At the edge of the forest shrouded in darkness, Wei Ran patiently waited for the two little figures to drag away the second load of horse manure on a sled, and waited for the reindeer to drain the blood before tying the two with a rope.

With his hind hooves, he hung him upside down on a tree branch.

When he finished the skinning work skillfully and cut off the pair of antlers, the old man named Sergey came over wearing a new belt and pulling a sled.

"Keep this for you to eat."

While the old guy named Sergey was talking, he had already picked out the heart and liver of the reindeer, wrapped them in deerskin and handed them to Wei Ran, and then put the remaining sewer into a wooden basin and placed it on the sledge.

"I'm going to feed these to the dogs. Where's your axe? Help me chop off the deer's legs and separate the remaining parts vertically. Those have to be sent to the canteen."

Although this old guy asked a lot, but thinking about the two large pieces of internal organs wrapped in deerskin in his hand, Wei Ran still waved the long knife in his hand and easily removed the four legs, and then

He picked up the axe, chopped the still steaming corpse along the spine on both sides, and threw the ribs together with the deer legs onto the small sledge that the other party dragged over.

"Do you need this spine?" Wei Ran asked, pointing to the remaining spine.

"Take it!" Sergey gave it to Wei Ran with great pleasure without even asking about the purpose of the spine.

Watching the old guy drag the sledge away, Wei Ran picked up the deer skin, held the spine with a lot of remaining meat under his arm, and carried a pair of deer antlers with his other hand, and walked towards the stone building not far away.

house.

With a little effort, he lifted the curtain and pushed open the thick wooden door. When he lifted another layer of bulging canvas curtain, in addition to the heat wave and the smell of sweat coming from the pavement, he also heard the clanging knocking.

Voice.

Following the sound, I saw a man wearing a leather apron and shirtless next to the fireplace. He was holding a hammer in one hand and holding a red-hot horseshoe with a pair of tongs in the other.

There was a clanking sound on the anvil.

Is this Second Lieutenant Sumet?

While Wei Ran was secretly observing the other party, he was also observing the stone house. Compared with the ruins of buildings seen in later generations, this place was so full that there was almost no room for footing.

On one side of the door, two rusty iron buckets were filled with coking coal, while the two iron buckets on the other side were filled with various waste wood and sawdust and other garbage.

Directly above the four oil drums, there is a glass window that is not too big and is almost covered with ice and snow from the outside.

On the wall on the other side of the door, next to the two large trash cans, on a long log table, in addition to various blacksmith tools, there are also various carpenter tools hanging on the wall.

Looking at the wall facing the door, there is a pile of wooden boards about one meter high. On one end of this pile of waist-high wooden boards are several pairs of damaged skis, as well as some already processed but

But I don’t know what to use the wooden components for.

At the other end of the pile of wooden boards, in addition to a pile of iron sheets, there was a wooden box stacked with various iron parts. And between the pile of wooden boards and the large fireplace built into the corner, there was a

In a small area, there is an oil drum with a wooden lid placed almost perfectly.

Under the last wall of the stone house is where Mesut is busy. There is also an oil barrel near the fireplace. Although this barrel is filled with water, it is extremely filthy. There are even some dark things floating around.

On the side of the entrance, between the oil drum containing coking coal and Mesut who was busy at work, was a wooden ladder slanted on the wall. On the top of this ladder, which was only more than one meter long, was a similarly hanging ladder. A small door with a canvas curtain.

On one side of the small door close to the stone wall of Mesut, there is an iron nail that is more than 20 centimeters long and about the thickness of a chopstick, and hanging on it is a large kerosene lamp with a glass cover.

This stone house, which is not clear whether it is a blacksmith's shop or a carpenter's shop, is entirely illuminated by the kerosene lamp and the fireplace burning coking coal.

"Where are the antlers?" Mesut said as he threw the horseshoe into the charcoal fire of the fireplace to reheat it, and at the same time put down the hammer in his hand.

"Here"

As Wei Ran spoke, he handed the antlers in his hand to the other party, then held the reindeer spine tucked under the armpit of his other arm and asked, "These are gifts from Sergey, where are they placed?"

"Take it and cook it"

Mesut said and threw the antlers on the table, bent down and took out an enamel bucket with a lid from under the log table, took the deer skin from Wei Ran's hand, opened it, and threw in all the heart and liver inside. In the pot.

Then, Mesut randomly took out a half-meter-square scrap from the pile of wooden boards and placed it on the table, "chop it up and cook it together."

Hearing this, Wei Ran quickly placed the spine he was carrying on the temporary chopping board. Using the ax on his waist, he chopped it into sections along the seams of the bones and threw them into the bone. In a big pot.

While he was busy here, Mesut also pulled out a second box from under the table, took out a piece of coarse salt about the size of a quail egg and threw it into the pot.

Finally, he opened the iron bucket with a lid by the fireplace. Mesut used a wooden ladle to scoop out two ladles of water and poured it into the pot. After closing the lid, he placed the enamel pot directly on the fireplace. Next to the stove.

Although the pot was full, Wei Ran still had five or six reindeer vertebrae in his hand.

"Bake the rest." Mesut pulled out another iron plate and handed it to Wei Yan, while pointing to the ladder.

After taking the plate and loading the remaining spine, Wei Ran stepped on the ladder, opened the curtain, and ducked in.

