The white light that filled his field of vision woke Wei Ran up from his hangover. When he opened his eyes, he realized that he had returned to his studio by the Volga River.
Last night, or to be more precise, the night before he got drunk, he drank a lot of wine with the two survivors, Pierre and Trento, in that restaurant. But they tacitly agreed to never mention their respective experiences on the battlefield again.
Obviously, whether it was the deaths of Carlo and Panetong or the yellow sand battlefield in North Africa, they have become memories that the two war survivors did not want to touch.
In the familiar whispering voice, the metal book spread out on the desk in the bedroom did not give Wei Ran a chance to sigh. It automatically turned to page 13 as always, and the metal quill suspended on the page was there. Under the photo of the oil barrel, the following story continues with no one watching:
"The treasure at the bottom of the well"
The tankers Carlo and Pane of the 32nd Tank Regiment of the 132nd Division of Italy Tong, killed in action during the Second Battle of Alamein on November 2, 1942.
Pierre, a tank driver of the 32nd Tank Regiment of the 132nd Division of Italy, suffered severe burns and his right leg was amputated after returning to the army. After recovering from the injury, he retired and returned to Turin, Italy, to run "Gubijing Pasta" Restaurant, died of illness in 1986.
Trento, a soldier of the 80th Transport Company of the Italian 101st Division, became a German prisoner of war after Italy surrendered in September 1943. He returned to Italy with the help of German journalist Per, and was invited by Pierre to start a partnership. He worked as a chef at the Gubijing Pasta restaurant and died of illness in 1971.
Pell, a reporter for the German newspaper Vanguard, died in an Allied air strike while conducting interviews on the front line during the Battle of the Ruhr on March 30, 1945.
British scout Harry, after the surrender of the German and Italian troops in 1943, forged medical records and retired, returning to Scotland to run the family wine cellar and silverware workshop. After the war, he went to dry wells in the North African desert many times to wait to meet friends. On December 15, 1952, on his way back to the UK in North Africa, he accidentally ran over a landmine left by the British in the North African battlefield of World War II and died.
After writing this, the metal quill pen started a new line and listed two addresses. One of these two addresses is on the shores of Loch Ness, Scotland, England. The other one is in Turin, Italy, and even the end of the address says "Gubijing Pasta Restaurant".
In Wei Ran’s lamentation, the metal quill pen wrote another line, “The treasure buried deep in the yellow sand in the well is not gold coins, but precious friendship and even more precious peace.”< /p>
Amidst the clatter of turning pages, the metal quill brushed under the red swirl on the back of the page and wrote, "Friend, after the war is over, please come to my birthday party on time."< /p>
When the metal quill that completed the work fell on the table, Wei Ran looked at the floating objects in the red vortex and already had a rough guess in his mind.
I put my hand into the whirlpool and tried to lift it out, but as expected this time I still couldn't lift it out.
Putting away the metal book, Wei Ran put his left hand on the bedside, and then three brand new oil barrels painted in the desert appeared on the bed.
The handles and lids in the middle of these three oil barrels, which were originally used to fix the small iron pieces representing the octane number, are each inlaid with a conspicuous gold coin. Next to the gold coins, three Chinese characters about the size of a fingernail were written: "oil", "water", and "wine".
Besides the three oil drums, there is an old code book.
Pick up the codebook and open it. On the first page, the words "Per Schilling of the Vanguard" are written in beautiful cursive characters in German. And inside the codebook, there is also a hand-drawn letter. Wei Ran remembered the simple map clearly. It was exactly the map he found in that dry well.
Put away the code book and open the first oil barrel. The strong smell of gasoline came out. At the same time, Weiran also noticed that the main bodies of these three 20-liter oil barrels were not original ones. Instead of welding process, it adopts one-piece molding process, and even the material has been upgraded to titanium metal.
"How much does this bastard like titanium?" Wei Ran muttered to himself. After closing the lid of the first oil drum, he opened the second one.
There is no doubt that the content inside is the same as what is marked on the side of the gold coin, which is full of fresh water. The third one, on the other hand, only contained more than half a barrel of red wine.
Excluding the oil barrel itself, which has been upgraded in craftsmanship and material, as well as the gold coins on it that the three sisters cannot dig out, these three barrels contain exactly what the German reporter Pell was preparing to return to him. The supplies prepared by Harry from the camp.
Turning around and picking up a cup from the table, Wei Ran poured himself a cup from the bucket labeled "wine". The familiar texture and taste are exactly the same as the red wine I used to quench my thirst when I was lost in the desert. It is neither delicious nor unpleasant, but it is full of the taste of memories.
Drinking the last sip of red wine in the glass carefully, Wei Ran closed the lid and put them back into the metal book.
Picking up the code book again, after some research, Wei Ran began to compare it with the book and translated the secret words left by reporter Pell on the oil drum sent by Herbert.
Gradually, a piece of German text appeared on the screen of Wei Ran’s mobile phone:
In the predicament on the edge of the battlefield, I saw the rare peace, the fragility of life, and witnessed The soldiers of the three countries betrayed their respective camps.
But in this dry well, we all gained precious friendships, an unforgettable birthday party, and the hope of ending the war as soon as possible.
I hope that next time we get together, we can organize a decent birthday party as friends. I also hope that everyone can participate on time and dig out the treasures that belong to all of us.
Per Schilling, reporter of the German newspaper Avant-Garde, 9.12.1941
Lighted out his handLooking at the phone screen, Wei Ran felt a little tipsy from the glass of red wine just now. After exhaling forcefully, he took out Guqin Yaoguang from the metal book.
Soon, the melodious music of the piano came from the bedroom, filling the empty studio downstairs, taking away Wei Ran's inner feelings and traces of negativity. mood.
After the song ended, Wei Ran calmed down, walked to the long table downstairs, and took out the food box first.
In order to cope with the environment in the desert, he put a full basin of mineral water and cooling oil on the second floor of the food box, but the metal notebook was not used by him at all. Chance. Now that he is back alive, these things are naturally no longer needed. Even because I got those three oil barrels, as long as the metal notebook doesn't act like a monster, there is a high probability that I will never be short of water again.
I cleaned the stainless steel basin on the second floor of the food box and put back the box of poisonous needles locked in the safe. He then took out the anti-tank gun, which was also useless, and removed the magazine from it.
What surprised him was that the high-speed tungsten-core armor-piercing bullets that he had secretly withheld while operating on Trento were all sitting in the magazine, even in the barrel of the gun. Not one of the armor-piercing bullets disappeared, which is not a big gain.