War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1895 Not Missing Home

On the roadside in the military dependents' village, after some polite exchanges, Wei Ran accepted the sausage that Li Minghua had given him as a snack, and Wei Ran also accepted the extra two yuan that Li Minghua had paid for him.

Watching the father and son walk into their house, Wei Ran memorized the address, then restarted the three-wheeled motorcycle and slowly drove forward, occasionally calling out in a serious manner, "Baked flatbread! Baked flatbread! Stuffed sausage! Stuffed pickled vegetables!"

As he called out, people would occasionally come out of their homes to stop him and watch as he used his miniature hanging oven to reheat various kinds of flatbreads, deftly adding sausage or pickled vegetables.

In general, the military dependents' villages of this era were far from being filled with the sounds of two-stroke engines that would later become ubiquitous; instead, they were filled with dialects from all over mainland China.

During this time, he even heard a distinctive accent from Langshi, and witnessed an old soldier who was about the same age as him, after wolfing down a piping hot sesame seed cake with sausage, squatting by the roadside and crying uncontrollably—he was homesick, probably.

Upon hearing this, Wei Ran shook his head helplessly. Due to his father's demands, he couldn't even give the other party a single sesame seed cake.

All he could do was break off a small piece of enema and hand it to the other person—the mission didn't mention that enemas couldn't be given away for free, I guess.

Seeing the old soldier looking at him with teary eyes, Wei Ran handed him the food again, saying, "Eat up, you won't miss home if you're full."

With just one sentence, the veteran's tears fell again.

Wei Ran had no intention of delving into what the old man had done during the war. Regardless of what he had done, whether he came here voluntarily or was forced to come, and whether he had harmed the people, he had already tasted the bitter fruit of his actions.

Ignoring the man who was probably pitiful, Wei Ran continued to carefully place some sesame cakes into the small oven, serving them to the guests, both young and old.

"Sell me ten or twenty more!" The old soldier squeezed through the crowd, pulled out two ten-yuan bills from his pocket, and handed them over, his eyes bloodshot.

“I set up my stall every day,” Wei Ran sighed.

"Sell me ten," the veteran lowered his demands.

You can't finish it.

"Can finish it"

The veteran said, "I want my wife and kids to try it; they've never had it before."

Upon hearing this, Wei Ran sighed, "Wait, the next batch is yours."

"Okay!" the veteran quickly agreed, then stepped aside and stared intently as Wei Ran operated the small hanging furnace.

"Where are you from?" the veteran asked tentatively. "Where is your hometown?"

"Cangzhou," Wei Ran replied while busy.

He didn't ask where the other person was from. He had been to Chen Qi's house in Langfang City and remembered their accent.

“The fish over there are good, the loaches are even better.” The old soldier uttered a phrase in dialect that Wei Ran could fully understand.

"yes"

Wei Ran replied in the same dialect he had known since childhood, "I learned these sesame seed cakes and sausages from your area, they're the same."

"The newspaper said there was a disaster at home," the veteran said worriedly.

“Yes,” Wei Ran responded with a sigh.

After they finished speaking, people from two different generations and two different places in these two worlds fell silent.

Along this not-so-wide street, only other diners chatted, reminiscing about their hometown delicacies, and the aroma of oven-baked sesame cakes and steaming sausages filled the air.

Soon after, the other diners left one after another, and Wei Ran rebaked a whole pot of not-so-large flatbreads for the fellow villager.

"Are they all going to be enemas?" Wei Ran asked without looking up.

"Take three stir-fried pickled vegetables," the veteran said blankly.

"Okay," Wei Ran replied dryly. He used his delicate little kitchen knife to cut open the crispy-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside sesame cakes, stuffing them with either sausage or pickled vegetables. After carefully wrapping them in straw paper, he placed them on the hat the other person had taken off.

"Will you come again tomorrow?" the veteran asked one last time.

Wei Ran nodded.

"That's good, I'll definitely come." The old soldier said, stuffing the two 10-yuan bills into Wei Ran's hand before walking back.

