War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 389 April Fool's Day

On April Fool's Day, when Wei Ran woke up from his bedroom on the second floor of the studio, it was already drizzling outside the window, and the statue of the motherland on the top of Mamayev Hill in the distance seemed to be covered with a hazy light. It looks like yarn.

And outside the locked shutter door, the professor who came back with his boss Alexander half a month ago has been waiting for a long time.

"Victor, did you hide the girl in the studio?"

Professor Alexey went around to the side of the bedroom window, and while yelling, he bent down to pick up a small stone and smashed it accurately on the glass window.

Looking at the new cracks on the glass window covered with tape, Wei Ran yawned, put on his clothes, staggered downstairs and opened the locked shutter door.

"When did you come back?" Professor Alexey said while putting the breakfast in his hand on the table.

“Flight last night”

Wei Ran yawned again, stretched out his hand to pinch a meat bun from the insulated lunch box, stuffed it into his mouth, took a bite, and asked vaguely while chewing, "Aren't you going to work today?"

"No rush, it's not yet eight o'clock in the morning, I have enough time to rush there."

While Professor Alexey was speaking, he took out a small bottle of gin from the cracks of the historical materials on the bookshelf and unscrewed it. Only then sat down opposite Wei Ran contentedly.

"What do you want from me?" Seeing that the other party hesitated to speak, Wei Ran simply put down the second meat bun, "Say it straight?"

"Are you really planning to move the studio to Kazan?" Professor Alexei asked.

Hearing this, Wei Ran nodded bluntly, and came up with an excuse that he had thought up a long time ago, "After all, I am studying there, and it is too troublesome to travel back and forth every month, and the air ticket alone costs a lot of money."

"My good nephew, I will miss you in the future." Professor Alexey said pretendingly.

"Why don't you just tell the truth?" After Wei Ran finished speaking, he picked up the meat bun that he had just put down and took a hard bite.

"When did you get so smart, bastard?"

Professor Alexei, who was brewing a relationship, was immediately discouraged, "Actually, there is nothing to do, let's keep this studio that carries short memories. I will often come back with Aurora when I am not busy in the future."

"You..." Wei Ran, with a meat bun in his mouth, looked at the professor sitting opposite him in astonishment.

"What am I?"

Professor Alexey indifferently reached out and took out another wine bottle that was taped to it from under the long table, unscrewed the lid and took a sip, then said, "Although I often get drunk, Aurora is still a bottle of wine after all. It's my daughter, do you think you can hide this from us?"

"So...you know everything?" Wei Ran asked awkwardly.

"They're just pretending they don't know"

Professor Alexey poured the last sip of the wine bottle into his mouth, then threw the empty bottle with the remaining tape into the trash can, and continued, "We don't care about you and Aurora. Worried, but I don't want to keep this kind of thing in my heart and pretend I don't know.

Anyway, Aurora will be handed over to you, just like I handed over this studio to you back then.Of course, if one day you two have irreconcilable conflicts, I hope you can give me back my precious daughter as happily as a man like you gave me back this studio now. "

"Then you smashed a crack in the window with a small stone?"

Wei Ran got up and took out a bottle of vodka that the other party rarely drank from the refrigerator, and poured a full glass for the professor sitting opposite, "Don't worry, I will take good care of her."

"Then it's settled"

Professor Alexey drank the wine glass contentedly, hiccupped, stood up and walked out, and said, "Okay, I'm going to work. Remember to keep what we said just now secret."

"I'll take you there." Wei Ran reluctantly picked up the third steaming meat bun, stuffed it into his mouth, and chased him out of the studio.

"If I had known that you and Aurora would be so sensible when you were together, maybe you would both have children by now." Professor Alexey happily threw the car keys to Wei Ran, and got into the back room with peace of mind. Row.

"I'm afraid that you will be caught by the police for drunk driving like last time, or like the year before last, you would drive into the car by yourself when you got too drunk."

"To shut up!"

A moment ago, Professor Alexei, who looked like a father, patted the back of Wei Ran's seat angrily, "You little bastard who stole my precious daughter, you can drive quietly, or get out now Call me a taxi."

"I've learned a lot, so I won't let you talk about it." Wei Ran muttered something, and lightly stepped on the accelerator with a smile.

