age as himself.This young man named Sui'an was wearing a black tunic suit, a gray Lenin cap and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on his head.

Looking down at himself, he saw a pair of coarse trousers with leggings on his lower body, a pair of black cotton shoes on his feet, and a thin gray cotton jacket with double breasts on his upper body, but around his waist was a nondescript hard cowhide belt that was as wide as four fingers. There is even a small brass abacus that is not too big.

Turning around to look around, there is a wooden door without a threshold behind it, and facing the wooden door is a counter that is almost as high as shoulders and has a wooden fence that goes straight to the roof.There is a small dusty tea table against the wall on both sides.On one of the tea tables, there was also a small white porcelain vase with burning incense sticks.

Taking advantage of closing the door, Wei Ran also saw the cobblestone road outside the window and the low houses around, and at the same time saw the big word "Dang" on the signboard hanging at the door.

So, this warehouse is a pawn shop?
Wei Ran muttered to himself, closed the heavy wooden door, picked up the top door bar standing on one side, and stuck the two ends on the floor and the pits on the door panel respectively.

When he opened the cotton curtain and went inside, the old man in long gown had already filled three white porcelain bowls with wine and placed them on the Eight Immortals table in the middle of the room, while the young man named Sui'an was sitting obediently. One side of the Eight Immortals table.

"Wei Ran, come sit down too." The old man waved his hand in an easy-going manner, signaling Wei Ran to sit opposite Sui'an.

After a large bowl full of white wine was placed in front of him, the old man sat down leaning on a cane, pulled out the cigarette pipe and pot from his neck collar, and slowly filled it with shredded tobacco while asking, "Suian, let's leave How long have you been home?"

"Almost a year," Sui An replied without thinking.

The old man took out a box of matches and lit the cigarette pot, sighed and said, "Yeah, it's been almost a year. In this year, we fled from Beiping to Quancheng, and from Quancheng to Teng County. What about this bastard little devil?" Has been chasing our family?"

Sui An heard the words and said, "Father, why don't we return the word tribute, this shop"

"Oh!"

The old man slammed the table hard before Sui'an finished speaking. The huge movement made the two young people tremble, and the former couldn't help but cursed in Shu dialect, "Still running? Run away!" Hammer! You're a shameless tortoise with water in your head!"

In the room that fell into silence, the fiery old man sighed after scolding, switched back to Mandarin that Wei Ran could understand, and said, "I saw your cousin Hexian in Dongguan this morning. gone."

"The third brother came to Teng County?" Suian stood up and asked in surprise.

The old man nodded, and tapped the table in front of Wei Ran with the cigarette pot in his hand, "Go and get the burden on the altar table."

Seeing this, Wei Ran quickly stood up, got up and searched, picked up a heavy blue cloth bundle from the altar against the wall and put it on the table.

Before he could sit down, the old man had already opened the bag, and took out two armed belts filled with ammunition bags and two 20-ring bellies in cowhide holsters, and put them on the In front of Wei Ran and Sui'an.

"Wei Ran, you followed the old man from Beiping all the way to Teng County. Now the old man's nephew is fighting here. We are not going to run away. You can take this gun and run away if you want to fight." After finishing speaking, the old man He took out a stack of silver dollars from his pocket and placed it in front of Wei Ran.

"Everyone is responsible for the national crisis."

After Wei Ran finished speaking solemnly, he simply picked up the pistol on the table. There was no engraving on this gun. Looking at the gun in front of Suian, it also did not have any engraving.

The old man nodded in satisfaction, and then looked at Sui An who was sitting opposite Wei Ran, "You are my son, so you have no choice, take this gun and go to your cousin, follow him to fight devils. If you can survive, You just follow your cousin to find a job in the army. If you can’t survive, the old man will collect the body for you!”

When the old man said this, he directly picked up the porcelain bowl in front of him, "After drinking this bowl of wine, you go kill devils!"

Sui'an and Wei Ran looked at each other, got up at the same time, picked up the big bowl in front of them, and poured the spicy white wine into their stomachs with a frown.

"Dang!"

The white porcelain bowl in the old man's hand fell on the table, he raised his hand tremblingly, and pointed to the vacant door not far away, "Go and fight for the glory of the nation and the survival of the country!"

Wei Ran and Sui An were silent for a moment, and put down the porcelain bowl in silence. The latter knelt on the ground and kowtowed three times, picked up the weapon on the table and was about to go out, but was stopped by Wei Ran immediately.

"Both of you guys wait for me inside"

Without waiting for their response, Wei Ran got up and raised the curtain and went back to the outside room of the pawn shop. Using the cover of the counter, he took out the Rollei SLR camera from Berlin from the cowhide notebook.

He remembers clearly that when he first got this camera, there was a spare box of film in the accompanying horse fur camera bag.But the 1945 film is still there, but he is not sure at all.

Fortunately, as he nervously unscrewed the sealed bakelite box, there was indeed a roll of unused film inside.

Quickly loading the film into the camera, Wei Ran immediately returned to the room, calmly looked at the old man who was still sitting in his seat and said, "Shopkeeper, take a picture of you two!"

"Camera?!" Sui'an, who had already put on his armed belt, asked in surprise, "Brother Wei, where did you get it?"

The old man looked meaningfully at Wei Ran, who was worrying about how to explain, and helped him find an impeccable excuse in a flat tone, "Yesterday someone exchanged it for money. It's rare that this kid has the heart. Come sit down!"

