War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 707 Heading to Mine No. 52

In the mezzanine of the attic, when Wei Ran turned the plastic leather book in his hand to the last page, he noticed a white paper folded in half inside the cover.

Open this piece of paper, one side is a hand-drawn map, and the map is marked with various irregular combinations of letters and numbers.

On the other side of the map, there is a set of codes that Wei Ran is extremely familiar with - Cr52-4-7-24.
He can even be sure that the two negatives found in the bullet case were the front and back of this paper!
Looking at the group photo on the first page again, Wei Ran took out a disposable plastic bag from his pocket, first put the plastic leather book in it, and then carefully took out the tin biscuit box with the Japanese seal .

Although there is no detailed count, there are at least a hundred Japanese-style seals in the iron box. I tried to take out a seal and looked at it. It seems that there is another layer of seals under it. Correspondingly, the seals contained in this box The number may have to be doubled.

Putting the iron box aside, Wei Ran took out a wooden box containing bullets.This wooden box is about the size of a pencil case, but it is quite exquisitely made. Inside, there are four rows of countersunk bullets for a total of 56 rounds of Nagant revolver placed horizontally and vertically.

These bullets are all neatly arranged with the primer facing upwards. On one side of the opened wooden cover, the outline of the Soviet national emblem is hot-stamped, and on the inner side there is a small wooden board that can be opened.Open the wooden board, and there is also a set of maintenance tools obviously prepared for the revolver and a small file with antler handle inside.

Gently picked up a bullet from the wooden box. Although there was no cross hole in the bullet head of this bullet, he found a hole on the bottom wooden board of the box for positioning, and just stuck the bullet in. circular pit.

"It's quite exquisite."

Wei Ran murmured to himself, put the bullet back and closed the cover, and fastened the brass buckle, then put it into the plastic bag.

Finally, after carefully checking all the things such as the hand warmer, pocket watch, and revolver, and putting them into plastic bags, Wei Ran finally picked up the flagon with the medal and bullets on the medal and looked at it. He put it in his pocket alone.

At this time, only the rubles that had already become waste paper were left in the safe.But even so, he still checked carefully until he was sure that there were no hidden compartments inside, and then locked the cabinet door.

Not in a hurry to leave, Wei Ran stood up, first took a photo of the map hanging on the wall, and then carefully removed the map that had been stuck on the wall for an unknown amount of time.

However, before he rolled up the map, he found that there was a piece of the wall that was originally covered by the map, which was obviously different from the surrounding area!

He took out the Mauser bayonet from the metal book, turned the handle of the knife and tapped it lightly. The hollow sound not only indicated that the back was empty, but even the material was not wall brick but more like iron sheet.

Holding the handle of the knife with one hand and the spine of the knife with the other, Wei Ran scraped around the painted iron sheet with the blade of the knife, first found the position of the hinge, and then stabbed the tip of the knife into the gap on the other side gently. Take a light sled.

With a soft "bang bang bang" sound, the iron sheet was easily pried off. It was only at this moment that Wei Ran realized that this thing was completely held in place by two magnets.

It's just that, behind the iron sheet, there is only a can with a lid, and in the can, there is a small shelf bent with wire hanging from a countersunk bullet threaded by a rope!

Taking out the canning bottle, carefully prying off the rusty metal cover, Wei Ran took out the bullet casing with a little green rust, and rubbed it hard on his cuff.

As the rust was polished away, there was also a line of Russian writing engraved on the bullet case-"I don't represent justice, and don't discuss justice with me."

"Isn't that a famous quote from Dzerzhinsky?"

Wei Ran couldn't help frowning, there was a second half of this sentence that was not engraved, "We are facing a war, either you die or I die."

Could it be that this time it is a KGB again?

Wei Ran cut off the moldy leather rope with the Mauser bayonet in his hand, and then pressed the tip of the knife against the cross-shaped groove on the bullet head, and carefully unscrewed it.

Looking inside with the light of the flashlight, the inside of the bullet casing was actually sealed with wax oil.

The probe pulled out a pin from the map, Wei Ran carefully picked out the wax oil, and then picked out a ball of cotton sticking to the wax oil, and finally shook out a soybean-sized one, which was polished extremely finely. yellow-green gemstone.

In this confined small space, the strong light of the flashlight reflected on the gemstone so beautifully that Wei Ran couldn't help admiring "beautiful".

When he came back to his senses, he didn't care about the gemstone lying in the dust on the table, but pointed the flashlight at the inside of the bullet case again, and carefully picked out a negative from it.

He took out his phone to light up the screen, randomly found a white page, and carefully placed the negative on the screen.

When he turned off the dazzling flashlight, some outlines appeared faintly on the curved negative.

