From the moment Wei Ran and others arrived at the hot spring camp, the torrential rain continued until dusk and then gradually stopped.
After such a heavy rainfall, puddles of various sizes appeared dotted in the low-lying areas of the mine not far away.
On the bright side, these puddles provide a rich and diverse environment for the local ecosystem. But if we explain it in human terms, these puddles undoubtedly provide important breeding grounds for the army of man-eating mosquitoes.
It is for this reason that almost as soon as the heavy rain stopped, the guys in the wooden camp tavern immediately set off under the command of Alili, driving old bulldozers and excavators produced in the Soviet era to connect these puddles.
Together, a drainage ditch was then dug to connect the abandoned mine pit that served as a sewer.
How many mine caves are scattered around this vast mineral deposit that covers an area of at least six or seven kilometers? How deep are the mine caves and where are they connected to? This question is beyond the control of Alili and Misha, who are considered half owners.
Answer, even the old miners who have worked here may not be able to give an accurate number.
But at least, the spring water gushing out of the hot spring in the workshop has been flowing into the mines day and night for decades, but it has still not filled those intricate mines.
Of course, Wei Ran and others were also not interested in exploring this meaningless topic. They set off almost at the same time as those idiots, riding on a cargo bucket dragged by a crawler bulldozer, along a road covered with insulation material.
The pipe as thick as an oil barrel slowly rushed to the corner at the edge of the mineral deposit.
As the distance got closer, the hot spring workshop and the glass-roofed houses behind them were completely blocked by the snow paths created by the slag piles.
When they once again bypassed a slag pile covered with weeds, two rows of strange-looking greenhouses appeared directly in front of them on a high ground about two meters above the mine deposit.
Different from the greenhouses that Wei Ran had seen in his hometown, if you look at the main body of these embryonic greenhouses from top to bottom, the walls made of slag and concrete look like an oversized "work".
However, each stroke of this character is more than one meter thick, and the wall in the middle is nearly three meters high. Even next to the corner, there is a dense row of diesel barrels connected by water pipes.
.
According to Suisui’s introduction, in mid-September, plastic insulation films will be covered along the middle of the “I”-shaped wall to both sides.
And those diesel barrels were large radiators that they had remodeled from free oil barrels. As for the heat source, it was naturally the hot spring.
In addition to this architectural arrangement, the two rows of greenhouses that have not yet had time to lay insulation films are now covered with a thick layer of soil full of humus, and some positions are even lined with seedling cups.
"Due to funding and heat source issues, we have only built two vegetable greenhouses so far."
Suisui, who was holding a big-eared fox in her arms, explained with regret, "They add up to only 68 meters in total. Although all the families who build wooden houses in our camp can only be allocated one meter wide, 12 meters
A long greenhouse vegetable patch. But after the vegetables produced in it meet the needs of the camp, the rest are their own."
“These vegetables are worth more than rubles in Inta”
Alili couldn't help but take over the topic, "If the water output from that hot spring wasn't really big enough, we would definitely have to build more."
"Alili, go to the coal mine and find an exploration team."
The wealthy Jima waved his hand and said, "Let them look for hot springs in this mineral deposit and take a few hot springs after they find them. The two movies I made have already earned about 6 million rubles. As long as they leave me some
Two hundred thousand is enough, and the rest can be used."
“Tell me if you don’t have enough money.”
Wei Ranhun said nonchalantly, Ji Ma has only made two movies in total now, and the 6 million rubles may not only be the remuneration he received, but maybe even his wife has been included in it. At this time
Of course I should help him if I can.
"These two big dogs"
Suisui rolled her eyes, but simply changed the subject and said, "Let's keep going, we are not here to see the vegetable greenhouse."
Hearing this, Alili, who was about to say something, immediately said hello to the man in the cab. Amidst the roar of the engine, the crawler bulldozer, which looked very old, immediately started to pull.
He continued forward with the cargo bucket and climbed up a winding slag road into the forest on the edge of the ore deposit.
Less than a hundred meters deeper along the ruts in the forest, in a forest clearing that had been dug beyond recognition, there was a tombstone that I had seen in the photo, and behind the tombstone, those
On the edges of the dug potholes, there was also a stone-like thing that looked like a milepost.
"How did you find this place?" Wei Ran asked curiously.
"Those two rows of greenhouses were built on slag."
Suisui took the initiative to explain, "Although there is no need to worry about the impact of the thawing of permafrost in summer because of the existence of slag, but if we want things to grow there, my uncles said it is best to dig some fertilizer from the forest and put a layer of it on it."
