After chatting with Vitali about the stupid things the Poles had done, the car drove to the edge of a forest in the afterglow of the setting sun.
What Wei Ran didn't expect was that this was exactly where one of the two sets of coordinates recorded in the metal book was located.
"For the next two or three kilometers, we can only walk on foot."
Vitaly parked the car on a dirt road in the field at the edge of the forest, pointed to a dark forest path and said, "This forest was the land bought by the guerrilla village. At that time, my grandfather and many of his friends paid for it.
It was bought in the village. So Victor, please remind your friends not to try to come here to steal anything."
Wei Ran glanced at Diane and the awkward-looking amateur digger Prokhor who were standing behind him, smiled and made an assurance, "Don't worry, Mr. Vitali, I believe they won't do anything stupid."
.”
"I believe too"
Vitaly responded with dignity, and then took out a double-barreled shotgun and a large flashlight from the trunk of the car, and then took out a bouquet of flowers he bought on the road when he arrived.
As he walked into the forest, he said, "I'm just giving you a routine reminder, okay, let's go in!"
Under his leadership, the group entered the dark forest along the winding forest path.
Returning to the place where they had fought together, Wei Ran discovered a lot of changes. Now the forest was extremely clean. The pine trees as far as the eye could see were covered with traces of knife cuts. And in this
Under the marks of knife cuts, some containers such as dirty iron buckets and plastic buckets were hung.
"The rosin harvested every year from this forest brings a lot of income to the village."
Vitaly took the initiative to explain, "When I was a child, I helped harvest rosin here. It was really a hard experience that people dare not recall."
"There are so many traps in this forest that people dare not recall them."
Prokhor, the amateur digger who followed, said with a grimace, "I remember that there were two diggers from Gomel last summer. Those two unlucky guys were carrying metal in this forest.
The detector scanned for a whole day, and even the horn of the detector was muted, but all they dug out were all kinds of useless nails, iron pieces and other things. It is said that the only thing they found was a bucket full of feces.
of cans.”
"Those traps were specially prepared for the digging parties. About ten years ago, the guerrilla village used pesticide-spraying planes to scatter the collected scraps of copper and iron into this forest."
Vitaly said happily, "But you should be lucky, at least the people in the village didn't replace those traps with animal traps."
"I won't come here." Prohor shook his head without thinking. "Looking for battlefield relics is just my hobby, but cleaning up garbage is not my hobby."
Vitaly smiled without saying anything, and led everyone to continue along the path, and finally came to a forest clearing with many tombstones before the sun set.
With just one glance, Wei Ran recognized this place. This empty space was exactly the camp where Slava took him and pilot Alisa to bury teacher Gianna and guerrilla Shura.
But today, decades later, this camp has become a true cemetery. Granite tombstones engraved with red five-pointed stars and hammer and sickle symbols are intricately distributed throughout this forest glade, but in each case
Next to each tombstone, there is basically a tall pine tree.
Perhaps because of how much time has passed, the names originally carved on the pine trees have become blurry as the trees grow, but those hard granite tombstones clearly record the buried information.
On these tombstones, Wei Ran found the teacher Gianna and the guerrilla Shura who were buried together, the one-armed shepherd boy Vasily, the pilot Alisa and Ivan who had realized his dream, and the ones who died outside Berlin.
female doctor Sasha.
At the same time, he also found the guerrillas Ofdey and Antip who had been mentioned in the metal book, and also found names that were completely unfamiliar to him and even had no memory of them at all.
In addition to these tombstones representing familiar strangers, there is also a pedestal also made of granite in the center of this forest glade.
On this granite base, which is five meters square but only less than two meters high, is placed a FLAK38 single-barreled anti-aircraft gun that was heavily equipped by Germany in World War II. Around the base, there are also some colorful
, or a bouquet of flowers that has long since withered.
On the four sides of the base, the records are the dreams of the children in the roster kept by Sergey, and the realization of their dreams.
Among the records carved line by line on the granite base, some of the children were like the one-armed shepherd boy Vasily, who did not persist at all and died by the end of the war. Some children cherished the idea of becoming poets.
The dream of being a writer ended up being a worker at the Minsk Tractor Factory, or a projectionist at the Salyut Cinema.
In addition, their dreams seemed to have changed at some point in time, and they became lawyers, doctors, teachers, truck drivers, farmers on collective farms in guerrilla villages, actors on the stage, and soldiers with guns.
Of course, there are a few, like Sergey and his wife Zonya, who finally realize their dreams to some extent.
When the fire circled around the side of this obviously spontaneously built monument facing the sunset, a sentence in slightly larger red Russian words was carved on the rough granite, which was slightly sad, but also contained a bit of joy and peace.
A message of hope.
"This future may be somewhat different from the colorful world we dreamed of when we were children. But after all, it is the future we created with our own hands.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! You can be disappointed or even despair. But for the sake of friends and family who have no chance to see this future for themselves, maybe we should make some differences here.
In the future world, try to make yourself live a happier life."
After reading this message, the only thing that gave Wei Ran some comfort may be the signature and time at the end of this paragraph - Children of the Guerrilla/October 9, 1982.
"My grandfather said that this monument was built on the 40th anniversary of the founding of the guerrilla village."
Vitaly placed the bouquet in his hand at the foot of the monument, pointed the beam of his flashlight at the anti-aircraft gun on the monument and said, "He said it was very lively when the monument was built, and many people came to the village.
He also said that before the cannon was built, it had been placed in the village warehouse with various farm tools, and many people did not even know why it appeared there.
But my grandpa said that was the weapon their teachers used when they fought the Germans until the end."
It's the anti-aircraft gun that Teacher Gianna took away...
Wei Ran sighed secretly. Sergey and the others were lucky to have a teacher like Jaina. Teacher Gianna was lucky to have a group of students like Sergey and the others. How could she not be lucky?
"In this colorful future world, there are still people who remember you and know what you have done, and more people will know what you have done in the future."
While mumbling to himself, Wei Ran answered the question on the metal book that he had not dared to answer with an unusually positive tone. Then he turned around and said to Diane who had just bowed to the monument, "About those bones.
Mr. Sergey will definitely give you an answer to the matter, and I believe that combined with the local historical archives of Liuban, the identities of the invaders will soon be revealed."
Diane was stunned for a moment and then said, "Mr. Victor, the issue of commission..."
"No"
Wei Ran shook his head, turned around and walked out and said, "If you want to pay a commission, just remember to come here and give a bouquet of flowers every year."
Watching Wei Ran, who had turned around and left, blocked by the trees on both sides of the forest path, Diane opened her mouth, but ultimately said nothing more.
