War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1686 Cemetery, the empire’s cemetery.

On the night they returned to Kazan, the Queen and the historian naturally had a passionate love affair. But in the distant port of Darwin, Australia, there were people who were even more passionate than them.

"This will be the first official mission of the Seven-Colored Divine Elephant."

In the basement of the villa, the Kshatriya who served as the leader of the seven-colored divine elephant sat upright, suppressing his excitement as he listened to the explanation of the lady in a black hood across the table.

"This writing competition is just a small test of your work ability."

With one hand on the electric shock gun at her waist, Hela said, "This is also the first time that the Seven-Colored Elephant has appeared in the online world. The speech has been prepared for you. Please arrange one of your most capable subordinates to prepare. Any questions?"

"Yes sir."

The Kshatriya excitedly stood up and saluted exaggeratedly with his chest and stomach stretched out. Then, suppressing his excitement, he asked doubtfully, "I do have some questions."

"Go ahead," the slightly relieved Hela girl responded calmly. She thought the other party was going to go wild.

"I don't understand what this has to do with the Cow Urine Kingdom," asked the former Kshatriya.

"Zhaohe has invaded many countries including the United States and China"

Miss Hela explained, "If we can punish the invaders who have invaded most Asian countries in this way and correct their hypocritical and wrong history, everyone will know who can lead Asia in the future."

"I! I understand!" the Kshatriya said excitedly, "A war between future leaders and former invaders. This is our chance to make a name for ourselves!"

"You're right. The Ministry of National Defense really did not choose the wrong person." The hooded Hela girl praised seriously, "I'll give you five days to arrange a spokesperson. Is there any problem?"

"No problem!" the former Kshatriya said excitedly, "I can personally..."

“You are the core figure of the Seven-Colored Divine Elephant. Let the person you choose to complete this task. You have to hide in the darkness like a poisonous snake.” Miss Hela reminded seriously.

"Yes, yes! You are right! It was my negligence!"

"For the great country of cow urine"

"For the great Cow Urine Kingdom!" The former Kshatriya shouted out the slogan he had set.

"Get ready as soon as possible. Record it in this basement."

Miss Hela said, "After you finish, if you do well enough, I will take you to another place to lie dormant."

"Where?"

“That’s not what you should be asking.”

"I'll have my people keep it strictly confidential!" The man, whose entire body began to tremble with excitement, once again stretched out his chest and tightened his abdomen, stamped his feet, and saluted.

Hela returned the salute in a serious manner, her lips twitching as she left through the secret passage leading to the basement next door and locked the heavy iron door from the other side.

"idiot"

The Hela girl quietly commented on the impression the other person had left on her in a voice that only she could hear, then left the basement and drove away in the car in the garage.

The next morning, a sudden heavy snowfall forced Wei Ran to interrupt his morning jogging habit. However, Sui Sui forced herself to get up, and after a hurriedly washed up, she hurriedly called the girls to rush to the office next door.

She did have good reasons to be anxious. She wanted to finish filming the movie before spring. Not only did she have to recruit actors and props, she also had to choose a suitable location and assign a film crew.

In the spirit of sharing happiness and hardships, she naturally couldn't let her man sleep in.

With no other choice, Wei Ran could only get up and start typing away on the keyboard, "compiling" everything that had happened on the island into a diary-like script.

Compared with their busyness, Beria and the little lamb were running around happily in the snow. Their carefree and cheerful appearance really made a certain historian envious.

No matter what, two-legged humans can never compare with four-legged pets.

When Wei Ran typed all his memories about the island into the computer, it was almost noon.

Ninel called again before lunch was served on the table.

Yawning and making the promise again, he accompanied Sui Sui to finish their work lunch, then reluctantly went into the basement of the library and opened the locked door of the workroom.

After locking the door and doing his usual check, Wei Ran replenished all the supplies in the metal notebook. He then took out the things and files that Ninel had sent before and checked and browsed through them again.

"Afhan, Afhan, whoever hits me is a fucking idiot."

Wei Ran rubbed his face vigorously and muttered something, then lit another cigarette to calm his slightly uneasy mood.

He waited until the cigarette was burned out before he put it out, took out a pen, wrote some key words on a note and stuck it on the table.

Putting away the pen, Wei Ran exhaled deeply, even picked up a bottle of gin on the table, unscrewed it and took a sip, then took out the metal notebook.

