Chapter 383 - 311: Rescue Dilemma

Grandfather held a roll of not-too-shabby cash, inquiring around with little social experience.

It stirred up quite the discussion among everyone.

"It’s from the young man who saved us, sure enough it’s something he gave me when he was going upstairs," the grandmother next to him said with certainty.

Taking advantage of the crowd, Fang Huai turned and left the room before anyone could take a good look at him.

Seeing this, Cao Yi followed out and quietly asked:

"The money you gave?"

Fang Huai nodded, "They were so poor, I couldn’t stand watching it any longer. Let’s go, hurry up and save the people, go block the river. This place is really suffering."

Upon hearing this, Cao Yi couldn’t help but sigh deeply, "This year, there have been exceptionally many incidents."

Then, he yelled loudly to the inside, "Second Squadron! Move out! Quick!"

The soldiers inside immediately filed out once again, quickly disappearing into the corridor.

By the time Mayor Liu led the old man out after them, they were nowhere to be seen.

The alarm bell rang out from the playground under the secondary school building.

Struggling with what to do with the money, the old man said, "This..."

Mayor Liu looked at the empty hallway, thinking of those soldiers who came singing military songs in a rush and left just as quickly, and sighed.

"Keep it. This is the good will of the firefighting comrades. When they return, I will help you express..."

He was interrupted as the door to the classroom nearby opened.

A reporter and a middle-aged man in a shirt walked out, followed by two members of the recording crew.

"Secretary Deng, thank you for accepting our interview," the reporter said as he shook hands with the man in the thin shirt.

"It’s my duty. Our place here is really tough, and as the secretary..." Secretary Deng noticed the drenched old man and suddenly changed the subject, speaking loudly.

Mayor Liu turned and went to meet them.

"It’s like this, Secretary Deng, the comrades from Guiyang Firefighting came to help earlier, they went to Bianwang Village..."

Mayor Liu explained the situation that had just occurred.

The reporter listened, his interest visibly piqued, "Mayor Liu, are the comrades from Guiyang Firefighting still here?"

"They’ve left," Mayor Liu shook his head. "They rushed to Nabao Village for a rescue; there are still about a dozen people there."

The reporter thought for a moment, then looking at the old man behind Mayor Liu, who was sighing and looking distressed, stepped forward and asked:

"Old man, I heard from Mayor Liu that you were saved by that firefighter just now, and he even gave you money before he left, right?"

"Yes, yes! Such a good person!" the old man exclaimed, clapping his hands before adding anxiously, "But... I can’t take this money!"

"How about we do an interview with you?" asked the reporter.

The old man shook his head repeatedly, "Interview? What interview? Are you from the government? Help me find him, and return this money to him!"

The reporter pondered and offered, "Hmm... If you agree to an interview, and we report the good deed he did, he will be praised by his superiors. After the interview, we will help you find him, okay?"

Hearing this, the old man quickly agreed, "Good, good, he deserves praise! Come here, I’m not good with words. I’ll let my wife talk to you, she speaks well..."

Finally, the reporter smiled and walked into a classroom alongside the old man.

...

When the fire trucks went out again, the rain seemed to have lightened up a bit.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

If this rain continued, it would be life-threatening.

Sitting in the vehicles, it felt like the four fire trucks could barely move along the main street; the water presented a huge challenge for the drivers’ skills.

The fear was that the engines might suddenly get flooded and stall.

Fortunately, after they left Dayi Town from the other side, thanks to a draining river, the situation with the accumulating water improved slightly.

"How big is Nabao Village? We didn’t find a villager to lead the way earlier. Are we heading there directly?" Fang Huai suddenly asked.

Cao Yi’s lips twitched: "It’s all because of you, secretly being generous again? Got a lot of money?"

Cao Yi’s ribbing about Fang Huai being "rich" wasn’t because he thought it was wrong to give money, but it was purely reactionary banter.

Fang Huai had called him a "non-swimmer," which had already stirred up his childhood trauma of nearly drowning after falling into the sea at eight years old.

After getting back, he definitely needed to learn how to swim!

Fang Huai couldn’t be bothered to retaliate once more; to avoid delaying the police dispatch, he grabbed the two-way radio and asked:

"Squad Leader Hu, Squad Leader Hu, earlier you were asking about Nabao Village, is it a big place? Are the people easy to find?"

A village, if small, e.g., like Bianwang Village they had just seen, would be clustered in one area with the clustered living quarters spanning only two to three hundred meters; but a large village could be vast, with a production team beneath the village hierarchy and groups beneath the teams, spreading for hundreds of meters.

If it was that large, they’d have to go back and find someone to guide them.

The voice from the two-way radio responded:

"Easy to find! I told you, it’s a river mouth! There’s usually only one river in a village! It means the water flow is particularly rapid, making rescue difficult!

And they are very close to the water!

If this rain keeps getting heavier, after we get there, we may have to set up a river block downstream first to prevent them from being swept away!"

Hu Hongzhi, the Deputy Squad Leader of the Rescue Team, had quite a bit of rescue experience.

His words made everyone tense.

At this point, with this heavy rain and flood, if they were really washed into the river, it would be difficult to find a single one.

Over a dozen people!

They could only hope that the rain would lessen.

Without speaking, Cao Yi nodded to Fang Hongliang, who was driving:

"Old Fang, go as fast as possible."

This time Fang Hongliang did not speed up but shook his head, "Can’t be fast, if we stall, you’ll all have to walk."

Floods, though not as sudden and cruel as earthquakes, constantly threw challenges from all directions, making it difficult for them.