Sui An heard the words and stopped asking any more questions, and quickly stood behind the old man.After the two of them settled their poses, Wei Ran found a good angle and immediately pressed the shutter.

"Shopkeeper, I put the camera back." Wei Ran said looking directly at the old gentleman.

The latter waved his hand silently, Wei Ran immediately walked out of the room, and quickly put the camera back into the leather notebook.At this moment, he didn't care about revealing the secret of the cowhide book, he just didn't want to leave any regrets like the one in Stalingrad.

Deliberately making some noise in the counter, Wei Ran walked into the room again, solemnly bowed to the old gentleman who was still sitting on the chair, and then picked up the armed belt on the table and the shiny 20 After ringing the belly box, following Suian, he left the closed pawn shop through the back door.

It wasn't until there was the sound of closing the door outside that the old man sitting on the chair tearfully took out a patina from his pocket, staggered to the window, and pushed the paper away. Through the battered windows, he silently looked at the two black-painted coffins in the backyard covered by tarpaulins.

Outside the pawnshop, Wei Ran and the two were walking on the rutted stone road, neither of them in the mood to speak.

It wasn't until he passed a crossroad that Suian asked worriedly, "Brother Wei, do you think this little Teng County can be guarded?"

"If you can't keep it, you have to keep it." Wei Ran patted the other party's shoulder, "Where can I find your cousin?"

"Didn't you say Dongguan?" Sui An pointed in one direction with the big belly box in his hand.

"Hurry up, see him earlier, and I can help you do something."

Sui An nodded when he heard the words, and quickly put the pistol that he had been playing with just now back into the leather holster.At any rate, the family owns a pawn shop, so of course he knows how to use this weapon, but he has never pulled the trigger on anyone.

At the same time, Wei Ran, who was a little behind, turned his attention to the scenery of Teng County.

In this small city surrounded by high walls, low-rise houses are mixed with some two-story buildings. Along the way, you can also see several churches with American flags or that fragile flag.

In addition to these immovable buildings, there are also refugees running out of the city carrying their shoulders and hands on the street, and there is a group of soldiers with disheveled faces, two groups of two carrying wooden ammunition boxes hurried past them. ran over.

Although it was just a quick glance, the old sleeves and large knives wrapped in rough cloth on the shoulders of those soldiers, as well as the tattered military uniforms and sandals with their toes exposed, all hinted that they were not actually elite troops.

But looking at the confident looks on their faces, as well as the "immortal banban" and "guizizi" who burst out with laughter from time to time, it is clear that they have left all their worries about life and death in the comfortable land of abundance.

In unspeakable thoughts, the two inquired all the way, and when the sun in the sky had touched the western city wall, Suian finally found a thin soldier wearing a worn-out military uniform in Dongguan, directing the soldiers to dig a bunker.

"Third brother! Third brother!" Suian shouted at the thin soldier, his loud voice immediately attracted the attention of the surrounding soldiers wearing bamboo hats.

"Anything?!"

After the thin soldier was attracted by the movement here, he recognized the yelling young man at a glance.

"Where's the eldest brother and the second brother?" Sui An waited for the skinny soldier to run over, and immediately grabbed the opponent's arm and asked.

Unexpectedly, this question broke the joy of the brothers' reunion. The thin soldier took off his hat, and after a long silence, he choked up and said, "It's gone in Shanxi. The eldest brother killed two devils, and the second brother was killed by the devils." The shell exploded. It was gone!”

"All gone?!" Suian asked tremblingly, his eyes widening.

The thin soldier stretched out his big dirty hand, wiped his face vigorously, put on a happy expression and pretended to be relaxed and asked, "It's all over, what's wrong with you?"

"The shops in Peiping are gone, the shops in Quancheng are gone, and the schools are closed."

Suian pointed to the direction behind him, "At the beginning of the year, my father took me to escape. After he saw you in the morning, he said he couldn't run away. He asked us to come and fight devils with you. He also prepared two coffins."

As if he was afraid that the skinny soldier would say no, Suian kept introducing, "This is my cousin Li Hexian, and this is Wei Ran, my father hired him in Beiping two years ago."

Li Hexian fell into a daze when he heard that two coffins had been prepared, and when he came back to his senses, he patted Wei Ran and Suian's shoulders vigorously, "Then stay here, let's fight devils together!"

"Mr. Li" Wei Ran shouted pretending to be hesitant, but in fact all his attention was on the wooden gun case hanging on the opponent's waist. Although the gun in the gun case could not be seen, the red piece on the grip The white and white cloth strips made him recognize it.

"I'm a small squad leader, but I'm not an officer." Li Hexian waved his hand, looked at Wei Ran and Sui'an's armed belts covered with ammunition bags and holsters with great interest, and asked curiously, "Where did this gun and bullets come from?" of?"

"My father bought it in Beiping." Li Suian explained, "Things are not easy these days, and there are always people who want to go to the pawnshop to steal things."

"Can it work?" Li Hexian asked.

"It will work!" Li Suian nodded affirmatively, and then looked at Wei Ran with Li Hexian.

"No problem." Wei Ran nodded confidently.

"Both of you stay with me first!"

Li Hexian didn't care. He led the two of them towards the city wall and said, "Our mission is to defend Dongguan. Before the devils come over, let's get to know the two of you and the fellow villagers first."

"Are there many fellow villagers with the word tribute?" Li Suian followed suit and asked.

"Is there any squad I lead?" Li Hexian looked to the southwest direction worriedly, "the other company has two, but they are responsible for defending the Nanguan, that place is not easy to defend."

　Sorry for being late, only one update today.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)