Amid the sound of turning pages, Wei Ran, who had been nervous, tense and even scared a second ago, inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief, and even his breathing and heartbeat became much steadier.

With a complex emotion that he wasn't sure whether to consider as anticipation, the metal feather pen drew a Mi-24D attack helicopter and four men taking a photo in front of the helicopter on the pale yellow paper.

Just like the photo found in the archives provided by Ninel, three of the four men were wearing flight suits and one was wearing an Afhanka with a cross armband on his cuffs.

As he waited calmly, the metal feather pen wrote down lines of words that he needed to remember:
Act One

Character identity: Freelance journalist Victor
Return mission: Assist in completing weapon transfer and position camouflage, take at least one group photo and three individual photos, and no killing is allowed during the whole process

Language mission: Remove unexploded bombs

fuck.
Wei Ran grumbled, letting the strong white light cover everything in his vision. In this white light, he also saw something he could use.

Heinze pancake oven, British compass, flashlight, engineer shovel, forage knife, British army kettle, as well as Nikon SP camera and American army backpack containing film, half-frame camera and developing solution.

There are not too many props, but there are also not too few.

When the white light faded, the cold, windy sand and the smell of sheep hit him in the face, and then he realized that he seemed to be riding something under him.

Blinking hard to regain his vision, the first thing he saw was barren mountains and a winding road at the foot of the mountain in the distance.

Looking down, I found myself riding a black donkey with a brown hard leather suitcase about 22 inches in size fixed behind me.

He was wearing a khaki-colored robe with a gray knitted woolen vest over the robe, and a woolen blanket stained with sand over the vest.

He wore a pair of loose overalls on his lower body, with the trouser legs tucked into a pair of camel-skin boots with a simple tie around the boot opening.

In addition to these, he also had a gray-blue scarf wrapped around his head, a Minolta X700 camera with a leather case hanging around his neck, and he even had a thick beard.

Looking ahead, there was a group of less than 10 goats. Some of these goats had four RPG rockets tied to their bodies with ropes, some had an ammunition chain, and some even had two bags of loose bullets hanging on them.

Looking further ahead of the flock, there was a young man who looked no more than twelve or thirteen years old. He was not riding anything, but on his back was an old Lee Enfield rifle.

Behind him were two donkeys, carrying a Soviet-made KPV 14.5mm anti-aircraft heavy machine gun and its mountain anti-aircraft tripod base.

On both sides of the two donkeys, there was a man dressed similarly to them. One of them looked to be around sixty years old, and the other about twenty-four or twenty-five years old.

The older man had a PPSh on his shoulder and also carried a Stinger anti-aircraft missile.

Another young man, in addition to an RPG, also carried a Stinger anti-aircraft missile launcher in a canvas pocket. Judging from its heavy appearance, the launcher might also contain an anti-aircraft missile.

Behind these two people, there were no more people or animals.

After a moment of hesitation, Wei Ran turned over and got off the donkey, then looked at the two people behind him and patted his shoulder.

"Victor, we can carry it."

The older one said in fairly fluent Russian, "You can ride it. It's the donkey you bought yourself."

"I want to come down and walk around, but I don't want to keep my donkey resting, so put your stuff up there."

Wei Ran, feeling slightly relieved, took an individual photo of each of them and a group photo, while also responding in Russian.

After a slight hesitation, the old man said something to the young man next to him in a language he could not understand. The latter nodded shyly at Wei Ran and said "thank you" in unfamiliar Russian.

Then, the two of them tied the anti-aircraft weapons on their shoulders to both sides of the donkey that Wei Ran had just ridden.

"How far are we?" Wei Ran asked for conversation. "Also, your Russian is really good."

“We have to wait until after dark to get there.”

The old man replied, "Before the war, I studied in Moscow for a long time. But that was before the Red Prince launched the Zheng-Bian Campaign."

“That was indeed a long time ago.”

Wei Ran paused and continued to ask, "Didn't this young man and the guy in front learn Russian?"

"Habibullah only learned English. He had no good feelings towards the Soviet Union and had no desire to learn Russian. In fact, if it hadn't been for the war, he would have had the opportunity to study in the United States."

The old man said helplessly, "Multaza didn't even have time to go to school when the war started. Now he can only write his own name, but Habibullah and I sometimes teach him some knowledge."