Fang Huai sat in the rear row, watching the endless torrents of muddy water rushing toward them, continuously thinking of solutions, deeply sensing the terror of this natural disaster.

This rainstorm, if it brought a flood as horrendous as the one from Tangjia Mountain, what to do?

Even earthquakes could get some aerial reinforcements, but who would dare fly in this weather?

According to his plan, aside from earthquakes and floods, he also needed to form teams to deal with chemical disasters and mountain rescues, each type a formidable challenge.

His only advantage lay in future knowledge and experience.

A technological tree related to firefighting and rescue slowly grew in Fang Huai’s mind.

...

Half an hour later, they arrived at Nabao Village.

The rain clouds still hadn’t cleared.

The rain gradually lessened.

But the sound of the water was so loud that even hundreds of meters away, and amidst the sound of rain, one had to speak loudly to be heard.

Shouting here wouldn’t even stir an echo.

This made them abandon the idea of using shouting as a method of searching and rescuing.

The village was quite large, stretching for a good length without major roads; many side roads existed, but surprisingly, the search for people went smoother than expected.

When night fell, they used lights.

After discussing, they decided to have Car Number Two and Car Number Four park on higher ground and set up the lighting groups.

In the darkness, the lights from the lighting groups were very powerful; usually, a single light at its brightest could illuminate a playground.

Of course, all this assumed that these days, almost every rural household would have a large flashlight.

Fortunately, they were correct.

Soon, they saw a light several hundred meters away, and the trapped people knew the distress signals, flashing their flashlights and forming two circles.

That place was by the river, on the opposite bank on a sandbar, clearly unreachable by car. The team temporarily abandoned their vehicles and, with some rescue equipment in hand, followed a mountain path to arrive at the location directly across from the trapped people.

It was a platform at the foot of the mountain, two or three meters higher than the floodwaters.

Shining the flashlight at it, it didn’t seem very stable because the edge of the platform was marked by a tree that was sloped and appeared to have been knocked down; the true edge of the platform shouldn’t have been there, it had just been eroded away.

Everyone was cautious, trying not to get close to the edge.

However, General Han was incredibly brave, charging ahead and hugging a large tree on the edge, he shouted across:

"Hey! How many of you are there?"

The others, both irritated and amused, called out.

"Use a megaphone to shout, they won’t hear you from over there! Come back!" Fang Huai stepped forward and pulled him back a bit.

To prove their point, the people on the other side flashed their flashlights wildly at them.

Across was a one-story brick and tile house, much lower than where they were standing, and one side of the house was being eroded by the river water.

The trapped people dared not hide from the rain in the house and ran to the other end of the house, a slightly higher spot, squatting down. Behind the house was another river, and the hill behind it turned the area into an "island."

However, it seemed unlikely that the river would completely submerge the island and leave them without a foothold unless it kept raining as it had started.

But not far above their heads, another wave of thunder rumbled in the sky.

The people seemed to have grown accustomed to the thunder. With no place to take cover, they squat calmly, with some even throwing stones into the water.

The river was seven or eight meters wide, and what flowed down wasn’t just water; it was a mudslide.

The depth was unknown, but with that speed of water, anyone swept into it would surely be seen downstream.

Whether they’d be alive or not would be a matter of luck.

"What do we do now?" General Han looked back. "They’re squatting there, it’s so pitiful."

Fang Huai, remembering how Han had rashly approached the edge, couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed as he pulled him towards the edge.

"What do we do? I’ll throw you down there, and you can block the river!"

"Damn, damn, I can’t block it!" General Han immediately chickened out, yelling loudly, squatting down like the people across the river, and putting on the brakes with his feet.

Fang Huai then let go of him, turning his attention back to the river.

At this point, General Han didn’t dare stand there anymore and scurried back.

Hao Chengbin came over quietly and took a look.

Fang Huai turned around: "Move the mobile lighting group."

Hao Chengbin nodded: "Bring the mobile lighting group from the truck over here!"

Fang Huai added another instruction: "Let Han Yong do it! The guy is too hyperactive! Wang Peng, go with him and move it."

Han Yong’s face instantly twisted like a bitter gourd.

The mobile lighting group was big, connected to a diesel engine, weighing dozens of pounds.

"Do you have a plan?" Hao Chengbin asked.

As the commanding officer, his job was made easier as long as there was an issue, he would consult Fang Huai, who always had many solutions.

At this very moment, Fang Huai also felt uneasy inside.

"The thrower... too light, the wind is so strong, it probably won’t be useful. But it seems like the other side won’t be washed away, no need to set up a net."

Hao Chengbin saw he had no clear plan yet and pointed towards the distance, bringing up his idea:

"How about swimming over from downstream to see if you can land on the beach?"

Upon hearing this, Fang Huai shone his flashlight in the direction pointed out.

Instantly, damn.

"Instructor Cao, down there, there’s a whirlpool! A big one at that! I must have really offended you, but is it worth trying to kill me?"

As he spoke, he flashed his flashlight towards the large whirlpool.

It wasn’t just a whirlpool; there had to be a big drop too.

Hao Chengbin looked closely and felt a bit embarrassed: "Damn, I just saw it was shallow over there and didn’t look carefully. How come you have such good eyesight?"

Fang Huai cocked his mouth sideways: "I have good eyesight, just to guard against you trying to screw me over."

At this time, Hao Chengbin, who was stationed up top with the vehicles, came down.

"Old Cao! Reporters have arrived!"

(I went to find a lawyer today. I’ll owe you yesterday’s Chapter, as well as the stamped monthly ticket from last month. Things should quiet down by tomorrow, and I will make up for it the day after.)