War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 2019 Lüliang Slope, the wind howls.

Amidst the swirling yellow sand, the cart pulled by two Japanese warhorses continued to run swiftly, but the men carrying guns and running alongside were already panting heavily.

"Fourth Master, take a rest for a while!"

One of the Chinese characters said breathlessly, "I can't move an inch, I really can't move an inch!"

"We can't rest! The Japanese might catch up!"

The driver, Fourth Master, roared as he jumped down, yelling, "Get in the car, take turns catching your breath!"

Upon hearing this, the man stumbled and jumped onto the carriage. Then, after giving him the whip, Fourth Master herded another man who looked like he couldn't run any further onto the carriage.

"Fourth Master, how much longer until we reach Tongguan?" the limping boy sitting in the carriage asked in a thick Henan accent.

"It'll take another three days, at least three days!" a man who had just jumped onto the vehicle lamented in near despair.

"Keep it up! Once we get past Tongguan, we'll be alive!" Fourth Master encouraged as he ran.

However, he was no longer young, and his physique was not particularly robust; he was already panting after only a few steps.

"We shouldn't have crossed Tongguan to provide disaster relief in the first place! Along the way, besides these few children, we haven't..."

"Shut your stinking mouth! Run!"

Before the man running on the other side of the car could finish complaining, Fourth Master shouted a curse, and the escape team fell silent for the time being.

On one side of the carriage, Wei Ran, who had been running alongside, listened intently while constantly watching the direction behind him, futilely guarding against the Japanese soldiers who might catch up at any moment.

That was indeed a futile defense; he couldn't do anything about it now.

During this heart-wrenching escape, the people resting on the cart kept changing, but no one dared to stop for even a moment.

Even so, just as the sun was about to set, Japanese cavalry appeared behind them.

"Spring Festival! You lead the children to run!"

As he spoke, Fourth Master tossed the suona from his waist to the children at the bottom of the cart going uphill, "Which of you has time? Go check on Yan'an, my kid's playing there! Give him this suona!"

As he spoke, Fourth Master grabbed the cloth rope tied to the small iron cannon and stopped in his tracks. "Leave those with big bellies here! We'll take a few with us and die together!"

"Fourth Master!"

"Run! Run!"

As Fourth Master spoke, he pulled out a knife, cut open a sheepskin bag he had ripped from his waist, and poured all the gunpowder inside into the small cannon.

"Spring Festival! Run!"

Another man stopped, grabbing a sheepskin bag from the cart, and said to his wife, "I killed a Japanese soldier!"

Before he finished speaking, he had already run to the side of the small cannon, stuffed the sheepskin bag into the muzzle, and then pulled out a pickaxe from his waist, using the handle to push it all the way in.

At the same time, the other men each grabbed a gun that they had just put in the car, loaded it with bullets, and hid behind a barren, dead tree by the roadside to start firing.

"Fourth Master! Fourth Master!" the man in the car shouted anxiously.

"Crack the whip! Crack the whip with all your might!"

Fourth Master shouted anxiously, and at the same time, he took out a horn-shaped flask from his pocket, opened it, and poured all the remaining gunpowder into the touch port at the rear of the cannon.

"Snapped!"

The man driving the car cracked his whip, and Wei Ran, who had been watching from the sidelines the whole time, also managed to stop time for a moment.

He took a few deep breaths, then silently walked a few steps into the wasteland beside the road, littered with corpses. He silently changed the camera lens to a wide-angle lens, and then carefully set up the tripod.

In his solitary busyness, the viewfinder of this camera encompassed the escaped wagon, the driver cracking his whip, and the children wiping away tears; it also included Fourth Master and the men setting up the small cannon in the middle, and even the Japanese cavalry that had caught up.

"Crack!"

As he pressed the shutter, time began to flow again. The Fourth Master, who was already prepared, casually plucked a handful of dry grass from the roadside and stuffed it into his pipe. Then he took out a Japanese lighter and lit the pipe.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Fourth Master glanced behind him, and amidst another crack of the whip and the gunshots of the surrounding men, he began to sing a hastily composed Yangko tune in a booming voice:

On the slopes of Lüliang, the wind howls, and we risk our lives for the children!

We're not afraid of Japanese knives; we'll protect the children as we run along the Tongguan Pass!
The loess soil may bury our tough bones, but we'll risk our lives without a care in the world!
"Snapped!"

