White Olive Tree

20 • War Zone

The nights in the war zone are restless.

At eight o'clock in the evening, before the sun set, Song Lisa heard the sound of artillery fire in the distance, and the sound of gunfire was endless. Some of the gunshots were very close to the hotel where he was staying, and the closest one seemed to be on the next street.

But everyone else in the building turned a deaf ear to it, as if they had long been accustomed to it.

As soon as Song Lisa arrived at her residence, she met other foreign journalists on the same floor. When they learned that she was the photographer of the news photo "CARRY", they all looked at her with new eyes.

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

Song Lisa felt that there was something wrong with what he said, but she didn't think about it for a moment and moved on to the next topic.

After a simple dinner, several people agreed to go to the border together to take a look.

Everyone got into an Italian reporter's car and left the residence. When they arrived at a street, there was a hail of bullets ahead. Song Lisa was still a little nervous, but she didn't expect that the reporters in the car were used to it and parked their cars on the side of the road and waited patiently.

The Italian journalist even started smoking.

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

"Don't worry, my dear lady," the Italian reporter turned around and raised his eyebrows at her, "those are government forces and rebels. It will not benefit either of them to hurt us." He pointed to the Italian flag, the American flag and the Canadian flag stuck in the corner of the windshield.

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

The other party made an exaggerated frightened expression and said, "Then you'd better run away quickly. They are short of money recently, and they won't refuse a hostage who comes to their doorstep."

"It's not that scary." A Japanese reporter comforted her, saying, "Sometimes they pick on countries. Europe and the United States have some historical grievances with this land, but we in East Asia don't."

Song Lisa nodded.

As they were chatting, the gunfire in front stopped.

"OK!" The Italian reporter threw down his cigarette butt and drove across the street where the fighting took place.

Song Lisa tightened her helmet and crouched unconsciously, but her camera was pointed out the window. She saw several soldiers hiding behind the bumpy walls of the building.

The car with the national flag flying drove quietly down the street not long ago.

Bang, bang, bang! The fight started again at the back.

Song Lisa : "..."

Outside the car window, there were still pedestrians walking on the street. They ignored the gunshots in the distance and treated them as background noise.

Hapo is an important town in the western part of the East Country, with a large population and a developed economy. Although it is now mired in the quagmire of war, many people are burdened by their livelihoods and cannot leave. Or they are burdened by their beliefs - they believe that the government will win soon and the war will end soon. They thought so when the war just started.