War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1922 We are here to end the war

"Let's go back for dinner," Wei Ran invited as he fastened the leather case to the camera.

“We agreed to sit down and talk together after the war,” Dragan said, staring blankly at his mutilated right hand and sighing.

"The first priority is to end the war."

Wei Ran patted the other person on the shoulder and left the room, returning to the hallway.

Shortly after, Dragan returned and sat down next to Wei Ran.

"Just grab something to eat."

Wei Ran picked up a lunchbox containing stewed meat from the already extinguished oil stove, used a spoon to divide half of it into Dragan's lunchbox, and then served him a cup of coffee mixed with water and sugar.

"You seem quite familiar with this kind of life?" Dragan said abruptly as he took the last piece of bread Wei Ran offered him.

"yes"

Wei Ran paused for a moment, then continued rummaging through the German backpacks for anything that might be useful. "After all, we've been fighting for so long, since... since Spain."

"yes."

Dragan took a sip of his slightly sweet coffee. "But wars always end, Wei. What will you do after the war ends?"

"Do we really have to talk about such a hopeless topic?" Wei Ran asked helplessly, stopping what he was doing.

"Despair?" Dragan asked with a smile.

"This kind of topic is very unlucky," Wei Ran reminded.

"But isn't what we're hoping for every day just for the war to end?"

Dragan's question silenced Wei Ran. He knew very well that the topic had been very unlucky—even with that living father, he was still a staunch materialist.

But he couldn't refute it, because everything in that ominous topic was exactly what this era, no, all those trapped in the war, longed for day and night.

"There's nothing auspicious or inauspicious about it, but there's no despair either."

Dragan's tone was even filled with a lighthearted laugh, "If the war could end tomorrow, but I had to die tonight, I would be very happy."

"The war will not end tomorrow."

Wei Ran looked seriously into the other person's eyes and said, "Don't even think about dying tonight or tomorrow night."

"Dragan, you must survive, live until the war ends, then find a big-breasted woman to have a few children for you. If you must die, it would be best if you died fifty years later on a young and beautiful woman."

"Is this what you want to do after the war is over?" Dragan was already laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

"This is what I hope you will do after the war ends."

After Wei Ran finished speaking, he picked up his portion of stewed meat, broke open the hard bread and soaked it in the thick, spicy broth. Then he used a fork to poke it up and stuffed it into his mouth, eating it in big bites.

"hope so"

Dragan accepted Wei Ran's blessing without a care, and the corridor fell silent.

After quickly finishing his food, Draganby Wei Ran got up first, carrying his cup of coffee, and walked into their sniper position.

Shortly after, Milos was replaced and took over the food that Wei Ran had prepared for him.

“I heard your conversation,” Milos said.

"Are you also planning to continue this despairing topic?" Wei Ran asked helplessly.

I have no such plans.

Milos said while shoveling food into his mouth, "But this is Belgrade."

"So?" Wei Ran asked when the other person stopped there.

"This is Belgrade"

Milos swallowed the food in his mouth and wiped the soup from the corner of his mouth with his dirty sleeve. "Although I had never been here before the war, we must take her back from Natso."

"We will take back Belgrade, and we will take back all the land occupied by the Nacional, and we will drive them all out," Dragan said, already holding up his binoculars at his sniper position.

Taking a deep breath, Wei Ran, who had also finished her food, pointed to the sleeping bag against the wall and abruptly ended the previous conversation, saying, "Milosh, after you finish eating, you should take a nap."

“And you?” Milos asked.

"We can't all stay up all night; tonight isn't important."

Wei Ran said, "Dragan will take the night shift first. I'm going downstairs to take a dump and then I'm going to sleep. I'll take the second shift, and you'll be in charge of keeping watch before dawn."

"Okay," Milos readily nodded, agreeing to Wei Ran's arrangement.

"You don't have any objections, do you?" Wei Ran asked Dragan in the room.

Dragan accepted Wei Ran's offer with "no objection" and did not compete for the most arduous shift.

Upon hearing this, Wei Ran said no more and took the square box flashlight and a bayonet that he had just taken from the German soldier's backpack and went up to the second floor.

After carefully inspecting the warning mines he had previously set up, he took advantage of the last bit of daylight to walk to the window leading to the adjacent building and temporarily removed the warning mines that had been placed there.

