As the ax in Wei Ran's hand struck the thick tree trunk, the accumulated snow on the tree crown also rustled down, covering the canvas tent that he and Jima had just set up around the trunk.
"The next step is to make a fire and make a sleigh and snowshoes. Otherwise, we won't be able to go very far dragging so many things." Ji Ma took the ax from Wei Ran as he spoke, "How about you make a fire?"
"
"no problem"
Wei Ran happily agreed, and when Ji Ma confidently walked out of the tent with an ax and started chopping down trees, he immediately took out the kerosene gas lamp from the metal book and lit the bonfire in the center of the tent with the kerosene lighter tied to it. As the flames spread,
The steam was rising, and the tent, which was not that big, gradually became warmer.
After tapping the supplies again, Wei Ran emptied one of the glass cans filled with sugar, filled it with snow, and placed it next to the campfire to melt slowly, and put all the poured sugar into the mezzanine of his backpack.
After finishing the work in the tent, Wei Ran was not idle. He immediately got out and helped Ji Ma chop down a pine tree that was as thick as his thigh, cut it into one meter sections and moved them back.
Ji Ma sat on the thickest tree trunk and took a breath. He took the can filled with hot water and took a sip of the sweet sugar water. Then he said confidently, "Now we have to find a way to remove this piece of wood under our buttocks."
Split it into planks, and as long as you have the planks, you can make a sled, which will be much more convenient for us next."
"But we only have one ax and one engineer shovel." Wei Ran, who was also half-dead from exhaustion, had to remind him.
"An ax is enough." Ji Ma confidently returned the can to Wei Ran. "Next, I'll let you see my carpentry skills."
"Can you still do this?"
“In Inta, where supplies are scarce, many things need to be done by yourself.”
Ji Ma gave a simple explanation, then picked up the axe, first split a piece of wood with a thick wrist and cut it into a wooden wedge that was thicker at one end and thinner at the other. Then he changed the target and started swinging the ax at the thickest tree trunk.
Under Wei Ran's observation, Ji Ma first used an ax to split a gap at one end of the wood, and then smashed several wooden wedges in.
After these wooden wedges opened the gap, Jima smashed the remaining wooden wedges into the end of the gap, and so on. It didn't even take half an hour before he chopped off a one-meter-long strip.
Come to the long plank.
When the whole log turned into four wooden boards of different thicknesses with the cooperation of the two, Ji Ma picked up the engineer shovel and quickly cleaned the burrs on it.
It wasn't over yet. Ji Ma took advantage of Wei Ran's help in cleaning several other wooden boards with his axe, directly covered the engineer shovel on the bonfire and heated it red, and then heated one end of the first processed wooden board until it was extremely smooth.
After the demonstration, Ji Ma handed over the work at hand to Wei Ran, and he cut open the spare parachute, and quickly made two pairs of snowshoes using the parachute rope and the torn canopy.
"Your skills are pretty good," Wei Ran said in admiration.
"what is this!"
The excited Jima said proudly, "If you give me a saw, it won't be a big problem for me to build a wooden house with a fireplace here."
"What to do next?" Wei Ran was too lazy to continue and handed over the remaining three prepared wooden boards.
"It's very simple. Use parachute cloth to wrap the part that has been ironed flat by fire. When it is done, just put them together."
As Jima spoke, he whittled a few wooden nails as thick as chopsticks with an axe. Then he took a piece of parachute cloth, wrapped it around the board, and nailed it firmly on the other side with wooden nails. This job was also not difficult, and the two of them interacted with each other.
With the cooperation, all the work was completed in no time at all.
Finally, the four wooden boards were fixed side by side with paracords and wrist-thick tree trunks. Ji Ma finally nodded with satisfaction, "That's enough. With this sled here, we just need to pull it away. Now
I just hope that correctional camp is not too far away from us."
Wei Ran glanced at the time on his watch and said, "Let's wait until daybreak to find a way to determine our current location."
Jima heard this and asked, "Do you still remember what's on the map?"
Wei Ran closed his eyes and thought for a while, reached out and picked up a flaming branch from the edge of the bonfire, blew it out, and drew a rough map directly on the wooden board. Seeing this, Ji Ma simply picked up one too.
Wood sticks were used to blow out the flames, and details such as mountains or lakes were added to the map drawn by Wei Ran.
After the two of them had no details to add to this rough map, Wei Ran pointed to the two intersecting winding lines he had just drawn and said, "The thick one is the Ob River, and the thin one is the Wo River."
As for the Ikal River, we only need to find the Wojkal River, and then we can find the correction camp along this river. The question now is whether this river is to our north or to our south."
