War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 704 A gift from Nicholas

As the weather got colder and colder, Wei Ran, who hadn't received serious business for several months, simply lay down completely, no longer worrying about money, anyway, the big deal would be to go back to China and sell a few gold bricks.

In addition to the confidence brought by those gold bricks, Sui Sui's business in Inta has become more and more prosperous due to the weather and seasons, and now he can even afford the usual expenses.

Not only that, the girl also offered a job to Lola, who was staying overnight, under the pretext of needing a cleaning nanny.

Although the salary of this job is not high, it is better than taking care of food and housing, and the weekly salary is not enough for Lola, who is dependent on others, to have no pocket money on hand.

Of course, the most important thing is that Wei Ran, who farts every day, also has more time to think about the research topic that has not been finished because Lola undertakes the housework.

It's just that there are only a few days left until the end of November, but he still hasn't been able to find any valuable clues from the nearly finished subject materials. None were found.

Not only did he fail to find it, even the Katenka sisters failed to analyze the exact location of Mine No. 52 from the map in the photo.

On the contrary, Maya, after learning about the existence of the three projects, became very interested in the unfinished project—the research on how to artificially create mental illness.

Because of this, this girl has never left since Jima went to Kirov for class. Not only did she spend most of her day studying the half of the subject, she even unceremoniously occupied Wei Ran's class. desk.

"Lao Tzu's habitat is getting less and less"

Before the start of lunch on the last day of November, Wei Ran secretly let out an exclamation, and immediately after that, he was gagged by the red cabbage soup brought to him by the little cook Lola.

Although this little girl's culinary skills are barely good, at least it's not too unpalatable, and no matter what, the traditional Slavic dishes she cooks are much more reliable than the dark dishes Katenka and the sisters figured out every now and then. .

However, before the meal was finished, Ji Ma's subordinate Greva took 4 container trucks and a truck pulling a container forklift and parked on the side of the road outside the yard.

"Glieva, what's going on?" Wei Ran ran out with half a piece of bread in his hand and asked.

"It was sent to you by Mr. Nikolai from Volgograd"

Grevat, who was holding a walkie-talkie in his hand, paused, and added, "These containers were shipped from Kiev by rail. Mr. Nikolay called me this morning and asked me to help get on the train. Just accept it and bring it to you. He said it was a gift for you."

"A gift for me?" Wei Ran was stunned, "Why did he give me a gift?"

"I remember he said before that he would give you a gift after the workshop next door is finished?" Sui Sui came up and said, "I remember that Ji Ma told you?"

"But it's not well decorated"

Wei Ran subconsciously glanced at the direction of the next door. Although the interior of the workshop has been completed with wiring and painting, and a thick solid wood floor has been laid.

But things such as display racks, walls and even lamps are not in place yet, and now the main energy of those workers is also put on the decoration of the office.

"Victor, where do we unload the container?" Greva couldn't help asking.

"No hurry, let me see what's inside first."

After finishing speaking, Wei Ran threw the slice of bread in his hand to the dog at his feet, walked out of the yard, and stood at the rear of one of the container trucks.

Under his witness, the driver cut off the lead seal, unlocked the padlock, and then opened the door of the cabinet with a little squeak with a light squeak.

However, when Wei Ran saw the contents inside, Wei Ran was stunned, it turned out that there were all cardboard boxes inside.

Randomly tore open a cardboard box, amidst the mild musty smell, Wei Ran saw at a glance that all the books inside were yellowed old books!Unbelievingly, he tore open the second and third cardboard boxes, and there were still old books inside!
"Lock the cupboard door and find a place next door to stack it."

After Wei Ran finished speaking, he took out his mobile phone while walking back and dialed Mr. Nicholas who hadn't seen him for a long time.

"Got it?" Nicholas asked with a smile as soon as the phone was connected.

"received"

Wei Ran paused, seeing that Nicholas didn't seem to intend to take the initiative to explain, so he asked, "Old man, why are you giving me so many old books?"

"You are a successful historian, of course you must have your own library."

Mr. Nicholas on the other end of the phone explained with a smile, "After you finish decorating the workshop next door, isn't there just a place to put those old books?"

"Why does it seem like someone told me this?"

