War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 564 The Price of Happiness

At noon on the second day after discovering the wing of the Junkers 52 transport plane, Wei Ran drove an armored pickup truck and pulled three 200-liter capacity iron drums specially used for drinking water and The water pump and the large barrel of diesel fuel that had been kept in the cargo hopper drove to the water source 30 kilometers away from the camp.

"Is this guy so anti-religious?"

Edward laughed dumbfoundingly, after getting along with each other for the past few days, he has discovered Wei Ran's behavior rules. Basically, except for the two prayers at dawn and evening, Wei Ran will advance ten to fifteen minutes for the remaining three prayers Leave the camp, and every time the young man can always find all kinds of reasonable reasons.

"Maybe the Allah of this desert has no intention of reaching a deal with Victor?" Saleh joked noncommittally, and then took the initiative to ask, "What about you? Mr. Edward, do you want to go out too?"

"I'll forget it." Edward waved his hand, "I can't do such a disrespectful thing, although those aborigines are heretics to me."

"What a coincidence, for them, you are also a pagan who should be buried in the sand to dry." Saleh said, raising his arm and pointing to his tent, "Let's go, Mr. Edward, in my tent There was also a bottle of fine wine from the black market in Alexandria, which we secretly drank."

"This is an offer I can't refuse," Edward said, and he happily followed Saleh into the tent.

While the two old fellows were preparing to have a drink while the "Heretic" was praying, Wei Ran also stepped on the accelerator, and under the guidance of the navigation, he drove the off-road vehicle straight to the coordinates that he passed by yesterday point.

In less than half an hour, Wei Ran immediately stepped on the brakes when the navigation prompt had arrived at the destination.

"This damn place."

Wei Ran complained blankly, now is almost the hottest time of the day, and the temperature outside the car has even exceeded 50 degrees.Even though he deliberately put on thick hiking boots before setting off, he only stood on the unobstructed sand for less than two minutes before he felt the heat from the soles of his feet.

Not only wasting time, he got into the rear compartment as quickly as possible, and pulled out an inconspicuous black plastic box from the back of one of the airline seats.

What is contained in this box is not a weapon, but a civilian metal detector produced in Russia.

In fact, Wei Ran entrusted Jima to help prepare the car before it was transported to Egypt.After all, it was something that would definitely be needed to help Edward find his grandfather's colleagues in the desert anyway.

After assembling the metal detector in the scorching heat, Wei Ran poured down a bottle of cold Coke, and then took the metal detector and began to search for possible gold under the high temperature.

I don't know if it was luck, or the coordinates provided by the metal book were accurate enough, but within ten minutes, the metal detector beeped strangely.

Seeing this, Wei Ran vigilantly looked at the direction he was looking at, then immediately threw the metal detector aside, drove the pickup over to block the scorching sun, and opened the car door to let the air conditioner in the car blow out as much as possible. Then he took off the shovel fixed to the side of the cargo bucket, hid in the shadow of the car and started digging hard.

With a shovel of dry yellow sand being lifted aside, the surrounding sand also began to slide towards the middle. Often two or three shovels go down, and the sand next to it is piled up high, but the dug place seems to have never been dug. .

Seeing this, Wei Ran also lost his temper. He picked up the metal detector again and scanned it. After making sure that he had found the wrong position, he went directly into the cargo hopper and inserted the hose into the cargo hopper before departure from Port Matruh. It was already filled with fresh water in an iron bucket.

Hold the other end of the hose and give it a strong sip. After a while, fresh water that is warm and even hot to the touch flows out from the middle of the hose, and is accurately poured around the place to be dug.

Guessing that half a bucket of water had already been placed, Wei Ran hung the hose on the car door, picked up the shovel again and started digging.

Although this method of fixing sand with water is extravagant, it is extremely effective.Soon, he pulled out a sand pit that was nearly one meter deep. At the same time, the heat taken away by the water in the sand evaporated made him feel a lot more comfortable.

He continued to dig down hard with a shovel, and the tremor from the tip of the shovel immediately made him realize that he should have dug something.

Picking up the hose again and pouring water, Wei Ran also saw the buried things under the washing of the water.

It was a not-so-big wooden box, and there was even a thin iron sheet with desert-colored paint on it.

Looking around again, Wei Ran vigorously waved the shovel in his hand, cleared the wet yellow sand around the box as quickly as possible, then threw the shovel out, and mustered all his strength to move the wooden box come out.

But he didn't want to, the weight of this box was far beyond his expectation.Not only did Wei Ran almost twist his waist, but he also almost threw the wooden box out of his hands because of his excessive force.