After observing for a while, Wei Ran stepped onto the wooden planks and went to the building next door. He needed to eliminate some potential hazards first.

He walked along the edge of the corridor, observing each room one by one. Soon, he smelled the aroma of food, cigarettes, and coffee wafting from one of the rooms.

Peeking through the corner of the wall, I saw a fireplace burning in the room, which was facing away from the line of fire, with several German mess kits skewered on the embers with fire tongs.

Not far from the campfire, a German soldier sat in a tin bathtub with a cigarette in his mouth, while another soldier scrubbed his back.

On a chair next to the bathtub, he also saw a leash dog uniform.

You're not directing traffic at the back, you're here acting like a big shot.
While silently giving the evaluation of "idiot", Wei Ran had already flashed into the room, stabbed the back-rubbing soldier in the back with a knife, and then grabbed the Prussian hazelnut head in the bathtub and forcefully twisted it.

With a "snap," Wei Ran broke the dog's neck. He quickly used his body to support the soldier who was about to fall after being stabbed in the heart, and carefully helped him sit on the edge of the bathtub. Then, he casually pulled a clean dagger from the soldier's waist.

After counting the number of lunchboxes on the charcoal fire, Wei Ran continued walking forward and soon discovered a machine gun emplacement set up in a room diagonally opposite. Naturally, he also found the soldiers guarding the machine guns and a soldier shaving in front of a mirror.

"laugh!"

As Wei Ran made eye contact with the other person, he grabbed his hand and shoved and pulled hard, causing the sharp razor in the other person's hand to cut open the blood vessel on his neck.

At the same time, he grabbed the man's shoulder and twisted him forcefully, causing the blood spurting from the wound to splash onto the face of the machine gunner who turned around upon hearing the noise, thus blocking his view.

"puff!"

Almost as soon as he was about to shout, Wei Ran pounced over and plunged the bayonet into his chest.

After eliminating the enemies in that room, Wei Ran switched to a clean bayonet and continued towards the next room—the one where the sniper had been hiding and whom he had killed.

This time he was lucky; before he even entered the room, a soldier who looked to be in his thirties with a serious expression came out.

"puff!"

Wei Ran plunged a knife into the other man's chest, then released the hilt and moved past him, rushing towards the sniper who instinctively turned his head and instinctively raised his sniper rifle, turning to aim at himself.

"Oh!"

Before the other man could point his gun at him, Wei Ran kicked him in the knee.

"Oh!"

Immediately afterward, Wei Ran swung his elbow at the other man's chin, forcing him to shut up and suppress his screams, while also allowing him to bite off a small piece of his tongue.

"Click"

After breaking the other man's neck, Wei Ran also managed to grab his rifle.

He put down the body and the sniper rifle in his hand, then went out of the room again and wandered around the few remaining rooms on this floor.

In the remaining rooms, he found the two snipers he had clearly killed. They were lying in a corner room, and it was obvious that their valuables had been taken from them.

Although he didn't go downstairs to take a look, he could clearly hear the laughter and conversation coming from downstairs.

After a moment's thought, he began searching the nearest corpse, placing grenades in various locations.

Finally, he carried the machine gun with its heavy barrel and tripod, along with several boxes of ammunition belts and even the food that had been sitting on the campfire, like ants carrying food, to the building where they were hiding.

After replacing the warning mine on the wooden plank between the two buildings, Wei Ran carried the borrowed machine gun upstairs to his room.

"Where did you get this?" Dragan asked in surprise.

Wei Ran briefly described the situation in the building next door.

"Didn't make a sound?" Dragan asked, frowning.

"no"

Wei Ran replied confidently, "We have four backpacks, but only two snipers. I guess the Germans will come over to rest later."

It's better to deal with it in advance than to wait until it's discovered.

Also, I remember when we came here, there weren't any firing positions downstairs in the building next door, but now it's quite lively there.

"It looks like tomorrow will be a tough battle."

Dragan sighed. "You should rest too. Leave this to me."

Wei Ran nodded without refusing, turned around and walked out of the room, lay down on a blanket, and soon fell asleep.

When he was gently patted awake, the only light in the hallway was the faint glow coming through the fingers of the boxy flashlight Dragan was holding.

"Is there something wrong?"

Wei Ran removed the muzzle of the pistol from Dragan's head and asked in a low voice.

"No," Dragan shook his head, startled. "It's your turn."