“The war will probably be over soon.”

Wei Ran asked, "Can I know your Afhan name?" "Mahbub Salwari," the old man said with a smile, "Do you need me to teach you how to write it?"

"I'm afraid I'm on the same level as Murtaza in this regard"

Wei Ran said in a joking tone, "Can I go to the front and take a picture of him?"

"Of course, but you have to be careful."

Mahbub warned, “We could run into those Soviets at any time.”

"I'll be careful"

As Wei Ran was speaking, he had already run forward more than ten meters with his camera in hand, overtaking the young man named Murtaza. He first took a solo photo of him, and then took a group photo of him, the "fully armed" flock of sheep behind him, and two other people.

“This is the Graveyard of Empires.”

Wei Ran, who had completed the return mission ahead of schedule, couldn't help but look into the distance. Unfortunately, apart from the khaki road, he didn't see any signs of towns or human activities within his field of vision.

In a short while, the heavily laden sheep passed by him, and he was once again walking with Mahbub and Habibullah.

To be on the safe side, Wei Ran did not rush to ask the three men about their battle plans, but just chatted with them aimlessly.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

It was also during the chat that I learned that Habibullah was Mahbub's youngest son, and Murtaza, who was walking in front, was the grandson left to him by his eldest son. His eldest son had died in the second year after the war began.

Talking about the war, it seemed that all the related branches were particularly heavy. Wei Ran stopped asking more questions about his family and instead talked about what they were doing indirectly.

"We are responsible for delivering weapons, ammunition and you, a freelance journalist, to the guerrillas."

Mahbub smiled and said, "Isn't this what we agreed on from the beginning? Are you going back on your word?"

"of course not"

Wei Ran smiled and said, "What I mean is, after you deliver me and the weapons and ammunition, will you stay or go back immediately?"

“Maybe I’ll stay, maybe I’ll go back.”

Mahbub replied with a smile, and it was obvious that he still had some reservations about Wei Ran, who was a freelance journalist.

Although the other party did not answer the last irrelevant question, Wei Ran, who had already gotten the answer to the key question, did not ask any more questions on this topic, and chatted with the other party about his experience working in Moscow.

If you only look at Mahbub's old appearance, it is hard to believe that he was once a university teacher.

Wei Ran found it even more difficult to understand how he had transformed from a university teacher into a guerrilla fighter.

"My eldest son was a soldier who led the guerrillas to fight the Soviets"

Mahbub said, "My second son was also killed by the Soviets two years ago, including my eldest son's wife, my second son's wife and children, my wife, and many of my students. They were all killed by the Soviets one after another.

Reporter Victor, is this reason sufficient? "

"That's enough," Wei Ran ended the topic apologetically.

For a moment, this small team, whose number was less than that of the sheep, fell into silence, with only the sounds of sheep's and donkey's hooves stepping on the ground and stones sliding down.

Following these three generations of grandparents and grandchildren over barren mountains covered with only stones, as it was approaching noon, Murtaza, who was walking in the front, tied the lead sheep he had been holding in his hand to a protruding stone.

"Eat something."

Mahbub took out two enamel milk cans, one large and one small, and two oil stoves issued by the Soviet army, which were only half the size of civilian lunch boxes, from a cloth bag on a donkey.

Taking the small milk can, the young man named Murtaza found a ewe and began to milk her skillfully.

At the same time, Habibullah also took over the oil stove and started pumping up the pressure.

Mahbub, carrying another enamel milk can, walked further and further along the ravine until he was completely blocked by the mountain.

Seeing that three generations of the family were busy, Wei Ran simply took off the hard leather suitcase that seemed to belong to him, opened it, and checked the things inside.

The things inside were arranged very neatly and classified into different categories. Several sets of underwear and socks, two pairs of trousers, a sweater and a windbreaker occupied the most important positions.

In addition to several bottles of seasonings and some medicines such as amoxicillin, the rest of the space also contains a telescopic tripod, external flash lights, shutter release cables, more than twenty boxes of film, and even a full box of button batteries.

Another reporter.
Wei Ran muttered to himself, fastened the leather buckle of the suitcase, and put it aside temporarily.

In a short while, the youngest, Murtaza, had squeezed out a full can of goat milk. Habibullah also lit the small oil stove and placed the milk can on it.

