Source of "War Photographer's Notes":

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

As the ax in Wei Ran's hand struck the thick tree trunk, the accumulated snow on the tree crown also rustled down, covering the canvas tent that he and Jima had just set up around the trunk.

"The next step is to make a fire and make a sleigh and snowshoes. Otherwise, we won't be able to go very far dragging so many things." Ji Ma took the ax from Wei Ran as he spoke, "How about you make a fire?"

"

"no problem"

Wei Ran happily agreed, and when Ji Ma confidently walked out of the tent with an ax and started chopping down trees, he immediately took out the kerosene gas lamp from the metal book and lit the bonfire in the center of the tent with the kerosene lighter tied to it. As the flames spread,

The steam was rising, and the tent, which was not that big, gradually became warmer.

After tapping the supplies again, Wei Ran emptied one of the glass cans filled with sugar, filled it with snow, and placed it next to the campfire to melt slowly, and put all the poured sugar into the mezzanine of his backpack.

After finishing the work in the tent, Wei Ran was not idle. He immediately got out and helped Ji Ma chop down a pine tree that was as thick as his thigh, cut it into one meter sections and moved them back.

Ji Ma sat on the thickest tree trunk and took a breath. He took the can filled with hot water and took a sip of the sweet sugar water. Then he said confidently, "Now we have to find a way to remove this piece of wood under our buttocks."

Split it into planks, and as long as you have the planks, you can make a sled, which will be much more convenient for us next."

"But we only have one ax and one engineer shovel." Wei Ran, who was also half-dead from exhaustion, had to remind him.

"An ax is enough." Ji Ma confidently returned the can to Wei Ran. "Next, I'll let you see my carpentry skills."

"Can you still do this?"

“In Inta, where supplies are scarce, many things need to be done by yourself.”

Ji Ma gave a simple explanation, then picked up the axe, first split a piece of wood with a thick wrist and cut it into a wooden wedge that was thicker at one end and thinner at the other. Then he changed the target and started swinging the ax at the thickest tree trunk.

Under Wei Ran's observation, Ji Ma first used an ax to split a gap at one end of the wood, and then smashed several wooden wedges in.

After these wooden wedges opened the gap, Jima smashed the remaining wooden wedges into the end of the gap, and so on. It didn't even take half an hour before he chopped off a one-meter-long strip.

Come to the long plank.

When the whole log turned into four wooden boards of different thicknesses with the cooperation of the two, Ji Ma picked up the engineer shovel and quickly cleaned the burrs on it.

It wasn't over yet. Ji Ma took advantage of Wei Ran's help in cleaning several other wooden boards with his axe, directly covered the engineer shovel on the bonfire and heated it red, and then heated one end of the first processed wooden board until it was extremely smooth.

After the demonstration, Ji Ma handed over the work at hand to Wei Ran, and he cut open the spare parachute, and quickly made two pairs of snowshoes using the parachute rope and the torn canopy.

"Your skills are pretty good," Wei Ran said in admiration.

"what is this!"

The excited Jima said proudly, "If you give me a saw, it won't be a big problem for me to build a wooden house with a fireplace here."

"What to do next?" Wei Ran was too lazy to continue and handed over the remaining three prepared wooden boards.

"It's very simple. Use parachute cloth to wrap the part that has been ironed flat by fire. When it is done, just put them together."

As Jima spoke, he whittled a few wooden nails as thick as chopsticks with an axe. Then he took a piece of parachute cloth, wrapped it around the board, and nailed it firmly on the other side with wooden nails. This job was also not difficult, and the two of them interacted with each other.

With the cooperation, all the work was completed in no time at all.

Finally, the four wooden boards were fixed side by side with paracords and wrist-thick tree trunks. Ji Ma finally nodded with satisfaction, "That's enough. With this sled here, we just need to pull it away. Now

I just hope that correctional camp is not too far away from us."

Wei Ran glanced at the time on his watch and said, "Let's wait until daybreak to find a way to determine our current location."

Jima heard this and asked, "Do you still remember what's on the map?"

Wei Ran closed his eyes and thought for a while, reached out and picked up a flaming branch from the edge of the bonfire, blew it out, and drew a rough map directly on the wooden board. Seeing this, Ji Ma simply picked up one too.

Wood sticks were used to blow out the flames, and details such as mountains or lakes were added to the map drawn by Wei Ran.

After the two of them had no details to add to this rough map, Wei Ran pointed to the two intersecting winding lines he had just drawn and said, "The thick one is the Ob River, and the thin one is the Wo River."

As for the Ikal River, we only need to find the Wojkal River, and then we can find the correction camp along this river. The question now is whether this river is to our north or to our south."

Jima nodded and added, "This river has a large number of lakes at both ends near the Ural Mountains. If nothing else, our current location should be near these lakes. Victor, tomorrow we will go

How about going west to the Ural Mountains? We are here, and we can vaguely see the mountains in such a dark sky, which means that it is not too far away from us. As long as we find a relatively high place at the foot of the Ural Mountains,

Maybe we can see where we are now."

"climb mountains?"

Wei Ran frowned, this was not an easy job, but at the moment, there seemed to be no better way besides this choice. After hesitating for a moment, he could only nod and agreed to Ji Ma's suggestion.

After discussing the general plan, the two of them drank another glass of energy-supplementing sugar water, curled up on the pine needles on both sides of the campfire and fell asleep one after another.

When it was daylight outside the tent, the two of them packed up a bunch of supplies, wrapped them in a canvas tent, and fixed them on a simple sled. Then they each tied a paracord around their waists, put on their snowshoes, and pulled the fully loaded sled.