"it is good"

Wei Ran quietly rolled over and got up, giving his position to Dragan, while he himself went to the sniper position, picked up the binoculars and looked outside.

It was already late at night, but the fighting hadn't stopped. Gunshots, explosions, and artillery fire rang out intermittently. The street outside the firing ports, however, remained relatively calm—perhaps just the calm before the storm. Taking a sip of diluted coffee from his water bottle, Wei Ran sat down by the door, resting his gun on the chair and aiming it at the stairwell not far away.

At the same time, he inexplicably thought of that "unlucky topic".

After the war
No, will my war end? Wei Ran couldn't help but ask himself.

This is clearly a contradictory issue.
Wei Ran was perfectly clear in his heart that the biggest difference between him and the people he had met in various historical fragments was that he had actively entered the war.

Wars are fought for interests, and so am I.
Wei Ran sighed inwardly, no longer dwelling on this pointless question. He simply took out his gas mask pack, pulled out a mosquito coil box, lit it, and placed it beside him.

As dawn approached, Wei Ran woke up Milos, who seemed to be having a nightmare. He tiptoed into a room, relit the oil stove, put the food he had brought back the night before on it to heat it up, and took out a long bag of horsehair to brew a pot of coffee to refresh himself.

"boom!"

Just as he was putting away the coffee pot, an explosion suddenly came from next door!
The commotion, which was so close at hand, immediately startled Dragan awake.

Just then, bursts of Katyusha rockets began to rain down from outside the city towards a certain direction inside, and amidst the whooshing sound, the roar of fighter jets could be heard in the sky.

"The attack has begun?"

As Wei Ran handed the kettle containing the coffee to Dragan, he asked loudly.

"should be!"

As Dragan responded loudly, he had already run into his sniping position.

"Don't you know the time?!"

"This morning!"

Dragan gave a precise yet general time, and picked up his binoculars. "Stop asking so many questions! Let's begin!"

Before he could finish speaking, Milos had already pulled the trigger under the cover of Katyusha rockets and fighter jets.

"boom!"

Wei Ran also picked up his gun, pulled the trigger at the target that had been marked yesterday, and loudly reported to Dragan.

Seeing this, Milos quickly reported his kill, while Dragan used the pen Wei Ran had lent him to cross out the target's mark in his notebook.

Under the cover of the immense noise created by those more powerful war machines, Wei Ran and Milos took out the machine gunners and snipers hidden on the street one shot after another.

Under the cover of this noise, on the second floor of the building next door, which Wei Ran had visited the previous night, the traps were also triggered one by one, taking away one innocent life after another.

Just then, groups of guerrillas who had been hiding the day before rushed out of their hiding places and, using the rubble and the cover of Wei Ran and his two companions, charged toward the center of the city.

"boom!"

Wei Ran pulled the trigger again, killing a newly arrived machine gunner.

As the machine gun fell silent, the guerrillas began their charge, and Wei Ran pointed his gun at the next target he had marked the day before and pulled the trigger.

"Snapped!"

Just then, a bullet pierced through the firing port, narrowly missing Wei Ran's cheek and shoulder.

"A sniper has his eye on this place!"

As Wei Ran spoke, he drew his gun. At the same time, Dragan reacted quickly and blocked the not-so-large firing port with several bricks he had prepared in advance.

"boom!"

Milos fired his last shot and immediately moved, saying, "I saw him, but I couldn't catch him."

"Where?" Dragan asked as he helped him block the firing port.

"The yellow house on the right is also on the third floor."

Milos replied, “There’s a piece of glass on the roof that’s been reflecting light constantly. I remember there wasn’t that piece of glass yesterday.”

"It's intentional, meant to attract attention."

As Wei Ran spoke, he placed the machine gun he had borrowed last night in the observation port. "I'll draw their fire. Milos, are you confident?"

"Yes!" Milos answered confidently.

After glancing at Dragan, Wei Ran didn't say anything more, but simply pointed the gun at the firing port.

"let's go"

As Dragan spoke, he crouched down and beckoned Milos to walk into another room next door, where they had already prepared a spare firing port the day before.

"Is it done?!" Wei Ran asked loudly, while also hearing the sound of a warning mine exploding downstairs.

"Alright!" Dragan and the other responded.

