War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 296 It's Not All Touched, It's Not All Conspiracy
The desolate simple pier was illuminated by kerosene lamps and half-track motorcycle lights. Seeing that Eric had calmed down, Wei Ran sighed and motioned for Eric to help carry the two reindeer corpses to the sleigh.

"What are you going to do?" Eric looked at Wei Ran dully and asked.

"Live"

Wei Ran pointed to the surging aurora above his head, "Whether it's to find the real murderer or return to Norway alive, we have to stay here long enough. The food reserves at the weather station are running low. Now, these two reindeer will keep us going longer."

"I'm going to wait here for Leo," Eric said stubbornly.

"Maybe Leo has already gone to the weather station?" Wei Ran once again gave the opponent a false target.

"Yes, he will definitely go to the weather station to find me! Let's go back to the weather station!"

At a loss, Eric thought for a while, picked up a piece of reindeer skin and spread it out, then took out a pencil from his bag, wrote something on the hairless side of the reindeer skin, and then took off the skin on his neck. scarf and tied it to the sleigh.

Too lazy to ask Eric, who seemed to be abandoned by everyone, what he wrote this time, Wei Ran called the other party for help, and moved one of the carcass of the reindeer to the sleigh with difficulty, and then lifted the carcass of the other reindeer to the half-track The motorcycle is not too big to be tied to the cargo box.

"Go, go."

Wei Ran signaled Eric to get in the car, twisted the accelerator, drove the severely overloaded antique, dragged the same overloaded sled, and slowly moved forward on the snowy field.

Eric, who was riding on the carcass of a reindeer, wrapped the animal skin blanket tightly around his body, and fell silent while watching the 1911 pistol he just picked up in his hand. Take a look at your surroundings.

However, the only thing he could see on Bear Island shrouded in polar night were the auroras that had fascinated him so much.

Putting down the binoculars, Eric took out the hand-cranked generator radio he found on the sleigh and stuck it to his ears, and at the same time began to slowly shake the generator lever on it.

Amidst the piercing noise, he could barely hear the Norwegian Christmas songs on the radio channel and the various blessings read out by the radio host.Trying to change the channel, he put the radio on his ear and continued to shake, hoping to hear some useful news from it.

However, the signal that this palm-sized radio can receive is really limited. Most of the time, what he hears is all kinds of meaningless noise and Soviet radio stations that he can't understand at all.

Under the slow drag of the half-track, it took the two of them more than two hours to rush back to the valley of the weather station.But to Eric's disappointment, the iron door of the cave was still locked, and there was no sign of it being opened at all.

Seeing the distraught Eric walk into the cave, Wei Ran dismissed the idea of ​​asking the other party for help, and pushed the two reindeer corpses onto the snow by himself, then took out the anti-Japanese machete from the metal book, and brutally froze the two reindeer corpses. The ice lump of reindeer broke down into large and small pieces of meat.

He didn't even waste the internal organs of the reindeer, he took them out one by one and put them aside to freeze.It was also when dismantling the reindeer meat that Wei Ran accidentally discovered the bullet still stuck in the meat.

Although the bullets have been deformed, they can still be distinguished. They are the bullets of fat .45 pistol rounds.

This further verified Wei Ran's previous suspicion. Since the two reindeer were killed by pistols, it is even more impossible for Leo to do it.

Looking up at the direction of the cave, Wei Ran moved in all the pieces of meat and other things on the sleigh, and then cleaned the cooling water tank on the half-track motorcycle before walking into the warm cave.

In the warm cave illuminated by kerosene lamps, Eric was busy taking pictures of the weather data with his camera, as if he wanted to numb himself with work.

Sighing, Wei Ran picked up the hand crank radio on the table and looked at it, then looked at the two radio stations by the stove, after some thought, picked up the screwdriver he found earlier, and disassembled the radio , and began to try to assemble a large radio out.

Compared with repairing the radio station itself, this modification work is much simpler. After Wei Ran started the fuel generator outside the wooden door and connected the power supply to the circuit full of the table, the dismantled radio horn also rang. murmur.

The movement here naturally attracted Eric's attention, and he immediately put down his work and came over.

Wei Ran looked at the other party, then gently turned the knob to adjust the radio channel.With the help of the antennas of the previous two radio stations extending all the way out of the cave, the signal of this radio was much better, and it took no effort at all to receive the signal of the All-Su Radio Station.

Before Wei Ran finished listening to the Soviet songs on this radio station, Eric started to turn the knob and changed to a Norwegian channel that Wei Ran could not understand. Fortunately, this channel was also playing songs, although he could not understand the lyrics , but at least you can hear the melody.

