War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 176 Trivia on the Road and Youth in the Mist
After a long flight, Wei Ran's flight finally landed at the Capital Airport smoothly.

After waiting for a while to pick up his luggage, Wei Ran, who was still not in a good mood, left the waiting hall slowly, and found an online car-hailing car that he had contacted in advance in the parking lot.

Chatted with the over-enthusiastic driver, but just as he was about to fall asleep, the car finally stopped at the gate of Sui Suinian's university.

When he came back this time, he didn't plan to go home for the time being. Since he didn't plan to go home, the luggage could only be placed here with Sui Sui.

After dialing Sui Sui's number, the latter learned that he had arrived at the gate of the school, and immediately hung up the phone yelling, and within ten minutes, he rushed over on a battery car.

"You really came back so early?" Sui Sui asked beamingly, "Our school won't send the report card so early."

"I didn't come back for your report card"

Wei Ran patted the suitcase and piano case that were left together, "These two suitcases will be stored in your dormitory for two days, and I have to go out before I go home."

"Where are you going? To meet your girlfriend?" Sui Sui immediately became interested when she heard the words, and even on that overly curious little face, the village leader Widow Liu and Aunt Wang were gossiping. expression.

"Meet a fart girlfriend"

Wei Ran said angrily, "I'll be back in two or three days, please take care of the things, especially the piano case, don't break it, and, have you bought the things I asked you to buy?"

"Oh! I got it!" Sui Sui immediately handed a backpack to Wei Ran, "Why do you want this thing?"

"Of course it's useful. I'm leaving first. I'm running out of time."

Wei Ran didn't wait for Suisui to agree after finishing speaking, bent down and got into a taxi that had just stopped, and disappeared in a blink of an eye.

"There must be something wrong with being so anxious"

Sui Sui muttered something, bent down and carried the suitcase and piano case onto her little e-Donkey, turned the accelerator and drove towards the dormitory with difficulty.

On the other side, Wei Ran, who was sitting in the taxi, was not idle either. From time to time, he would hold up the Rollei SLR, facing the ordinary street scene outside the car window, the congested traffic on the elevated highway, and the colorful scenes along the way. The hurried office workers pressed the shutter again and again.

"Dude just came to BJ, right?"

Although the taxi driver with a mouthful of Beijing movies is only driving a somewhat worn-out tram, but with a relaxed expression on his face and skilled operation in his hands, he is completely as good as pulling a tram. It looked like a box of tofu that was urgently needed to cross the Qiumingshan Highway.

"Just here" Wei Ran replied indifferently, while speaking, he raised his camera and took a picture of a tall building in the distance.

"Your camera looks old"

The driver said with a look of nostalgia, "I have seen this kind of camera when I was a child. The camera of the old seagull is similar to the one in your hand. It has been so many years, who would have thought that now, any mobile phone is better than the one at that time. It's clear."

"yes."

Wei Ran silently pressed the shutter on the overpass outside the car window, "The common people at that time certainly did not expect that we can live like this today."

"Who said no!"

The driver's chatterbox was completely opened up with Wei Ran's exclamation, and he talked about the changes around him from childhood to adulthood without repeating the whole process.

From the food stamps that were never enough when I was a child, to the TV sets that can only be bought by queuing up to get married when I got married, from the crowded and leaky one-story courtyard to the house that was demolished and relocated.From the 212 small jeep that veered off when you stepped on the brakes, to the domestic electric taxis you drive now.Even the standard of judging beautiful girls in their area when they were young, now he has some internet celebrities that he can't understand.

Of course, those more and more advanced weapons and so on are naturally indispensable in the small talk.These trivial words are filled with hope, happiness and pride.Only without the despair and fear that filled the hearts of every Chinese citizen in early 1938.

Wei Ran, who has become an audience member, put on a new film silently, looked out the window at the high-speed rail station getting closer and muttered to himself, "If they can see everything today, maybe they should be happy .”

"What did you say?" the driver, who had already brought the topic to the stupid old beauty who was not a thing, asked suspiciously.

