As the white light that filled the field of vision gradually faded, the familiar studio outside the car window became increasingly clear.
But Wei Ran found that the pain in his body was getting more and more intense. The pain came from his right arm that was broken by the machine gun, and from the bullets that hit his chest at the last moment.
Soon, the uncontrollable screams could be heard from the car to the studio and then faintly from the studio to the outside. But he couldn't even turn his head. He could only watch the dial on the off-road vehicle's dashboard beat second by second.
The intense pain, like digging out flesh and heart, made him faint several times because he could not resist it. However, the next second, he was awakened by the pain again and continued to scream incessantly. Meaning growled while waiting in agony for the pain to subside.
It was not until an hour passed on the dial that the unbearable pain finally subsided. Wei Ran, whose whole body was soaked with sweat, glanced at the pistol on his lap and the open cowhide book. , his vision went dark and he finally lost consciousness.
When he was woken up by the ringtone of his cell phone, it was already morning. Looking at the caller number, it turned out to be Suisui.
"Has she already landed?"
Wei Ran struggled to pick up the mobile phone in the glove compartment, but then he discovered that he couldn't use his right hand at all.
He had no choice but to switch to his left hand, just a gesture of holding the phone, and his chest and abdomen immediately responded with tearing pain.
With difficulty, she reached for the phone and pressed the connect button and the hands-free button. Suisui's voice immediately came from the receiver, "Why did it take you so long to answer the phone? I won't disturb your good things, will I?" ?”
“Asleep,” Wei Ran replied weakly.
"Why does your voice sound a little wrong?" Suisui on the other end of the phone immediately heard the clues.
"It's okay," Wei Ranqiang tried his best to cover up, "I got cold last night and I have a bit of a cold."
"But you sound like you're about to get cold." Suisui said angrily, "You'd better go to the hospital quickly."
"It's okay"
Weiran adjusted the seat to a comfortable angle, "You Are you here?"
"We're almost at school. We should hurry up just in time for the exam." Suisui brought the topic back to the question uncertainly, "Are you really okay?"
"It's okay"
"Okay, I'm getting off the car and I'll call you after I finish the exam."
"Concentrate on the exam. I'm going to go back to sleep."
Wei Ran said a final perfunctory sentence and then stopped, while Suisui on the other end of the phone waited for nearly a minute before ending the call completely.
Until this moment, Wei Ran endured the pain and unzipped his cotton-padded coat, lifted up the sweater and lining inside, and then found that his chest seemed to have been beaten, with a large piece of it remaining. Large bruises like splashes of water.
Taking a breath of cool air, he took off his shirt one by one, and thenThen I discovered that the entire right elbow was covered with severe congestion, and even the slightest touch would cause excruciating pain.
Looking at the time on his phone, Wei Ran found that he had been in a coma for more than ten hours, and had missed several Suisui phone calls during the process. However, his right hand, which could still be moved slowly, made him let out a long sigh. Anyway, fortunately, he was back in one piece.
Closing his eyes and taking a breath, Wei Ran, who had no strength in his body, pushed open the car door with great effort, picked up the big-bellied box that fell at his feet, wiped it carefully, and then hugged the box he had just taken off. I took off my shirt, endured the pain in my chest and abdomen, and slowly moved to the bedroom upstairs in the dark. It wasn't until he turned on the desk lamp and wrapped himself in a quilt that he summoned the cowhide notebook that had turned back into a tattoo.
To his surprise, the outer cover of the book changed from cowhide to bronze-like material. The metal cover, which was half a centimeter thick, was also covered with mottled green rust. Even the metal quill is embedded in the corresponding concave outline on the cover.
After hesitating for a moment, Wei Ran turned the desk lamp brighter and then turned to the first page.
What surprised him was that under his photo on this page, under the original seven words "War Photographer Wei Ran", there was actually an additional line of words "Military Rank: Second Lieutenant".
Is this a promotion for me?
Wei Ran muttered to himself and continued to turn the page. There was no change on the second page. In the red vortex on the back, the Mauser bayonet was floating quietly on it.
The same was true on the third page. Wei Ran took out the CZP09 pistol that used a lot of titanium alloy parts from the whirlpool on the back, looked at it, and then stuffed it back.
As I continued to turn back, unexpectedly, the red vortex on the back of the fourth page stopped spinning, and there was even a countdown of more than 100 hours!
More than 100 hours...five days?
After Wei Ran found that he could not reach into the stopped rotating whirlpool and take out the kerosene lamp, he simply continued to read.
Fortunately, the telescope and SVT40 semi-automatic rifle in the red and blue whirlpools on the back of the fifth page, as well as the Rollei twin-lens reflex camera in the red whirlpool on the sixth page, are not affected and can all be taken out. .
But under the Junior Field Angel Medal on the seventh page, the red vortex containing the medical kit stopped rotating, and a countdown of more than one hundred hours also appeared on it.
So, it’s because I gave the kerosene gas lamp and medical kit to the Chinese medicine shop that it was locked?
Wei Ran thought for a moment and then turned to page eight.
On this page, the 20-ring pot-bellied box originally drawn with a metal quill pen and the big hand holding the gun have been turned into a black and white photo.
Wei Ran remembered clearly that that was when Li Hexian handed the pistol to his cousin Li Sui'an and asked him to ask for help.Waiting picture.
Under this black and white photo, the dark red writing seems to still smell of gunpowder smoke and blood:
Mountains and rivers are in foreign lands, and we are irreconcilable
Cang Zheng Shopkeeper Zhai, on March 17, 1938, after breaking the city in Teng County, he killed two enemy soldiers and died for his country.
