War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 377 The friend is here
Seeing that there were less than five days left before the Chinese New Year, Wei Ran and Suisui, who had had enough fun at Dali, also landed at the Capital Airport on a rebooked flight, and rented a car early in the afternoon of the next day. He picked up a business car that was spacious enough to pick up Sui Sui's parents who came back for the New Year, and Ji Ma who came to China for the holiday.

Before the car driven by Wei Ran got out of the parking lot, Ji Ma eagerly grabbed the back of the seat and asked, "Victor, have you prepared enough fireworks and wine? You Chinese wine!"

"Don't worry, there is definitely enough for you to drink."

Wei Ran looked at the suit and leather shoes he was wearing through the rearview mirror. Even the hairstyle seemed to be specially designed, so that he looked more like a groom's official Ji Ma. He couldn't help asking curiously, "Why are you dressed so formally?"

"It's that old guy Gorman"

Ji Ma tugged on his tie, and said helplessly, "He said that I'm going to be a star soon, so no matter where I go, I have to pay attention to my image."

"Don't listen to his nonsense"

Professor Alexei, who had been at odds with Jima for the past few days before returning to China, immediately exposed the moisture in the former's words, "I never heard Gorman talk about this kind of thing, but when he called you Let you keep a low profile."

"You got it wrong," Jima defended blankly.

"These two idiots," Zhou Shujin muttered in Chinese, and simply took out an eye mask and a pair of earplugs and put them on to avoid jet lag.

During the endless bickering between Jima and Professor Alexei, the car driven by Wei Ran drove through the sparse traffic all the way to the high-speed rail station.

Taking the fresh Ji Ma along the way, a group of people boarded the high-speed train bound for Baiyangdian. After Ji Ma found his seat, he immediately took out a coin from his pocket and immediately got ready. On the window sill, when the car started to run, he immediately took out two action cameras, hung one of them on his chest, and held the other in his hand to take pictures of the speedometer and the coins on the window sill from time to time.

"What are you doing?" Wei Ran, who was sitting next to Jima, couldn't help asking.

"I want to see if what is said on YouTube is true"

Jima said solemnly, "If it is true, I will send it to my parents and let them see it. If there is a chance in the future, I will bring them here to see it."

"Hope you have a good time"

Wei Ran saw that this guy was rarely serious, so he didn't bother to say anything. He had long been accustomed to this kind of thing in China and took it for granted, but it made foreigners like Jima feel unbelievable. He went to school in Russia. I have been taught more than once since the beginning of the year.

Among other things, just swiping his face to buy a drink before getting in the car made Ji Ma, who had always said to maintain a good image on the road, put out various emojis in front of the camera of the vending machine like a fool.

Even this guy insisted on taking a photo of Wei Ran with his mobile phone, and then tried to use the photo on the phone screen to point at the camera to get a bug and change a bottle of drink to try.

"Everything here is just new to me." Ji Ma's expression is rare and serious, "but to my parents, especially my father, it has a different meaning."

"Why do you say that?" Wei Ran, who didn't intend to disturb Ji Ma, asked curiously.

"My father is a shoveling party member." Jima paused, and then emphasized, "Of course, I'm talking about a shoveling party member in the Soviet era."

"so what?"

"Although he was just an ordinary coal miner before, he always believed that only Su Gong could lead him to live the life he wanted."

Jima said here with a simple and honest grin, "Before my father knew that I was going to China, he told me on the phone that he wanted me to take a look for him to see if your China has created something that should have been created by the Soviet Union. Take the imaginary world they created and see if it can do better than the Russia that broke up and formed."

Wei Ran was stunned, and said confidently with a smile on his face, "I hope that everything you see in the next few days will not disappoint him. In addition, at this time next year, you can take your parents with you." Get up here and celebrate the festival with us."

"Before that, I'll take some pictures of things they're interested in." Jima said, pointing the action camera in his hand at the clean and tidy carriage.

"Before the Soviet Union disintegrated, I was also a party member for shoveling. Unfortunately, I was approved to join the party less than two years ago, and the Soviet Union was gone."

Professor Alexis, who was across the aisle, said with emotion in Chinese that Jima couldn't understand, "But I promise, the parents of that little bastard Jima will definitely not be disappointed."

"You two bastards almost moved me."

Wei Ran secretly made up a sentence about Professor Alexei who is about to change from uncle to father-in-law and his good friend Jima, but he didn't say any ridicule.

Sui Sui and Zhou Shujin, who were sitting next to Professor Alexei, didn't notice what the three men were talking about.