"No, nothing"

Wei Ran shook his head, paid the fare, bid farewell to the enthusiastic driver, and walked into the bustling high-speed rail station.While waiting for the bus, I found a corner, put the bright, clean and extremely busy waiting hall into the frame, and pressed the shutter again.

Also photographed by him is the high-speed rail train he saw after the ticket check and the speed information when it ran to the highest speed.There is also the shiny coin standing firmly on the window sill, the wheat fields covered with a thin layer of snow outside the window, and the villages and towns surrounded by wheat fields.

It wasn't until the train stopped at Tengzhou Station that he put away his camera contentedly, and took a taxi non-stop to the Teng County Defense Battle Site.

Compared with Teng County in 1938, the city has undergone earth-shaking changes today.Li Hexian and his comrades could not have imagined the dense buildings, flat streets, and even the sense of security that they would never have to worry about bombers and shells flying overhead.

It was only less than two kilometers away. When the car stopped, Wei Ran stared at the simple monument on the side of the road for a while, waiting to see the old people and children having leisure activities in the surrounding square, as well as the bustling people on the side of the road A smile appeared on his face again when he was in traffic.

Perhaps Li Hexian, and more people like Li Hexian, they don't need a big monument. The leisurely and peaceful life around them is what they want to see most.
"Master, please wait for me."

After Wei Ran finished speaking, he opened the car door, and took out from his bag the small white porcelain jar that he had asked Suisui to help buy before he came back.

"Squad Leader Li, I'll take you home."

Wei Ran took out the group photo of Li Hexian and Miss Zhou Jia and gently placed it on the platform under the monument, gently stroking the cold monument, and after a while, he gently dug up handfuls of soil with his hands, Carefully put it into the white porcelain jar.

Just as he started to do it, an aunt who was watching a square dance trotted over, pointed at Wei Ran and said, "Why are you so heartless, how dare you dig?"

Halfway through the conversation, the aunt immediately realized something after seeing the white porcelain jar Wei Ran was holding in her hand and the black-and-white photo pressed by her mobile phone. She abruptly stopped cursing and asked cautiously, " Younger, you are."

Wei Ran raised his head, pointed to the soldiers engraved on the side of the monument, "Send one of them home."

The aunt was taken aback when she heard the words, and after sighing, she silently took out her elderly phone, turned on the flashlight function on it, and stood quietly to help Wei Ran light up.

Soon, the other aunts who were dancing in the square also gathered around curiously. After a while of whispering, the speakers playing grassland music in the distance quieted down, and there were several more around Wei Ran. A stranger holding a mobile phone to help illuminate.

At the same time, some parents with their children whispered to their children in dialect.

After a long time, the white porcelain urn was finally filled with soil, Wei Ran carefully picked up the photo that was pressed by the phone, and said as if no one was there, "Squad leader Li, we should go, I will take you back to Sichuan to have a look! "

As he said that, Wei Ran picked up the heavy white porcelain urn, solemnly saluted the not-so-big monument with a non-standard military salute, and then bowed to the strangers around him. He picked up his backpack and walked towards the rough vehicle that had been waiting on the side of the road.

When the taxi stopped at the gate of the train station, the taciturn driver tore off the payment QR code and put it in his pocket, then got out of the car and opened the door for Wei Ran himself, and said in Mandarin with an accent, " Let's go, this money can't be accepted. In addition, according to the rules of our elders here, don't look back on the road, young man, have a safe journey."

"Thank you!"

With red eyes, Wei Ran bowed solemnly again, walked into the station with a backpack containing a white porcelain urn, found a remote place and sat down silently, waiting patiently for a K-shaped bus that went straight to Chengdu. head train.

This nearly 30-hour train is definitely not the fastest, let alone the most comfortable, but like the driver said, at least it will not go back.

It was midnight, the transit train stopped on the platform on time, Wei Ran followed the information on the ticket and walked into the soft sleeper compartment.

As the train slowly accelerated again, Wei Ran put the backpack in his hand on the corner of the bunk, then took out a bottle of white wine and two disposable cups from his pocket, filled them up, In the empty carriage, he quietly talked about the changes in later generations that he hadn't had time to finish talking to Li Hexian at that time.