Just as later generations guessed when they saw the ruins of this building, it was a small wooden house. The only window was tightly blocked by a thick cotton curtain, and the room was extremely dark.

This chapter is not over yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading! He took out a sterling silver lighter from Leningrad from the metal book and lit it. With the faint light of the fire, Wei Ran could barely see clearly. There are only two high and low beds placed at 90 degrees and two wooden tables also placed at 90 degrees.

The vacant space between the two tables is where the fireplace is built next door.

It is precisely because of the existence of the fireplace next door that this not-so-large room is extremely warm. Moreover, there is a hole cut out in the only stone wall near the fireplace, and there is a wooden cover.

First, he placed the baking pan on the table, then lit the kerosene lamp on the table and immediately put away the lighter.

Lifting the wooden cover under the light of the kerosene lamp, he immediately felt the heat wave coming from the pavement. Obviously, this was an oven built with the help of the wrought iron fireplace next door, because there was also an oven filled with water inside.

enamel kettle.

After pushing the plate with the spine into the oven and covering it with a wooden board, I had time to carefully observe the room with a kerosene lamp. In other words, observe the two bunk beds and the two tables.

On one of the tables, in addition to two German army lunch boxes that had been resprayed with red paint and two German army kettles that had been replaced with gray thermal insulation felt jackets, there was also a wooden box. Gently open the box and see what was inside.

They are all veterinary medical tools and a few medicines.

Look at the two sets of lunch boxes and kettles. One set has the Russian name "Mesut Gotze" written in paint on it, and the other set has his own character name "Victor" written on it.

Placed on another table are two Japanese lunch boxes and Japanese kettles also sprayed with red paint. On these two sets of personal items, "Ihor" and "Andre" were written respectively in Russian.

Two names.

In addition, on these two tables, each person also has two enamel jars with their names written on them in paint. One of them even contains a toothbrush with a wooden handle and toothpaste packaged in iron.

Taking off his gloves and picking his nose, Wei Ran reached out and wiped the two toothbrush heads that were probably used by the Japanese, and then opened the lunch box with his name written in paint. Unfortunately, the lunch box was pretty complete except for

There was nothing at all except the knife and fork.

Unwilling to give up, I rummaged through my body and found only a few tokens that seemed to be issued separately by the labor camps. In other words, these tokens that were obviously different from the Soviet rubles could only be circulated in a small area.

As long as you leave here, you will be a piece of paper.

Before he could go to the two bunk beds to look for anything special, Mesut from next door urged, "Victor, are you okay yet? We should change the horseshoes, hurry up."

.”

"It'll be ready soon!"

Wei Ran responded, hurriedly put the tokens back into his pocket, blew out the oil lamp, touched the table and walked to the door, raised the curtain and climbed the ladder back to the stone house.

After a while, Mesut, who was originally shirtless, had put on a cotton coat that was no different from Wei Ran's, and also had a leather hat on his head.

Under his command, Wei Ran helped pick up a canvas bag containing tools for trimming horseshoes and a large bunch of horseshoes. The former carried the large oil lamp in one hand and a tin bucket filled with red charcoal in the other.

.

The two of them left the stone house one after another and walked straight to the stables not far away. Ignoring the two men who had not returned from cleaning the horse manure, Mesut turned on the kerosene lamp and hung it on a nail on the wall.

Then he took a horse from the stable and tied it to a wooden stake. He first tied one leg so that it could not touch the ground, and then lifted the other leg and placed it on the stool.

As Wei Ran watched, Mesut deftly used large pliers to remove the loose horse's hoof. Then, after carefully trimming the horse's hoof, he asked Wei Ran to press a red-hot horseshoe onto the well-built building.

on the hoof.

Amidst the steaming blue smoke and the choking smell of burnt protein, Wei Ran followed the other party's instructions and pressed the dark red horseshoe into the drinking manger transformed from a cut oil drum to cool it.

Final construction work is also being done on the horseshoe.

With the cooperation of the two of them, the first horse's hoof was nailed to the horse's shoe smoothly, and the second horse's hoof was also thrown into the charcoal fire for heating.

Before they could change the horseshoes on the four hooves of the relatively tame mare, the two thin figures dragged the empty sleigh into the stable.

"Happy birthday, Mesut, happy birthday, Victor." One of the little Asian-looking men greeted enthusiastically in Russian.

"Happy birthday, Ihor" Mesut responded politely in Russian.

Another short Asian-looking man said in Russian with envy, "You three actually have the same birthday."

"It's just a coincidence." Mesut, Ihor, and Wei Ran all said the same thing at the same time.

"I heard that you have also joined the party?" the little man lowered his voice and asked, changing the subject.

"certainly"

While trimming the horse's hooves, Mesut replied calmly, "Our applications have been submitted."

"Andre, maybe the four of us will be party members in the future." Ihor said happily while loading horse dung on the sleigh.

Hearing this, another little man who also started shoveling horse manure opened his mouth, hesitated for a moment and then whispered, "Friends, I have something to tell you."

"What's the matter?" Ihor asked casually, while temporarily stopping what he was doing.

"I"

Seeing that Wei Ran and Mesut had also stopped working and looked over, this Asian man who seemed to be named Andre said, "I actually received a notice today that after dawn tomorrow, I will be transferred to the north to mine.

.”

After a pause, the little man, who was suspected to be named Andre, continued, "I heard that all the party members seem to be going there, and the environment there is said to be very bad."
To be continued...