Chapter 20 Chapter 20

The nights in the war zone are uneasy.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, before the sun set, Song Ran heard the sound of artillery fire from afar, and the gunshots were endless. A few shots were very close to the hotel, and it seemed to be on the next street when it was closest.

But the others in the building turned a deaf ear and seemed to have been used to it.

As soon as Song Ran arrived at her residence, she gathered with other foreign journalists on the same floor. After everyone learned that she was the photographer of the news photo "CARRY", they all looked at her with admiration.

A French reporter sighed: "When I can take a successful news photo like CARRY, I can return home with peace of mind!"

Song Ran felt something was wrong when she heard this, but she didn't think about it for a while and started talking about the next topic.

After a simple dinner, several people made an appointment to go to the border line to take a look.

Everyone got into an Italian journalist's car and left their residence. When they arrived at a street, there were bullets in front of them. Song Ran was still a little nervous. Unexpectedly, the reporters in the car were used to it, so they parked the car on the side of the road and waited patiently.

The Italian journalist even smoked a cigarette.

Song Ran hesitated for a while and asked, "Is it okay for us... to stop here?"

"Don't worry, my dear lady," the Italian journalist turned around and raised his eyebrows at her, "That's government forces and anti-government forces, and it will be no good for either of them to hurt us." He pointed to the Italian flag, American flag, Canadian flag, which was inserted in the corner of the windshield.

Song Ran asked: "What if there is a terrorist organization?"

The other party made an exaggerated look of fright: "It's better to run away quickly. They are short of money recently, so they won't want the hostages they deliver to their door."

"It's not that scary," a Japanese reporter comforted her and said, "They sometimes choose countries. Europe and the United States have some historical festivals with this land, but we don't have East Asia."

Song Ran nodded.

As we were chatting, the sound of gunfire in front stopped.

"OK!" The Italian reporter threw down the cigarette butt and drove through the street where the battle was in trouble.

Song Ran tightened his helmet and unconsciously cat down, but the camera was aimed at the window. She saw several hidden soldiers behind the bumpy walls of the building.

The car with the national flag was flying quietly passing through the street and it didn't take long to walk out.

Bang bang bang, the fight started again behind.

Song Ran: “…”

Outside the car window, there were still pedestrians walking around the street. They ignored the gunshots in the distance and regarded them as background sounds.

Hapo is an important town in the western part of the Eastern Kingdom, with a large population and a developed economy. Although it is deeply trapped in the quagmire of war, many people are tired of their livelihoods, unable to leave, and unable to leave. Or they are tired of faith - they believe that the government will win soon and the war will end soon. At the beginning of the war, they thought so.

Not long after I left, there was a hustle and bustle ahead, and the streets were densely filled with vehicles and people who were about to leave the country.

Can't walk anymore.

Several reporters got out of the car with their own equipment. There were people around them, so it was impossible to act collectively. Everyone made an appointment to gather and scattered on the spot.

Song Ran selected a good angle, recorded a simple report video, and walked forward with the traffic flow. The street was crowded with people with family members. Song Ran observed along the way and found that there were not many good cars and few people dressed in bright clothes.

The war has started for almost two months. 50% of the country's land area has been on fire, and those who can leave have left. Now the people who have escaped are ordinary people who have no choice but to retreat and have no homelessness.

However, she soon discovered that most of the people here could not get out - most of them had no documents to enter neighboring countries at all. They just felt that the country behind them was no longer safe, so they could only keep moving forward and pushing forward, squeeze out a small place to seek a glimmer of hope for escape.

When Song Ran saw someone suspected of bargaining for the third time, he stopped.

A middle-aged man from the East country was holding a few things like visa application forms and talking to a young man wearing glasses. Behind the young man was a very beautiful young woman, holding a baby in her arms and two standing at her feet. The child had big eyes and long eyelashes.

The two men argued for a long time, but no agreement was reached. The middle-aged man raised his hand and turned his head away. The young man looked desperate and hugged his head helplessly.

Song Ran met his eyes and felt that he might speak English, so he asked him what was wrong.

The young husband shrugged his shoulders and said, "He can get us out, but one person costs 50,000 US dollars. Our family costs 200,000. I..." He smiled and shook his head, "I don't have 200,000." He smiled, and after saying that, he turned his head, his nose turned red and his eyes turned red.

His wife reached out to her husband to show comfort, and the husband kissed her on his forehead.

He told Song Ran that their parents had given their best. Their parents thought they were old and not worth the money, but let the couple and their children leave.

At this time, the Dongguo people next to them talked to them.

Song Ran couldn't understand, but he guessed from the gesture that his compatriots were persuading them - asking her husband to take a pair of children out first, and then come back to pick up his wife and baby.

The young husband smiled and shook his head, hugged his wife and led the two little guys away.

Song Ran held the camera and continued to walk forward. There were more and more similar scenes in the camera - fierce disputes, humble begging, desperate sighs, and endurance tears...