The long 29 hours and 30 minutes passed quietly in Wei Ran's self-talk, and when the train stopped at the terminal, the sky outside the window was already pale.

"Go home"

Wei Ran, who was already a little tipsy, carefully picked up the white porcelain urn in his bag, and whispered to himself as he walked out, "Squad Leader Li, I will send you to the starting point of Chuchuan back then. You put it there temporarily. Then I will go to Sui'an's son, and I will ask him what he means. If he wants to invite you back to your Zigong, then I will not stop him."

Completely ignoring the surprised gazes of the people around him, Wei Ran walked out of the station without haste, and with the help of mobile phone navigation, he walked step by step to Shaocheng Park, which is five kilometers away. The city, smelling the spicy aroma that occasionally floats through the nose, listening to those slightly familiar but very strange dialects.

Walking through streets and intersections, Wei Ran finally saw the monument to the fallen soldiers of the Sichuan Army standing at the intersection when the sun had already risen half of his body.

After a little hesitation, he walked into the park and asked the old man who got up early to exercise, and finally found a tall and straight sweet-scented osmanthus tree in the corner of the park.

Gently placing the white porcelain urn that had been carried all the way under the tree, a slender Mauser bayonet appeared in Wei Ran's hand.

Using this bayonet, he dug a shallow pit under the tree, gently put the white porcelain urn and the film taken along the way into it, covered it with moist soil, and then took out the big red food box.

As the lid was opened, a stream of water vapor and a faint scent of osmanthus blossoms also evaporated from the large white porcelain bowl.

In a trance, Wei Ran seemed to see in the steaming mist a young soldier wearing a military uniform with a 20-ring belly box hanging on his waist, a large knife and a brand-new bamboo hat on his back.

The soldier whose face could not be seen clearly stood up straight in the midst of many soldiers who were dressed in the same clothes, and let a short-haired woman who was wearing a cheongsam in the national uniform, but also could not see her face clearly, use a spoon to take one piece of cotton Put the glutinous rice balls into your mouth, and put a spoonful of clear soup sprinkled with sweet-scented osmanthus into your mouth.

In the end, the young soldier simply took the large white porcelain bowl, and amidst the laughter of many comrades-in-arms, he raised his head and drank all the soup in it.Finally, before everyone could react, they mustered up the courage to hug the thin woman in cheongsam.

Gradually, the water mist from the bowl of glutinous rice balls that was getting cold became thinner and thinner, and the face of the young soldier became clearer.

Until the end, when Wei Ran saw that it was indeed Li Hexian, the other party took the happy-faced Ms. Zhou with one hand, and while standing up straight, slowly raised her right hand towards Wei Ran, and at the same time the A trace of bookish face also evoked a satisfied smile.

Almost subconsciously, Wei Ran also stood up straight and raised his right hand to the height of his eyebrows.But before he could react, the cool wind blew away the remaining mist, and the two hazy figures disappeared in an instant.

When Wei Ran, who was in tears, came back to his senses, he found that the food box under his feet had disappeared at some point.

"Illusion?" Wei Ran murmured to himself, and then he noticed that the tattoo on the tiger's mouth on his left hand was hot for a while but could not be ignored.

Resisting the urge to take it out and have a look immediately.He took one last look at the carefully buried ground under the sweet-scented osmanthus tree, walked out of the park and found a hotel to stay.

After he made a careful inspection and confirmed that the room was safe, he summoned the weird book that had been wrapped in metal, and the latter was automatically turned to the back of the eighth page.

With just a glance, Wei Ran noticed that under the slowly rotating red vortex, the original sentence "Miss Zhou's rice balls cooked by herself" has been replaced by "I exchanged it with two taels of shredded tobacco". small print.

He stretched out his hand to pick out the contents of the red vortex. This time it was still the food box from before, but the weight was frighteningly large.Gently lifted the cover of the first layer, and to Wei Ran's great surprise, it was full of 9mm pistol bullets!
　Only one update today, sorry
　　
　
(End of this chapter)