When the white light faded again and the vision returned to normal, Wei Ran finally returned to the inflatable awning built next to Yuri's grave.
Under his gaze, and under the curious eyes of the dog Beria next to him, the metal quill also wrote lines of text under the black and white photo on the latest page of the metal book:
Starlight in the polar night
Yuri, a woodcutter, died in action on January 14, 1942, after killing one paratrooper of the German Brandenburg detachment. He was 16 years old.
Lumberjack Regica, on January 14, 1942, killed 8 paratroopers of the German Brandenburg detachment.
On January 15, he fell into the water after stepping on a booby trap. After escaping from the trap, he killed one of the remaining enemies and was rescued by his father.
On January 17, Regina faked her death.
On February 2, Rezica joined the guerrillas in the name of her mother, Lyubov Zik, and served successively as a dog sled correspondent, scout, and sniper.
On May 4, 1942, during a sabotage mission behind enemy lines, Regica took the initiative to interrupt the enemy's retreat and died.
On April 4, 1943, Lyubov Zik (Rezica) was posthumously awarded the Partisan Medal of the Second Class Patriotic War.
In the summer of 1946, Regica's body was discovered and buried in the Pechenga guerrilla collective cemetery.
Timofey (Igor Augustevich Petrov), a former fugitive prisoner, joined the guerrillas as an investigator on January 8, 1942.
On February 1, 1942, he unfortunately stepped on a mine during a counter-sneak attack mission and was seriously injured. He died due to excessive blood loss and hypothermia on the way back.
On April 4, 1943, Timofey (Igor Augustevich Petrov) was posthumously awarded the Patriotic War Partisan Medal of the Second Class.
After writing these few lines, the metal quill started another line and wrote down two sets of precise coordinates and the numbers of two guerrilla medals.
Restarting a line again, the metal quill wrote, "Who doesn't want to be a hero, and who wants to be a hero. But in this extreme night that longs for light, someone must be a moth to the fire and a warrior who steals the fire.
.”
"yes..."
As Wei Ran murmured a sigh, the pale yellow page turned over, and the metal quill also wrote under the slowly rotating red whirlpool, "I am going to join the guerrillas, and my brother is fighting
He died, and my father also died in the battle. Now it’s my turn. Someone has to drive away those invaders."
As he wrote this, the quill fell on the page. Wei Ran also reached out and took out something from the red vortex - it was a pair of skis and matching ski poles issued by the German army in World War II.
Putting away all the ski equipment and metal books, Wei Ran rubbed his face vigorously, left the tent and stepped on the snowshoes, greeted Beria, the dog who was still eating, and climbed up the short mountain again.
of the top of the mountain.
Stepping on the newly acquired skis, Wei Ran followed his memory and rushed to the edge of the depression where the German corpses were buried.
In more than half a century, the terrain here has not changed much. He tried to dig through the thick snow with an engineer shovel, and it didn't take long for him to discover a mangled skeleton.
Compared to the shady side of the mountain, the sunny side experienced relatively more drastic changes in temperature and environment, causing the corpse to be in a state of disrepair, revealing mottled white bones.
But even so, he could still distinguish the Soviet steel helmets they were wearing, as well as the German box flashlights from World War II hanging on their chests - he clearly remembered that when he was burying the bodies, he took away all those square box flashlights.
Already.
Before the dog Beria could run down, Wei Ran buried the body in snow again, then took off his skis and put them away, put on his snowshoes again and climbed up to the top of the mountain step by step, returning to the north side of the mountain.
of gravel.
After carefully packing up the tents and other items that had been set up before entering the historical segment, Weiran dragged these items and his lazy dog Beria back to the foot of the mountain, and drove away on his snowmobile.
Returning to the edge of the lake, he waited for his mobile phone to have a signal and immediately searched against the coordinates provided by the metal book.
As expected, one of them was not far from his current location, and the other was located at the Soviet Guerrilla Martyrs Cemetery in Pechenga District.
Putting away his cell phone and turning the accelerator, Wei Ran drove the snowmobile, following his memory in circles into the forest, and finally found three abandoned wooden houses hidden in the grass, shrubs and coniferous forest.
Thanks to the polar climate, these three wooden houses made of logs still remain generally intact, except that the roofs have collapsed.
Walking into the wooden house where Regina once lived, several rusty rifles and several TT33 pistols were still hanging on the remaining log walls.
Without touching these weapons or trying to dig out anything from here, Wei Ran turned around and walked to the door of the wooden house where the loot was originally stored.
Carefully opening the decayed and deformed wooden door, when the flashlight beam swept over, he saw at a glance that under the uncollapsed log table on the side of the door, there was a white airdrop box, and a white airdrop box was exposed on the floor next to the box.
It's a big hole, but fortunately, the box itself just sits on two thick and strong wooden beams.
Little by little, Wei Yan dragged the airdrop box out, put on rubber gloves, opened the lock, and lifted the rusty cover.
