When Wei Ran woke up again, the sky outside the tent had completely brightened up. It was a rare sunny morning, but the sunshine and the cold wind that dispersed all the clouds made the snow grits mixed in the sand on the ground melt and melt.
The rate of evaporation has accelerated a lot, which not only makes the ground more slippery, but also makes the temperature colder.
Because of the accidents of Habibullah and Multaza last night, Weiran and Kirill did not find the opportunity to change the dressings for the injured. Naturally, this essential work could only be carried out before departure.
"Uncle Habibullah is dead"
While Weiran was changing Multaza's dressing, the young man said sadly.
"Sorry, we couldn't save him." Wei Ran said apologetically.
Multaza opened his mouth but couldn't say anything, but his eyes were already red.
In silence, the medicines were changed for the three wounded people one by one. After everyone had a simple breakfast, Mahbub made new arrangements.
"We must change to a safer road, and this time I will go ahead."
As he said this, Mahbub, who was being helped by Hakim to ride on the donkey, was already shouting at the donkey to turn towards the direction it came from. At the same time, he kept saying, "Multaza, you ride the donkey and lead the donkey."
The leader is walking behind me, Soraya and Joya, you are walking behind the Soviets, Hakim, you should go last.”
"Teacher Mahboob"
Hakeem asked, "Do you really know of any other safe routes?"
"How many years have I been on this road?"
Mahbub responded matter-of-factly, and then urged the donkey to take a step forward.
Under his leadership, everyone followed him as he asked. Wei Ran and Kirill also carried Ayana and her two babies again.
The original road left this valley that had become dangerous, and Mahbubu led them over barren mountains one after another in repeated turns. It was not until near noon that he led them into a road that was even more dangerous than before.
Narrow valley.
This valley is only wide enough for two donkeys to walk side by side. The heavily weathered rock formations on both sides protrude toward the middle. The lower part is concave with remaining water lines. Obviously, this is probably the route of flash floods in the rainy season.
This has an advantage. In this valley, all kinds of firewood that can be used as fuel can be found almost everywhere, but there are also many corpses that have turned into bones everywhere.
These mutilated corpses seemed to have been brought here by the floods and left here, and the remaining clothes on their bodies seemed to be dressed like guerrillas.
“This road is not easy”
Mahbub, who was riding a donkey at the front, said in Pashto that Kirill could not understand, "Every year, you can only walk here after winter and before heavy snowfall. At other times, the sediment in the valley can
Sucking in every leg that steps in, after a heavy snowfall, a lot of snow will slide down from time to time above your head."
After a short pause and waiting for the echoes in the valley to disappear, Mahbub continued, "Abbas's accident happened here. He stepped on a landmine that was washed down by a flash flood."
"Where is his body?" Ayana asked as she was lying on the stretcher.
"Buried outside the valley"
Mahbub replied, "On the other side of this valley, we will pass by there when we come out of the valley."
After this brief exchange, Mahbub and others continued to remain silent and busy on their way, and there was only the sound of footsteps echoing repeatedly in the valley.
"Can I take some photos?" Wei Ran asked Hakim behind him.
"Whatever you want," Hakim replied casually, and then found Wei Ran pressing the shutter towards him.
"Help me carry it for a while," Wei Ran said unceremoniously.
Hakim glanced at Wei Ran in surprise, and then took the stretcher angrily amid Ayana's chuckle.
Wei Ran quickly ran to the front of the group, held his camera and stood aside, taking a single photo of everyone passing by in this winding and narrow valley.
Returning to her seat next to the stretcher, Ayana said, "Victor, help me take a photo of me and my child."
"My pleasure"
Before Wei Ran finished speaking, Kirill had already stopped, followed closely by Hakim and the two little girls riding a donkey behind him, who had to stop as well.
Carefully finding an angle, Wei Ran helped the mother and son take a group photo.
After he put away the camera, Kirill took steps again, and Weiran returned to the job that Akeem had temporarily taken over.
“It’s been a long time since I left the mountains.”
Ayana hugged the child tightly in her arms, looked at the narrow sky above her head and muttered to herself in Pashto that Kirill could not understand, "I have been fighting guerrillas in the mountains with my husband for these years.
"
"The war should be over soon," Hakim responded.
"I have no idea"
Ayana shook her head, "My radio battery has been discharged a long time ago."
"I heard what Teacher Abdul said"
"He guessed the war would be over soon," Hakim said.
"Even if the war is going to end soon"
Ayana asked, "Hakim, will you go find Vader after the war is over?"