"Then you found this monument?"
"Can't"
Suisui wiped the mud from her shoes on the edge of the stone monument, "Not only is this place not far from those greenhouses, but there is such a forest clearing right here. In other places, when an excavator shovels down, there are tree roots."
Hearing this, Wei Ran couldn't help but shook his head secretly. Even if this little girl didn't have fine clothes and fine food, she was definitely pampered and pampered since she was a child. But she had just graduated and came to this place where mosquitoes were flying.
It was a hell of a place, and it was really difficult for her to take the lead in the infrastructure work for nearly a month.
"Why are you in a daze?" Suisui stretched out her hand and waved it in front of Wei Ran's eyes, "Tell me what you can see."
"How can you tell?"
After coming back to his senses, Wei Ran signaled Ji Ma, who was still on the cargo bucket, to hand down the mop, and while wiping the soil on the tombstone, he asked, "You didn't find any bones or anything near here?"
"I didn't even dig my ass"
Suisui stepped on a mileage pile in disappointment, pointed to the mud pit next to it and said with disappointment, "Except for these broken stone piles, not even a bone or debris was dug out."
Signaling Suisui to take his feet away, Wei Ran squatted down and looked at this thing, which was at most ten centimeters square and less than half a meter long, resembling a common mileage pile on the side of the road.
However, apart from a mottled five-pointed star and what appears to be the outline of a cherry blossom embossed on this piece of crap, nothing of value can be found at all.
Wei Ran got up and went back to the stone tablet with names engraved on it to look at it again. He rinsed the mop in a dirty puddle and wiped the plaster flag in the middle, but in the end he just took a picture.
Taking the next photo, he then asked the Inta guy, who was still in the cab of the bulldozer, "Can you turn it over?"
Upon hearing this, Nayinta's man immediately put down his wine bottle, waved his hand to the people around him to stand farther away, and easily used a shovel to overturn the stone tablet.
After wiping it carefully with a mop again, Wei Ran discovered that on the back of the stone tablet, except for a simple drawing of a crane and a sunset coexisting with lines, there was no valuable information at all.
He also took a photo, and Wei Ran looked at the forest clearing, but in the end he just shook his head helplessly.
"You can't find it either?" Suisui asked disappointedly.
"Except for the high probability that he is a prisoner of the Kwantung Army, I don't have any other clues for the time being. Now I can only wait and see if my friend in China can find any clues."
While Wei Ran was talking, he also sent the photo he had just taken personally to Xia Shushi again. This time he was really helpless. Even with the stone tablet and those stone piles, there was a high probability that not even the metal book could help.
busy.
Moreover, even if the metal book could send him there, even if he had lost his mind, he would never want to experience the service level of a Soviet farmhouse as a Japanese soldier.
"It seems you can't count on it either."
Suisui sighed in disappointment, "I also plan to make a big sign to explain the history of the septic tank that is about to be built."
"You're quite impatient"
Wei Ran shook his head dumbfounded, "Okay, go back quickly, we didn't come all the way here just to see you repair the septic tank."
Hearing this, Suisui grinned, and finally followed Wei Ran and climbed into the cargo compartment.
After the carload of friends who were willing to accompany Suisui to play around returned to the cabin camp, the sky gradually became dark.
According to Suisui's arrangement, Wei Ran took her suitcase and moved into the wooden house where she lived these days. Anfisa, who originally lived in the same wooden house as Suisui, took her personal belongings and moved in with her sister.
Entered the same wooden house.
As the lighting lamps burst out with bright light, Wei Ran finally had the opportunity to see the earthen kang made by his four uncles and their apprentices.
Thanks to the almost free wood here, not only is this earthen kang tightly wrapped in logs, it looks particularly clean, but even the suspended kang surface is made of polished pine boards, and there is even a bed on it.
Kang mat made entirely of reindeer skin.
However, before Suisui could light the fireplace connected to the earthen bed to show off, Xia Shushi, who was far away in China, sent a message - "Found it."
This guy can do it... Wei Ran muttered to himself and dialed the other party's mobile number directly using the satellite phone.
"You found it so quickly?" Wei Ran asked directly after waiting for the call to be connected. Only five or six hours had passed.
"What's so difficult about this?"
Xia Shushi said with some pride, "There are so many names in the photo you sent me. If I check the names one by one, I can always find the right ones."
"Tell me in detail"
Wei Ran turned on the hands-free function, and then used WeChat to transfer 2,000 yuan to the other party as a token of his appreciation.
