Sokov looked in the direction of Victoria's finger, and there was indeed an orange gable-roofed wooden house in the forest clearing in front of him. The house was surrounded by a wooden wall as high as a person.
"That was my great-grandmother's country house." Victoria explained: "It was painted in such bright colors to make it stand out so that it can be seen from a long distance away."
When Sokov drove to the countryside in the past, he had seen clusters of wooden houses in the forest. The exterior walls were all painted in colorful colors, which looked very uncoordinated. It was quite strange at the time. He didn't know why the old man did this. At this moment
When Victoria said it, she suddenly realized that they painted their house in such bright colors to make their house eye-catching so that they would not be able to find their house when they went on vacation.
The car stopped at the wooden gate. Victoria pushed the door open and stepped forward to unlock it.
There was a chain hanging on the door, and the door was locked with a lock. However, after two years of exposure to the sun and rain, the lock had become rusty. After Victoria inserted the key, she twisted it for a long time, but nothing could be done.
Open the lock.
Sokov pushed open the car door and walked over and asked, "Why, the door lock can't be opened?"
Victoria shook her head: "The lock has rusted to death. It seems that we can only smash it." After saying that, she looked at the ground nearby to see if she could find any stones, but there was nothing on the ground except weeds.
Sokov turned around and walked to the back of the car, opened the trunk, took out the jack's set rod, returned to the door, and said to Victoria: "I'll pick the lock." As he said that, he stretched the set rod into the lock body and the lock.
Between the lock beams, pry hard, and the lock will open with a sound.
"Misha, you are so awesome." Victoria said to Sokov while pushing the door open: "Drive the car into the yard."
Sokov first helped Victoria push open the door on the other side, then ran back and drove the car into the spacious yard.
It may be that no one has been here for many years, and even the concrete floor was covered with weeds up to the ankles. Victoria just glanced at it, and then said: "Let's go inside first, and we will deal with these weeds later."
Although the door lock is rusty, it can still be opened.
As soon as he entered the house, Sokov felt a smell of mold coming towards him. He flapped his hand in front of his nose to disperse the unpleasant smell.
The furniture in the room was covered with white cloth. Victoria stepped forward and gently opened the white cloth on the sofa to prevent dust from flying: "Misha, please sit down!"
After Sokov sat down, Elizabeth tidied up the room and said apologetically: "Misha, houses in the country are like this. Because no one lives in them for a long time, they have to be tidied up for a while every time they come back. You sit down first
, I’ll boil some water and make tea.”
Sokov thought that he came here today just to help Lida get the medal. Logically speaking, he just took the things and left. Why would he drink tea?
When he was about to say something, he saw Victoria walking out with an electric kettle. He wondered if he should do something to help her and followed her out.
Coming out of the house, Sokov saw Victoria coming to a low gabled wooden building, bending down and looking inside.
"Vika, what are you looking at?"
Hearing Sokov's voice, Victoria stood up straight, turned her head and said, "I want to see if there are any fallen leaves in the well."
"Ah, this is a well?" Sokov asked curiously: "You also built a small house specifically for the well?"
"We use groundwater. If we don't build a house over the well, we are afraid that when strong winds blow leaves or other dirty things into the well."
After filling the kettle with water, she returned to the room. After plugging in the electricity, Victoria started looking for tea leaves and washing the tea cups again. She was very busy. Sokov wanted to help, but she waved her hand and said, "You are
Guest, how can I let you take action?"
After finally waiting for the water to boil and the tea to be brewed, Victoria sat down next to Sokov and started chatting.
"Misha, I have always had a question in my mind." Victoria looked at Sokov and asked, "Do you really have the memory of your past life?"
"Yes." Sokov said without changing his expression: "Didn't your great-grandmother believe that I was her former superior, General Sokov?"
"I always feel that she may have recognized the wrong person when she was unconscious." Victoria said: "If there is such a thing as reincarnation or having memories of past lives, he should be Russian. How could it be you?
What about such a foreigner?"
Victoria's question made Sokov silent.
