"Ms. Jana, can we...can we open them?" Chris asked nervously.
"Of course." Jiana, who was also a little surprised, nodded and agreed without thinking, then took a pair of slightly rusty pliers from the wall and handed it to Wei Ran.
After getting nods from the two women, Wei Ran was the first to open the long box with Mika Raikkonen's name on it.
When he opened the slightly moldy wood cover, the first thing he saw was a yellow leather bag and bundles of opened letters. Carefully opening the brown paper bag, there was a death notice inside!
Placing these things one by one on the upside-down wooden lid, Wei Ran secretly glanced at the death notice. The name on it was exactly "Mika Raikkonen"!
Looking at those envelopes again, the senders are almost all "Sally from Plaxi Village" or "Eno from Ahola Village", and although the recipient's address keeps changing, But without exception, they are all Mika!
In no particular order, Chris and Jana each picked up an envelope, pulled out a letter full of handwriting, and read the contents silently.
Wei Ran took out a very familiar TT33 pistol from the box. He remembered very clearly that this pistol was exactly what he gave to Mika at that time!
In addition to the pistol, there is also a Finnish military uniform with bullet holes and black blood stains on the chest. Next to the bullet holes, there is not only a Level 2 Cross of Freedom, but also a Wearing a Freedom Cross in memory of those killed in action.
This kind of medal is officially awarded by Finland to the families of fallen soldiers, and it is not surprising that it appears here, because although the families of fallen soldiers will receive this medal, they are not eligible to send it to them. It is worn on the body.
In addition to these, there is an SVT40 semi-automatic rifle that still smells of gun oil and personal items such as a kettle, a flashlight and a telescope.
At this moment, Chris held up some pieces of letter paper and exclaimed, "I saw my father's name on this! Tlo Raikkonen, this is my grandfather's name! And There is a photo!"
Wei Ran and Jia Na couldn't help but look over and saw that there was a baby in the black and white photo, and Wei Ran also had words written all over it. On the letter, Salie wrote to her husband Mika with deep thoughts and worries about possible dangers on the battlefield.
"Victor, please open the other two boxes as well" Chris translated what Jana said.
Wei Ran nodded, picked up the pliers again, thought for a moment and then opened the box with Sally Brin's name on it.
Like the box containing Mika’s relics, except for a few sets of skirts and some very Finnish accessories, most of the rest of the space is filled with bundles of envelopes.
Arrange these envelopes again with the upside-down lidsAbove, in addition to the neatly folded clothes and paper bags containing jewelry, there is a thick stack of photo albums and a diary that seems to have been wet with tears several times, as well as the original TV Feide camera captured by Weiran from the Soviet Red Army.
Gently open the photo album, and the black and white photos faithfully record the photos of Sally and Mika. In these photos, Mika already has a healed scar on her face. But the happiness on the faces of the two young people was not affected at all.
The scenery behind this photo, in addition to the familiar village of Plaxi, also includes a relatively prosperous big city. A smile appeared on Wei Ran's face involuntarily. It seemed that Mika had really taken Sally to a big city for their honeymoon.
Continuing to scroll back, there is a photo of two people wearing traditional Finnish clothes for a wedding. Sally is holding a not-so-large radio in his arms and Mika is sitting there. Hassan, the sleigh pulled by the reindeer with a big tree branch on his head, and standing next to the reindeer was the old hunter Ino with a smile on his face.
From this photo onwards, the recorded content has a lot more flavor of life. In the picture frozen by the black and white lens, a wooden house gradually rises from the ground, and Sally’s arms also become more A baby appeared to be crying.
But in the next few photos, Mika appeared less and less in the shots, and more often it was Sally holding the growing child, standing in their wooden house. door.
Even if there are occasionally a few photos of Mika, most of them are in military uniform, standing in the wilderness, sitting in a trench, or standing next to the ruins of a village or city hugging someone. Holding the rifle, even the face that always seemed to be covered with stubble showed unconcealable fatigue and even a trace of boredom or hatred.
In the quiet warehouse, Chris gently closed the diary, suppressed his sobs, and murmured to himself in Finnish, "It turns out that my grandfather... was a hero, and I turned out to be a hero." ...Unexpectedly..."
Wei Ran sighed secretly, closed the thick photo album half-heartedly, and put it back into the wooden box that belonged to Sally.
Without urging, he picked up the pliers again and opened the wooden box belonging to the old hunter Ino.
In addition to a Mosin Nagant sniper rifle, there is also an SVT40 semi-automatic rifle equipped with a scope. What is quite interesting is that there is also a rifle on the butt of this semi-automatic rifle. A greeting card obviously made by hand was tied to the hemp rope, with only a brief sentence "The latest Christmas gift from the Soviet Union, wishing Father Ino a happy holiday. - Mika.1942"
Wei Ran laughed dumbly, then stretched his neck and looked at the photo album that Jiana had opened. In this photo album, the first photo was taken by Wei Ran on the ice of the suspected commander of the 163rd Division, and the following photos were the group photos they took at Sally's house.
