On the frozen lake, two reindeer panted heavily, pulling the sled behind them and galloping on the soft snow. In the distance, the Finnish artillery set up on the high ground tirelessly continued to suppress the encirclement.
of enemies.
At this time, Wei Ran and the other three had already returned to the location where the track forked, and followed the trace extending southward without slowing down at all.
Not long after crossing the frozen Niska Lake and heading south, a truck stopped at the edge of the forest. Beside the truck, there was a series of messy footprints extending into the forest.
At the signal of the old hunter Ino, Wei Ran extinguished the kerosene lamp, and Mika took the initiative to get out of the car, strap on his skis and explore the way in front of the people.
But as they moved forward, scattered corpses with their clothes stripped off appeared along the way! There were also explosion traces of various sizes on the snow and even on the surrounding tree trunks.
"They're from the Civil Guard!" Mika looked at each corpse carefully with a flashlight and said angrily, "I've met these people before, and we even took a sauna together a few days ago!"
"Don't touch those corpses!" The old hunter Ino stopped Mika and said nervously, "Go back the way you came, hurry up!"
Mika also thought of something belatedly, and carefully retreated to the edge of the sleigh.
"It seems that the other party has an experienced hunter"
After Ino waited for Mika to get in the car, he shouted at the reindeer to stay away from the other party's footprints, "Mika, did they take the skis away?"
Mika shook his head when he heard this, "I only took two pairs with me."
"Then they can't go far. Let's find a place to camp and wait until daybreak before chasing after them!"
After the old hunter Ino finished speaking, he drove the sleigh several hundred meters deep into the forest, and then stopped at the edge of a pine tree. "Mika, put up the camouflage tent, Victor, put up your camouflage tent," he said.
The kerosene lamp was lit as brightly as possible and hung in the tent."
Upon hearing this, the two people immediately understood Ino's plan, and quickly set up the light-transmitting white camouflage cloth around the pine tree, and then hung the relit kerosene gas lamp inside.
After the two got on the car again, Ino moved the sleigh nearly a hundred meters away, and then motioned to the two of them to set up a deerskin tent.
After nearly half an hour of busy work, a fire was lit in the opaque deerskin tent. The three of them took turns sitting in the sleigh outside the tent, wrapped in wolfskin blankets, and used binoculars to monitor the bright lights a hundred meters away.
Camouflage tent with ice blue lights.
The long, cold night passed quietly, and when daybreak came, the kerosene gas lamp hanging in the camouflaged tent had gone out due to exhaustion of fuel, but the enemy the three of them expected never took the bait.
After Wei Ran and the two men dismantled the two tents and loaded them on the sleigh, the old hunter Ino took advantage of Wei Ran to refill the kerosene lamp and said, "There are only four hours until dark. Before dark, we
We must find those people as soon as possible. Mika, Victor, I will drive the sled and follow the footsteps, and you two will follow behind on your skis."
Before Mika and Wei Ran could say anything, the old hunter Ino patted his knees and said, "This is the best way. I can't move forward on skis now. Okay, get ready to go!"
Before he finished speaking, the old hunter Ino shouted to the reindeer and kept a distance of more than five meters from the string of footprints extending deep into the forest and moved forward quickly.
Wei Ran and Mika looked at each other, each picked up their weapons, stepped on their skis, and kept a distance of more than 20 meters from the sleigh in front of them on the left to catch up.
As the three of them went deeper into the forest, corpses of the Finnish Civil Guard appeared again near the footprints, but the difference from before was that almost all of these frozen corpses had been shot to death.
Ino, the old hunter who was responsible for exploring the path, couldn't help but be more vigilant, always watching for signs of abnormality around him.
However, until they left the forest, the footsteps they followed finally stopped in front of a wooden house located between the edge of the forest and the lake.
Upon seeing this, the old hunter Ino, who was sitting on the sled, immediately raised the sniper rifle that had been placed next to him. Wei Ran and Mika took off their skis in no particular order, and carefully walked to the house with their submachine guns.
in front of the wooden door.
Gently pushing the door open with the muzzle of the gun, the suppressed whimpers immediately reached the ears. The two looked at each other and carefully walked into the door. Then they saw a woman tied to a pillar and two people tied back to back.
A child who holds his hands and feet.
"Is there anyone else in the house?" Mika asked in Finnish, holding up a submachine gun.
Seeing the tied woman shaking her head quickly with tears streaming down her face, Mika immediately pulled out the Finnish hunting knife from her waist and cut the rope, then pulled out the ball of cloth from the woman's mouth.
"What's going on?" Mika asked while helping to untie the ropes on the hands and feet of the two children.
"Before dawn, a group of people in camouflage uniforms broke into my house and hijacked my husband and our sleigh!" The woman held her two daughters in her arms and shouted, "They seem to be Soviets!
"
"In which direction did they run?" Wei Ran, who had already checked other rooms, asked immediately.
"I don't know, I don't know." The woman said with tears streaming down her face.
"What does your sleigh look like?"
"Drawed by reindeer or pulled by dogs?" Mika also added.
"The sleigh is red, with a white fox fur blanket on it." The woman replied, wiping tears. "We repainted it just before Christmas. It was pulled by a reindeer."
"How many are there?" Wei Ran, who had already walked to the door, finally asked.
"Five people, there are only five of them!"
Mika, who had also reached the door, asked, "How long have they been gone?"
"In less than two hours," the woman replied quickly, "they still changed into my husband's clothes."
"Lock the door, your husband will be back soon." After Wei Ran finished speaking, he helped him close the wooden door nailed with deerskin.
"Can I catch up?"
Outside the door, Wei Ran asked Mika and old hunter Ino.
"We can't run," Mika said confidently. A reindeer pulling six people couldn't run fast at all, and it would be very conspicuous.
"Sit tight!"
The old hunter Ino was even more straightforward. He took the goggles handed to him by Mika and put them on. Then he shook the reins vigorously and shouted at the two reindeer to run. At the same time, he did not forget to explain, "They must be heading towards Lake Wuokki."
If we run away, only by running there and heading north can we bypass our blockade and meet another Soviet division, so as long as we hurry up, we can catch up soon!"
"Is Lake Wuokki ahead?"
Wei Ran's eyebrows twitched, but he remembered clearly that the village where Akeem, the commander of the 163rd Division, who invited him to come over this time to help investigate, was located, but it was at the easternmost edge of Lake Wuoki! So you can see him soon