Li Hexian, 24 years old, detonated a grenade and died for his country after the city of Teng County was captured on March 17, 1938.
Li Sui'an, at the end of the Tengxian Defense War, was seriously injured when he was shelled on his way to the Beiguan position to seek help. He was later discovered by officers and soldiers of the Beiguan position and escaped through the North City Gate.
After the defense of Teng County, Li Sui'an joined the army under the pseudonym Li Wangchuan and traveled to many battlefields. After the Anti-Japanese War, he returned to Zigong and settled under the name Li Sui'an. He passed away on the night of September 18, 1988, leaving behind one son. He never disclosed his military experience to anyone until his death.
Looking further down, there is a name called "Li Wangchuan" and a detailed address in Zigong written in black writing, as well as a string of mobile phone numbers that clearly belong to China.
As these messages continued, the handwriting returned to dark red, and another line neatly wrote the poem on the big-bellied box, "The beacon smoke stains the rivers and mountains with blood, and the Japanese will never return to Sichuan. , Xu Guo went to war, why did he fear death, and killed all the Japanese invaders?"
Without turning the page in a hurry, Wei Ran took out a few negatives from the paper bag next to the photo and looked at the lamp, thinking. It seemed like I was back in those short few days.
After a long time, Wei Ran sighed, stuffed the negatives back into the paper bag, and then turned the pages to the back.
Under the slowly rotating red vortex, a line of short black handwriting read, "Tangyuan made by Miss Zhou."
Wei Ran seemed to be laughing, and stretched his hand into the red vortex. , enduring the pain in his chest, he picked up a big red traditional Chinese food box.
What made him laugh was that between the handle and the first lid of the food box, there was a small brass abacus only the size of a pencil box. On one of the borders of this abacus, there are three small characters "Cangxuzhai" clearly engraved on it.
Putting the abacus aside, Wei Ran gently opened the lid of the first layer of the food box, and immediately smelled the vague aroma of osmanthus.
It was an ordinary white porcelain bowl and a spoon made of the same material. The glutinous rice balls in this bowl were not only steaming, but also sprinkled with some sweet-scented osmanthus.
Wei Ran was stunned for a moment, and after realizing it, he quickly closed the lid and carefully returned the not-so-large food box and the abacus back into the red vortex.
Taking back the notebook that had been replaced with a bronze cover, Wei Ran turned off the lamp with great effort and fell into a deep sleep again.
When he was woken up again by the ringing of the phone and the banging of the door, it was already afternoon, and heavy snow had drifted outside the window at some point.
While refusing to answer Jima's call, Wei Ran put away his pistol. Wei Ran, who had not eaten water or rice for more than 24 hours, found that he had started to have a fever, and his throat felt as if it was on fire.
Looking down at the bruises on his chest, abdomen and elbows, he climbed up with difficulty, weakly holding on to the wall with his hands and feet, and walked down the stairs step by step, opening the banging door that had been smashed. Roller shutter doors.
"Victor, are you..." Before Jima could finish his words as he entered the studio, he noticed Wei Ran's sallow face.
"What's wrong with you?" Ji Ma asked with a frown.
"Maybe I have a cold..." Wei Ran replied drowsily, and then he felt dizzy, and he fell to the floor uncontrollably and lost consciousness again.
When Ji Ma saw this, he didn’t have time to think too much. He bent down to pick up Wei Ran and threw it into the compartment of the off-road vehicle. After driving it out of the studio, he locked the rolling door and ran towards the hospital.
When Wei Ran woke up again, he found that he was already lying on the hospital bed. After trying hard to recall what happened before he fell into coma, he picked up the charging cell phone on the table and called Jima.
"Thank God, you are still alive." Ji Ma said happily as soon as the call was connected.
"Why did I come to the hospital?" Wei Ran asked weakly.
"I should ask you," said Jima on the other end of the phone. "The doctor said that you have very severe symptoms of inflammation and slight bleeding in your body, and there are also some bruises that look like being beaten. Injured. Victor, are you going to be robbed?"
"No problem, where are you?" Wei Ran asked weakly.
"If you still have the strength to get up, just look down the window. I'm already in your car downstairs."
Ji Ma on the other end of the phone continued He said, "But it's useless even if you can see it. You were almost admitted to the critical ward before. The doctor said you have to stay in the hospital for at least two days for observation. In addition, I have already explained the situation to Culp. He said that the next class can be postponed until March, and we will wait until you come back from China. "Also, April, I will explain it to you."
"Wei?" Ran continued to ask.
"Only April knows that you have a cold. Neither Ms. Zhou nor Professor Alexey knows." Jima said wholeheartedly, "Anyway, you don't have to worry. I'll leave the outside matters to you." I'll be fine."
"Sorry to trouble you."
Wei Ran hung up the phone and looked at the time, only to realize that it was already the afternoon of the 11th. Did you sleep all day again?
Putting down his cell phone, Wei Ran shook his head helplessly. This time he was sent back to Teng County in a cowhide notebook to defend the battle. It was definitely not comfortable, let alone the heart-wrenching memories of the battlefield. Just after returning to this world, the intense pain that lasted for an hour made him shiver.
The remaining bruises on his chest and elbows, as well as the inflammation that led him to the hospital, are undoubtedly related to the fatal injuries he suffered at the last moment.
But as long as I think about it still being kept in cowhide... No, it should be called a metal book, but no matter what it is,As long as he thought of the bowl of hot glutinous rice balls inside, he suddenly felt extremely satisfied.