"Wait, here's your change," Wei Ran called out.

"We'll talk about it next time," the veteran said, already taking a sesame seed cake from his hat and eating it in big bites.

Go home early.

Wei Ran sighed. With the help of the old soldier and Li Xiaowu, plus the scattered customers, he had already completed more than half of his task of selling 50 sesame cakes today.

After sealing off the fire doors above and below the furnace, Wei Ran restarted the motorcycle and continued driving forward.

Along the way, he also found shops, butcher shops, grain and oil shops, general stores, and even barbershops and pharmacies in this small military dependents' village.

However, after wandering around the small military dependents' village and finally selling 50 sesame cakes, he still couldn't find Cheng Guanyin anywhere.

In addition, there were still quite a few sesame cakes and sausages in the box. Adhering to the principle of not operating at a loss, Wei Ran simply left the military dependents' village and headed towards the more urban area.

As he walked, he shouted and hawked his wares, and Wei Ran also took out his camera from time to time to capture the street scenes of this era and the people on the street.

When Wei Ran stopped again, a banner was hanging on the side of the street, soliciting donations of one yuan per person. On a makeshift stage, some young girls were performing a charity show, playing military drums.

Meanwhile, long queues had formed around the two donation boxes next to the platform. Men, women, the elderly, and children, speaking various dialects from all over China, lined up to donate and promptly dropped in varying amounts of banknotes.

At the same time, people who had donated money gathered around Wei Ran's tricycle.

Amid his busy work and the discussions among the people who were worried about the disaster on the mainland, the flatbreads in the box, paired with sausages or stir-fried pickled vegetables, were gradually sold out.

Just then, Wei Ran noticed a shout coming from afar.

"Deep-fried stinky tofu! Authentic Changsha stinky tofu! Knife-cooked stinky tofu!"

It's Cheng Guanyin's seal!

Wei Ran hurriedly fastened the buckles around the hanging furnace to prevent it from moving up and down, and then, under the cover of the box, took out the Nikon camera and hung it around his neck.

Following the calls, he saw Cheng Guanyin slowly pedaling a pedicab while calling out his wares.

He was no longer young; his hair was gray, his skin was dark, and his once handsome appearance had become dark and ugly due to the mustard gas he had been exposed to and the passage of time. He had attended a progressive school.

After adjusting the camera, Wei Ran framed the old man in the viewfinder. Once the focus was achieved, he captured the man's body illuminated by the afterglow of the setting sun, as well as the words "Big Knife Stinky Tofu" painted in red on the wooden board on the front of the tricycle.

Under the watchful eye of Wei Ran's raised camera, Cheng Guanyin slowly parked his car on the roadside not far from the stage across the street, and then somewhat rudely cut in line to the front of the donation queue.

Just as Wei Ran pressed the shutter again, Cheng Guanyin took out a thick wad of banknotes from his bag and said to the astonished people around him, "All my wealth since I came to Tai is here. You must save as many people as possible. Our families are all on the other side."

"Sir, I assure you! All this money will be used to help the disaster victims!"

A young woman on stage made a serious promise, then turned to a young man in military uniform beside her and said, "Ah Yong, could you take a photo of this gentleman to register him? We can."

"no need"

Cheng Guanyin waved his hand, turned around and walked to the roadside, got back on the tricycle, and continued to shout as he pedaled hard, "Fried stinky tofu! Authentic Changsha stinky tofu! Knife-cut stinky tofu!"

Wei Ran, who had lost count of how many times he had pressed the shutter, did not rush to acknowledge Cheng Guanyin, who had not noticed him. Instead, he looked at the young man in military uniform on the stage.

Could A-Yong be Lin A-Yong?

Wei Ran couldn't help but raise his camera again and press the shutter button on the soldier on the stage who was looking at the girl next to him with an adoring expression.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to secretly take photos, Wei Ran memorized the other person's appearance. Feeling apologetic, he used the excuse of the food being sold out to send away the other diners who had gathered around. Then, he turned his tricycle around, started it up, and slowly chased after them.