"Are you kidding me?"

Wei Ran cursed and threw the wooden box with the missing bottom aside, and then saw three gold bricks placed side by side!
Hey!
Wei Ran immediately bent down and picked up one of the bricks. When the scorching sun shone on the gold bricks, the reflected glare made him squint his eyes involuntarily!

Before he could place this gold brick on the sand, he saw the eagle emblem swastika steel seal stamped on the gold brick at a glance!

Panting heavily, Wei Ran suppressed his excitement and moved out the extra two bricks, only to find that there were actually two slightly deformed gold bricks underneath!
"and many more."

Wei Ran held a piece of gold brick that seemed to need to eat a small blue pill to straighten his waist and stared round his eyes. Although the hardness of this thing is not as strong as steel, it is thick enough to bend it into such a virtue , could it be because
After a while, Wei Ran showed a sudden realization expression on his face. He clearly remembered that before the plane made an emergency landing, there was a wooden box that broke free from the shackles and flew out of the cabin due to the violent turbulence of the plane.
Could it be this box?
Wei Ran threw away the bent gold brick in his hand, picked up the first one and turned it over. As expected, there were two clear depressions on the back of it.Obviously, this was caused by the collision with the two gold bricks below when it fell from a high altitude. At the same time, these two depressions also verified Wei Ran's guess just now.

"Why not the nine boxes of gold that Felix buried?"

Wei Ran felt a little regretful at first, but then became excited again. Anyway, these are five gold bricks with a single weight of 10 kilograms!
After thinking about it, he loaded the five pieces of gold into the container, unscrewed the lid of the 200-liter oil drum as quickly as possible, and wiped the gold bricks with the hem of his T-shirt. One was stuffed in.

"Last time, gold nuggets and gold coins were stuffed into a 20-liter oil drum in the desert. This time, gold bricks were stuffed into a 200-liter oil drum. I don't know what good things will be stuffed next time if you encounter an oil tanker in the desert. go in!"

Wei Ran muttered nervously, and after tightening the lid, he immediately buried the broken wooden box back, and shoveled dry sand from the surroundings to bury the scene, and then got into the cab of the armored pickup truck, Driving in the direction of the water source, I secretly wondered whether the other coordinate point buried the plane or the other nine boxes of gold.

If it's an airplane, he can only get 50 euros from Edward, but if it's the extra 450 kilograms of gold, how much is 50 euros? !

Wei Ran shivered involuntarily, and his eyes subconsciously moved to the tattoo on the tiger's mouth on his left hand.Gradually, his breathing, which was somewhat heavy due to excitement, also gradually calmed down.

He still remembered the epilogue written on the metal book: "The most terrible thing in the desert is thirst, and what is more terrible than thirst is the lies and murders born of greed,"

"Forget it, you should be content."

Wei Ran let out a long breath, and the madness in his eyes was replaced by calmness and calmness.Regardless of whether the other coordinate point is buried with an airplane or gold, if I conceal its existence for the sake of the 50% possibility, what is the difference from the former Felix?
"It's time to be content, it's time to be content, greed can kill people!"

Wei Ran comforted himself over and over again, a full 450 kilograms of gold is priceless to him now, but if he really loses his heart because of them, it is really not worth the candle, after all, people can live for gold, But you can't just live for gold.

After figuring out the key point, Wei Ran stepped on the gas pedal to the bottom again, and rushed to the water source that he had visited at dusk yesterday.

Under the scorching sun, he stepped on the wooden plank left here yesterday, threw the water pump into the iron bucket filled with fresh water, turned on the switch of the water pump and took off his clothes.He happily took a cold shower that didn't match the temperature here, and also extinguished the last trace of greed left in his heart by the way.

More than an hour later, when he returned to the camp with three buckets full of fresh water, the members of those nomadic tribes had already finished their routine worship, and they were gathering in groups of three or four to enjoy a sumptuous lunch.

Even the little follower, Aba Abba, was sitting in the cab of the truck driven by Soliman at this time, imitating the sound of the engine and happily contacting the driving skills that he might never use in his life.

For these aborigines struggling in the desert, they don’t know that there are 450 kilograms of gold bricks hidden in this desert, but correspondingly, their way of obtaining happiness is also very easy-just fill their water bags It is enough to pick up a crumpled apple each in the bed of the truck to Soliman.For Abaaba, perhaps only a steering wheel that can be turned is enough.

Correspondingly, for Edward, who probably knows that 450 kilograms of gold is hidden here, it seems that every minute and every second before he finds the plane and even finds the gold makes him suffer more than everyone else .

(End of this chapter)