War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 505 Complex Human Nature

After steaming in the sauna, everyone did not rest after they came out, but was dragged by Gail to sit down again by the fireplace.

"Let's go ahead and have a drink!"

While Gail was speaking, he had already brought over the wine bottles and glasses on the dining table, "As Quentin said just now, this is the last time we drink as French, isn't it?"

"You just want to drink." Kang Tan said while holding the glass, "you don't need to make so many excuses."

Gail grinned and didn't refute, just poured a glass of wine for everyone, "Anyway, let's have a good drink today, and then sleep comfortably, tomorrow we will learn how to fuck Finnish."

"It feels like a dream." When Dorian spoke, he brought the wine glass that had just been filled to his mouth and drank it down.

"Then let this dream last longer!" Gail said, having refilled Dorian's wine.

Everyone continued the topic in the sauna room, talked for a long time by the warm fireplace, and drank up two bottles of potato wine with high alcohol content by the way.

Naturally, Wei Ran would not let go of such a rare opportunity. He got up without a trace and walked to the distance. He took out the Rollei dual-camera in the metal book, and pressed the shutter on the people who were chatting and laughing by the fireplace under the kerosene lamp.

With a soft "click", a strong white light rushed towards his face, Wei Ran also heaved a sigh of relief, and then waited patiently for any follow-up "story".

When the white light that filled the field of vision subsided, the scene in front of him had returned to the cabin floating on the water.At this point, he completely relaxed and turned his gaze to the metal book in his hand.

While he was waiting, the metal quill wrote under the black and white photo like no one else:
"Struggle on the Edge of the Battlefield"

Prisoner of war Quentin, German troops withdraw from Finland after the Battle of Lapland.Quentin used the name of Kantan to pretend to be a fur merchant, Eero, and occupied all his real estate in Inari.

After the end of World War II, Inari, who settled in Finland, continued to do business between Finland and the Soviet Union for a long time as a fur trader. In the winter of 1961, due to an accidental avalanche, Quentin, his wife, and his son passed away.

Gail, a prisoner of war, after the Battle of Lapland, the German army withdrew from Finland and assisted Quentin in business. In 1958, due to disagreement in business philosophy, the two stopped cooperating, and then ran a French restaurant in Inari alone.

In the winter of 1961, after the tragic death of the Quentin family, Gail and his family left Finland and returned to their hometown of Grenoble, France to settle down and continue to operate the restaurant. In 1988, Gail and his wife passed away due to illness, and the restaurant closed down the following year because of his son's poor management.

Quentin, a prisoner of war, returned to Paris after World War II to find his wife and daughter to no avail. He committed suicide by throwing himself into the Seine River on Christmas Day 1946.

Dorian, a prisoner of war, returned to his hometown of Lille to reunite with his parents after World War II. In the winter of the following year, with the support of Quentin and Gail, he ran a fur business locally.

In 1958, due to disagreement in business philosophy, he no longer cooperated with Quentin and turned to solid wood furniture.She has two sons and two daughters under her knees. Since the end of World War II, she has never disclosed her experience in Finland.

After writing this, the metal quill started a new line, first giving an extremely precise coordinate, and then listing a detailed address in Lille, France.

"What happened in 1958?" Wei Ran looked at the experiences of those people and fell into deep thought.

At the same time, the metal quill has written a new line to continue, "Human nature is complex, good people also do evil, evil people also do good, innocent people also have ugly sides."

This epilogue. Is it because of those fur traders who killed?Or because of Quentin?
In Wei Ran's thoughts, the page full of words was turned to the back, and the metal quill wrote under the slowly rotating red swirl, "Actually, living in a shelter built by oneself is more at ease than living in one robbed."

Sighing silently, Wei Ran reached into the red vortex and took out the contents.

Looking at the thick mitten in his hand, Wei Ran shook his head dumbfounded. This thing was made for himself by Kang Tan before he left the shelter, and he even got the request he made at that time to separate out the glove of his right index finger Satisfy.

The only difference might be that the workmanship of this pair of animal skin mittens is much better.

Putting it back in the metal book, Wei Ran sat down on the seat in the cabin and thought to himself, the harvest this time is not good or bad, although he only got a pair of gloves, but he also learned French at the same time, which is considered good.After all, I have even encountered the situation where I only got a pen, so I should be content.

In addition to the harvest, what concerned him the most was what happened in 1958, why Gail and Dorian both terminated their cooperation with Quentin.

After thinking about it, Wei Ran took out his satellite phone and entered the string of coordinates recorded in the metal book into the satellite map.

Just looking at the distance between the destination and himself, he can almost be sure that the location recorded in the coordinates should be the stronghold of the fur merchants led by Quentin.