After a long time, he began to say: "I don't know the specific reason. I only know that when I woke up one morning, there were suddenly many memories in my mind that were not mine. Even the memories that had always been unclear were in my mind.
I have also become proficient in Russian, and the Russian I speak is as authentic as a real Russian."
"This is quite strange." Victoria said thoughtfully: "I once read a piece of news in the newspaper. After an old man in a certain country became seriously ill, he suddenly became able to speak several languages.
You know, he is someone who has never even left the country. Why he can speak the languages of so many countries, even the doctor can't explain."
"Vika, we came here today to help Lida get the medal and the certificate of honor." Sokov was anxious to return to the city. He didn't want to sit here chatting, so he reminded the other party: "Should we look for things first?"
come out?"
Victoria raised her hand and looked at her watch and said, "Let's wait another half hour."
"Wait another half hour?" Sokov asked puzzledly: "Why?"
"My great-grandmother's medals and certificates of honor are stored in the basement." Victoria explained to Sokov: "No one has entered the basement for several years. If you enter rashly, there is a high risk of accidents due to lack of oxygen.
When I was boiling water just now, I had already turned on the ventilation system in the basement. When the time is almost up, we can go to the basement."
Sokov knew that in a poorly ventilated place like the basement, if no one comes in or out for a long time, it is easy to suffer from hypoxia, and it is easy to have an accident if you enter hastily. Therefore, he stopped urging and continued to drink tea with Victoria.
Chatting and waiting for the moment we can enter the basement.
"Misha, are you married?" Victoria asked suddenly.
"No."
"Do you have a girlfriend?" After asking this question, Victoria shook her head before Sokov could speak and said, "I shouldn't have asked this question. I saw a girl with you two days ago.
When I get home, she behaves quite affectionately, so she should be your girlfriend."
"They are relatively close friends." Sokov knew that the person Victoria was talking about was Anna, and replied: "Maybe one day she will meet the right person and she will leave me."
"Oh oh oh, so that's it." Victoria raised her hand to look at her watch again, and then said: "It's almost time, let's go down."
Sokov agreed and was about to walk out. But he was stopped by Victoria: "Misha, where are you going?"
"Isn't the entrance to the basement outside?" Sokov knew the style of this house. The entrance to the basement was on the side near the door.
Victoria shook her head and said: "You are talking about an ordinary basement. My great-grandmother's basement is indoors."
She led Sokov to the stairs, opened a wooden door, revealing a long staircase, and said: "When my great-grandmother built this basement, she was worried that a nuclear attack would come too fast, so she had to leave the room and walk outside.
The basement will definitely waste a lot of time, so I built the entrance to the basement indoors."
Sokov asked with some confusion: "I don't understand. Even if you run from indoors to the basement outside, it won't even take a minute. Why bother and build the entrance to the basement indoors?"
"It doesn't matter in summer, you can run out when you hear any noise." Victoria explained: "But in winter, the temperature difference between indoor and outdoor is too big, and there is snow outside. When you hear the alarm sounding and run outside,
Not only was it necessary to prevent them from falling, but secondly, they would catch a cold or catch a cold if they didn’t have time to put on clothes. So after much thought, my great-grandmother decided to choose the entrance to the basement indoors.”
"Lida is very thoughtful." Sokov said as he followed Victoria into the basement.
This corridor, built of reinforced concrete, is only wide enough for one person to pass through, and is only about 1.5 meters high. When walking, Sokov and his wife had to bend down to avoid accidentally touching the top of the corridor.
There is an incandescent lamp every few meters at the top of the corridor, so that Sokov, who is here for the first time, can clearly see the road under his feet. Although there is some dust on the ground, there is no mess, and it only needs to be cleaned up briefly.
, you should be able to continue using it.
At the end of the corridor was a large iron door with a handwheel. Victoria moved it twice, but when it didn't move, she turned to Sokov and said, "Misha, help me."
The two of them each grabbed part of the handwheel and used force at the same time. After rotating it dozens of times, the iron door was opened.
When Sokov followed Victoria into the iron door, he specifically said: "Vika, you should put some lubricating oil on the screw rod of the handwheel to prevent it from rusting in the future and making it impossible to open."