We walked towards the mountains on the other side of the coniferous forest.

While the two of them were heading towards their destination in the wind and snow, Culp, who was far away in the Hongqi Forest Farm, was meticulously staring at the moving light spots on the computer screen, while Teacher Dalia and Alili took a plane to leave the military at the same time.

Base, rushed to the hot spring camp on the other side of the Ural Mountains. After all, in this freezing cold weather, what could be more comfortable than taking a dip in a scalding hot spring?

At the door of the Time Studio in Volgograd, the young man from Germany, Ralph, could only return to the hotel not far away after waiting again to no avail.

It was not just this young man who also did not wait for Weiran. There was also a media that jumped out of nowhere. However, their target was not the two photos donated by Weiran, but the ones who served as the background in the latest two interviews.

What is that beautiful box?

Two more days flew by in the blink of an eye. After going through all kinds of hardships, Wei Ran and Ji Ma finally walked out of the forest and climbed up a low mountain that was only one or two hundred meters high and covered with a lot of snow.

Under a pine tree on the top of the mountain, Wei Ran, whose eyes were painted black with charcoal ash, squinted his eyes, looked up at Ji Ma who had climbed to the top of the tree crown, and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Can you see it?"

"Can barely see!"

On the top of the tree canopy, Ji Ma was riding on a fork that was as thick as an arm. He stretched out his neck and tried his best to look into the distance. He kept replying, "The direction I can see, there is a long and long one on our left."

If nothing else happens, there should be a river there, but we don’t know whether it is the Wojkal River we are looking for.”

"Just take it as it is!" Wei Ran, who was standing under the tree, shouted at the top of his voice, "Remember the location and direction and hurry down. Let's rush there as soon as possible before it gets dark."

"Wait!" Ji Ma's voice was slightly lower, "There seem to be a few reindeer at the foot of the mountain!"

"Don't worry about the reindeer, we have no shortage of food now"

Wei Ran reminded helplessly that Ji Ma was indeed a hunter. Although they hadn't caught any big prey in the past two days, there were already several skinned rabbits on the sleigh they were pulling behind them.

Even the rabbit skins were carefully fixed under the sled by Ji Ma to reduce friction.

"What's rabbit for food?"

Ji Ma quickly came down from the tree, "They don't even have fat on their bodies. If we can't replenish enough fat in this damn weather, we won't be able to last long. Don't waste time, let's get a reindeer to improve it."

dinner."

"Now you are wasting your time." Wei Ran shook his head helplessly, and had no choice but to follow Ji Ma and run down the mountain through the snow.

As they got closer and closer to the reindeer herd Ji Ma discovered, the former's movements became gentler and gentler. In the end, even the sled that was dragging them down was tied to a tree.

Gently pulling down the safety, Ji Ma pointed the muzzle of the gun at the nearest reindeer, and decisively pulled the trigger while the reindeer rested its two front legs on the tree trunk and stretched its neck to eat pine needles.

The moment the crisp gunfire rang out, a conspicuous cloud of blood mist erupted from the reindeer's neck. At the same time as it fell down, the rest of the reindeer also heard the wind and disappeared in an instant.

"Dinner is here! Get ready to set up the tent!"

Ji Ma jumped up in the cheers and rushed down the mountainside while running and bumping. Wei Ran beside him could only untie the simple sled behind him and chased after him.

"Good luck!" Ji Ma shouted happily as he was far away from Wei Ran, "Hurry up and bring the ax to help! Victor, do you want a sip of deer blood?"

"forget it"

Wei Ran refused again and again without even thinking about it. He didn't want to lose half of his butt due to the cold in such an icy and snowy place.

"Following the Ob River to the north is the territory of the Nenets. They all rely on drinking fresh deer blood to supplement their salt and vitamins." Jima said as he opened the reindeer's chest with an ax and stretched out his hand.

He went in and pulled out the huge heart, put it to his mouth and took a deep sip, "You really don't want to try it?"

"Remember to stay away from me when you are running away." Wei Ran flatly refused again.

"Don't worry, Stalin lives in my stomach. Nothing can knock him down."

While Ji Ma was speaking, he took a hard bite on the steaming heart and made a crunching sound. After swallowing the completely unnecessary meat, he took off the deer skin before the body cooled down.

, and then cut off a few pieces of grease-laden rib meat and four legs, while Wei Yan set up a tent and lit a bonfire not far away.

Around the constantly jumping bonfire, pieces of grease-rich venison were threaded through pine sticks and slowly roasted to produce sizzling grease. Before the grease could fall to the ground, Ji Ma and Wei Yan carefully used cans to cook it.

catch.

After resting at the foot of the mountain for a night, the two of them smeared a layer of reindeer grease on their lips and faces early the next morning. Then they quickly gathered their supplies and sped up to their destination.

After walking all day without stopping, a frozen river suddenly appeared in the dense coniferous forest. The two compared the Ural Mountains due west with the map in their memory. After some discussion, they finally decided to walk along the covered river.

On the frozen river covered with a thick layer of snow, we continued to move westward overnight.

"Victor, what if we go in the wrong direction?"

In the night where the pale green aurora glowed, Jima, who was walking in front with a gun in hand, asked with some anxiety, "Or is the river under our feet not the Vojkal River at all?"

“It is unlikely to find the wrong river”

Wei Ran, who was pulling the sled behind, said breathlessly, "The Senya River in the south is more than 100 kilometers away from the correctional camp. Even if Teacher Dalia is a lunatic, there is no way he can take us there."
To be continued...