Wei Ran grinned, changed the subject and asked curiously, "Where did you get so many old books? They must be very expensive to buy, right?"

"They are all Russian books that have been eliminated by libraries all over Ukran. I just paid for shipping and some handling fees and got them. It didn't cost much at all."

The tone of the old man Nicholas did not seem to be very happy because he picked up the bargain, but with a trace of helplessness, "I opened a second-hand bookstore with the former studio of you and Professor Alexey, but it has been so long They didn't sell much at all, so I figured if they weren't selling, I'd just find a good place for them."

"Why don't you come here too?" Wei Ran sincerely invited, "I will prepare the room for you in advance."

"I'll forget it. I heard from Jima that now you have more women in your family than Hongqi Forest Farm, so I won't bother you."

Nikolai jokingly rejected Wei Ran's invitation, "And the life in Volgograd is very good, Alexis is a good drinking buddy, your aunt is also very good at cooking, I even have a meal with the two of them I learned how to cook scrambled eggs with tomatoes and make dumplings.”

Hearing the old man's Chinese words "scrambled eggs with tomatoes" and "making dumplings", Wei Ran couldn't help showing a smile on his face, and asked jokingly, "Old man, next time?" Let's go back in a month to see how you are? I guess you must have missed me."

"Victor, it's been a long time since I saw you, how did you become as shameless as Jima?"

Nicholas laughed and said, "Your aunt asked me to tell you that you can just come back before Christmas, bring her Aurora, and the girls from Vorkuta in your family."

"I'll let Aurora take them back for Christmas"

Wei Ran made a promise, dumbfounded, there is no need to ask, it is probably because Jima didn't tell Mr. Nicholas about the door on purpose.

"That's it. Remember to bring back some vegetables grown in your yard. Your aunt asked me to tell you this sentence." After the old man Nicholas finished speaking, he hung up the phone.

"This old man..." Wei Ran put the phone into his pocket dumbfounded.

After such a phone call, the container forklift had already driven off the truck that hauled it, and at the same time, a container truck also stepped on the brakes under Greva's command.

After the forklift unloaded the heavy container, the truck left the yard and headed for the train station.Immediately afterwards, the second container truck also drove backwards into the yard.

It only took half an hour at most to unload the four containers. After Wei Ran sent Greva and others away, he took his dog to the contractor Lao Li, and was going to discuss with the other party. How to stuff so many old books into this workshop reasonably, and how much extra he should pay for it.

While they were discussing business here, Maya, who occupied Wei Ran's desk forcibly, found that the subject she had been studying these days seemed to be a bit wrong.

"Aurora, where is Victor?" Maya raised her head and asked Sui Sui not far away.

"What's the matter?" Sui Sui asked without looking back. She was busy communicating with her classmates about the feasibility of the Siberia self-driving tour project and where to find the fat sheep.

"I discovered something in this project"

There was a little uncertainty in Maya's tone, "I'm not sure if this is a coincidence, but the word demantoid is indeed mentioned in it."

"What did you say?!"

Sui Sui stood up with a bang, buckled up the notebook, took off the Bluetooth headset, and ran over to Maya's side in a hurry.

"Look at this"

Maya took out a piece of A4 paper and spread it on the table, "Look, these words are all misspelled words on this page, and I just accidentally spelled them on the paper."

Speaking of this, Maya drew a circle around a certain letter of these words with a red pen, "These letters are all misspelled, some of them have one letter missing, some have one or two letters, the correct spelling should be Yes"

While talking, Maya used the red pen in her hand to make changes on the wrong letters, and then changed to a pencil to mark the misspelled words on the original materials.

"We just need to reverse the wrong letters and the correct letters in the corresponding positions, respectively, in the order in which these wrong words appear, and then spell them together."

"Demantoid? Wealth?!" Sui Sui exclaimed looking at the two words spelled out.

"Look here again"

Maya pointed to the bottom page number of this page, which happened to be page 52, and before and after this page number, there was a "C" that seemed to be inadvertently drawn with a blue pen, and a It seems to be the Cyrillic letter "Я" stamped on something like a steel stamp!
"CR? CR52?!"

Sui Sui let out an exclamation, and shouted excitedly while calling Wei Ran, "Lola! Kamei, hurry up! Come and help! We found a second fortune!"

(End of this chapter)