Jima nodded and added, "This river has a large number of lakes at both ends near the Ural Mountains. If nothing else, our current location should be near these lakes. Victor, tomorrow we will go
How about going west to the Ural Mountains? We are here, and we can vaguely see the mountains in such a dark sky, which means that it is not too far away from us. As long as we find a relatively high place at the foot of the Ural Mountains,
Maybe we can see where we are now."
"climb mountains?"
Wei Ran frowned, this was not an easy job, but at the moment, there seemed to be no better way besides this choice. After hesitating for a moment, he could only nod and agreed to Ji Ma's suggestion.
After discussing the general plan, the two of them drank another glass of energy-supplementing sugar water, curled up on the pine needles on both sides of the campfire and fell asleep one after another.
When it was daylight outside the tent, the two of them packed up a bunch of supplies, wrapped them in a canvas tent, and fixed them on a simple sled. Then they each tied a paracord around their waists, put on their snowshoes, and pulled the fully loaded sled.
We walked towards the mountains on the other side of the coniferous forest.
While the two of them were heading towards their destination in the wind and snow, Culp, who was far away in the Hongqi Forest Farm, was meticulously staring at the moving light spots on the computer screen, while Teacher Dalia and Alili took a plane to leave the military at the same time.
Base, rushed to the hot spring camp on the other side of the Ural Mountains. After all, in this freezing cold weather, what could be more comfortable than taking a dip in a scalding hot spring?
At the door of the Time Studio in Volgograd, the young man from Germany, Ralph, could only return to the hotel not far away after waiting again to no avail.
It was not just this young man who also did not wait for Weiran. There was also a media that jumped out of nowhere. However, their target was not the two photos donated by Weiran, but the ones who served as the background in the latest two interviews.
What is that beautiful box?
Two more days flew by in the blink of an eye. After going through all kinds of hardships, Wei Ran and Ji Ma finally walked out of the forest and climbed up a low mountain that was only one or two hundred meters high and covered with a lot of snow.
Under a pine tree on the top of the mountain, Wei Ran, whose eyes were painted black with charcoal ash, squinted his eyes, looked up at Ji Ma who had climbed to the top of the tree crown, and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Can you see it?"
"Can barely see!"
On the top of the tree canopy, Ji Ma was riding on a fork that was as thick as an arm. He stretched out his neck and tried his best to look into the distance. He kept replying, "The direction I can see, there is a long and long one on our left."
If nothing else happens, there should be a river there, but we don’t know whether it is the Wojkal River we are looking for.”
"Just take it as it is!" Wei Ran, who was standing under the tree, shouted at the top of his voice, "Remember the location and direction and hurry down. Let's rush there as soon as possible before it gets dark."
"Wait!" Ji Ma's voice was slightly lower, "There seem to be a few reindeer at the foot of the mountain!"
"Don't worry about the reindeer, we have no shortage of food now"
Wei Ran reminded helplessly that Ji Ma was indeed a hunter. Although they hadn't caught any big prey in the past two days, there were already several skinned rabbits on the sleigh they were pulling behind them.
Even the rabbit skins were carefully fixed under the sled by Ji Ma to reduce friction.
"What's rabbit for food?"
Ji Ma quickly came down from the tree, "They don't even have fat on their bodies. If we can't replenish enough fat in this damn weather, we won't be able to last long. Don't waste time, let's get a reindeer to improve it."
dinner."
"Now you are wasting your time." Wei Ran shook his head helplessly, and had no choice but to follow Ji Ma and run down the mountain through the snow.
As they got closer and closer to the reindeer herd Ji Ma discovered, the former's movements became gentler and gentler. In the end, even the sled that was dragging them down was tied to a tree.
Gently pulling down the safety, Ji Ma pointed the muzzle of the gun at the nearest reindeer, and decisively pulled the trigger while the reindeer rested its two front legs on the tree trunk and stretched its neck to eat pine needles.
The moment the crisp gunfire rang out, a conspicuous cloud of blood mist erupted from the reindeer's neck. At the same time as it fell down, the rest of the reindeer also heard the wind and disappeared in an instant.
"Dinner is here! Get ready to set up the tent!"
Ji Ma jumped up in the cheers and rushed down the mountainside while running and bumping. Wei Ran beside him could only untie the simple sled behind him and chased after him.
"Good luck!" Ji Ma shouted happily as he was far away from Wei Ran, "Hurry up and bring the ax to help! Victor, do you want a sip of deer blood?"
"forget it"
Wei Ran refused again and again without even thinking about it. He didn't want to lose half of his butt due to the cold in such an icy and snowy place.