Xia Shushi cleared his throat and explained, "In the photo you sent, there is a ridiculous name named Ohashi Yutaro. According to the documents I collected, there is a captain with the same name in the communications team of the 39th Division of the Kwantung Army.
After the division surrendered on August 20, 1945, basically everyone who could still breathe was sent to Siberia."
"That's all?" Wei Ran asked regretfully.
“Of course it’s more than that”
Xia Shushi smiled and continued, "I followed this clue and searched through the memoirs written by the survivors of the 39th Division who came back alive from Siberia, and found a key record in the memoirs written by one of the beasts."
"What record?" Wei Ran glanced at Suisui, who had her ears twitching on one side, and then asked unhurriedly.
"To put it simply, in the memoirs of this Japanese soldier, they returned to China in 1956, but one month before returning to China, Maozi picked out some strong prisoners of war from them, including that Japanese soldier.
His friend and fellow countryman was a heavy baggage soldier from Osaka named Yukichi Hanai.
This name happened to appear in the photo you sent me, and until the person writing the memoirs returned to the island alive, his friend Yukichi Hanai from the same country did not return."
Having said this, Xia Shuseki paused, "Of course, I am not 100% sure whether the Hanai Yukichi mentioned in the memoir and the Hanai Yukichi recorded on the broken stone in the photo are the same.
But since that stone also has the name Yutaro Ohashi on it, I guess he must have been picked up by Maozi from the 39th Division."
"That's all?" Wei Ran asked unwillingly.
"There's one last clue."
Xia Shuseki said cheerfully, "The detailed address of Hanai Yukichi's livestock is recorded in the memoir I just mentioned, and I hope that anyone who knows the whereabouts of Hanai Yukichi can contact his family.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! But this memoir was written in the late 1960s, so I cannot guarantee whether the corresponding victim can be found at that address."
"How did you find out all this?" Wei Ran asked in surprise after the other party finished speaking.
"Don't the hard drives used for the literature and materials I sold you have search software? You just need to enter the corresponding names in Guiziwen and you can search them."
Xia Shushi said proudly, "Not only the name of the person, but also the unit number is acceptable, but you have to use the corresponding text to search."
"Is this okay?"
Only then did Wei Ran realize belatedly that he seemed to have underestimated the electronic version of the document that he had not paid much attention to since he bought it.
"Otherwise, why do you think I sell those materials so expensively?"
The pride in Xia Shushi's tone was not concealed at all, "I sent you the expired address and translated it into Chinese for you."
"Brother, you're selling it cheaply." Wei Ran glanced at the pictures loading on the screen and said casually, "I'll give you the hard-earned money."
"Forget the hard work, just treat it as after-sales service for the information sold to you." Xia Shushi declined Wei Ran's thank you gift indifferently.
"Take it and buy a big mouse for your old man to keep and play with."
"Okay, we'll talk about it later."
Xia Shushi agreed without hesitation, then changed the subject and asked, "What your photo means is that you are looking for the cellar where the Japs store potatoes in Siberia?"
"Roughly the same"
Wei Ran and Suisui, who was listening on the sidelines, looked at each other and smiled, and then briefly explained Suisui's discovery.
"No bones, sticks or anything like that?"
After hearing Wei Ran's explanation, Xia Shushi became more interested and said, holding back his anger, "Brother, how about you lend me your picture?"
"What do you want to do?" Wei Ran asked with a smile, but he was not in a hurry to agree or refuse.
"What else can you do!"
Xia Shushi said enthusiastically, "I have a friend who is studying over there with the Japs. I asked him to go to that address and have a look. If the family is still alive, let's see if we can get some money out of the Japs' hands.
Let’s have fun with my pocket money.”
"Do you still have this hobby?"
Wei Ran looked at Suisui strangely, who was nodding wildly on the side, but still didn't rush to agree or refuse. Compared to Suisui who just watched the excitement and didn't take it too seriously, he was much more rational.
“What do you like and don’t like?”
Xia Shushi, who was holding back his anger, said carelessly, "How much money can you defraud in this matter? The point is that we went to their funeral, but we didn't tell them where the grave was. Hey! If I have a chance, I'll go to your place later.
Let’s take a look at the resort. I have to urinate on the name of Hanai Yukichi on the monument and send it to them.”
Looking again at Suisui who was nodding wildly and almost shaking his brains out, Wei Ran shook his head helplessly, and finally agreed to Xia Shushi's request, "You can use it if you want, but don't tell where it comes from."
"Then I'll use it! Let's do this for now! Call me if you have any questions!" Xia Shushi hung up the phone happily before he could finish his sentence.