It was only less than an hour and a half by car, but Ji Ma held the action camera alone with great interest, and visited all the carriages he could go to. Borrowing a mobile phone and learning to pay by scanning the code, he went to the dining car and bought a braised beef rice bowl that he thought was good, but Wei Ran and others didn't touch it, and a can It was okay, but when he finished it it felt like beer watered down.

Chatting about these differences all the way, everyone left the high-speed railway station, and Wei Ran, who was familiar with the road, hired a van to do work on the side of the road and rushed to his grandma's house.

Although I haven't been here for more than half a month, the two courtyards that have been connected together in the true sense have been cleaned up. Although the newly built house of Grandpa Sui's house is not yet usable, at least the doors and windows have been installed. Marble floors were laid, and even a plastic greenhouse full of vegetable seedlings was re-installed in the middle of the two houses, near the well.

Although there is one more quarter horse coming back this year, and one family's house is missing, but for this small village that is originally a tourist attraction, it is really lacking in everything, and it is impossible to lack a house for people. The neighbors of the small travel agency run by Wei Ran's parents can let Jima change rooms from the twelfth lunar month to the end of the first lunar month without repeating the same.

But obviously, for Jima, a hunter who used to sleep in the wilderness often, except for the burning hot kang, he was a little excited. He really didn't care about the rest except the arrangement of the hunter's cabin that started construction.

On the contrary, the glass jar of medicated wine that Mr. Zhou soaked for bruises, under the lavish packaging of the professor who has been preparing to trick him again, seems to have become a fusion of mysterious power from the East China, able to The secret magic medicine that makes a man take the lead in a literal sense.

"Victor, is what the professor said true?" Jima, who had already dragged the professor into the blacklist of dishonest persons in his heart, turned his head and asked Chao Weiran expectantly, "If it is true, can you give me a lesson?" Bottle? I have a friend."

"fake"

Wei Ran shook his head angrily. If he really drank those medicinal wines for external use, and the amount was still in a bottle, he didn't know whether Jima's so-called "friend" would be able to take the lead by himself, but this New Year's Eve might not be enough. It is definitely a certainty to have a meal in advance.

As the two elders pulled Wei Ran, Suisui, and Zhou Shujin to ask about their health, as well as the bickering between the two boys sitting on the kang, the sky darkened little by little, and Wei Ran's parents finally finished their work on the last day of the year , and rushed back with a car full of New Year’s goods.

And that night, Ji Ma, who had an action camera hanging on his chest from beginning to end, also fulfilled his wish and personally experienced Wei Ran's so-called drinking.

While they are bustling with preparations for the new year, Chen Guangling from the capital is still practicing piano with his son Chen Luoxiang from early morning to late at night, taking the time to prepare for the next year's apprenticeship, and his wife is responsible for the new year's eve. all preparations.

For their ordinary family, although such an ordinary life is not easy, at least it is considered happy and stable, enough for the children raised by the couple to put aside all scruples, pursue their dreams, do want to do.

And for Katenka from Italy, a girl who is destined to have little to do with "ordinary", today is also the sixth time that she invites Monica to the second floor of the Guppy Well Pasta Restaurant to taste desserts and play games together day.

Compared with the first chat in the dessert shop next to the amusement park, after getting along these days, this Monica, who suffers from severe social fear, has obviously regarded Katenka as someone in the real world except Matthew and Tata. Outside of West, the only good friend who can open up.

As a friend, Kajianka also generously gave her a computer with such high configuration that she hardly dared to accept it as a gift after learning that the other party had no friends in reality.

"Katenka, this gift is too expensive." Monica said in a panic, even her tone began to tremble a little, and her hands were nervously kneading the buttons of her cuffs, not knowing how to refuse.

"We're good friends already, aren't we?"

Katenka gently pushed a plate of cakes to the other party, and said with a little distance, "You don't even refuse gifts from friends, do you?"

"But."

"Nothing but"

Katenka picked up the mobile phone on the table and looked at the time, then ate the cake on his plate, "I'll get the monitor, you get the host, I'm off work time, I don't want to give my boss more work One minute."

Before he finished speaking, Kajianka put on the windbreaker hanging on the hanger, picked up the big box containing the monitor with difficulty, and walked towards the stairs with difficulty.

Monica glanced at Katenka, then at the unpacked chassis at hand, and after a moment of hesitation, she accepted the first one in the real world besides Matthew and Tassie. A gift from a friend.

(End of this chapter)