Chapter 55 The South is Crying (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Mu Fang's heart sank suddenly.

He forced himself to remain calm and rubbed his rough cheek against his daughter's cold forehead.

"Little Yu'er, don't be afraid. Daddy's here. It's just a nightmare. Dreams are always the opposite of reality." He comforted her in the gentlest tone.

"It wasn't a nightmare!" Mu Yu shook her head violently, and the tears that had been welling up in her eyes finally burst forth, rolling down in large drops. "I saw it! I really saw it! So many, so many terrifying black lines! Ten thousand times thicker than the ones I saw in the palace last time!"

Her little hands gestured wildly in the air, trying to describe to her father the indescribable horror.

Her speech was fast and hurried, incoherent, and full of childlike metaphors, yet it sent chills down the spines of her listeners.

"There's water everywhere! So dirty, so filthy water, as black as ink! The houses have all collapsed, like broken sugar figurines. So many people... so many people are crying in the water, their voices are inaudible, you can only see them bobbing up and down in the water..."

Chu Chongjin, Yan Ziche, and Xiao Beichen, who were sleeping in the next courtyard, were startled by the scream almost simultaneously.

Xiao Beichen reacted the fastest. Having served in the military for many years, his sense of danger was ingrained in his bones. He was the first to rush in, almost disheveled.

Yan Ziche followed closely behind, while the sound of Chu Chongjin's wheelchair rolling over the bluestone pavement grew louder as it approached.

As they rushed in, they overheard Mu Yu's last few chilling words.

Yan Ziche quickly stepped forward, squatted down beside the bed, and tried to make his voice sound gentle, "Little Yu'er, don't rush, tell me slowly, what else did you 'see'? How is your pond?"

He specifically emphasized the word "see," because he knew that Mu Yu's "seeing" never involved using his eyes.

Mentioning her pond seemed to give Mu Yu an outlet for her fears.

She sobbed, burying her tear-streaked face deep into Mu Fang's warm embrace. Her voice came through muffled sobs, yet it was clearer than before.

“I saw my pond.”

“My lucky pond is shaking, like sitting on a disobedient carriage, it’s shaking so badly! The water is spilling out!” Her little voice carried an instinctive heartache. “So much black water is gushing out from the bottom of the pond, like earthworms crawling out of the ground, icy and cool, my pond is almost dyed black.”

"My good fortune... is being devoured. It's like... like a dessert box has a huge hole in it, and all the sweets and cakes inside are falling out, and I can't stop it no matter what I do!"

She became more and more anxious as she spoke, and her small body trembled even more violently.

"The sky to the south was black, not the black of night, but like the ash at the bottom of a pot, dirty and thick. In the black fog, many, many, many people were crying, their voices turning into gray threads, tangled together in a messy mess, forming a huge net, trying to drag my pond down with them..."

To outsiders, these words sound like the bizarre ramblings of a child.

But none of the people present dared to dismiss it as mere rambling.

Chu Chongjin sat in his wheelchair, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.

A storm was brewing in his deep, mature eyes, which were far beyond his years.

His hands, which were resting on the armrests of his wheelchair, tightened unconsciously, and the hard wooden armrests creaked under the weight.

In my previous life, there was indeed a major flood in Jiangnan, which occurred in late summer and early autumn of this year.

He remembers it perfectly clearly.

The flood was initially covered up by local officials. By the time the news reached the capital, the best opportunity for rescue had already been missed, and the floodwaters were raging and public resentment was boiling.

Ultimately, the natural disaster escalated into a human tragedy that swept across several prefectures in Jiangnan, leaving countless people starving and resorting to cannibalism.

The disaster relief funds allocated by the imperial court were siphoned off at each level, with less than 10% actually reaching the disaster victims.

His good second brother, Sikong Ming, took advantage of this opportunity to "rectify" the officialdom in Jiangnan with ruthless methods, install his cronies, and seize control of the economic lifeline of the wealthy Jiangnan region, providing the most solid financial support for his future rebellion.