"Following the Ob River to the north is the territory of the Nenets. They all rely on drinking fresh deer blood to supplement their salt and vitamins." Jima said as he opened the reindeer's chest with an ax and stretched out his hand.
He went in and pulled out the huge heart, put it to his mouth and took a deep sip, "You really don't want to try it?"
"Remember to stay away from me when you are running away." Wei Ran flatly refused again.
"Don't worry, Stalin lives in my stomach. Nothing can knock him down."
While Ji Ma was speaking, he took a hard bite on the steaming heart and made a crunching sound. After swallowing the completely unnecessary meat, he took off the deer skin before the body cooled down.
, and then cut off a few pieces of grease-laden rib meat and four legs, while Wei Yan set up a tent and lit a bonfire not far away.
Around the constantly jumping bonfire, pieces of grease-rich venison were threaded through pine sticks and slowly roasted to produce sizzling grease. Before the grease could fall to the ground, Ji Ma and Wei Yan carefully used cans to cook it.
catch.
After resting at the foot of the mountain for a night, the two of them smeared a layer of reindeer grease on their lips and faces early the next morning. Then they quickly gathered their supplies and sped up to their destination.
After walking all day without stopping, a frozen river suddenly appeared in the dense coniferous forest. The two compared the Ural Mountains due west with the map in their memory. After some discussion, they finally decided to walk along the covered river.
On the frozen river covered with a thick layer of snow, we continued to move westward overnight.
"Victor, what if we go in the wrong direction?"
In the night where the pale green aurora glowed, Jima, who was walking in front with a gun in hand, asked with some anxiety, "Or is the river under our feet not the Vojkal River at all?"
“It is unlikely to find the wrong river”
Wei Ran, who was pulling the sled behind, said breathlessly, "The Senya River in the south is more than 100 kilometers away from the correctional camp. Even if Teacher Dalia is a lunatic, there is no way he can take us there."
Throw it so far away. As for the river further north on the map, it is already in the Arctic Circle and is more than a hundred kilometers north. Only tundra can be seen on both sides of the river, and there is no way there can be such a large patch of needles.
Forest."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Wei Ran stopped to take a breath and continued, "There is also an easier way to verify, as long as we continue to walk along the river, if the river appears
The bifurcation to the true north proves that not only did we go in the wrong direction, but we also found the wrong river channel."
Jima nodded secretly when he heard this, and waited until Wei Ran had rested enough before he continued to move forward along the river.
As the two of them traveled day and night, at nine o'clock that night, the river under their feet indeed bifurcated!
"It seems we really did not make a mistake."
It was only at this time that Wei Ran, who was responsible for exploring the road with a gun, really breathed a sigh of relief, "Jima, if nothing else happens, we only need to continue walking northwest along the river for about 8 kilometers, and we will be near the intersection of the three rivers.
We’ve found the correctional camp, so should we move on, or should we wait until daybreak?”
"Keep...keep going!"
Ji Ma, who was responsible for dragging the sled, said out of breath, "After walking the last bit of the road, we will camp directly at the correction camp and wait to blow up the place early tomorrow morning."
"Change it again?" Wei Ran handed the rifle in his hand to the other party.
"No... no need." Jima shook his head weakly, then pushed the zipper on his chest down, "Let's go, keep walking."
Seeing this, Wei Ran stopped insisting, turned on the safety switch again, and continued to move towards the destination along the river on the left.
When the time came to about 11:30 midnight, Wei Ran and Jima finally saw the intersection of the three rivers, and also saw a particularly abrupt sentry tower on the river bank. The two looked at each other and immediately worked together to drag the
Dragging the sled cart towards the coniferous forest on the shore.
Under the cover of the coniferous forest, the two of them carefully touched the bottom of the sentry tower. This building was more appropriately described as a lighthouse or turret than a sentry tower.
A pure stone concrete building, the diameter of the base is nearly eight meters, and it becomes thinner as it goes up. At the top of the three-story building, the entire outline becomes about the same size as the base.
The two of them circled the base twice before finding the entrance and exit covered by snow. Compared to the building itself, the entrance was pitifully small. When it was dug out, it was not even 1.5 meters high.
No, the width is only one meter.
As Ji Ma struggled to pry open the rusty iron door with his gun, the first thing they saw was a frozen corpse half sitting on the spiral staircase!
The corpse was wearing an old-fashioned down jacket and was holding an SKS semi-automatic rifle in his arms. But what was particularly horrifying was that the muzzle of the gun was pressed into the chin of the corpse, and the boots on his feet were carrying
They are tied together through the trigger guard.
"It's suicide," Ji Ma said with certainty. "You can tell from his dress that he should be a hunter."
