War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 526 Military Rank: Lieutenant

Early the next morning after receiving Dorian's memoirs, Wei Ran drove a rented car to Belgorod, which was more than [-] kilometers away.

Just like yesterday, Wei Ran patiently soaked in the local topography exhibition hall for a whole day, and then found a hotel that looked clean enough to stay.

In the blink of an eye, on the third day, Wei Ran drove away from the urban area, and with the help of the navigation, he found the first coordinate point recorded in the metal notebook.

Although the topography here has changed slightly over the past few decades, and there is a small town around, Wei Ran still recognizes it at a glance. To the little village where the dogs are on a leash.

"Could it be that there are other things in that cellar?"

Wei Ran looked at the dense cornfield outside the car window, and finally suppressed his inner impulse. No matter what was in the cellar, he was just a historian after all, not a digging party. Besides, he could only rely on himself. Relying on the coordinates provided in the metal book, trying to find the buried cellar in this cornfield would probably be a rather time-consuming project.

With this in mind, he immediately stepped on the accelerator and drove the car along the country road to the next coordinate point.

When the car stopped again, Wei Ran was stunned. Just on the right side of the road was a cemetery that was not too big.On the monument at the entrance of the cemetery, there is a T-34/76 tank parked. The barrel of this tank is pointed in the direction of the border.

On the not-so-clean stele, apart from a slightly rusty red five-pointed star, the words "Mass Cemetery of the Fifth Tank Army of the Soviet Steppe Front Army" were clearly written.

Pushing open the car door, Wei Ran walked into the cemetery located on the edge of the farmland in the outskirts, stepping on the stone road overgrown with wild grass.

Surrounded by a circle of birch trees next to the wall, there are stone tablets mottled with time.

Some of these not-so-big steles have been broken, some are covered with moss, and some have even blurred their handwriting.But they were neatly arranged horizontally and vertically as they were before they were alive, occupying an area almost half the size of a football field.

During the walk, Wei Ran could occasionally see withered wild flowers placed in front of the tombstone, or wild cats who didn't know where they came from, lying on the tombstone with four legs hanging in the air, basking in the rising sun leisurely.

Walking among these tombstones, Wei Ran carefully looked at the strange names engraved on them, and the numbers that had long been lost in the long river of history, trying to find the answer that he didn't know.

After a long time, Wei Ran stopped in front of a tombstone in the corner of the cemetery. On this tombstone, there were only the words "Agafon 29th Tank Army / In order to retake the Soviet Ukeran".But he knew that there was a high probability that the one buried here was that handsome loader.

"So you are here"

Wei Ran patted the tombstone lightly. After hesitating for a moment, he took out the portable flagon from the metal book, and gently poured the last bit of gin in it onto the weed-covered soil.

Putting away the empty jug, Wei Ran finally patted the tombstone that had been forgotten for an unknown amount of time, then turned around and left the almost deserted cemetery.

After inputting the last set of coordinate points into the electronic map, Wei Ran already guessed the approximate distance just by looking at the distance of only two or three kilometers away from him.

Getting back into the rented car, Wei Ran stepped on the accelerator and circled along the dirt road in the country, finally stopping at the edge of a field full of sugar beets.

Without getting out of the car at all, he just glanced at the muddy pond with a diameter of tens of meters beside the sugar beet field, and he knew that the T-34 tank with slogans painted on the turret might be sleeping on the side of the muddy pond.

Mrs. Valentina's husband, Vajim, who has been waiting for more than half a century, is probably inside the forgotten tank at this time.

After stopping at the edge of the farmland for a long time, Wei Ran finally took a step towards the muddy pond.

From a long distance, he could smell the familiar stench. Over half a century passed, this rotten mud pond has not changed much, but the area seems to be smaller.

Compared with the cemetery just passed by, there are no tombstones, no flowers, and perhaps no one knows what kind of memory is buried in the soil under their feet.

Bending down to pick up a piece of smelly mud, a fat loach slipped from the gap between the fingertips, followed by twisting its body and getting into the mud under the feet and disappeared.

After shaking off the mud on his hands, he wiped his pants carelessly, Wei Ran found a slightly clean ridge and sat down.Immediately afterwards, a camera bag made of hard horse leather appeared by his hand.

Opening the camera bag, Wei Ran took out the group photo inside, and a tired smile appeared on his face.

Although the metal book can miraculously send me back to the previous battlefield, and even use the guqin to relieve the depression in my heart, there are always some things that the guqin can't dissipate, such as the little girl who never forgets, such as sitting in this once. When I was on the battlefield, I couldn't help but think of the few friends I got along with for a short time.

However, just as he was in a daze, the tattoo on the tiger's mouth on his left hand flashed hot again for a split second.

"Is this another gift?" Wei Ran was stunned, put the photo in his hand into the camera bag, and then took out the metal book.

However, almost at the moment when he held the spine of the book, Wei Ran realized something was wrong.Since this wicked book was replaced with a metal cover, it has always been covered with ugly rust like psoriasis.

But at this time, the rust on the metal skin is much less visible to the naked eye, and there is even a conspicuous hourglass relief next to the depression where the metal quill is fixed!

"Fuck! Won't you be promoted?!" Wei Ran felt his heart twitch!
Carefully flipping through the heavy metal cover, on the first page of light yellow paper, right below the seven words "Battlefield Photographer Wei Ran", behind the word "military rank", there is indeed a change from "Second Lieutenant" Become a "Lieutenant"!
Under his surprised gaze, a line of Russian writing appeared on the blank space of this page: Thank you for remembering us, Comrade Mechatronics, the war is over, right?
"It's over, it should be considered over, there is no end to the war."

Wei Ran murmured a response, and the string of handwriting gradually faded, and finally disappeared completely, as if it had never appeared before.

After recovering, Wei Ran immediately put away the metal notebook and the camera bag beside him, and took out the medical box instead.

But when he was about to open the medical box and take out the cap badge inside, he hesitated again, and finally waved away the medical box he had just taken out.

"Wait a minute."

Wei Ran suppressed the impulse in his heart, he had just experienced a battle, and it was really not suitable for him to enter another battlefield immediately.In particular, it was a battlefield where he planned to carefully record all the details.

(End of this chapter)