Chapter 210 To Friendship in the Blizzard

"This is it, come on down." Before Wei Ran finished speaking, he had already opened the car door.

Ralph, who was sitting in the driver's seat, looked at the Finnish signboard hanging at the door of the small hotel, and finally shook his head helplessly. He was not as knowledgeable and able to read as his cheap grandfather Noah. Knows Finnish and Norwegian.

Wei Ran, who got out of the car a step earlier, waited for Ralph to park the car and follow him, then gently pushed open the wooden door that was two meters high but only less than one and a half meters wide.

With the pleasant sound of wind chimes, behind the counter facing the wooden door, a silver-haired old lady also raised her head and slowly put on her reading glasses.

“Do you have a reservation?” The old lady’s kind tone contained a trace of Finnish alienation.

Wei Ran shook his head, "No reservations."

"How many days will you stay?" The old lady chased away the fat cat lying on her lap and continued to ask.

Wei Ran was not in a hurry to answer, but looked up at the oil paintings hanging on the walls of the lobby of this small hotel. Without exception, in the lower right corner of these paintings there is a pattern composed of an abstract windmill and the letter "M".

Ralph, who was originally standing behind him, immediately widened his eyes after seeing those oil paintings. Although it was the first time for him to see these oil paintings, the conspicuous logo in the lower right corner was different from the one in the lower right corner. The sign at the entrance of the gallery that I took care of is exactly the same!

"Those oil paintings are not for sale," the old lady reminded and then asked again, "How many days will you stay?"

Hearing this, Wei Ran finally looked away, "I want to Looking for Mr. Carl and Mr. Conon."

"Who are you looking for?" The old lady's unchanging tone finally changed.

"Mr. Carr and Mr. Conon," Weiran said again, "or Mr. Flory, the comedian, and Mr. Jason, his copywriter."

"God ! Where did you know these names?" The old lady stood up and asked in surprise.

It was only then that Wei Ran signaled Ralph, who was in a daze, to come over and took out the gold-case pocket watch and the document that had been spilled by ink from his briefcase and placed them one by one. On the old wooden counter, "Madam, do you remember these things?"

The old lady picked up the pocket watch and looked at it, then picked up the ID book and looked at it. After a long time, this Then he replied, "Remember, of course I remember, these are all Uncle Konon's things. Even this certificate became like this when I accidentally knocked over the ink bottle in the drawer when I was a child!

“It’s a long story”

Without a red face, Wei Ran attributed the reason why he found this place to the fact that he found out that Konon had mailed fake documents to Pravda. Records of the Soviet KGB investigation after the news was revealed. And followed the investigation records all the way to find outGot here.

"Young man, what should I call you?" the old lady sighed and asked.

"Victor"

"That's a good name"

The old lady stretched out her hand very formally, "I am the Mr. Karl you are looking for. Daughter Tinia, unfortunately, my father passed away more than ten years ago, and my uncle, Mr. Konon, also passed away when the Soviet Union collapsed."

"I'm sorry to hear that. "This news"

Wei Ran said apologetically. Although he had already known the result, the same news coming from the mouth of Karl's daughter, a silver-haired old lady, still made him a little difficult. The sadness of words.

For the metal book that can send him back to that war and back again, and for Wei Ran himself, the so-called changes of time are just two white lights that dazzle his eyes, but for him once The people in those stories who personally experienced that moment were more than half a century of waiting and searching.

"Although my father Karl and my uncle Konon have passed away, I still know the stories between them and those Germans."

Old lady Tinia picked up the document that he had blackened with ink and looked at it, then asked, "So you found this place on behalf of a descendant of a German soldier named Yannick Muller?"< /p>

"That's true."

Wei Ran patted the shoulder of Ralph next to him when he said this, "The son of the German soldier Yannick asked me to investigate the whereabouts of his father. The young man next to me is the client’s grandson, Ralph.”

