At first glance, this small mountain village hidden in a mountain valley contains only a dozen or twenty households at most.

However, none of these houses had smoke coming out of their chimneys. On the contrary, many of them had obvious signs of burning, or had simply collapsed, leaving only a low ring almost completely buried by snow.

of ruins.

"It's about the beginning of spring this year"

Hu Bazhi led the two of them toward the village and said, "There are 18 households with 71 people in Gaoliangtun, and no one has escaped. The men were sent to the mines, and the old people and children were locked in the house and shot to death with machine guns.

Women...oh!"

"Why... why..." Zhao Jinyu asked in astonishment.

"Why?"

Hu Bazhi smiled miserably, stopped his skis and explained, "Retaliation, revenge. The anti-Union people ambush the Japanese nearby."

"Is that why?" Wei Ran asked in astonishment.

"That's enough..."

Hu Bazhi sighed, stretched out his ski pole, and led them to the gate of a fenced yard that seemed to be relatively intact.

Pushing open the ajar wooden door, the three of them noticed the paw prints on the snow almost at the same time. In unison, they each took out the short guns in their arms.

Fortunately, I pushed the door into the courtyard and walked into the low adobe house. There were no wild beasts inside, but on the earthen kang in the east room, there were...several human bones with traces of wild beasts gnawing on them.

On the tattered bedding that was already moldy and covered with dust, there were still black stains left by the oxidation of blood.

"Come over here," Hu Bazhi greeted hoarsely, and was the first to get into the west room.

There is also an earthen kang on this side, but in the "wagon" hung by a rope hanging from a wooden beam, there is... a little baby that is still filled with the smell of corpse and has long since turned into bones.

"How about... how about we change..."

Hu Bazhi had already covered his mouth with his hand before he finished speaking, and he and Zhao Jinyu rushed out one after another.

With a silent sigh, Wei Ran took off the warm bearskin handbag on his hand, took out Robert's camera, changed a suitable lens, and clicked the shutter on the small skeleton.

Putting away the camera and putting on the handbag again, he took off the bicycle that was originally used to prevent wild animals from taking the child away, carefully picked up the weightless bones in the swaddling clothes, and gently placed them on the dusty ground.

On the kang.

After looking around, Wei Ran found a rusty kitchen knife from the main room, returned to this room, dug a hole on the dirt floor with difficulty, and buried the small body in it.

When he walked out of the low adobe house again, carefully closed the two wooden doors, and tried in vain to unlock the door bolt from the outside, Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu had already left their respective bodies in the pure white snow.

There was a puddle of vomit that smelled of alcohol, and he was squatting at the entrance of the courtyard smoking a pipe.

"Let's go"

Wei Ran casually grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed the bearskin gloves on his hands, then silently walked out of the lifeless fenced yard.

"Do you think we can still drive away those little devils?" Zhao Jinyu asked angrily, his tone vague, full of despair and powerless despair.

"able"

Wei Ran gave his answer in a hoarse voice, but... neither Zhao Jinyu nor Hu Bazhi obviously believed in this answer.

Subconsciously looking around at the small village called Gaoliangtun, Wei Ran shook his head feebly. If it were him, at this time and in this situation, how could he believe that the Japanese could be completely driven away?

In silence, the three of them walked through the crunching thick snow to another small yard, and finally found a relatively clean house.

After a lot of busy work, I lit a fire on the stove connected to the stove, and at the same time, I placed the frozen lunch box in an iron pot filled with snow and slowly heated it.

"You two go to sleep first."

Wei Ran was the first to speak, "Brother Zhao just escaped and needs to rest. Brother Hu drank a lot last night. It's just my free time. I'll guard it."

Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu didn't refuse. After thanking each other, they couldn't wait to wrap up the wolf skin blankets they brought and lay down on the dusty but warm earthen kang. It didn't take long for them to start fighting.

Snored.

In the main room, Wei Ran sat on the bench at the entrance of the stove, took off his jingang shoes, and patiently baked them together with the jingang grass and foot wrappings inside, then put them on again, and gave extra to Huai Lu.

After filling up the tank with oil, he held the big 38 cap under his arm, bent down and got out of the house, wandering around the village like a lonely ghost in the heavy snow.

After an unknown amount of time, he found an adobe house that was filled with a faint odor.

The fence in front of the house has fallen down, and the earthen wall is full of dents made by bullets.

Stepping to the door, wherever he looked, there were scattered bones, tattered clothes, and...remaining clumps of gray hair, a rattle with bullet holes, and a cane still clutched tightly by the withered bones.

.

He bent down and picked up a skull with some scalp remaining. This skeletal human head was no bigger than a small coconut shell. There were two extremely conspicuous bullet holes inside the empty eye sockets.

Putting the baby's skull back into place, Wei Ran silently took out his camera, half-knelt at the door, found an angle low enough and close enough, and pressed the shutter on the piled up broken bones.

He tried to walk into this adobe house where countless innocent souls were hiding, but found that there was no place for him to stay. The ground, the stove, even the stove with the iron pot removed and even the kang hole were full of people.

They were broken bones and remaining grenade fragments.

Finally, he discovered something.

Just behind the ajar door, there are eight traditional Chinese characters that have turned black due to blood oxidation: "Blood debt must be repaid with blood! Recover the country!"

He could almost guess that these were the last words written by an illiterate old man biting off his fingers before the Japanese opened fire on this place.

Did Zhao Jinyu also see these words? So he later carved those eight words on his saber?

Wei Ran subconsciously glanced back at the direction he came from, stood up holding on to the cold door frame, closed the door, turned around, and left here with the 38-meter cap.
Chapter completed!