As the sound of whipping grew farther and farther away, the Japanese cavalry finally came to a halt due to the successive casualties.

"On the slopes of Lüliang, the wind howls, we risk our lives for the children!"
We're not afraid of Japanese knives; we'll protect the children as we run along the Tongguan Pass!
The loess soil will bury our tough bones; we'll fight to the death without a care in the world!

Amidst the continuous gunfire, the men who had stopped started singing along, but casualties began to appear as Fourth Master improvised the tune.

Finally, amidst the gunfire of the Japanese counterattack, Fourth Master was also shot and fell to the ground, collapsing beside the small cannon.

As the resistance subsided, the Japanese soldiers remounted their horses and swaggered over.

Your fourth grandfather isn't dead yet.

As the Japanese soldiers drew ever closer, a ruthless glint appeared on Fourth Master's aged and weary face. With his last ounce of strength, he slammed his crimson pipe hard against the trigger of the small cannon.

"laugh!"

"boom!"

Amidst the billowing smoke, Wei Ran's camera repeatedly captured images of countless iron nails and broken pot fragments being propelled and ejected by an overload of gunpowder, delivering a close-range revenge on the Japanese soldiers before they could draw their cavalry swords.

However, the small cannon exploded as a result, and due to the enormous recoil, it rammed into Fourth Master's chest.

Amidst the rising and falling screams, the Japanese cavalry suffered heavy casualties. Some of the wounded horses, startled and in pain, caused even more chaos.

But the resistance did not end. At that moment, the man who had shouted that he could not run any longer quietly stood up and threw a sheepskin bag that was emitting blue smoke with all his might.

"boom!"

Amidst the ear-piercing explosion, the wooden-handled grenade ignited inside the sheepskin bag triggered the secondary explosion of the captured Japanese grenades, sending even more shrapnel flying in all directions during the mid-air explosions, engulfing even more Japanese soldiers and their warhorses.

After these two desperate counterattacks, the cavalry suffered more than double the casualties, and the remaining soldiers completely lost the will to continue the pursuit.

"Ugh"

Wei Ran sighed, and his surroundings transformed into Clara's dream farm in a flash of white light.

But now, next to the coffee table, there was a kang (heated brick bed) covered with straw mats, and on this kang, there was a table set with food. At this moment, the Fourth Master and the other men who had stayed behind to cover the rear were already sitting around the kang table.

"Wei Ran, come on! Get on the kang (heated brick bed)!" Fourth Master greeted him warmly. "There's stewed New Year's dishes to eat!"

Wei Ran was stunned for a moment, then quickly walked over and let these enthusiastic men pull him to his seat.

Before he knew it, there was a golden vegetable dumpling, a small cup of wine, a pair of chopsticks, and a bowl of steaming hot money soup in front of him.

Looking at the center of the table, there's a large bowl filled with a stew similar to potato and vermicelli stewed with pork, along with a small basket of vegetable dumplings.

He glanced around subconsciously; it was still Clara's farm. This absurd scene distracted him once again. Meanwhile, the men, led by Fourth Master, were already wolfing down their food, their cups in hand.

Amidst the clinking of glasses and lively conversation, Fourth Master worried about his youngest son, the tinsmith Liu Geda lamented the small iron cannon he had forged with his own hands, and Accountant Cao murmured his hope that his wife could remarry into a good family.

Finally, as these people, these so-called data streams, these once vibrant lives, got drunk, Fourth Master, after personally pouring Wei Ran a glass of wine, asked, "Wei Ran, tell me, can we drive the Japanese away?"

"can"

Wei Ran's subconscious response, a single word, instantly silenced the drunken men around the kang table.

"How could that be?" sighed Liu Geda, the pot mender.

"Yes," Wei Ran answered again, "It really is possible."

"With that country bumpkin grandson who was raised by a madman?" Liu Geda sighed.

"It really can! Not only can we drive the Japanese away, but we can also get through this famine and the people will be able to eat." Wei Ran assured him more and more urgently.

This time, the metal notebook finally stopped blocking his way, but he discovered that these people's despair was far more deeply rooted than their hope for victory.

"Why?"

After a long silence, Fourth Master puffed on his pipe and asked.

"By"

Wei Ran paused for a moment, then downed the wine in his glass in one gulp. He cleared his throat and began to recite the article he had always intended to recite to his desperate compatriots: "The first anniversary of the great War of Resistance Against Japan, July 7th, is approaching. The entire nation must unite."