Old Mrs. Tinia looked carefully at Ralph, who had no idea what they were talking about, and looked kindly. He pushed all the documents and pocket watches on the counter, then walked out of the counter tremblingly, hunched over, and led the two of them into the corner room on the first floor.

The three walls of this room are filled with a circle of bookshelves, and on the wall with the window, many photos are hung.

Old lady Tinia tried to stand up straight, pointed at the group photo in one of the photos and said, "In that group photo, the shortest person is my father Karl, and the one next to him is the shortest one." The tall man with one eye wrapped in gauze is my uncle Konon.

And this room was the office of the two of them when I was very young. This was also my playground. More than once, I heard them tell the story of becoming friends with several Germans in a hunting cabin in a canyon during the war years.”

When Old Mrs. Tinia said this, she realized that Ralph didn’t know something. At Wei Ran's prompt, he was holding up his cell phone to shoot a video. But she didn't care. Instead, she kindly motioned for the two of them to sit down on the sofa by the window, and continued to tell the stories she had heard when she was a child, telling every detail of Wei Ran's personal experience.

Until the end, the old lady said with regret, "When I became an adult,He later became an assistant to my father and Uncle Conon, who at that time made a lot of money performing comedy shows. But I remember clearly that the first thing they did was to buy the land where the hunting lodge I just mentioned was located. And what they have always wanted to do most is to turn what they experienced in that hunter's cabin into a script and move it to the stage at the right time. "

"What happened next? "Wei Ran, who had been avoiding the camera, couldn't help but ask. What happened later was not mentioned in the metal book, and he had never experienced it.

"Later, my uncle Mr. Konon He committed suicide on the night when the Soviet Union collapsed. After all, he was a Soviet, not a Finn, and certainly not a Russian. "

Tinya said sadly, "Since then, my father has completely bid farewell to the stage, and even the scripts they have written are forever locked in the safe of the hunter's cabin. . I still remember that the name of the script was Friendship in the Blizzard, and I even remember some of the lines in it. "

"Mrs. Tinia," Wei Ran asked hard-heartedly after a moment of silence, "That hunter's cabin and those German soldiers now..."

"That hunter's cabin The hut is still there."

Old lady Tinia said plainly, "Every winter, I ask my son to repair the old house. As for the corpses of the Germans, according to my father It has always been kept in the ice cellar, but the entrance to the ice cellar was sealed by my grandfather when I was very young. My son went to look for it a few years ago, but unfortunately he could not find the entrance to the ice cellar. "

"I..."

"Okay"

The old lady gave a positive answer without waiting for Wei Ran to finish. , "Whether it's taking the German home or going to the hunter's cabin to have a look. But I can't take you there. You have to wait until my son gets off work and let him take you there. "

Wei Ran heard this and said quickly, "It doesn't matter, we are waiting impatiently. "

"So, how many days are you going to stay? "The old lady asked suddenly.

Wei Ran was stunned for a moment, and then said with a smile, "Just for one day! Two rooms are needed. "

"Wait here, I'll get you the keys and make a pot of coffee. "Old Mrs. Tinia stood up slowly, opened the door and walked out.

"Victor, please explain what's going on! "The extremely well-mannered Ralph asked after finishing the video shooting.

After briefly recounting the cause and effect, Wei Ran added an additional reminder, "Ralph, my work has been completed. Regarding It’s up to you how to convey to Mr. Noah everything that happened in the winter of 1944. ”

Ralph nodded, and after a moment of hesitation, he walked to the window and dialed Noah’s phone. After a brief communication, he also sent the video he had just taken.

"My grandpa Noah will come over as soon as possible"

Ralph asked apologetically after putting away his phoneHe said, "Victor, if possible, can you go with me to the hunter's cabin in the canyon later? I don't know where to find a translator who can understand Finnish and German."

"As long as I can catch the flight back to China tomorrow," Wei Ran agreed happily. He also wanted to see what the hunter's cabin looked like now.