After taking Professor Alexei to Alexander's museum smoothly, Wei Ran, who came back by taxi, found a fat woman in a windbreaker standing at the door of the shutter door of the studio before he could take the taxi driver's change.

This is Diane?

Wei Ran was stunned. When he was in Germany years ago, he had a relationship with this woman under the recommendation of Mr. Hans. At that time, the other party invited him to join the World War II war that claimed to be Edelweiss as an investigator. Missing soldiers have been found by the organization.

I didn't seem to agree at the time, did I?
Taking advantage of the driver's time to give the change, Wei Ran secretly recalled it until he was sure that he did not agree, then he took the change from the driver, opened the car door enthusiastically and greeted him.

"Why is Ms. Diane interested in coming to my place?" Wei Ran asked while shaking hands with the other party.

"Of course I came to invite you again. Mr. Hans reminded me that your phone is not easy to get through, so I came directly." Diane said with a smile, "Can you please invite me in?"

"Wait a moment," Wei Ran said while bending down and opening the shutter door that was not locked at all, and warmly invited the other party to sit at the long table.

"Mr. Victor, I don't know how you think about the things we talked about in Germany last time?" Diane asked while Wei Ran was making coffee, "To be honest, I read your latest After the interview, I rushed to Volgograd."

"So you waited for a month?" Wei Ran asked in surprise.

"almost three weeks"

Diane politely took the coffee from the former, "But it's not as hard as you imagined. I took advantage of this time to go shopping in Volgograd, and I also took a vacation for myself."

"Frankly speaking, I haven't thought about the things we talked about before."

Wei Ran sat down and said apologetically, "The main reason is that I don't have enough time. In addition to being busy with this studio, I also have to attend classes. At the same time, the work at the film studio also takes up most of my time. time."

"Can I understand that you are refusing?" Diane asked with a look of disappointment.

"I'm not refusing." Wei Ran spread his hands regretfully, "It's just that I really don't have enough time, and maybe I can't devote too much energy to the job of investigator."

"If you just help us promote the Edelweiss Organization, it won't waste too much time." Diane sincerely made her last effort.

"Ms. Diane, I don't value fame and wealth." Wei Ran said nonsense seriously, "I don't want to be hindered by those illusory things to explore the historical truth."

"Then" Diane sighed in disappointment, "Okay, Mr. Victor, but if we need to investigate some historical truth in the future, can I trouble you?"

"Of course, of course there is no problem!" Wei Ran replied cheerfully, "This studio exists to understand the truth of history."

Hearing this, Diane forced a smile and changed the topic to other aspects.

After wasting a whole morning to dismiss the other party, Wei Ran immediately put this episode behind him.

Speaking of which, he mentioned this incident as early as the Chinese New Year, when Professor Alexey rarely stayed awake.The suggestion given by Professor Alexis is that the investigator's work should not be touched as much as possible, but there is no need to refuse the investigation of the historical truth itself.

According to this old guy, working for these corpse middlemen not only won't make any money, but if something really happened, he might even be taken as a scapegoat.

Among other things, especially for such a small organization that has just emerged, it is not new to run around with bones.At that time, the investigators who generally exist as "guests" don't care?

If you don't care about it, you will have a bad reputation, but if you don't care, how can you manage it?
A corpse costs at least one hundred dollars. The key is that it’s okay to get the corpse in exchange. At least another organization can sell it back. If you’re lucky, there’s some mayoral election in Germany. Like, maybe you can earn some money.But the problem is that if the other party really rolls up the corpse and runs away, it is really impossible to see even a bone.

Locking the shutter door again, Wei Ran began to think about what to bring from the studio to Kazan.

But after groping upstairs and downstairs, he realized that apart from the weapons and ammunition and real money and banknotes in the safe, there were not many personal belongings in the studio that could be regarded as his own in the true sense. There are only toothbrushes and towels in the bathroom, the clothes in the closet, and the SUV parked at the door.

As for the rest, they are basically Professor Alexei's stuff. No wonder the old guy came here early in the morning. He was not worried about Sui Sui. The old man was afraid that Wei Ran would secretly steal the books and materials he had collected Pack it up and take it away!

The belated Wei Ran shook his head dumbfounded, and sent all the crates of schnapps that he accidentally dug out just now to the travel agency next door, intending to leave them for Professor Alexei on April Fool's Day. The next unforgettable good memory.

(End of this chapter)