War Photographer's Notebook

Using the sound of the piano to relieve the depression in his heart, Wei Ran thought for a long time after putting away the guqin, and finally picked up the satellite phone beside the table, found Xia Shushi's number and dialed it.

In less than ten seconds, the phone was connected. Before Xia Shushi on the other end could speak, Wei Ran heard the sound of rain, and his memory was instantly brought back to the man-eating Savage Mountain.

"Wei Ran? Wei Ran? Can you hear me?" Xia Shushi yelled a few times, and hung up the phone when he saw no response from Wei Ran.

When Wei Ran came back to his senses, the other party had already taken the initiative to call.

Squeezing the space between his eyebrows, Wei Ran pressed the answer button, and before the other party could speak, he slapped him upside down and asked, "Your signal is not good?"

"Maybe, it's obviously the dry season here, and it rained suddenly again today." Before Xia Shushi finished speaking, Wei Ran heard the thunder coming from the opposite side, and Xia Shushi and the Qin Er Shiqi Qi shouted "Damn!"

"Did you find any clues?" Xia Shushi asked after the thunder subsided.

"I haven't found anything so far." Wei Ran paused, "But I have some guesses."

On the other end of the satellite phone, Xia Shushi and Qin Ershi, who had turned on the speakerphone, looked at each other and asked into the microphone, "What guess?"

"Is there no one else around you?" Wei Ran asked.

"Wait"

After Xia Shushi finished speaking, he looked like Qin Ershi. The latter immediately chased away the girl who was sitting on his lap and feeding him mangoes just now like a fly.

"Tell me, it's just me and the Second King now."

"I remember you told me before that the Buddha head in the abandoned temple is no longer the original one?"

"Indeed, according to the locals, it was stolen more than [-] years ago."

Xia Shushi asked indifferently, "You don't think there is a secret in that Buddha head, do you?"

"Have you looked for it?" Wei Ran asked.

Xia Shushi immediately replied, "A week ago, the Second Emperor removed the attached Buddha head and inspected it. The Buddha head was made by a carpenter in this village with wood cut from the mountain, and the headless Buddha statue itself was only made of wood. Ordinary stone carved."

"Solid?" Wei Ran asked pointingly.

"may not"

Xia Shushi didn't hear Wei Ran's hint at all, and replied without thinking, "Second Emperor and I hit it with a shovel."

"Change the handle of the shovel into a sledgehammer, 80 per hammer." Wei Ran said bluntly.

"Are you crazy? There is no electricity here, so smashing Buddha statues here is not allowed."

"Is your brain full of pig feed?"

The second king on the other end of the phone couldn't help but pick up the topic, "Reconstruction is called reconstruction, do you understand? Didn't the old monk in the village come to us every day to ask for sponsorship, and just smashed the wrong version of the Buddha statue in the abandoned temple? Get a new one. Anyway, this remote one doesn’t cost a lot of money.”

Having said that, the voice of the Second King got closer, "Brother Wei Ran, am I right?"

"Full score in reading comprehension," Wei Ran responded with a smile.

"Why are you so sure that there is something hidden in the Buddha statue?" Xia Shushi asked quite inquisitively.

"As you said, there is no electricity there. If there is any secret, hiding it in the belly of a Buddha statue is probably safer than hiding it in a bank safe."…

"But that Buddha head is not already"

"But isn't the body of the Buddha statue still there?" Wei Ran replied without waiting for the other party to finish speaking.

"makes sense"

Xia Shushi grinned, turned his head and looked at the Second Emperor, and then continued, "Let's take a few days, let's arrange to smash that Buddha statue as soon as possible, I mean rebuild a Buddha statue for them."

"Let me know if you find anything." Wei Ran was about to hang up the phone.

"Sure." Xia Shushi followed up and asked, "What about you? When will you have time to come and take a look?"

"When I need to go there, I will go there." Wei Ran said casually, "Besides, I don't even have a visa for electricity exemption."

"You don't have to worry about such small things"

The second took up the topic again and said, "Brother Wei Ran, tell me when you come over, and I will arrange the rest."

"If you find anything over there, tell me in time."

Wei Ran responded politely, tacitly did not mention any questions about the courtyard in the suburbs of Beijing and the cash.He didn't even mention the fact that he couldn't contact the other party before.

After exchanging pleasantries and hanging up the phone, the second blew a hooligan whistle, called the girl standing outside the door back and hugged her again, and said with a smile, "This Wei Ran is a smart person."

"How do you say?" Xia Shushi asked, lighting a cigarette.

"This kind of nonsense can't be explained by an idiot like you"

The Second waved his hand, "Go and tell the local official who brought us here that we plan to rebuild a Buddha statue for that abandoned pagoda, and ask how much it will cost."

"Why can't you go by yourself?" Xia Shushi asked angrily.

"Can I go there in person?" The second rolled his eyes, and waved his hands with hatred, "Hurry up and let the people over there be quicker."

Reciprocating a middle finger to the Second Emperor, Xia Shushi reluctantly got up and opened the door to leave, and found the person who was in charge of entertaining them these days, the small official who was almost the same as the township head.

While the two unreliable brothers were busy rebuilding the Buddha statue in Mo's village, Wei Ran finally finished his annual leave, and boarded the flight Kazan flight.

A day later, when they drove back from the airport to their lair by Lake Kaban, they saw Beria, who had grown up from a long distance, came up with two big-eared foxes shaking their heads and tails, whistling and humming Each of them found their master, howling and pouring out their grievances.

Behind the three pets, Jima and Maya followed, and between them, Korava, who was wearing a princess dress, was holding hands.

"You're finally back." Before Ji Ma could finish his sentence, Lola, whose face became more plump, opened her arms and rushed over.