Putting his eyes closer, Wei Ran can vaguely see that this negative is also a map, but compared to what was found in the shell casing before, this map is not hand-painted, and it is clearly marked in Russian A place name - Saran Paul.

In addition, on the map taken by this film, there is also a meandering line extending from Sarambaul. One end of this line is Sarambaul, and the other end is a handwritten "Cr-52" !
Is this found?
Wei Ran raised his eyebrows. He originally wanted to use the ability of the metal book, but he didn't expect to find the answer first.

Carefully putting away the negative, Wei Ran returned the jewels on the table back to the bullet casing, and then put the bullet casing into a plastic bag, together with the map that was pulled off the wall, and even the bullet casing. The Japanese seal in the biscuit box and the bullets in the wooden box were all sent back to the car outside the house.

Before leaving, he made a special trip back to carefully clean up the footprints and fingerprints left in the mezzanine of the attic, and sprinkled a layer of dust from elsewhere.

Until the traces of his presence disappeared completely, Wei Ran immediately restored the ceiling to its original state, turned off the lights and removed the ladder, finally cut off the main power switch and nailed the door again, and immediately drove away from this too quiet community.

When he drove back home, Sui Sui was taking Katenka sisters, making various preparations for the first group of tourists to drive by themselves on the Tunguska River.

"Where's Lola?" Wei Ran asked as he walked into the darkroom.

"I paid her salary today, and she went to buy shoes for Korava." Sui Sui, who was busy working, replied without replying, "Did you find anything?"

"Not a small gain"

Wei Ran pushed open the door of the darkroom and replied, "I found a gemstone that has been cut, and it is very likely that I also found the location of mine No. 52."

"Did you find it?" Sui Sui immediately stood up and ran over in a panic.

"found it"

Wei Ran shook the things in his hand, "I'll develop a negative first, and there are some found things in the car, you must be interested."

Before he finished speaking, he went into the darkroom and locked the door, ignoring the questioning outside the door, and slowly preparing for the printing work.

When he developed the negative into a photo and opened the door again, Sui Sui and the others were already sitting on the edge of the long table.

At this time, a large piece of wiped stamps had already been placed on the table. Lola, who came back at some time, was wearing rubber gloves, and was putting the wiped stamps on the table like a piecework girl who went into the factory to drive screws. Next to him, he took out a new seal from the iron box and wiped it.

The remaining three were also not idle, except that Sui Sui was flipping through the pages of the plastic notebook.Anfisa not only disassembled and maintained the newly discovered revolver, but even the wooden box seemed not to be let go.And her younger sister, An Feiya, had already disassembled more than a dozen bullets.

However, the yellow-green gem was placed in an upside-down glass casually, as if it didn't attract anyone's attention, leaving a brilliant spot of light on the table.

"Is it washed out?"

Seeing Wei Ran coming out, Suo Suo immediately put the plastic leather book in his hand on the stainless steel tray aside, took off the rubber gloves he was wearing and moved over.

"It's been washed out, and it's drying." While speaking, Wei Ran handed a USB flash drive to Anfeiya.

"Lola, draw the curtains."

Before Anfeiya finished speaking, she stood up and walked to her desk. At the same time, Anfeisa also suspended the work in hand, took out a remote control from her pocket and pressed it, and opened the recently Newly purchased projector.

Soon, as the room fell into darkness, Anfeiya also changed Wei Ran's scanned digital photo into a clear black and white photo through color correction, and projected it on the wall through the projector.

"Sarampaul, on the northwestern edge of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Autonomous District of Berezovsky District"

While speaking, Anfeiya manipulated the projector to divide half of the space, played out a satellite map, and marked the location of Sarampaul on it while continuing to introduce the content she just searched, "Saranpaul has the whole world The top ten high-purity quartz mines in terms of reserves are mainly divided into three mining areas, namely Dudu Mine, Nestor Schur and Kusauyka, among which Dudu Mine has the largest reserves and the longest mining history."

"Dudu Mine? This name is really cute," Sui Sui subconsciously commented.

"It's really cute." Wei Ran nodded in agreement, "It's estimated that the slag there is soaked in the cherry blossom-scented corpse."

"When you put it that way, I think this name is cuter." Sui Sui waved her hand at Anfeiya with a smile on her face, "Continue talking."

"If the line on the map in the photo represents the route to Mine 52"

Anfeiya paused, manipulated the computer to capture the winding line in the photo, adjusted the scale, and pasted it on the satellite map she just marked, "This should be Mine No. 52, sir. The journey is about [-] kilometers away from Sarambaul, and there is a forest logging road that completely coincides with the line in the photo, but the end point does not seem to be within the range of the three mining areas just mentioned.

