Early the next morning after receiving Dorian's memoirs, Wei Ran drove a rented car to Belgorod, which was more than 100 kilometers away.
Just like yesterday, Wei Ran patiently spent a whole day in the local geography exhibition hall, and then found a hotel that looked relatively clean and stayed.
On the third day, Wei Ran drove out of the city and found the first coordinate point recorded in the metal book with the help of navigation.
Although the topography here has changed slightly over the past few decades, and there is also a small town around it, Wei Ran still recognizes it at a glance. This seems to be the place where he and the loader Ajiafon originally captured
Go to the small village where the chained dog lives.
"Could it be that there is something else in that cellar?"
Wei Ran looked at the dense cornfield outside the car window, and finally suppressed his inner impulse. No matter what was in the cellar, he was only a historian after all, not a dirt digger. Besides, he could only rely on himself and only rely on himself.
Relying on the coordinates provided in the metal book, trying to find the buried cellar in this cornfield would probably be a huge and time-consuming project.
With this in mind, he immediately stepped on the accelerator and drove the car along the country road to the next coordinate point.
When the car stopped again, Wei Ran was stunned. On the right hand side of the road was a cemetery that was not very large. Parked on the monument at the entrance of the cemetery was a T-34/76 tank.
, the tank's gun barrel pointed pointedly in the direction of the border.
On the not-so-clean monument, apart from a slightly rusty red five-pointed star, the words "Group Cemetery of the Fifth Tank Army of the Soviet Steppe Front" were clearly written.
Opening the car door, Wei Ran walked onto the stone road overgrown with grass and walked into this cemetery located on the edge of the farmland in the suburbs.
Next to the wall, surrounded by a circle of birch trees, are stone tablets mottled by time.
Some of these not-so-large stone tablets have been broken, some are covered with moss, and some have even blurred the writing. But they are arranged neatly horizontally and vertically just like they were when they were alive, occupying almost half of the space.
An area the size of a football field.
While walking, Wei Ran could occasionally see withered wild flowers placed in front of the tombstones, or a wild cat that didn't know where it came from, lying on the tombstone with its four legs dangling in the air, leisurely basking in the rising sun.
Walking among these tombstones, Wei Ran carefully looked at the unfamiliar names engraved on them and the serial numbers that had long been lost in the long river of history, trying to find the answer that he didn't even know.
After a long time, Wei Ran stopped in front of a tombstone in the corner of the cemetery. On this tombstone, there was only the words "Agavon 29th Tank Corps/To Retake the Soviet Union". But he knew that the tombstone buried here was
The one who is standing is most likely the handsome loader.
"So you are here"
Wei Ran patted the tombstone gently. After hesitating for a moment, he took out the wine bottle from the metal book and poured the last bit of gin remaining in it onto the weed-covered soil.
Putting away the empty wine bottle, Wei Ran finally patted the tombstone that had been forgotten for who knows how long, and then simply turned around and left the almost deserted cemetery.
After inputting the last set of coordinate points into the electronic map, Wei Ran could already guess the approximate distance just by looking at the distance of only two or three kilometers away from him.
After getting back into the rented car, Wei Ran stepped on the accelerator and drove in a circle along the country road, finally stopping at the edge of a farmland full of sugar beets.
Without getting out of the car, just by taking a look at the muddy pond with a diameter of tens of meters on the edge of the sugar beet field, he knew that the T-34 tank with the slogan on the turret might be sleeping on the edge of the muddy pond.
Mrs. Valentina's husband Vadim, who has been waiting for more than half a century, is probably inside the forgotten tank at this time.
After stopping at the edge of the farmland for a long time, Wei Ran finally took a step towards the muddy pond.
Far away, he smelled the familiar fishy smell. More than half a century had passed, and this muddy pond had not changed much. It just seemed smaller in area.
Compared to the cemetery we just passed, there are no tombstones or flowers here, and perhaps no one knows what kind of memories are buried beneath the soil beneath their feet.
He bent down and picked up a piece of smelly mud, and a fat loach slipped from the gap between his fingertips. Then, he twisted his body and disappeared into the mud under his feet.
Wei Ran shook off the mud on his hands, and then wiped it randomly on his pants. Wei Ran found a slightly clean dirt ridge and sat down. Immediately afterwards, a camera bag made of hard horsehide appeared at his hand.
Opening the camera bag, Wei Ran took out the group photo inside, with a tired smile on his face.
Although the metal book can magically transport you back to the battlefield, and you can even use the guqin to relieve the depression in your heart, there are always some things that the guqin can't dissipate, such as the little girl who you can't forget, such as sitting in this piece of the past.
While on the battlefield, I couldn't help but think of those few friends I briefly spent time with.
However, while he was stunned, the tattoo on the tiger's mouth of his left hand once again flashed hot for a moment.
"Is this another gift?" Wei Ran was stunned for a moment, put the photos in his hand into his camera bag, and then took out the metal book.
However, almost the moment he held the spine of the book, Wei Ran noticed something was wrong. Ever since this wicked notebook was replaced with a metal cover, it had always had ugly rust stains like psoriasis.
But at this time, the rust on the metal skin was much less visible to the naked eye, and there was even a conspicuous hourglass relief next to the depression where the metal quill was fixed!
"Fuck, fuck, fuck! You're not going to be promoted, are you?!" Wei Ran felt his heart twitching!
Carefully opening the heavy metal cover, on the first pale yellow page, directly below the words "War Photographer Wei Ran", after the words "Rank", it has indeed changed from "Second Lieutenant"
Became a "lieutenant"!
Under his surprised gaze, a line of Russian handwriting appeared in the blank space of this page: Thank you for remembering us, comrade electromechanical personnel, the war is over, right?
"It's over. It should be considered over. How can a war ever end..."
Wei Ran murmured in response, and the string of handwriting slowly faded, and finally disappeared completely, as if it had never appeared.
After coming back to his senses, Wei Ran immediately put away the metal book and the camera bag beside him, and took out the medical kit.
But when he was about to open the medical box and take out the cap badge inside, he hesitated again, and finally waved his hand and put away the medical box he had just taken out.
"Just wait a little longer..."
Wei Ran suppressed the impulse in his heart. He had just experienced a battle, and it was really not suitable to enter another battlefield immediately. Especially, it was a battlefield where he planned to carefully record all the details.