Upon hearing this, Wei Ran immediately removed the brick blocking the firing port, aimed in the approximate direction, and pulled the trigger.

"Left! Up!" Milos shouted from next door.

"Too high! Down! Stop! That's it!"

Under Milos's command, Wei Ran, who was hiding behind the wall and couldn't see anything at all, fired a series of bursts of fire. At the same time, he also heard gunshots coming from next door, as well as the second explosion of a warning mine downstairs.

"Run!"

Suddenly, Dragan's loud shout came from next door, "Wei! Run!"

Without any hesitation, Wei Ran picked up his G43 semi-automatic rifle, crouched down, and ran out of the room.

Almost simultaneously, a huge and dense thud came from that room, and a large amount of smoke and dust was stirred up, which even affected the wall next to the corridor.

Without even looking or asking, one could be certain that it was the power of a Flak 38 20mm anti-aircraft gun fired horizontally.

Almost as soon as he reached the room where Dragan and the other man were, a gunshot rang out and the anti-aircraft gun went silent. But immediately afterward, Wei Ran saw a burst of blood spurt from Milos's cheek!
"Where is he?!"

Wei Ran rested the muzzle of his gun on the firing port and asked, "How is Milos?!"

"The first floor of the yellow building on the right!"

Dragan frantically pulled out a roll of gauze and, while wrapping it around Milos's facial wound, said, "It's not serious! His eyes aren't hurt!"

"boom!"

Wei Ran pulled the trigger at the same time, but he hit the gunner of the anti-aircraft gun.

This was a choice he had to make—otherwise, the cannon would be fired at the guerrillas.

"boom!"

The second shot killed the other operator of the anti-aircraft gun, and Wei Ran immediately re-aimed the gun at the yellow building next to him.

A person stood in the ruins, most of their body hidden in the rubble, with only half their face and a gun in their hand visible.

Done
Upon witnessing this scene, Wei Ran sighed inwardly, yet still pulled the trigger on the other party.

In the impact of the recoil, Wei Ran clearly felt the pain from his arm, clearly saw a bullet pierce through his right wrist, leaving a trail of blood, and saw the bullet smash into his right shoulder.

"what--"

Wei Ran let out an uncontrollable scream of pain, and was immediately dragged to the corner by Dragan.

"He was on the first floor of that building, hiding in the rubble, and he was a very good shot."

Wei Ran gritted his teeth and endured the excruciating pain, saying, "If you're not confident you can get away quickly, that anti-aircraft gun is working in his favor!"

"boom!"

Just then, Milos fired a shot. "That cannon has turned around!"

"boom!"

Milos fired a second shot. Immediately afterwards, Wei Ran and Dragan both saw the smoke from the bullet hole where it had been hit, and they also saw the bullet finally smash into the butt of Wei Ran's gun and embed itself firmly in it.

"Miloš!"

Dragan abruptly asked, "Are you confident you can hit that man in the head?"

"confident!"

Milos, who had been keeping his eye pressed against the scope, suppressed his anxiety and said, "I can fire right away."

"We are here to end the war."

Dragan straightened his International Cruiser hat as he spoke, “I’ll take care of that anti-aircraft gun.”

"What are you going to do?" Wei Ran subconsciously reached for the gun sling with his blood-stained hand.

"I'm a sniper too."

As Dragan spoke, he stood up, raised his gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger in one fluid motion!

"boom!"

"boom!"

"boom!"

As Dragan fired his third shot, Milos pulled the trigger at the same time.

But at that moment, Wei Ran also saw Dragan suddenly tilt his head and body back—he was also a sniper who liked to aim for the head.

"I hit him. Dragan?!"

Milos's initial surprise came to an abrupt end. With a gasp in his second half, Dragan fell backward beside Wei Ran, finally turning his bullet-scarred face weakly toward Milos, as if he were saying something.

"I've come to end the war! I've come to end the war!"

Milos, who was about to crawl over, murmured as he gripped the German rifle, now stained with his own blood, and began to pull the trigger, sniping any enemy who dared to approach the anti-aircraft gun.

This time, however, he didn't aim for the head. Instead, he aimed for the enemy's chest—just as Dragan and Wei Ran had suggested before.

Amidst the seemingly quicker gunfire, Wei Ran painstakingly removed the Robert camera from Dragan's neck, framed Dragan and Milos with the viewfinder, and took their last group photo in the intense white light.