Could it be that his rebirth and the appearance of Mu Yu, this little lucky koi, have disrupted the heavenly order and brought the disaster forward?

Or was this the time it was destined to happen?

Looking at Mu Yu's pale face and swollen, red eyes from crying, Xiao Beichen felt an overwhelming pang of heartache and wished he could drag that damned nightmare out and beat it up.

He knelt on one knee by the bed and awkwardly comforted her, "Little Yu'er, don't be afraid. Brother is here. All that black lines and black mist is just a paper tiger! When it gets light, brother will lead his troops and pierce a big hole in it with one shot!"

The fierce aura of a young general that emanated from him transformed into a warm feeling of anxiety and helplessness at this moment.

Mu Fang held his daughter, his heart feeling as if it were being submerged in ice water, cold and heavy.

His little darling was blind, yet fate insisted on letting her "see" the deepest and cruelest suffering in the world.

What is this! He would rather bear all this suffering himself!

Just as the atmosphere in the room became so tense it was almost dripping with water, a series of hurried footsteps approached from afar. Uncle Fu rushed in, holding a secret report with a red feather attached, without even knocking on the door, looking flustered.

"Your Excellency! A report from Jiangnan has arrived from the palace... it's been sent by the palace with the utmost urgency!"

Uncle Fu's voice was trembling, and everyone's hearts were in their throats.

Mu Fang carefully handed the still sobbing Mu Yu to Chu Chongjin beside him, asking him to hold her.

He strode over and snatched the ominous secret report.

He tore off the sealing wax, unfolded the memorial, and after reading only a few lines, Mu Fang's weathered face, which remained calm even in the face of a collapsing mountain, instantly turned ashen.

A terrifying killing intent emanated from him.

"You bastard!"

He slammed his fist hard on the pear wood table next to him. With a loud "crack," the sturdy and thick tabletop cracked open, and the tea set on the table was shaken up and fell to the ground, shattering into pieces.

Yan Ziche quickly moved closer and, by the candlelight, read out the core content of the report word by word.

"In the Jinghu Lake basin of Jiangnan, due to... due to continuous torrential rains, the Jinghu Lake dike has breached, causing flooding that has submerged three downstream counties, affecting more than 100,000 people..."

At the end of the report, the handwriting of the governor of Jiangnan, which attempted to whitewash the situation, stood out as particularly jarring.

"...I have organized manpower to do everything possible to provide disaster relief and comfort the displaced people. The disaster is under control, so I hope Your Majesty will not worry."

"Bullshit!" Xiao Beichen was the first to curse in anger after hearing this. "The disaster is under control? 100,000 disaster victims! Does he think everyone in the capital is a bunch of illiterate idiots?!"

Chu Chongjin's face was so cold it could drip ice crystals.

“Three days ago, the Ministry of War forwarded a report on military affairs in Jiangnan, saying that everything was fine and the weather was good.” He spoke coldly, his gaze sweeping over everyone present. “If it weren’t for Xiaoyu’er’s warning tonight, by the time the capital received the real news, the floods would have already reached the capital of Jiangnan, and there would be very few survivors left in Jiangnan.”

All eyes once again converged on the small figure nestled in the arms of the boy in the wheelchair, still sobbing softly.

She wasn't having a nightmare.

She really saw it.

In a way that ordinary people cannot understand, they saw a land thousands of miles away, a land being swallowed by death.

I witnessed hundreds of thousands of lives struggling and wailing in the apocalyptic disaster.

Mu Yu seemed to sense everyone's gaze. She slowly raised her tear-streaked face, and her unfocused amber eyes seemed to be clearly "looking" at everyone in the room.

Her voice was very soft and had a strong nasal tone.

"Father, Ninth Brother, Ziche Brother, Beichen Brother..."

"The south is crying."

"It's so noisy, it hurts so much, they're all crying."

She paused for a moment, then, with all her might, uttered the words that shook everyone to their core.

"I'm going south."

"I'm going to save them."