He handed over the job of looking after the milk tanks to his nephew Murtaza, and started pumping up and pressurizing the second kerosene stove.

"Can I communicate with you in English?" Wei Ran asked.

“Sure, but my English is not very good.” Habibullah answered a little nervously and panicked. Obviously, this is a guy who would be labeled as “socially phobic” in future generations.

"I think your English pronunciation is very standard," Wei Ran said with a smile.

"I want to visit the United States, especially New York."

Habibullah encouraged himself and added a prerequisite to his wish, "If there is no war."

"You will have a chance in the future," Wei Ran said as he pressed the shutter button towards the young man.

"Well, the war is almost over," Habibullah said. "I will go to the United States after the war is over, if I am still alive by then."

At this point, he glanced at his nephew Murtaza who was boiling goat milk, and after Wei Ran took a photo of him, he said, "Murtaza also wants to visit the United States."

"You will all have a chance." Before Wei Ran finished speaking, Mahbub came back carrying a milk can.

Almost at the same time, Habibullah also lit the second oil stove, reached into the donkey's pocket, took out a glass bottle, unscrewed it, pinched a small amount of black tea from it and put it into a cloth bag the size of a cigarette box and tied it up. Then he opened a glass jar, pinched a pinch of coarse salt and threw it into the jar of goat milk.

Immediately afterwards, Mahbub carried the milk can and asked everyone, including Wei Ran and himself, to wash their hands briefly. Then he placed the remaining half can of water on the lit oil stove and threw the cloth bag of black tea into it.

While the goat milk and black tea were boiling, the three generations of grandparents and grandchildren spread their blankets on the ground, put their hands together in front of them, and reverently began the noon prayer.

After pressing the shutter button towards the three people again, Wei Ran politely took off the camera and placed it on his suitcase, and then took over the task of looking after the goat milk and black tea.

When the goat milk and black tea boiled one after another, the three generations of grandparents and grandchildren completed their prayers. Mahbub took out two naan breads from the donkey's cloth bag, broke them in half, and gave half of the bread to each person.

At the same time, Murtaza also took out four enamel jars, and Habibullah picked up the small milk can and poured the goat milk into the four enamel jars evenly.

Behind him, Mahbub also picked up the pitcher and poured the boiling black tea inside into the pot.

“Just eat something.”

Mahbub said apologetically, "This is all we have to entertain our guests now."

“This is already very good”

Wei Ran thanked him politely and offered his suitcase as a dining table.

When the older Mahbub started eating first, he followed their example, pinching a piece of naan with his right hand, dipping it in the enamel pot of milk tea and putting it into his mouth.

It is hard to describe this meal as delicious or not, but it was very cold in this weather where the temperature was only in the single digits above zero at most.

A cup of hot tea that was enough to warm up his body and replenish protein and salt, as well as enough carbohydrates, was enough to satisfy him.

Listening to the three generations of grandparents and grandchildren chatting about some unknown topic in a language he couldn't understand, the only thing Wei Ran could do was to raise his camera and take another photo of the three of them having dinner.

It took almost an hour from preparation to packing to finish the simple lunch. Wei Ran followed the three of them on the road again, moving step by step towards the unknown destination.

Inevitably, he was also curious.

What exactly is the Afghan guerrillas like from another perspective, and what kind of war will I record when I enter the battlefield again as a reporter.

But at the same time, he was also aware of another fact, which was contradictory: the invaders this time were the Soviet Union, which had been invaded before. The invaded this time would take revenge in Grozny in a few years in a bloody and cruel way.

Perhaps this is what war is all about, in a sense there is never absolute justice.

Ahem, based on this book I am literally and medically depressed.

So I might start writing another book next month just to change my mind, otherwise I might kill myself if I keep writing like this.

In summary, here are the key points:

This book is not abandoned, it is not finished, and it will not be updated or reduced in volume. I just want to change my mind.

So don’t make groundless guesses. This book probably won’t be finished in the short term and will never be discontinued.

That’s about it, but I haven’t decided whether to publish the third book or not.

After all, this is the first time I’m opening the third book, and I really don’t have much experience, so the final right of interpretation lies with me.

If it’s open, it’s open. If it’s not open, just treat it as me farting.

That’s it, let’s adjourn the meeting.