"I have no idea"
Hakim paused, "I don't know if I can survive until the end of the war."
"What if I can survive until that time?" Ayana asked.
"Yes, probably yes."
Hakim said ambiguously, and at the same time, he subconsciously pressed the bone blue whale hidden in his arms.
"He must still be waiting for you."
Ayana looked at the linear sky above her head and said, "Let's go find her after the war is over."
"Let's wait until the war is over."
Hakim responded vaguely and grasped the rifle on his shoulder again.
In a new round of silence, the team walked along the valley until noon, and then stopped at a slightly more spacious location to rest.
“How far do we have to go before we get out?”
Kirill asked while Mahbub and others had not started the noon salute.
"I'll be out before dark"
Mahbub explained, and then took his children to start the noon ceremony.
Amid their prayers, Wei Ran and Kirill, who had been carrying stretchers all morning, sat tiredly on a dead tree and were busy pumping, pressurizing and lighting the oil stoves assigned to them, becoming more and more skilled.
He placed the leftover broth from last night on top.
"Look there"
Kirill put his hand to the oil stove to warm up the fire, and raised his chin in the direction of travel, "You know what that is, right?"
"Know"
Wei Ran, who had noticed the abnormality long ago, replied without raising his head, "A chemical warhead that has released all the poison."
"Many people must have died here, and they died tragically."
Kirill whispered, "In such a valley, the wind speed is so fast, as long as the warhead is thrown in and exploded, the poison will be blown by the wind to the other end."
"I thought those corpses washed down from upstream," Wei Ran said in a low voice.
"Have you seen the power of chemical warheads?" Kirill asked in a low voice.
Wei Ran couldn't help but shook his head, and nodded, "I've seen Jiezi Qi and Louis Qi before."
"Have we used these poisons?" Kirill asked in surprise.
"It's not on the Afhan battlefield," Wei Ran explained vaguely.
"Our chemical warheads kill very quickly"
Kirill whispered with lingering fear, "Last summer, I followed the troops to a stone fortress where guerrillas were hidden. The place was bombed three times by FAB3000 aerial bombs but it did not completely collapse."
"Did the chemical warheads work?"
"Um"
Kirill nodded, "It's just one. The poisonous mist drifted down the entrance into the tunnel. The people hidden inside were all dead. They all died in an instant. Some had cigarettes in their mouths, and some had cigarettes in their arms."
Holding weapons, some seemed to be laughing one second and then died."
"Why are you talking about this suddenly?" Wei Ran asked after a moment of silence.
"Perhaps this war was a mistake from the beginning..."
Kirill looked at the remains of chemical warheads lying across the valley in the distance and said to himself, "It wasn't until I saw those corpses that I truly realized that I was an invader."
"But you can't change anything," Wei Ran said to himself as well.
"I hope our reform-loving Zongshu prostitute can change something..."
Kirill sighed and said to himself again, "I want to go home, back to Moscow. If Yelena is waiting for me, I want to marry her immediately."
"You will go back"
Wei Ran said vaguely, but there was no confidence in his tone at all.
At this point in the chat, the mutton soup in the pot has been boiled, and Mahbub and others have also finished the noon ceremony.
After leaving the task of distributing food to Hakim, Weiran and Kirill also took the opportunity to check Multaza's injuries.
Neither of them noticed that Mahbub subconsciously pointed his gun at the two of them again, but after a brief hesitation, he once again put aside the submachine gun produced in the Soviet Union.
Wei Ran and Kirill, who had their backs turned to him, did not notice this fatal danger, but both Ayana and Hakim saw this scene in their eyes.
"Dad, what are you hesitating about?" Ayana asked, still using Pashto that Kirill couldn't understand.
"They are enemies," Hakim couldn't help but remind him, "If you want to kill them both, just kill them."
"They are the enemy"
Mahbub sighed and said, "But they are not bad people, and Multaza was injured just now and needs their help even more."
"Then kill them later," Hakim said nonchalantly.
Mahbubu shook his head helplessly, but did not continue to explain anything.
Secretly breathing a sigh of relief, Wei Ran, after confirming that Multaza's physical condition was relatively stable, pulled Kirill back to his original position and sat down obediently.
After eating naan cakes soaked in mutton soup with their backs turned against the biting cold wind, everyone set off again, lining up in the same formation as in the morning, and continuing to walk towards the other end of the valley under the leadership of Mahbub.
This valley was much longer than Wei Ran expected. The further they went, the terrain became more and more rugged. Various large and small heavily weathered rocks mixed with dry branches and branches seriously slowed down their progress.