They didn’t have to wait long. A man who looked to be in his forties walked into the hotel in a hurry. He greeted Wei Ran and Ralph enthusiastically, without any inherent inclination. I have the impression that Finnish people are "shy".

This man who looks very similar to Karl back then is Tinia’s son Andy. After his self-introduction, Wei Ran found out that this Andy was actually a local He is also a well-known cross-country ski instructor.

What happened next was much simpler. After a few brief exchanges between the two parties, Andy immediately took them out of the hotel and drove to a ski resort on the edge of the city.

I have to admit that Finland is really a country that produces racing drivers. On such a snowy road that is less than ten kilometers away, the off-road vehicle Andy drove was pressing the accelerator almost the entire way, from time to time. It's like showing off your skills by drifting around corners on a road full of ice and snow.

This was fine for Wei Ran, who had just completed the skydiving challenge not long ago and had flown in the plane piloted by Dalia several times. However, Ralph, who was sitting next to him, was almost frightened. The rooster crows.

The three of them didn’t wait long in the off-road vehicle with the heater on. A big red rescue helicopter slowly landed in the open space directly in front of the car.

"Let's go, that place is a bit far away from here." Andy opened the door and asked Weiyan and Ralph to follow him and get into the cabin of the helicopter.

It could be seen that he was very familiar with the helicopter pilot. He just said "Go to the hunter's cabin" and the latter controlled the helicopter to take off and fly out.

In less than half an hour, as the helicopter began to lower its altitude, Weiyan gradually matched the topography outside the window with that in his memory.

With the roar of the propellers, the rescue helicopter advanced along a deep canyon at low altitude, and finally landed skillfully in an open space in the middle of a coniferous forest.

"Come down and take a look, it's right here."

Andy waited until the helicopter stalled before opening the door, beckoning Wei Yan and Ralph to come down, and stepped on Knee-deep snow reached the door of the pointed hunter's cabin.

More than half a century has passed, although this cabin has an iron roof, and the log walls seem to have been reinforced, and there is even an additional lock around the hunter's cabin. barbed wire fence.

But compared with when Wei Ran and others took shelter here from the blizzard, the overall change was not big. Only the room used as a utility room was moved from the left to the right of the hunter's cabin. Blocked the once bigDoor. The door that originally connected the utility room became a large door, and a solid wood platform was also laid out at the door.

When Andy used the key to open the locked door, Wei Ran bypassed the solid wood platform at the door without leaving a trace and walked into the interior of the hunter's cabin. He immediately found several things on the table by the window. Something extremely familiar.

On the log table were two dusty medicine boxes, one of which was filled with various medical equipment, and the other contained some old-fashioned shaving and barbering tools. There is no doubt that this is a relic of Dr. Jason.

In addition, there is a deck of playing cards, a harmonica, a few cloth bags rolled up with trouser legs, a palm-sized iron box, and a once-used sanitary ignition machine on the table. camera.

At Andy's signal, Wei Ran gently opened the rusty iron box, which was filled with semi-elliptical metal pieces.

Most of the names recorded on these metal plates are extremely unfamiliar to Weiran, but there are also a few that are extremely familiar. Among those familiar names are Luca and Flori. , there is Jason, and there is Yannick who they are looking for on this trip.

"I'm sure that the Yannick you are looking for should be here." Andy said apologetically, "But we don't know where the basement entrance to the ice cellar is."

"Mrs. Tinia said that Mr. Karl and Mr. Conon once created a script based on what happened in this hut?" Wei Ran closed the tin box again and reminded, "Maybe it was mentioned in their script "What happened?"

Andy's eyes lit up when he heard this, "Victor, you reminded me, maybe it's really possible!"

This time, there is no need for Wei Ran. Saying something else, Andy immediately moved away from the sofa facing the fireplace, then opened a small safe hidden in the corner and took out a loose-leaf book in a waterproof bag.

Through the waterproof bag, Wei Ran could clearly see that on the first page of this loose-leaf book, the same name was written in two different characters and fonts, Russian and Finnish - To Friendship in a blizzard.