He didn't even need to step on the gas to catch up with the pedicab that had stopped again on the side of the road.

By this time, a group of children had gathered around the tricycle.

Cheng Guanyin, dressed similarly to himself, patiently told the little ones to wait by the roadside, away from the oil fryer. Then he took out a small enamel pot with a lid from the not-so-large cargo container and placed it on the honeycomb briquette stove made from a tin bucket.

While the little ones waited, Cheng Guanyin slowly opened the stove's air vent, then picked up some stinky tofu from a styrofoam box and threw it into the small pot to start deep-frying.

Wei Ran didn't bother the other party, but simply drove the three-wheeled motorcycle forward a bit, and then pointed the camera lens at the other party again.

In the following time, he filmed Cheng Guanyin frying stinky tofu, and also filmed how Cheng Guanyin carefully arranged the stinky tofu in each wrist-thick half-bamboo tube, poured on the brine, and handed them to the children one by one with a small bamboo skewer.

Wei Ran only put away his camera and walked over after the other diners had paid and left.

"Give me a serving of stinky tofu, extra spicy."

"One yuan! You're Wei...Wei...Wei Ran?! You're Brother Wei Ran?!"

Cheng Guanyin's usually expressionless face, which only showed a hint of anger when facing children, suddenly came to life. "It's me! Cheng Guanyin! Do you remember me? It's me!"

"I remember, of course I remember."

Wei Ran didn't care that the other person's hands were covered in oil. After giving him a warm hug, he said, "I recognized you, that's why I came to buy stinky tofu."

Where have you been these past two years? How have you been?

"well--!"

Cheng Guanyin sighed heavily, “Since we separated, I was sent to Hualien to smash rocks for seven whole years.”

At this point, Cheng Guanyin looked around, lowered his voice slightly, and continued, "Later, when they were blasting rocks, a rock hit me on the head."

I took the opportunity to feign madness and illness, and that's how they managed to get me settled in Tainan.

"You've been in Tainan all these years?" Wei Ran pressed.

I came to Tainan in 57.

Cheng Guanyin sighed, “Before the Veterans Affairs Council could find me a military dependents’ village to settle down, they transferred me to support the blasting of mountains for the Central Cross-Island Highway.”

"Over the years, I learned how to use explosives while quarrying in Hualien. I worked there for two years, mainly doing blasting work, but I didn't really put in much physical exertion."

"Then what will you do?"

“I came back last year when that highway opened to traffic.”

Cheng Guanyin gave a slightly bitter, sheepish smile. "The Veterans Affairs Council hasn't settled me in yet. I'm currently renting a side room in a family's house." "Come to my place."

Wei Ran readily extended an invitation, "I have a spare room, just for myself."

"You're not married?"

After a moment of infatuation, Cheng Guanyin asked cautiously.

"Where did this home come from?"

Wei Ran pointed to his face, the meaning clear: "And you? Are you married?"

"Where did you get a home from?"

Cheng Guanyin shook his head and sighed, "I dream about my son Huaiqian day and night. In my dreams, he says he is alive."

At this point, Cheng Guanyin pointed to a young man in military uniform on the stage not far away, who resembled Lin Ayong, and said, "If my son Huaiqian is really still alive, I estimate he would be about that age by now."

"Yes, him."

Wei Ran took a deep breath. "He's that big."

"Ugh"

“Come to my place,” Wei Ran said. “We two old buddies can have a drink tonight.”

"Okay, that works too."

Cheng Guanyin said, somewhat at a loss, "I won't add any more for you."

"Why would someone who crawled out of a pile of corpses say such things?"

Wei Ran said as he got on the three-wheeled motorcycle, "I'll ride slowly, you follow me."

"Hey!"

Cheng Guanyin suppressed his excitement and agreed, his face beaming with joy as if he had found family.

