Chapter 23

Aside from the sound of the wind, only the occasional voices echoed around. Qingyun's stomach was growling with hunger, but he quickly pulled out the pancake that Lin Wanjun had brought from his pocket, took a big bite, and began to chew slowly.

The blisters she had from digging hadn't healed yet, and now new ones were appearing.

Watching cartloads of woven straw nets being pulled away, Qingyun didn't know the actual situation, but judging from the expressions of the people pulling the carts, it seemed that the progress was not going smoothly. She panted as she loaded the wet straw nets onto the cart and then pulled the man aside to ask, "Where is Lord Mu now?"

"Lord Mu has set up a front line and cannot return yet."

As the two were talking, Qingyun felt the dampness on her face. The wind picked up and grew stronger, and large raindrops began to pelt them. The rain came suddenly, giving no one a chance to react. Qingyun could no longer hear what the other person was saying, only vaguely making out a few words mixed with the wind.

"They say a piece of land collapsed! It blocked the irrigation ditch, and Lord Mu is leading people to clear it!" As he spoke, he handed the last bundle of straw netting onto the cart, and the man immediately drove the cart away. Qingyun was still thinking about the landslide.

The people behind her were in complete chaos, none of them expecting it to rain. They hurriedly carried torches under the eaves, moved dry grass, and covered the candlelight on the road with oiled paper frames. Lin Wanjun saw Qingyun still standing there dumbfounded. The rain quickly soaked her clothes, and her undergarment was faintly visible underneath.

Seeing this, she quickly grabbed a raincoat and put it on her, but unexpectedly, Qingyun grabbed her hand and shouted, "I'm going to find Mu Helian! You stay here!"

Lin Wanjun couldn't hear what the other person said clearly, so she quickly pressed her ear to Qingyun's neck and shouted back, "What did you say? Say it again?"

Qingyun repeated it again, but Lin Wanjun refused. With strong winds and rain, the storm must have arrived early. The people on the front lines had probably already disappeared. If they went there now, wouldn't they be sending themselves to their deaths?

She tried to persuade Qingyun with kind words, but Qingyun just walked back on her own. She went from house to house to borrow a hoe, and only after she got it did she say to Lin Wanjun, "No! The people who led the way have all taken the hoes to fill sand to suppress the seedlings and to cover the nets. If the canal collapses, she will definitely have to dig it herself. There is simply not enough time."

[System! What's going on?] Qingyun calmed himself down and asked the system in his mind to see where the storm was.

[Host, the cumulus clouds have arrived in the city first; the tornado hasn't arrived yet. There's enough time.]

"Great, now she'll dare to go for it. She's not a complete idiot." "Time is of the essence, I don't have time to waste with you!" Qingyun had just finished speaking when a strong gust of wind blew by, carrying her voice away into the distance.

The surrounding crowd was noisy, with many saying they had never seen such a scene before, and the supervisor's voice was mixed in, urging them to hurry up.

Lin Wanjun grabbed her arm, "If you go, I'll go too!" She put on a raincoat and picked up a hoe. Qingyun looked solemn and said "Okay" when he saw this. The two of them ran towards the sand dune in the wind and rain. The sand dune was also bustling with activity. Everyone was carrying straw nets and stones in an orderly manner to reinforce the land in the pouring rain.

Qin Yao stood not far away and instructed his foremen which area they should be responsible for. Qingyun quickly stepped forward and hurriedly asked where Mu Helian was. After learning the exact location, the two of them rushed to the landslide site without stopping.

Qin Yao watched the two figures, his eyes darkening, but he said nothing. Shen then mounted his horse to check on the situation of the other seedling fields.

In the dim light, a person could be seen diligently tamping something. In the faint firelight, the figure raised the hoe high and swung it down heavily. The slender figure had a rather eerie quality in the ghostly night.

Qingyun immediately recalled scenes of murder and body disposal from TV dramas.

Qingyun: Damn, does Mu Helian know that she's a bit scary in other people's eyes?

However, as Qingyun had expected, only Mu Helian was there. Lin Wanjun was puzzled. "Since it's raining so hard, why bother with the irrigation canal? The soil is already full of water!" she said loudly.

Mu Helian was drawn by the shouts and then saw the two people behind her. She hurriedly asked why they had both come.

In response to Lin Wanjun's question, Qingyun said, "I wonder how long this rain will last. It would be good if it rained all night. I'm just afraid that if it only rained for a moment, the ground won't be completely soaked!"

Therefore, the water in the irrigation canal should continue to flow as usual.

The raindrops stung her face. After finishing her sentence, Qingyun hurriedly replied to Mu Helian, who steadied herself and said, "Several parts of your house have collapsed. You can't manage all of this by yourself! We heard about it and came to help you!"

Without further ado, the group quickly dug all the collapsed sand and soil out of the canal and rebuilt it with stones. Only then did Qingyun run to the next location. The three of them worked quickly, each one without hesitation, racing against time with all their might.

However, the well cart on the mountain can no longer be driven by people, as there are simply not enough manpower. When she left the city, she heard the foreman say that there was not enough straw netting here. Mu Helian vigorously wiped her face before she could see the person in front of her clearly. Water droplets flowed down her straw hat like a small river.