The investigation was solved so quickly, and it was even possible to find a family member of the Japs. In fact, even Wei Ran had not thought of it.
But after all, there was just a plausible clue, so neither Wei Ran nor Suisui took it seriously.
In the last few days of August, Wei Ran spent time at the hot spring camp with Suisui, who was full of tricks, and at the same time served as a classroom translator for the four uncles who held a farming training class.
In the blink of an eye, it was the last day of this month, and just as Wei Ran and others were gathering with wine glasses in the tavern in the center of the wooden camp, preparing to return to Kazan tomorrow night, Anna called.
He winked at the Katenka sisters and signaled them to take care of Suisui, who was about to get drunk with Misha. Wei Ran quietly left the room and answered the phone.
"The children's matter has been resolved," Anna said straightforwardly, "Do you want to meet them?"
"Is it solved?" Wei Ran didn't react for a moment, "How was it solved?"
"Picked up from there of course"
Anna said matter-of-factly, "They were sent to the mental hospital where you briefly interned for psychological counseling. They will also start a new life there in the future."
"The mental hospital where I interned?"
Wei Ran raised his neck and thought for a while, and then he checked in with the mental hospital where Kirov and Gorman briefly stayed when they first got along.
"It seems you have remembered it," Anna said with a smile, "If you are interested, you can visit them. In addition, they have prepared some gifts for you."
"You prepared a gift for me?"
"Remember to come find me when you come back." Before Anna could finish her words, she simply hung up the phone.
Before Wei Ran could let the satellite phone leave his ears, Xia Shushi also sent a brief message - "Call me back as soon as possible at your convenience!!!"
After looking behind him, Wei Ran didn't rush in and directly dialed Xia Shushi's number.
"I'm not disturbing you, am I?" Xia Shushi asked excitedly.
"No, did you win the lottery?"
"It's almost like winning the lottery!" Xia Shushi said excitedly, "Remember the string of Japanese addresses I gave you a few days ago, right?"
"Remember" Wei Ran paused, "Does that well guy still have descendants?"
"Not only that, but their family received an invitation in the early 1990s. They were invited to go to Russia and bring back the bodies of their family members."
"So you brought it back?" Wei Ran couldn't hide his surprise in his tone.
"No"
Xia Shushi gave an unexpected answer, “Those who wrote to the family and invited them to bring back the body required them to send two thousand US dollars in transportation costs as required before they would send the ashes to Khabarovsk.
Along with the letter, a group photo was sent, although the photo did indeed include Yukichi Hanai. But the family still felt that the person who sent them the letter might be a liar, so they ignored it."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Have you obtained the address or remittance address of the person who sent the letter to this family?" Wei Ran asked with interest.
"Of course I got it"
Xia Shushi said proudly, "My classmate made up a Russian netizen who provided the photo, and easily got the address."
"Still keeping it for such a long time?" Wei Ran immediately frowned.
"That animal named Yukichi Hanai has a cub that is still alive. He is over seventy years old."
Xia Shuseki speeded up his speech and explained, "According to the old guy, before his mother died in the late 1970s, she was still waiting for his father Yukichi Hanai to return.
So after receiving the letter in the summer of 1992, although he thought the other party was a scammer and did not send any money, he still kept the letter, and he personally rushed to Russia the second month after receiving the letter.
I want to meet at the address the other party gave me.
But even though the Soviet Union had disintegrated at that time, foreigners were still not allowed to enter the place he was going to, and his subsequent attempts to reply to the other party did not receive any response.
In the following years, after trying again and again, he finally went there in 1998, but he could not find the existence of the person at the mailing address, and he was almost arrested as a spy."
"Did that old devil make a request?" Wei Ran glanced at the scanned letter sent by the other party and asked with a smile.
"I mentioned it. I hope his father's bones can be returned to him."
Xia Shushi said matter-of-factly, "When you are not busy, just buy a pig, burn it to ashes, put it in a jar and send it to him. Anyway, you have its address. I won't tell you now.
My grandpa wants to go for a walk."
Listening to the busy signal coming from his ears, Wei Ran shook his head in confusion, and then clicked on the scanned document sent by the other party.
The content of this letter written in Japanese is basically incomprehensible to Wei Ran, but at the end of the letter, there is a string of addresses written in Russian.
"Vorkuta? October Town? Coal Mine Electricity Inspector Isay Popov?"
Wei Ran raised his eyebrows, secretly hesitating whether to take advantage of the time before returning to Kazan tomorrow to go there and see if there is an October Town in Vorkuta, and if there is a person named Isai in October Town.