"Is there a residential area near here?" Wei Ran asked with a frown.
"I didn't know." Ji Ma simply shook his head, took out a headlamp he carried with him, installed the battery and turned it on to the maximum, then carefully walked around the body and climbed up the spiral staircase.
Behind him, Wei Ran closed the iron door and jammed it inside with a sleigh. Then, while Ji Ma wasn't paying attention, he took out the Mauser bayonet in the metal book and carefully cut open the corpse's body.
, and then took out the rifle.
As he gently pulled the bolt, Wei Ran discovered that the magazine of the rifle was empty and there was no bullet at all.
Unwilling to give up, he rummaged through the clothes pockets of the corpse. In addition to a few empty bullet casings, there was also a hunting knife often seen on Inta hunters and a few Russian rubles.
Putting these things back next to the corpse, Wei Ran followed Ji Ma's footprints and walked up to the second floor. Then he saw pieces of wolf skins, deer skins, fox skins and even a huge piece of wolf skin hanging on the roof.
Bearskin!
In the corner of the wall, there is a simple stove made of stones. There are still some ashes left in the stove, and on top of the stove is a small stainless steel pot.
Ji Ma carefully opened the lid of the stainless steel pot, took out a small book from it and flipped through it, then threw it to Wei Ran and said, "The unlucky guy downstairs is called Paulia, and he lives on the Ob River 80 kilometers away.
A hunter from a small town called Shureshkar. Of course, judging from these harvests, perhaps we should call him a poacher more accurately."
"How did you die?" Wei Ran asked as he opened the palm-sized notebook.
"According to the suicide note he left behind, he encountered a snowstorm when he came here to poach. His reindeer ran away pulling the sled, and this ghost place was surrounded by wolves again. After running out of bullets and this place
All the fuel in the watchtower later suffered from severe diarrhea and chose to commit suicide before he was about to freeze to death."
Following Ji Ma's explanation, Wei Ran also turned the book full of hunting harvests in his hand to the last page with words, and saw roughly the same content as Ji Ma recited, but what surprised him was that this
The time when the suicide note was written turned out to be 2003. In other words, this unlucky man had been lying here for more than ten years without being discovered.
It was also thanks to the low temperature in this damn place and the iron door that was blocked from the inside. Otherwise, this poacher would have filled the belly of the wild wolf long ago.
"Victor, how about resting here for a night?"
Jima said as he walked down, "I'm going to get some fuel outside. This sentry tower is high enough. After daybreak, we might be able to see the correctional camp we are looking for."
"Be careful of being surrounded by wolves." Wei Ran casually threw the notebook on the window sill, "I'll go to the roof to keep an eye on it for you."
"By the way, you can clean that stainless steel pot so we can have hot soup at night."
While Ji Ma was speaking, he was already carrying an ax in one hand and pulling the empty sled cart out of the sentry tower with the other.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Wei Ran, carrying a small stainless steel pot, passed through a wooden door covered with iron sheets at the end of the spiral staircase and reached the top of the building. To his surprise, at the
On the top floor of this sentry tower, in addition to a high-power searchlight produced in the Soviet era, there are also three rusty Deshka heavy machine guns set up in different directions!
But it is a pity that the key parts of these three heavy machine guns have been removed at some point, and even the shooting holes directly opposite the gun muzzles have been sealed tightly with cement.
Having found nothing, Wei Ran took out his telescope from the metal book and looked around. Unfortunately, except for the coniferous forest covered with white snow and the river winding to the end of his field of vision, he could not find any trace of the correction camp at all.
"Did you look in the wrong place? You shouldn't..." Wei Ran muttered to himself and pointed the telescope at the headlamp Ji Ma wore on his forehead.
After staring at the other person for a while and seeing that there was nothing there, Wei Ran put away his binoculars, reached out and raised a handful of white snow and carefully washed the small stainless steel pot he had been carrying in his other hand.
When Ji Ma used a sleigh to pull a few arm-thick pine trees back to the outpost, far away, Wei Ran heard the former shouting excitedly, "Victor, I just found something in the forest."
Got a minecart! Looks like we’ll be able to find the correctional camp soon!”
"Anything else found?" Wei Ran, who was still on the roof, bent down to ask, and at the same time dropped the small stainless steel pot in his hand that had just been wiped clean with snow, "I'm bringing up a pot of snow by the way."
"There are still telephone poles, but most of them have fallen down."
Ji Ma bent down to pick up a small stainless steel pot and wiped away the rising snow, and continued to shout hurriedly, "After daybreak, we will follow the telephone poles and walk into the forest. I think we will find the building soon!"