In addition, according to the satellite map, there seems to be a mining gas station about 30 kilometers away from the destination. I will call later to see if there is anyone on duty there. "

"Why does this No. 52 mine seem to be in the Ural Mountains?" Sui Sui asked looking at the projected satellite map.

"Inside the Ural Mountains indeed"

Anfeiya let the satellite map occupy the entire projection range, and skillfully connected a line between the suspected No. 52 mine and Inta, "The straight-line distance from here to Inta is only about 2 kilometers, even if our security [-] planes can easily fly over.

However, considering that the plane flying above the Ural Mountains is very susceptible to air currents, and the only known nearest airport is Sarambaul, the actual range may be longer. "

"Are you going to take a look?" Sui Sui asked Wei Ran.

"Have this plan"

Wei Ran didn't hide it, "If the No. 52 mine is really there, if there is really any demantoid treasure there, we can have a good year."

"When do you plan to go there?" Sui Sui asked, "I'm afraid I'll have to be busy for ten days before I can spare time."

"Tomorrow, Anfisa, help me buy a ticket to Inta, and I want to take Beria with me."

After Wei Ran finished speaking, he spread out the map he brought back, pointed to the pins on it and said, "Look, this is a map of the Ural Mountains, and there are a total of twenty pins on it."

"Are you planning to go through all of them?" Sui Sui asked with her eyes widened.

"Impossible to walk through it all"

Wei Ran picked up a pen and pointed emphatically at the ones closest to Inta, "However, these few are not too far away from Inta, I plan to ask Shang Ji Ma to help me go there in advance to see, so that you can get closer to Inta in the future." The tower’s business doesn’t always have to rely on hot spring camps and abandoned military bases.”

"Jimac doesn't have time"

Sui Sui took out his phone and opened Ji Ma's social platform page, rolled his eyes and said, "It's only been a morning, and he has already updated it more than a dozen times, and every time he @ everyone including Lola .”

"What did you say?"

Wei Ran curiously took the other party's phone and looked at it, only to find that in the photo he opened randomly, this guy was taking a selfie with the phone, but it was obvious that the main scene in the shot was Maya rolling her eyes.

“They went to the hot springs”

Sui Sui spread her hands, "According to Sister Maya, it was because Jima helped Lola and the others get a new identity last time, so I accepted Jima's invitation in a flash."

"So before being thoroughly cooked by the hot spring water, even if Stalin is resurrected, the scum of the season will not come back."

Anfesa made a positive judgment, followed by both Anfeya and Lola, nodding in agreement.

Of course, for Lola, since she moved here, the first Chinese word she learned was "Ji Ren Scum", so she could understand it naturally.

Even this little girl, who is occasionally confused, still firmly believes that Jima runs the largest flesh and blood business in Kazan.At the same time, no matter Katenka sisters, Sui Sui or Maya, they all selectively forgot to explain this small and insignificant misunderstanding to Jima.

"The Aurora Tavern is Maya's property, right?" Wei Ran reminded him incoherently, "Are you going to do the self-driving business on the Tunguska River yourself?"

Hearing this, Sui Sui's eyes lit up immediately, she reached out and took back her mobile phone from Wei Ran, and while calling Maya, she said loudly, "Anfisa, help the Ji scum to buy a plane ticket to Inta. "

"I bought it together just now." Anfisa shook her phone, "The flight will be early tomorrow morning."

"Remember to ask Maya to inform Ji Ma to come and meet me on time"

Wei Ran simply turned off his mobile phone and satellite phone while speaking, took a dry towel, and carefully wiped the old map he brought back.

In the blink of an eye, the next morning, Wei Ran brought his luggage and the gifts he was going to give to Alili and Misha, plus the excited and grunting dog Beria, and he had no motivation at all, and seemed to want to jump out of the car and run at any time Ji Ma on the road rushed to the airport together.

"Victor, you can't let me and my Maya"

"Stop, you've asked this stupid question twenty times."

Wei Ran, who had just checked in the luggage and the dog, once again stopped the other party's trash talking, "First of all, I didn't call you back, it was Ma. It was your Maya who heard that I was helping Inta When looking for a new place to make money, I suggest you come and help."

"I"

"I know, you gave me a wink at that time."

Wei Ran spread his hands innocently, "Didn't I already refuse to let you follow me? What did I say, right, right, I said let Jima stay and help Maya, that's what I said Bar?"

"but you"

"It was Maya who said someone had changed and forgotten his friends in the country."

Wei Ran quickened his pace, and said while walking towards the security checkpoint, "Then someone obviously jumped out by himself and decided to follow me."