At the same time, the distance between the two places is not too far, which also gave him the urge to go and have a look.

After thinking about it, Wei Ran heaved a sigh of relief, stood up and walked out of the cabin, squinted his eyes and looked at the sparkling lake, after some comparison, he found the reason why he discarded the half-track motorcycle and the two trailers. Location.

However, he was not in a hurry to try to see if he could find the half-track wreckage.Instead, he closed the hatch, carried the shotgun, and dragged the bathtub slowly towards the open space in the forest.

From a long distance, he saw Akim and Professor Alexei sitting on a log that had been sawed not long ago, each holding a bottle of wine and chatting. , and even some reindeer meat and cans that have been opened.

"Victor, you're finally back."

Professor Alexey pointed to the three corpses lying side by side in the distance, "Do me a favor, how about sending them into a coffin?"

"Why don't you do it yourself?" Wei Ran asked angrily.

"As you can see, we're eating."

Professor Alexey made an excuse with a playful smile, "It's too troublesome to wash your hands in this damn place, your hands are dirty anyway."

"I really appreciate you guys"

Wei Ran was too lazy to be serious with this old bastard, he picked up a light corpse and put it into the nearest wooden coffin, and asked at the same time, "Professor, what do you plan to do with these three corpses?"

"Tell me your opinion." Professor Alexis held a tomato and asked vaguely while sucking the juice inside.

"It depends on Mr. Akim's friend and Mr. Alexander's needs"

While speaking, Wei Ran had already picked up the second corpse, and after putting it into the second simple coffin, he continued, "If you don't want to cause unnecessary trouble, just find a place with a good view and bury it as a dead body." Nothing happened, it was the easiest."

"That's not going to work"

Professor Alexey refused without thinking, "Mr. Alexander has already bought all the things found here and the stories behind them. How can it be possible to pretend that nothing happened?"

"And my friend is definitely not willing to do this either." Akeem said after taking a sip of wine, "My friend and I are still counting on this to become famous."

"In that case, let the authorities know."

Wei Ran put the third corpse into the coffin, nailed up the simple coffin and said, "Give me a brief description of the discovery process, you guys will have another interview, and then talk about your speculations, for example, they may be from a certain place in southern Europe." State prisoners of war or something. I don’t know if you can make a movie of what happened here in the end, but I guess it’s okay to make you famous, and it’s definitely a good reputation.”

"You mean you don't want to investigate the story behind it?" Alexei asked reluctantly, frowning, which was related to his future.

"Why not investigate?"

Wei Ran asked back, "It's just a different method, a method that saves effort and makes you famous. Maybe someone knows what happened here?"

"You don't have the motivation to investigate because you don't have a commission, right?" Alexei asked suspiciously.

"It's called profit maximization"

Wei Ran stopped his hands and said, "If you don't believe me, you can ask Mr. Alexander, he will definitely be willing to do this. Although it is a bit troublesome, whether these corpses are exposed by the media or if someone who knows the insider is really found, it will be a big problem. News that can be discussed for a long time, isn't it?"

"My good nephew, you have convinced me."

Professor Alexei said with a smile on his face, "I'll contact Alexander, Akim, and you can also ask your friend to see what he wants to do."

"Before that, I think it's best to get these corpses to a place with a slightly lower temperature."

Before the two of them took out their satellite phones, Wei Ran lightly tapped the stubble-covered coffin board with an axe, "The sun here is as strong as if you had taken a big bowl of blue pills. Come down, they'll be stinking before long."

"It makes sense"

Akim immediately put away the satellite phone he just took out, "Well, let's send them to my friend's house first, the cellar of his house is big enough, there should be a place for these three poor people."

"Go back now?" Professor Alexey looked at the wine bottle in his hand with a embarrassed face.

"I'd better go now, while I've only had half a bottle of wine."

Akim poured another glass into his mouth while speaking, "Otherwise, when I drink too much, I will be in trouble if I accidentally fly the plane across the border."

"You still know that you've been drinking." Wei Ran twitched the corners of his mouth. Although this Akim has a Finnish wife, he is still a guy with alcohol flowing in his veins.

"That's right!"

Alexei also poured another glass of wine into his mouth, "In this case, we're leaving now. But Akeem, after sending the three of them there, I think it's necessary for us to come here and continue to sleep in tents for a few more days. "

"Until all the wine we brought is drunk?" Akim agreed, "It's like when we were at school in the name of summer duty."

"Don't mention the past"

Professor Alexis hurriedly stopped the former's unfinished words, obviously there were some secrets that Wei Ran didn't want to know.

(End of this chapter)