Seeing that Eric had diverted his attention, Wei Ran temporarily let go of his worries, and started busy preparing for something to eat. By the way, he thought about telling the other party his previous analysis and guess after the other party calmed down.

And Eric, who was behind him, had already changed the channel of the radio station at this time, listening carefully to what the host on the radio station was saying in Norwegian, and at the same time, his expression became more and more serious. pale.

Turning his head to look at Wei Ran, who was heating up the previously prepared meal, Eric gently picked up the pistol on the table, and pressed his chin with the blood-stained muzzle of the gun.

"Leo is not a murderer," Eric said tearfully.

"Of course he didn't kill. What are you going to do?"

Wei Ran was taken aback when he looked up, he dropped the small stainless steel pot that was about to be put on the stove and was about to run over.

However, before he touched the opponent's body, Eric had already closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger very simply!
"boom!"

The deafening gunshots echoed in the warm cave for a long time, and Eric, who lost his life, fell to the floor with his head up.At the same time, intense white light also filled Wei Ran's field of vision.

"Why did you commit suicide?"

When he recovered from his astonishment, he realized that he had returned to the bedroom on the second floor of the studio.

With the sound of flipping pages, the metal book automatically stopped at page 14, and the metal quill wrote the follow-up story under the black and white photo as if no one was there:
Conspiracy under the polar night
On December 1988, 12, gold prospector Leo was shot and killed by his best friend Captain Martin, who used the radio to send a distress message, planted Leo to kill Professor Jonas, and escaped on another ship.

Captain Martin, Professor Jonas, died on December 1988, 12 when his fishing boat struck an ice floe.

Eric, on December 1988, 12, because he mistakenly believed the arrest warrant issued by the radio station against Leo, he committed suicide after burning all the weather data in the cave left by the weather station. His body was found in the summer of 21 and his family bring back.

At this point, the metal quill wrote in another line, "For the sake of treasure, some people choose to weave lies, some choose to betray their friends, and some choose to trust, but then waver in desperation."

Under Wei Ran's gaze, the page was turned to the back, and the metal quill continued to write under the slowly rotating red swirl, "Your cooking skills are actually as good as Leo's."

Dazed, Wei Ran was about to reach out to take out the things in the red vortex, but found that the metal quill continued to write on the blank page 15:
Not all stories are moving, and not all stories are conspiracies, but the characters in each story were once a living life.

When the photographer behind the lens presses the shutter, should he stick to justice, kindness, or objective truth in his heart?For those people who have been forgotten by history, do they stick to justice, kindness, or their own beliefs or dreams until their death?What price did the characters in front and behind the camera pay for their inner persistence?
After writing this, the metal quill paused for a moment, and then a red and blue swirl appeared directly below the text.

Under Wei Ran's gaze, the metal quill wrote under the quill, "Ten survival rewards, [-] kilometers warranty."

By the time the metal quill fell to the table with a clang, he had roughly guessed what the reward was for this time.

Carrying the metal notebook and crawling downstairs, Wei Ran checked the locked shutter door, and then took out the things in the red vortex.

What made him laugh and cry was that the red vortex contained a Heinze flatbread oven and a matching stainless steel pot that had been used on Bear Island at that time.And in the small stainless steel pot, there was even a small piece of stinky pickled herring.

"Compared to pickled herring, am I as good a cook as Leo?"

Wei Ran couldn't laugh or cry, picked up the lighter-sized piece in the small stainless steel pot, and stuffed it into his mouth with a strange sour smell.

After eating the gift that Eric left for himself, Wei Ran breathed a sigh of relief, resisting the rising nausea, and then summoned ten survival reward items.

Both expected and unexpected, the reward this time is really that half-track motorcycle.It's just that the white-painted half-track front wheels are not sleds but the original normal wheels.At the same time, on the driving seat, there is a thick and heavy polar bear skin, and in its rear bucket, there are rolled canvas tents and reindeer skin blankets.

"Blood earns!"

Wei Ran circled around and observed this half-track motorcycle that was almost in factory condition, then as if remembering something, he opened the metal book again, and took out the only one in it from the paper bag beside the black and white photo a negative of .

Looking at the light on the working table, the content of this negative is not the meteorological data, but the scene when they celebrated their discovery together in the cave.Not only is there no shadow of Wei Ran in this negative, even this negative was not taken by him or any of the other three.

It's just a pity that not long after this photo, Eric and others had completely different experiences that led to the same goal.

(End of this chapter)