"I left a few donkeys on it, don't worry about it! If the storm really comes, the well cart will probably be blown away!" Mu Helian said loudly.

Qingyun nodded in agreement, and with a hoe he dug into the mound of earth, pulling out more soil. After working for half a day, the three of them finally managed to dig out all the mud from the ditch.

Watching the gurgling water rush down the channel, the tense expressions on their faces finally relaxed.

Thinking that the people laying the straw netting were too busy, they rushed down to help everyone after finishing their work here. Qingyun and Lin Wanjun unfolded the straw netting together and quickly covered it with sand. While they were working, Mu Helian pressed sacks filled with sand and stones under the roots of the seedlings.

Lin Wanjun intended to move the sack, but the moment she lifted it, she fell straight down into the sand, leaving Mu Helian with a wry smile. With a flick of her wrist, the sack was hoisted onto her shoulder by the momentum. "You're always sick, how can you lift something like this?"

Lin Wanjun patted the sand off her body, though most of it still stuck to her clothes. Her face flushed red, and she secretly glanced at Qingyun, revealing a slightly embarrassed expression. "I thought maybe I could do it."

Qingyun chuckled upon hearing this, "You'll be able to do it someday. With your physique, once you've trained, carrying fifty pounds of rice won't be a problem!" He then looked at Mu Helian and scoffed, "Don't look down on me!"

The scar on the other person's face looked somewhat frightening in the candlelight. Mu Helian scratched her head, looking rather simple-minded.

The three worked together quickly, and while Qingyun was working hard, she suddenly noticed a pair of small, delicate hands struggling to dig through the mud. Looking up from the hands, she saw the little girl who had praised her for her skill that day. She wasn't wearing a raincoat and was battered by the rain. When she saw Qingyun notice her, she quickly put on a smile and said, "Sister, let me help you!"

Qingyun frowned, her tone tinged with anger, "What are you doing here, a child?!"

After saying that, he turned to look at Mu Helian and asked, "You allowed her to come up?"

Mu Helian paused in her sack-moving motion. She didn't remember allowing the child to come up; she must have come on her own. But she still said, "It's more dangerous to send her back now. Why don't we let her stay with us for now?"

Qingyun felt there was still some danger up there. Hearing what the other person said, she subconsciously assumed that Mu Helian had sent the child, and immediately began to complain to her. However, she didn't mean to be careless. With so many people and carriages coming and going, and it being the middle of the night and dark, the child was really hard to notice.

It's true that accidents can easily happen. Also, she ran away and the person was blown away, so she simply stopped caring about these things and told the person to stay quietly by her side and not wander off.

The temperature plummeted, and with the wind and rain, everyone's breath was clearly visible as they spoke. Many men were shivering from the cold. Qingyun looked at the child beside him and saw that she was also dressed in thin clothes, so he quickly gave her his raincoat.

She didn't even notice that her lips had long since turned bluish-purple, and her hand movements were becoming increasingly mechanical, unlike before. Everyone was quite tired by the time they finished working late into the night, and the wind and rain just wouldn't stop, with the temperature dropping rapidly.

Many people's blood mingled with the sand, and Qingyun's palms had many small cracks. Her senses of her surroundings grew increasingly faint, as if the noise around her had diminished. Lin Wanjun was worried seeing her like this.

When he offered to give her his clothes, Qingyun waved her hand, forcing a smile, "These clothes are all wet, they won't do me any good even if I wear them."

Lin Wanjun was referring to the raincoat, but Qingyun refused to accept it, fearing that the other party would catch another cold and she would have no points left to exchange for antibiotics.

In the dim light, she seemed unaware that her vision was becoming blurry, attributing it to raindrops hitting her eyelashes. Qingyun's fingers trembled, growing weaker and weaker, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier.

Finally, she collapsed to the ground with a thud.

Then she heard a gasp, followed by a chaotic commotion, and suddenly found herself in a very warm embrace. The fragrance of the other person wafted into her nostrils, mingling with the warmth of their body. She heard a familiar voice but couldn't place it.

With each breath, like a thirsty person finding water, Qingyun clung tightly to the source of warmth before her. Her head throbbed terribly, and she kept burying her head in his arms, as if it could soothe her trembling body. Curled up in this small space, she felt a strange sense of peace.

Perhaps the tension of the day had eased, and as her consciousness faded, Qingyun eventually fainted completely.

Looking at the dense crowd under her oil-paper umbrella, Song Chaoyun couldn't help but sigh. Her maidservant came to report, "Your Highness, the ginger soup has been distributed."

Song Chaoyun nodded, "Very good." Then she asked where Qin Yao was, only to find out that he had also gone to lay out straw nets in the crowd.

The maid standing to the side seemed hesitant to speak, so Song Chaoyun turned her head and asked, "What is it? Please speak freely."

The maid bowed and said slowly, "Miss Qing fainted just now. I heard she caught a cold, and her face turned pale."

Upon hearing this, Song Chaoyun immediately turned to look at her, somewhat nervously, and asked with a frown, "How is it now?"

The maid lowered her head, not daring to meet her gaze. "Lord Song happened to be in that area and has already taken people back to the manor to fetch a doctor."

Song Chaoyun finally felt relieved, but her thoughts drifted away again. After a long while, she said, "He certainly got to show off his heroism for once."