Seeing this, Ji Ma immediately opened his arms and greeted him with a smile.It's a pity that Lola's target is not him, but her sister Korava, whom she hasn't seen for a holiday.

Not surprisingly, while the two sisters were embracing, Maya also kicked Jima's shoe.

Ignoring Jima, who was hopping on one leg with her feet in her arms, Wei Ran, Suisui, and Katenka sisters each greeted Maya. …

"How did the four of you gain so much weight?"

After giving Jima a critical blow, Maya lightly gave a critical blow to the girls headed by Sui Sui. By the way, she subconsciously reached out and pinched Lola's slightly round face .

"It's only been a holiday, why are you so good at chatting?" Sui Sui retorted feebly, rolling her eyes.

"We can lose it in a month," the sisters Katenka, who were holding the little fox, said in unison.

"When we came back first, you said the same thing at the airport." Maya gave the second round of crit with a smile.

"Stop talking about weight"

Sui Sui wisely changed the subject, "The first batch of mice will be coming to your house in a week. How are your brothers preparing?"

"It's all ready as you said"

When it came to business, Maya finally stopped teasing Sui Sui and the others, and followed Sui Sui and the others into the room while introducing the situation at her house, leaving only Ji Ma and Wei Ran was comforting Beria.

"What's going on with Beria?" Wei Ran pulled the dog's head and asked as he walked into the room.

"Bullyed by Teacher Dahlia"

Jima grinned, "I heard Greva say that if you come back later, Beria and the two foxes will have to learn to wrap their feet and salute."

Hearing this, Wei Ran couldn't help grinning, wrapping the foot cloth and saluting, these are the two most basic skills that Soviet and even Russian soldiers need to learn.

Although Greva was just joking, he could also know that during the time they were not at home, these three poor little animals probably didn't have a good day.

"What about you?" Wei Ran chatted indifferently, "What's next?"

“No recent plans”

Jima raised his chin, "In addition to helping Maya entertain the tourists Aurora sent to her home, I just wait for the weather to warm up and go to Belarus to shoot a movie."

"The movie about guerrillas?" Wei Ran asked with his head turned sideways.

"Yes." Ji Ma nodded and said proudly, "This time Maya will also participate."

"Maya?" Wei Ran raised his eyebrows and was about to say something when the satellite phone in his bag rang.

Taking out the satellite phone, seeing that it was Xia Shushi's number, Wei Ran immediately pressed the answer button.And Ji Ma also took a few puffs of cigarettes, and walked into the room first.

"Wei Ran, we really found something!" As soon as the call was connected, Xia Shushi excitedly told the result that Wei Ran had already expected.

"What did you find?" Wei Ran patted Beria's dog's head and asked as he walked to the basement of the library next door.

"We found a hidden compartment in the position of the rosette of this Buddha statue"

Xia Shushi said excitedly, "In it, we found a letter addressed to a man named Guochang. But the address of the other party was not written on the letter, and we did not open it when we found it." opened."

"There is only one letter? What is written in the letter?" Wei Ran asked.

"I don't know, the Second Emperor decided to find this man named Guochang and let him open it himself."…

Xia Shushi's tone of voice made a decision that was almost self-destructive, and then said, "In addition to this letter, we also found some other things."

"What?" Wei Ran stopped in his tracks and asked.

"Not much stuff"

Xia Shushi paused, and then introduced clearly, "It's mainly a loaded Webley pistol and a devil's lunch box. In the lunch box, besides a lot of silver dollars and gold bars, there is also a group photo of a black and white photo."

"No more?" Wei Ran asked.

"Gone"

After a short pause, Xia Shushi continued, "I've taken photos of all the things and sent them to you. Besides, there is a very strange picture on the envelope. I took a close-up of it. Please take a look."

"it is good"

Wei Ran replied and hung up the phone, and waited for a while, knowing that he had accepted the photo sent by the other party, then opened the door and walked into the basement of the library, and got into the one he had specially set aside, which was neither monitored nor monitored. window room.

After locking the door and checking the room roughly, Wei Ran pulled a chair and sat down, and clicked on the photo sent by Xia Shushi.

In these photos, although the Webley pistol has been rusted, Wei Ran can still recognize it. It was seized by them on the way from Mansi Town to Mo's Village.

And the devil's lunch box full of gold bars and silver dollars was exactly what Zhou Guochang had in those days.Even that black and white photo, Wei Ran had seen it in the basket in the red vortex.

The only difference between the two is that in the photo sent by Xia Shushi, there is no shadow of Wei Ran.

Going back to the photo of the envelope, I saw that on the kraft paper envelope, the words "Yixiong Guochang" were neatly written in black calligraphy.

What attracts attention is that at the corner of these words, there is also an inconspicuous mark the size of a dime steel coin.

In the next photo, the imprint was enlarged, and Wei Ran was able to recognize it. The red imprint resembling a stamp depicts a British FS fighting knife.

However, the red fighting knife in the imprint was inserted straight up and down in a cluster of red flowers.

Is this fighting knife and dragon boat flower?

Wei Ran frowned. Although he didn't recognize the cluster of flowers at the first time, but after seeing the mark of the fighting knife, he subconsciously thought of the piece of blood stained in front of the temple in Mo's village. Watered flowers.

Turning off the phone screen, Wei Ran didn't rush to call Xia Shushi back, but waved his hand and took out the row boat from the metal book.

The bright light allowed Wei Ran to see clearly that the bamboo and wood poles on this row of boats had been restored to their original state, but at the bow of the boat, there was an extra canvas bucket with fishing nets.

"Give me everything you have"

Wei Ran said gratefully and put away the rowboat, and then began to think about how to reasonably involve the address he knew.