"Forget it, just pretend I didn't say anything."

Ji Ma, who was willing to jump into the trap, sighed helplessly, and asked after passing through the security check, "Tell me, what are you going to do this time?"

"Mainly to find demantoids"

Seeing the other party's lack of interest, Wei Ran took advantage of the situation and came up with an excuse to encourage him. "Jima, did you notice Maya's expression when she saw the broken stone illuminated by the flashlight?"

"I see, then what?" Ji Ma asked boredly.

Wei Ran spread his hands, and generously seduced, "For the sake of your lack of motivation, after you find those demantoids, I can let you pick one for Maya first."

"Really?" Ji Ma immediately regained his spirits.

"If you can find it, I'll let you pick one first. If you can't find it, the one I found yesterday is yours."

"Deal!" Ji Ma immediately reached out and held Wei Ran together.

After buying Jima, Wei Ran found a place to sit down, and handed the printed satellite maps to the other party, "There are five points here, when the time comes, you and Alili will cooperate with each other to go and have a look."

"What about you?" Jima asked after taking the satellite map.

"I will go to the suspected location of mine No. 52 to see."

Wei Ran hurriedly said in a low voice before the other party asked, "To save time, I will take Beria and parachute down directly. In case something happens to me, you can take someone to take Alili's plane to go [-] kilometers away. Sarampaul, rent a car there to save me. If the two of us jump together, there will be no one to command the backup rescue team.”

"Can't we land in Sarampaul and drive there?" Jima asked in a slightly lowered voice.

"You're going to be busy with the premiere of your African movie later this month"

Wei Ran found out the excuse he had prepared in advance, "I don't think you have enough time until Christmas. Secondly, in case there are really countless gems there, are you sure we foreigners Won't it attract the attention of the local miners?"

"That's right." Ji Ma nodded involuntarily, "Then do as you said!"

After talking about moving Ji Ma, Wei Ran also became excited.Naturally, he wasn't excited about the demantoid that he didn't know if he could find it yet.It was because this was the first time since he obtained the metal book that he had found the core answer to the historical mystery before using the ability of the metal book.

In other words, if he can investigate everything that happened at that time with his own ability, it is equivalent to indirectly proving that his ability can fully bear the big hat of a historian.

As for why Beria and Jima were brought in, Wei Ran naturally hoped that they could all play a role.After all, although the dog Beria is not yet an adult, his vigilance has already been developed, and he can at least take up the job of guarding at night.

As for Ji Ma, as he just said, once there is any accident, the unreliable Ji Ma is definitely the most reliable rescue force. Even, in Wei Ran's heart, Ji Ma's credibility is far ahead On top of those teachers in Hongqi Forest Farm.

Of course, he brought along with him two revolvers, two arctic pocket watches, two barrel-shaped hand warmers, two portable wine jugs, and the three project assignments that he had packed into the food box in advance. The Order of the Red Banner of Labor found together.

Even the bullet necklace he found in the mezzanine of the attic and the bullet necklace belonging to Lola were brought together.

The reason why I brought these things is naturally that when the investigation reaches a dead end, I can try again with a metal notebook.

Although that poor book wasn't interested in the first revolver it found last time, isn't there a second one?Even if the second pistol doesn't work, those pocket watches, hand warmers, and even wine jugs and medals, there can always be one that makes the metal quill float up and draw twice, right?
With this good expectation, Wei Ran and Ji Ma lined up and boarded the flight to Inta.When the plane landed at Inta Airport early in the snow, Aliri and his plane had been waiting near the tarmac for a long time.

"Victor, I have never been to the Sarampaul Mine."

Alili waited for Wei Ran to drag Beria, who was about to pee on the tires of the plane, and immediately asked, "Besides, are you really going to parachute?"

"Of course, you didn't prepare a parachute for me, did you?"

While Wei Ran was speaking, he had already driven the dog into the cabin, "Let Misha go get our luggage later, it's a gift from Aurora for you two."

"The parachute is ready for you"

Aliri followed into the cabin, "But you really plan to hide it from Aurora? Victor, just in case"

"She won't be here for at least a week."

Wei Ran helped to close the cabin door, and said with a smile, "You just need to find a way to open the route from Inta to Sarampaul within a week, and then send Jima there. Don't worry, I have satellites with me. As for the phone, even if the worst happens, there is always time to call for help."

Alili glared at Jima with a playful smile, and in the end he could only jokingly say, "Victor, Inta can lose you, but he can't lose Aurora, so even for Inta's friends, you should You have to come back alive."

"Even if it's for Aurora, I will come back alive." Wei Ran patted the other person's shoulder with a smile, "Okay, let's go quickly."

(End of this chapter)