Even so, when the sun was gradually blocked by the distant mountains, they still walked out of the valley.
"Abbas is buried over there."
Mahbubu raised his hand and pointed to a protrusion made of stones on a small high ground in the distance and said, "Let's rest here tonight and set off again early tomorrow morning."
"Is there anything we can do to help?" Kirill volunteered in Farsi, "like fetching water or collecting firewood."
"Let's go collect some firewood alone."
Mahbub said, "There is no water source nearby. We will have to wait until noon tomorrow to find a new water source."
"I'll go," Kirill said proactively.
"If you dare to escape..."
"Just kill him"
Kirill raised his hand and pointed at Wei Ran, then picked up an ax and a rope, turned around and walked towards the direction he came from.
"Let me help you set up the tent."
Wei Ran smiled, helped untie a bundle of felts from the donkey, and built a shack around a protruding rock at the mouth of the valley that was strong enough to block the cold wind.
"You don't seem worried that he will run away?" asked Hakim, who was also setting up a tent together.
"Maybe he has run away."
Wei Ran made a joke that wasn't funny, then turned to look behind him.
At this time, Ayana was pointing a gun vaguely at Wei Ran, Soraya and Qiaoya were busy coaxing the two crying babies, and Multaza was busy milking the goat.
Mahbubu, on the other hand, walked alone to the hill in the distance, holding a wooden stick and a blanket.
"Is there anyone buried there?" Wei Ran looked back and asked.
"A guerrilla named Abbas"
Hakeem explained, "He was Mahbub's best student and...Malalai's only son."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Hearing this, Wei Ran looked in the direction of Mahbubu again. At this time, the old man had already limped up the hill and would bring
He spread a blanket beside the small, simple tomb, knelt down on it, held his hands in the last ray of sunset, and began to perform the devout obeisance.
Almost at the same time that Wei Ran and Hakim set up the shack, Kirill also used a rope to pull back a large bundle of firewood. Then he took the initiative to pick up the engineer shovel and dug two holes at the door of the shack, which were enough to keep them safe.
Bonfire in the distance.
However, until the bonfires were lit one after another, Mahbub was still kneeling on the hill, and no one knew what he was thinking.
Not long after, an enamel pot containing the remaining mutton was filled with water and placed on the lit bonfire. A small jar of goat milk that Multaza had just squeezed was also placed on the charcoal fire and waited to be boiled.
"Hakim, please bring my father back."
Ayana said that although she has been on the road these two days, her body has recovered quite well, at least she has much more strength to speak.
After looking at Wei Ran and Kirill who were warming themselves up by another bonfire, Hakim got up and walked towards the hill in the distance.
"I just picked this up"
Kirill whispered, and at the same time quickly showed Wei Ran what he had in his hand. It was an outdated Webley revolver.
Before he could say anything, Kirill made a silent gesture, then buried the pistol in the sand beside the bonfire, and then moved his butt to suppress the pistol.
Without Wei Ran asking, he took the initiative to explain in a low voice, "I have been paying attention to the corpses along the way. Many of them still have weapons on them."
"But it has been soaked in water and can no longer be used."
Wei Ran reminded in a low voice that he also noticed those weapons along the way, but in such a valley with seasonal floods, even if there were bullets in those weapons, they must have been damp.
What's more, Kirill is not good at picking up any weapons, but he picked up such a British piece of garbage. Even if he wanted to find suitable ammunition from other people, it would be difficult for him.
“Better than nothing”
Just as Kirill finished speaking, Mahbub also limped back with Hakim's support.
Without any communication, Soraya and Qiao Ya served everyone a portion of mutton soup and divided half a piece of dry naan bread.
Wei Ran and Kirill became more and more skillful in tearing apart the naan bread and throwing it into the hot broth. They ate their dinner in silence while listening to Mahbub and others not far away using Pushkin.
Pictorial chat.
"Can you understand?" Wei Ran asked in a low voice.
"Don't understand." Kirill shook his head, and then wrote on the sand with the handle of his fork, "Don't be in a hurry to sleep tonight."
After looking at the words written by the other party, Wei Ran looked at Kirill again, and then nodded lightly.
"Have you changed your mind?" Wei Ran asked in a low voice.
"I dreamed about Yelena last night, and it was her all night long." Kirill took a deep breath, "I want to go back as soon as possible, I can't wait."
"Then let's do it tonight..."
Wei Ran responded vaguely. He had no expectations for what was going to happen at night. It was just that some people would survive and some would die.