"It's about a protracted war, my kid memorized it!"

Fourth Master immediately spoke, but then he sighed regretfully, "I keep thinking about it, I'll go to Yan'an when I have time! My kid's working there!"

"Wei Ran, tell me, what would happen if we really drove the Japanese away?" Accountant Cao poured Wei Ran another cup of wine and asked.

"It will take another three years to drive out the Japanese invaders."

Wei Ran was, after all, a scholar specializing in history. In the midst of repeated toasts, for the first time, he spoke without any hindrance about everything he knew, about what the future would be like, something they could neither see nor even imagine.

"It's worth it, it's worth it!"

Fourth Master slapped his thigh with joy, "We didn't die in vain! We didn't die in vain!"

"But it wouldn't have been a pointless death!"

The people around him smiled and echoed his sentiments, raising their glasses once more. Wei Ran also downed a glass of wine with them, and then, in a dizzying moment, he closed his eyes drunkenly.

But the next instant, he suddenly became fully awake, and everything around him seemed strangely unfamiliar.

After observing for a while, he noticed that it seemed to be a dilapidated Taoist temple that had collapsed most of the way, and there were several emaciated corpses not far away.

At this moment, the sky outside was just beginning to lighten, but the cool air was filled with the distinctive smell of a rotting corpse.

Unable to lift the small, emaciated skeletons, Wei Ran sat dejectedly on the steps at the entrance of the Taoist temple, waiting blankly.

He felt an unprecedented loneliness in this world that was beginning to reject him, yet he found unprecedented comfort in reminiscing about the meal he had just eaten.

Finally, amidst these complex emotions, a cart pulled by two horses came along listlessly. Wei Ran immediately stood up and instinctively tried to wave at them.

But after realizing what had happened, he reverted to his expressionless demeanor, silently set up his tripod, pointed the lens at the cart, and repeatedly pressed the shutter button on the driver and the children huddled together. Finally, in a fit of anger, he kicked over the camera tripod, took out his Mauser pistol, and pressed it against his chin, repeatedly pulling the trigger.

Amidst the piercing gunfire, bullets pierced his body and the broken roof beams above him. He finally realized that not only were the "data streams" and "pancakes" not in the same dimension, but he himself was in an extra dimension.

In the end, the cart stopped next to the Taoist temple, and the driver, Chun Nian, woke up the children on the cart.

The teenagers looked around in terror almost instinctively, and the lame boy even grabbed a rifle and was about to load it with a bullet.

"It's nothing, the Japanese haven't caught up yet! Get off the bus and rest a bit!" Chun Nian, her eyes red and swollen, greeted them with a forced smile.

"Fourth Master and the others."

"Don't worry, Fourth Master and the others will catch up soon," Chun Nian urged. "Hurry up and get out of the carriage, rest a bit and have something to eat, we still have a long way to go!"

"Where else can we eat?"

As the limping young man retorted in his thick Henan dialect, his empty stomach rumbled, but at least it was a good thing—he hadn't caught a belly disease.

"We just picked up quite a few things!"

Another boy, also in Henan dialect, said cheerfully.

In comparison, his belly was a bit rounder, which wasn't a good thing, but even so, he said, "According to the rules, we have to wait until everyone is here before we divide it together."

Upon hearing this, the other two teenagers, who had instinctively reached into the saddlebags for their spoils, withdrew their hands and looked at Chun Nian.

"Everyone's here!" Chun Nian said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

After a moment of silence, tears welled up in the eyes of the children, especially the youngest-looking girl, who covered her mouth with her dirty hands.

"Stop crying! Quickly find something to eat!"

As Chun Nian spoke, he took the items out of the horse saddlebag and then opened the only three captured Japanese backpacks.

There wasn't much to eat here, but it was incredibly precious to this family of four – three socks half-filled with rice and three large cans of boiled food.

In addition, there was a box of salt licks for the livestock, a saddlebag of black beans and wheat for the livestock, and several jugs filled with water.

"Aren't we waiting for Fourth Master anymore?" the lame, half-grown boy asked blankly.

"No way!"

As Chun Nian spoke, he opened a Japanese mess kit, untied a sock containing rice, poured the rice into it, and then opened a kettle and poured a lot of water into the mess kit.

"Gather firewood! Everyone go gather firewood!" Chun Nian urged, as if afraid the children would continue asking questions.

But his own eyes reddened again, and he squatted down, burying his head in his dusty arms, crying silently.