But what made him feel both disappointed and fortunate was that he looked like himself in these photos.The negatives I got were the same, with no shadow of myself.
In the next few photos, most of them are old hunter Ino holding a little boy with a tiger-like head in front of various prey. Under each photo, there is also a brief description of the date it was taken.
When the shooting time recorded in these photos came to the winter of 1949, there was also an additional child in the photos, and at the same time, under one of the photos, it was emphatically written:
"On November 20, 1949, I gained a grandson, and little Schuler gained a younger brother. If there is a war in the future, I hope that Tello can become a hero like his father. I also hope that Schuler and Tello will Two poor little guys can trust each other like me and Mika."
Jana wiped the tears that were about to overflow from the corners of her eyes, "Schuler... is the name of my husband and his father. , their names are Schuler."
Wei Ran, who pretended not to understand Finnish, looked at the two growing children in the photo album that continued to be flipped, and couldn't help but think of that night, the old hunter Yi. Nozen's explanation when he scalded two Soviet Red Army prisoners to death with boiling water. He said that his son was scalded to death by the Soviet Red Army. In other words, the child named Schuller had become an orphan at that time?
Thinking again that the old hunter died of a stroke in 1952, it is not difficult to imagine what kind of ups and downs these two children, who may have just grown up and those who were not yet adults, experienced, and it is not their fault. They have no idea what their parents or ancestors have experienced.
Maybe they know... Wei Ran thought to himself, maybe it was because he knew that he chose to keep it all in the dust and not want to remember it. But no matter what, at least all the secrets are solved now.
Without disturbing Chris and Jiana who were thinking about their own thoughts, Wei Ran quietly exited the warehouse and sat silently on the wooden steps in front of the door. Using the cover of his backpack, he read from the cowhide book He took out the telescope and looked at the sparkling lake not far away in the sun for a long time.
It wasn’t until more than an hour passed that Chris, with red eyes, walked out of the warehouse and said, “Victor, call your friends over to help.”
“Come on. "Hearing this, Wei Ran quickly put away his camera and called Ji Ma, who had been standing on the roadside smoking, to come over. Under Chris's command, he moved all three wooden boxes to where Jiana had opened. out of the pickup truck.
"Let's go home," Chris said as he got into the station wagon.
"My dear, you found that teacher..."
Before Akeem could finish speaking, Chris said viciously, "Don't mention that idiot to me again. "My grandfather was not him, but he was also the hero who killed him!" No sympathy at all.
After being yelled at, Akeem started the car and left Ahola Village with the pickup truck following him.We returned along the road along the lake and finally arrived at Plaxi Village before lunch.
No one knows what Chris and Jana talked about while preparing lunch together in the kitchen. But after the meal, Chris took the initiative to let Akeem take Jima to the city for a night.
Jima naturally raised three hands in approval of such a good deed. Without even waiting for Akeem to say anything, he pulled him out of the house and disappeared in a car.
After closing the door, Chris took out the Ruger P08 pistol from the cabinet and placed it on the table. He apologized to Wei Ran who was left alone and said, "I'm sorry Victor, this I'm afraid I can't give the pistol to you. According to the diary left by my grandmother, it is a relic of Ino Vatanen. I want to return it to Jana."
"It doesn't matter, this is it. "It should be." Wei Ran said happily. Although the pistol that Ino's father borrowed from Captain Korpi was of great value to him, it was more valuable to him than Chris and Jana sitting opposite. It is clearer about its origin and who should preserve it.
“Thank you!”
After listening to Chris’s translation, Jana immediately thanked her in Chinese, which she had just learned before eating, and even stood up and said it seriously A 90 degree bow.
We in China don’t like this kind of farewell-like thank you...
Wei Ran stood up hurriedly to avoid the other party’s bow, and a series of polite words came out of his mouth, for fear that The other party bowed and sent him away.
Under Chris’s “completely unnecessary” but necessary translation, the two parties sat down again. Before Wei Ran could say anything, Jiana put the SVT40 semi-automatic rifle that had been placed on the table in advance. Passed on to Weiran.
"Is this?" Wei Ran looked at Jiana sitting opposite him in confusion.
“This rifle symbolizes the unbreakable friendship between Raikkonen and Vatanen.” Jana waited for Chris to finish the translation and continued, “Victor, after discussing with Chris, we decided to It's given to you as a gift to thank you for helping our two families rebuild this friendship."
"This..." Wei Ran was about to open his mouth to refuse, but he didn't expect the tattoo on the tiger's mouth on his left hand. It got hot without warning!