After finishing dinner absentmindedly, Wei Ran wrapped up his blanket early and lay down by the campfire. As for the tent that had just been set up, it was for Ayana and her children, as well as the two "little nannies" Soraya and Qiao Ya.
prepared.
That night, Mahbubu was still responsible for guarding them in the first half of the night. The old man held the Bobosha submachine gun in his arms, but one of his hands was always on the trigger guard.
It was midnight, and just when Mahbub woke Hakim up to replace him, Wei Ran and Kirill opened their eyes almost at the same time.
Through the embers of the campfire, Wei Ran could vaguely see that Kirill had slowly touched his hand into the sand beneath him.
But the next second, he stopped.
Immediately afterwards, Hakim came over with a bundle of firewood and pressed it on the embers of the bonfire between the two of them. He even knelt down and tilted his head and blew a few hard breaths until the firewood was ignited by the embers.
He stood up and patted the sand on his legs, turned around and picked up another bundle of firewood and walked towards another bonfire at the door of the shack.
Before he could add more wood to the bonfire, Kirill had already taken out the Webley pistol and hid it under the felt covering his body.
However, before he could find a chance, the roar of an airplane suddenly came from the night sky above his head!
In just an instant, everyone, whether they were really asleep or pretending to sleep, or had just woken up or were about to sleep, all got up very quickly!
"Quickly put out the fire!" Wei Ran and Hakim shouted almost simultaneously.
Then, before they could cover the bonfire with sand or blankets, a fighter jet roared across the sky at an angle of almost 45 degrees across the valley.
"Run! Run!"
Kirill threw the revolver in his hand directly into the blanket and shouted in horror, "It's Su-25! Run! We have to hide immediately!"
Before he finished speaking, Kirill and Wei Ran rushed into the tent one after another, and directly picked up Ayana, who was lying on the stretcher and was not yet fully awake, and ran in the direction of the valley when they were lifted up!
"Child! My child is still in the tent!" Ayana shouted in panic after reacting.
"Hurry up and grab the baby!" Wei Ran shouted to the two little girls in the tent.
After reacting, Qiao Ya and Soraya immediately picked up a child and ran out.
At the same time, Hakim also carried Multaza onto the donkey.
But in the same short period of time, Mahbubu had already ignited the blanket he was covering, and then carrying the Bobosha submachine gun, he quickly mounted a donkey!
"You run into the valley! No matter what happens, don't come out!"
Before Mahbub finished speaking, he slapped the donkey's butt hard and put the ignited blanket on the donkey's butt.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Stimulated by the pain and flames, the donkey also screamed and took off its hooves and ran in the direction outside the valley.
.
"dad!"
"grandfather!"
Ayana and Multaza cried in despair and panic, but Hakim slapped Multaza hard on the butt of the donkey he was riding, making him run into the valley first!
Looking anxiously at the night sky above his head, and then at the flickering fire in the direction of Mahbubu, Hakim gritted his teeth, mounted his donkey and chased in the direction of Wei Ran and others.
After a while, the Su-25 overhead had already circled back.
"Tu tu tu tu tu——"
Amidst the long roar of machine guns, a series of bombardments came from the direction of Mahbub, and the Su-25 also shot up into the night sky after a dive.
But at this critical moment, Qiao Ya, who was holding the baby, accidentally fell to the ground, and the baby in her hand also fell to the ground and rolled several times on the sand!
"My child! My child!"
Lying on the stretcher, Ayana cried and begged, "Please! Go save my child!"
"Hakim! Take her and run away first!"
Wei Ran and Kirill almost made the same choice at the same time. They worked together to pick up Ayana on the stretcher and handed it to Hakim who came from behind on a donkey.
The latter seemed to be prepared and jumped back hard to let go of the donkey, allowing Ayana to ride on it.
"I'll cover you! Let's go!"
Hakim said, took something out of his arms and forced it to Ayana. Then he took out a bottle of kerosene and poured it on the ground. He took out a lighter and lit it, while he himself raised the
That AK74 assault rifle came!
Inexplicably, Weiran re-understood the courage of mantis mantis to act as a chariot in a sense.
But at this time, the only thing he and Kirill could do was to hold a little baby and a helpless little girl respectively, and run desperately towards the depths of the valley, towards the darkness behind them where the flames could not reach.
!
“Da da da da—!”
Amidst the intensive firing, Hakim pulled the trigger toward the night sky above his head.
Amidst the intense strafing, Wei Ran clearly heard him shouting "Farewell, my Vida" in Pashto.