After entering the iron gate, Sokov immediately felt that the front became suddenly clearer. Not only was the width of the corridor increased to allow three people to walk parallel, but the height was also raised to about three meters. There was no sense of oppression from the outside at all.
After walking forward for another ten meters, Sokov saw a room on the right. The door of the room happened to be open, so he stood at the door and looked inside. He saw a dozen dark green piles stacked against the corner.
wooden box.
Seeing that Sokov was interested in the things in the house, Victoria quickly explained to him: "The boxes contain various cans and compressed biscuits. If the real doomsday comes, we can rely on these foods to survive. Originally, the house
It was all piled up, but because many of them had passed their shelf life, I was worried that eating them would affect my health, so I threw them all away."
Sokov knew that there are two terms for canned food: shelf life and storage period. The shelf life refers to the period from production to expiration of the food. Even if it is eaten after the expiration date, there is no big problem. The shelf life is different. As long as the shelf life exceeds the shelf life, those things will be lost.
It must be thrown away. If you insist on eating it, it will have adverse effects on your health.
As the two of them continued walking forward, Victoria introduced to Sokov: "These two rooms next to each other belong to me and my parents. Unfortunately, they didn't have the opportunity to stay here. Also, this is a bathroom and bathroom with supporting facilities.
sewage system.”
"When I first came in, I didn't seem to see any place to store water." Sokov recalled that when he was building underground fortifications at Mamayev Hill, he also specially prepared many iron barrels to store water for the soldiers.
Water, he specifically mentioned it: "If there is no water, you may not be able to last long in the basement."
"There must be water." Victoria took Sokov to another room: "Have you seen these water pipes and faucets? As long as you open the faucet, clean groundwater will flow out of it." Maybe it was for Suokov.
As a demonstration, she even turned on the faucet.
After opening the faucet, there was a buzzing sound for a while, and then a stream of dark brown rusty water flowed out from it. After flowing for a while, the water became clear. Victoria smiled and said: "Misha, you saw it.
, we have enough water here, and as long as the food is not finished, we can stay here for a long time."
Finally, we came to Lida’s old room. The furnishings in the room were very simple. In addition to a bed, there was only a bookcase and a writing desk, plus two armchairs. “Misha, this is the room where my great-grandmother lived.”
Victoria opened the drawer and took out a wooden box from it. After opening it, she could see that the red silk cloth was covered with various medals. She opened a corner of the red silk cloth and revealed the yellowed documents underneath, which should be the so-called
Certificate of Honor.
"Is this Lida's medal and certificate of honor?"
"Yes, these are the things." Victoria said with emotion: "When she was in good health, she would come here every year on the eve of Victory Day, hang her medals on her chest, and then go to Red Square or Victory Square to attend
Parade. In the past few years, as her old friends have passed away one after another, her physical condition has been getting worse year by year, so these medals are placed here and have not been hung out for display for a long time. "
Before Sokov could finish speaking, Victoria closed the box, took out two more photo albums from the drawer, opened them and said to Sokov: "Misha, this is the photo album collected by my great-grandmother, do you see if there is anything in it?"
Someone you know."
Sokov took one of the photo albums and looked through it carefully.
Looking at the yellowed photos and the familiar faces on them, Sokov couldn't help but feel filled with emotion. He really didn't expect that after he returned to modern times, he could still see photos of his comrades in the past.
He quickly flipped through the two photo albums, but did not find any photos of himself. He curiously asked Victoria: "Vika, why don't you see photos of my previous life in your great-grandmother's photo album?"
"Because the only photo you have is already placed in a photo frame in the living room by your great-grandmother." Victoria said, "Of course you can't see it here."
"It's getting late." Although there was a ventilation fan arranged here, Sokov still felt a little stuffy. He picked up the box containing the medal, put two photo albums under his arm, and said to Victoria: "Let's go back.
.”
"Let's go back to the room above first." Victoria said, "I'll check again to see if there's anything else I need to bring back to my great-grandmother."