Carrying Cheng Guanyin, Wei Ran returned to the military dependents' village along the same route. In the last rays of the setting sun, Wei Ran opened the courtyard gate.

"Do you have anything else over there?" Wei Ran asked. "Let's go move some."

"There are some."

Cheng Guanyin's response was restrained, but he had long lost the decisiveness he had when he fought the Japanese to the death back then.

Wei Ran didn't point it out, but asked the other person to help move the stove and boxes from the motorcycle's cargo bed into the side room. Then he urged him to help lock the door and took him to the military dependents' village where he was renting a house on a three-wheeled motorcycle.

However, when he saw Cheng Guanyin's home, he couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness.

The room he was staying in was about the same size as his room where he made sesame cakes, but this room not only had a pair of millstones, but also a stove that seemed to be used to boil soy milk.

In the remaining space, there is a block of tofu soaking in brine, and the rest of the space contains brine in jars, as well as tea oil, bamboo tubes used as disposable tableware, and so on.

Compared to all of these, Cheng Guanyin only had a folding bed placed against the wall to rest on.

Looks like I'll have to make a couple more trips.

Wei Ran, seemingly oblivious to the embarrassment on the other person's face, said calmly, "Let's move the millstone and brine over first."

"Hey!"

Cheng Guanyin nodded vigorously in agreement. Together with Wei Ran, they loaded the two millstones, each less than a meter in diameter, into the cargo bed of the three-wheeled motorcycle, and then carried the jar of brine and several buckets of tea oil into the cargo bed as well.

Finally, Cheng Guanyin also took the pot off the shelf and sat down in it with his hands.

Taking advantage of the last bit of time before dark, the two no-longer-young men made four trips back and forth to move everything, including less than a hundred honeycomb briquettes, into Wei Ran's "home".

On this last trip, Wei Ran also bought all the raw materials he needed to make sausages, as well as a few bottles of wine and some snacks to go with them.

Under the gentle evening breeze, Wei Ran first helped the other party settle into a place to stay, and then tidied up another unused room, putting all his belongings in it, and even helped soak the soybeans.

Only after everything was finished did the two set up a table in the middle of the yard, placing the sausages and pickled vegetables that Wei Ran had left over, the fried stinky tofu that Cheng Guanyin had left over, as well as the snacks, good wine, and good cigarettes that Wei Ran had bought when he returned.

As Wei Ran turned on the dimly lit corridor lamp, which attracted many flying insects, and after the first glass of wine, Cheng Guanyin recounted in detail his experience of being rescued after falling into the water and climbing onto the reef.

He talked about the people he met while carrying artillery shells in Kinmen, the people he met when he was sent to Hualien to quarry stones, and the fellow villagers he unexpectedly met while repairing highways.

Of course, there were also his son and brother whom he missed day and night, the blacksmith shop by the Xiang River, and even the wooden boat that traveled back and forth across the Xiang River.

"I'll show you something!"

After Cheng Guanyin finished his glass of baijiu in one gulp, he stood up and walked excitedly to his pedicab. Then, he pulled out a greasy roll of canvas from under the pots and pans in the cargo compartment and returned to the table.

Before even opening it, Wei Ran realized that the greasy canvas roll must contain the large knife.

As expected, as the canvas roll was untied, Cheng Guanyin took out the large knife.

"You still have it?" Wei Ran asked as he poured the wine.

“This was given to me by my father. My brother and I each had a soldier in it, and he told us to kill more Japanese devils.”

Cheng Guanyin felt the mottled nicks on the blade, "This is the only thing left to hold onto."

Let's have a drink.

Wei Ran raised his glass with a sigh, "When I'm drunk, I don't miss home."

"drink!"

"Dry!"

"Dry!"

Amidst shouts that seemed to offer mutual comfort and encouragement, the two finished their glasses of baijiu once again.

"clang clang"

Just then, the open courtyard gate was knocked on from the outside.

Subconsciously looking over, Wei Ran couldn't help but smile. It was Li Xiaowu knocking on the door, along with the veteran from Langshi.