Immediately afterwards, he saw the tripod, rangefinder and oversized telescope placed inside, as well as several well-preserved German lunch boxes placed in the corner, and even several square boxes of flashlights, telescopes and other miscellaneous items.
Taking out these German lunch boxes one by one, some contained Robert's camera with a wide-angle lens, some contained lenses and film, and some contained compact gasoline stoves.
But when he opened the last lunch box, he found that there were several plastic notebooks and pencils inside.
He remembered clearly that these plastic notebooks and pencils came with the airdrop box.
He took out a notebook and opened it carefully. It was empty and had nothing written on it. The same was true for the second, third, and fourth notebooks.
But when he took out the last notebook and opened it, he found that on the first page, a German steel helmet was drawn with a pencil. Around the helmet were 16 bullet casings that looked like birthday candles.
Gently turning the page, there was a Russian diary written in pencil.
"When I woke up today, I saw my father sitting on the stool next to the bed and taking a nap. I thought I was dreaming. It wasn't until he brought me a bowl of broth that I realized that I was really
survived..."
Continuing to turn over a few pages, the diary at the end did not contain detailed dates, but it recorded trivially what happened after each time I woke up.
In those words, the father and daughter had quarrels over and over again because of "suspended death" and because they did not want each other to go to the front line - until in a certain diary, Timofey left without saying goodbye and left a letter proposing that they
Let the issue of dispute be discussed after she recovers from her injuries.
This page is also mixed with a handwritten letter left by Timofey. The beautiful Russian cursive and elegant words seem to be in line with the cultivation of a descendant of a noble family.
In a later diary entry, Regina, who was recovering from her injuries, set up the telescope and became enthusiastic about looking for those beautiful stars to pass the time on days when there were no aurora and no snow. And in the following pages of the diary
, and also draw different star distributions.
Continuing to turn back, Regina's diary about the starry sky ended after a few pages. The last page that followed just wrote the sentence "I am going to join the guerrillas. My brother is dead."
, my father also died in the war. Now it’s my turn. Someone has to drive away those invaders.”
Just when he was reading the last page of the diary, he felt a burning sensation on his left hand that could not be ignored for a moment.
Wei Ran waved his hand, hesitated for a moment, and finally put the notebook in his hand back into the lunch box. Then he carefully put the full airdrop box back into its place, and dragged it along on the snowmobile.
Heading north, we finally stopped at the edge of a frozen lake.
After patting the dog's head and making the big guy squat on the trailer, Wei Ran took out his telescope and looked around, then took out his metal book and turned to the latest page.
Sure enough, there was an extra blue inverted vortex and a line of words on this page - Those stars hidden above the aurora are really beautiful, and I really want my brother and dad to see them. Finally,
Like them, I became a star above the aurora.
Wei Ran sighed secretly and took out the things from the blue vortex.
As guessed, what is placed here is really the 25X105 times ultra-large wide-angle telescope produced by Schneider.
This seemingly unrelated reward may be just a prop that Wei Ran will have the chance to use at some point, but for the Legica siblings, it proves that they have worked hard to protect the defense.
The most direct evidence of what Murmansk and the material railway paid for.
However, as always, the telescope mounted on a tripod that was awarded to Weiran had its nameplate information erased and instead had an hourglass mark.
Following his memory, Wei Ran held the handle wrapped in a leather sheath and turned the angle of the telescope so that it was as consistent as possible with the direction in which Regina was observing. Then he put his forehead against the headrest and brought his eyes to the eyepiece.
On the edge.
With the help of the excellent optical performance of this telescope, he easily let his sight pass through the gap between the aurora and aimed at a bright star in the night sky.
He knew that was the crucial North Star.
Sighing secretly, Wei Ran was not in a hurry to put away the large telescope. Instead, he took out the sleigh from the metal book and prepared to set up the tent.
However, when he lifted up the canvas covering the sled, he was surprised to find that an airdrop box with the handle and rubber wheels removed was fixed horizontally to the rear of the sled.
Wei Ran couldn't help but laugh when he opened the lid of the airdrop box. Inside was a set of German double-sided winter camouflage and a pair of matching German mountain boots.
In addition, there are also the shirts and trousers made of silk umbrella cloth that he got, the seized woolen clothes and trousers, and a pair of high-waisted Lapland boots stuffed with foot wraps, and even the one that was originally packed in the box.
The deerskin robes are all placed here.
Turning to open the wooden box filled with various cans, the deerskin robe originally placed inside was naturally gone, but on the inside of the box lid, there were two square box flashlights hanging at the hanging points.
They even each have a commemorative silver coin set in them.
Seeing this, Wei Ran simply sat on the sleigh and checked the metal book page by page.
Unfortunately, except for the Mauser bayonet that was lost in the historical fragment, there was a 10-day countdown on the page, and except for the transport truck that he did not want to take out for fear of pain, he found nothing more.
After setting up the tent and lighting the cast-iron stove in a sigh, Wei Ran once again stood by the edge of the super-large telescope, slowly turning its direction, aimlessly observing the night sky and the dots of stars, wishing extravagantly.
You can find the stars representing the three people in that family.