About half an hour later, Song Ran finally arrived on the border.

It is now three o'clock in the morning in China, and most people are sleeping peacefully. Song Ran cannot broadcast live, but she still recorded a video report to the machine.

In the camera, the afterglow of the sunset enveloped this border, and it was vast:

"The checkpoint behind me is the junction between the Eastern Kingdoms and Egypt. Some of the people who go to Egypt stay in the local area, while others continue to travel to the next country and stay away from this war land.

Looking behind me, you can see that there are dark people. The scene is very noisy now, and I can hardly hear my voice because there are many drivers honking horns angrily. More people who cannot get out of seclusion let out mourn and roar.

The critical Egyptian country has a small land area and has received nearly one million refugees out of humanitarianism, which is really unsustainable. Now the entry quota has narrowed, and some of them have gradually become the capital for bureaucratic transactions."

Song Ran said this and saw a flash of thought in his mind that he had said it wrong and would have to cut it off later. In front of the camera, she was still calm.

"There are probably less than one thousand people present who can go to Egypt smoothly. More people just carry their families, children and luggage, waiting aimlessly for the Egyptian government to open the border and let them pass."

When Song Ran packed the tripod, he thought to himself that it was not live broadcast, otherwise it would be over. That sentence can be written in the book in the future, and the official TV station will hold him accountable.

She was too careless. Or maybe her emotions were affected.

She looked at the desperate waiting faces, and the slowly darkening sky light on her head was so instantly.

It's getting dark.

She walked back with her backpack on her back, and unexpectedly met Sasin on the way. Sasin was surprised and did not expect that she would come to Hapo City.

It turned out that he had just returned from the war zone and came by to investigate the entry and exit of refugees. However, he did not stay in a hotel and lived in a homestay. Sasin explained that he was going to the war zone to shoot and asked her if she would go.

Song Ran immediately agreed and wrote his address to him.

The two said goodbye among the crowd.

At 9:30 pm, the sun finally set.

Song Ran was traveling against the current and the faces of the people in Zhang Dongguo were dimming in the gradually disappearing glow.

When I got back to the car, it started to dark.

Many locals are still queuing up, they wrap their robes around themselves and fall to the ground to sleep; their mothers are holding ignorant children in their arms.

Everyone got into the car and drove back.

As soon as the sun sets, the sky becomes dark in a blink of an eye.

There are no street lights on the street, it is dim and hazy, and the windows are like ghostly eyes.

Several people returned to their residence smoothly. The administrator was an Eastern woman and told them that the curfew in Hapo City will start tomorrow and that civilians cannot go out after 8 o'clock in the evening.

Song Ran asked: "Is the war going to start again?"

The woman spread her hands: "Yes."

Song Ran didn't sleep well that night, and a gun fired outside after a while. I don't know who was fighting with whom.

She remembered Li Zan, and I wonder where he was in this city, whether he had slept or not, whether it was safe.

Although she had poor sleep, she woke up early the next morning. She edited the video she recorded last night and sent it back to China.

When Xiaoqiu received it, she reminded her to pay attention to safety, and said that she had seen the special combat team's program on the National News Channel and Military Channel.

Xiaoqiu said: "Shen Bei's boyfriend is really excellent."

"..." Song Ran had nothing to say.

Xiaoqiu said again: "But they may not be right recently."

Song Ran: "Why?"

Xiaoqiu: "She loves to show off so much. Everyone praised the show for being good, but she didn't say anything."

"..." Song Ran didn't talk much. She had something to do and said she would go and do it first.

At seven o'clock in the morning, Song Ran went downstairs and Sasin had just arrived.

The two of them simply ate a piece of dough for breakfast and set off. Song Ran put on a bulletproof vest and helmet printed with PRESS to avoid being accidentally injured during the battle.

The streets were empty and quiet, with guns and cannons in the war zone.

There were scattered stars on the ground with cement and sand falling from the walls. The walls along the street had long been made into black honeycombs. But the sun was bright and the sky was blue and high.

Song Ran and Sasin were talking about 50,000 US dollars, and suddenly a fire broke out in front of him. The building here trembled twice, and a pile of cement blocks fell down, and they hit Song Ran and Sasin's helmets.

Song Ran patted the gray on his shoulder and asked, "What did you just say? I didn't hear it clearly."

"I said that the corrupt officials who sold their overseas licenses should be shot at this time."

While chatting, the two walked into an abandoned building. The sound of gunfire outside was deafening and they could not hear their words. They each set up their own equipment, found cover, and lay between the broken walls to photograph the battlefield outside the building.

Grenades, tear gas, grenades, machine guns... all kinds of arms took turns to fight, and casualties were constantly on both sides.

Halfway through the journey, the two sides bombed mortars and rockets at each other. The shells dragged their tails to draw arcs under the blue sky, bombing them one after another. The entire earth was trembling.

Song Ran hugged her head and covered her ears, and the mud falling from the upstairs kept hitting her helmet and bulletproof vest.
To be continued...