"You two old buddies are drinking so hard, how about we join you at a table?"

As Li Xiaowu spoke, he shook the wine bottle and some late-night snacks he had brought.

"I'm craving Boss Wei's sesame seed cakes."

The veteran, whose home was in Langshi, said this while also waving some snacks he had brought with him.

"You know each other?" Wei Ran asked as he gestured for them to sit down.

"know"

Li Xiaowu said, "Brother Lu and I have been neighbors for many years."

Back in 41, he served with the 5th Army Field Hospital during their campaign in Burma against the Japanese, and he even survived the harsh conditions of the Hukawng Valley.

After saying this, Wei Ran couldn't help but shudder. He had walked through the Savage Mountain and knew how difficult that journey was.

He was also surprised by the other person's surname. He even vaguely guessed that he and Lu Yue, Li Yizhong's girlfriend in later generations, might have some connection.

"Alas—a hero never brags about his past achievements!"

As the veteran surnamed Lu spoke, he unceremoniously picked up a sesame seed cake filled with sausage and took a big bite. He seemed to particularly enjoy these sesame seed cakes and sausages. He hadn't even eaten any other snacks with his drinks, including the bag of smoked beef he had brought.

"Fighting the Japanese isn't something that brings shame to our ancestors, so what's wrong with mentioning it?"

Li Xiaowu said, "Lao Lu later participated in the counter-offensive in western Yunnan. After the Japanese surrendered, he worked in Shanghai. We had dealings with him back then."

He's now the head of surgery at the Veterans Home Medical Station; you can go to him for any injuries or illnesses you may have in the future.

Knowing that Li Xiaowu might be hinting at the other party's background, Wei Ran, who had just been pouring wine, immediately raised his glass and clinked it with the other party's.

With two more people at the table, the conversation naturally flowed more freely. Under the dim light, Li Xiaowu recounted his experiences in Shanghai. He made no mention of Wei Ran, Zhang Taichuan, or anyone else, and certainly no connection to the Mingxiang Opera Troupe or the Lihua Opera House.

The man, who was suspected to be Lu Yue's great-grandfather, also talked about his parents in his hometown of Langshi, whose fate was unknown, his experiences fighting in Yunnan and Burma, and the Savage Mountain that often appeared in his nightmares.

Inevitably, Wei Ran, holding his wine glass, was reminded of the squad leader in the Savage Mountain, his companions, the little monk, and that bowl of oil tea.

"The war is over"

After drinking a glass of wine with bloodshot eyes, Brother Lu picked up a piece of sausage and threw it into his mouth. "We Japanese devils have killed a lot, but we haven't been able to go home for ten years. We can only watch our fellow villagers suffer from hunger and disaster in the newspapers!"

Fuck your mother!
What's the point of guarding this broken Kiba Island?

He's always dreaming about his crotch and having to go back to work!
That bow is fucking damn bad!

Those two idiots should have just stuck their asses out and thrown it already.

Before the drunken grievances could be fully vented, Li Xiaowu, who was closest, covered Lu Laoge's mouth, and at the same time, Wei Ran darted out of the yard.

Fortunately, there wasn't a single person or even animal on the street outside the courtyard.

Relieved, Wei Ran returned to find that Brother Lu, who didn't seem to have a high alcohol tolerance, had picked up a cold sesame seed cake and was eating it in big mouthfuls while tears streamed down his face.

Sitting opposite him, Cheng Guanyin was carefully eating a piece of fried stinky tofu that he had made himself, but he had lost his focus and found it tasteless.

Wei Ran knew, and Li Xiaowu also knew, that Brother Lu was homesick, and Cheng Guanyin was homesick too.

But he knew, and Li Xiaowu knew, that they couldn't do anything, and were incapable of doing anything.

"Have a drink."

Li Xiaowu picked up his wine glass and sighed, "If you get drunk, just get a good night's sleep. Once you're asleep, you won't miss home anymore."