Upon hearing this, Magistrate Lü was immediately alarmed. He had not expected that Marquis Zhengyang and the Princess would encounter danger in Xunyang. This was no small matter; if anything happened to the two of them, he would be guilty of negligence.

Yesterday, the reservoir breached its banks. Such a major accident, yet no one reported it to him, which infuriated him.

Now is not the time to deal with this matter; rescuing them is the priority. However, he was unsure of himself. The Marquis of Zhengyang and the Princess were surrounded by many experts, and even they were unable to rescue the two. Sending people over himself would likely be futile.

That's no longer important. The first thing to do is to have a clear attitude towards this matter. With that in mind, Magistrate Lü immediately gathered all the yamen runners together. He was going to personally lead the men to find Marquis Zhengyang and Princess Li Xue.

At the same time, Magistrate Lü arranged for someone to go to Xunzhou Prefecture to report the incident of Marquis Zhengyang and Princess Li Xue being in danger to Prefect Jiang.

After making the arrangements, Magistrate Lü immediately led his men to the scene of the incident.

Not long after leaving the county town, Magistrate Lü began to encounter disaster victims, and the further he went, the more disaster victims he found.

The extent of casualties is currently unclear, but it is estimated to be considerable.

Magistrate Lü began to sweat. He knew that the Xunjiang River had breached its banks, flooding the entire city of Xunzhou, but not many people had drowned. If the Xunyang flood had resulted in a large number of casualties, he, as the magistrate, would not be able to escape responsibility.

His greatest hope now is to find the Marquis of Zhengyang and the Princess. He must not make any mistakes. Losing his official hat is a small matter, but losing his head would be far too much.

He was too careless. Some time ago, someone mentioned to him that there had been a lot of rain this year and that the reservoir dam might be in danger, but he didn't pay attention.

During that time, he visited the dam and believed there would be no problem at all.

As Magistrate Lü walked, he pondered the problem. A large-scale flood blocked their path.

Many disaster victims stood on the shore, some wailing loudly. Many drowned people were floating in the floodwaters and being dragged ashore. The open space on the shore was already filled with corpses.

Upon seeing this, Magistrate Lü was shocked.

At this moment, the disaster victims also noticed several officials and many yamen runners, and they all rushed over and knelt down on the ground.

“Yesterday there was a flood, and several members of our family drowned. We lost our home and everything else. Please, sir, do us justice.”

"Sir, our house has been destroyed and our fields have been flooded. We don't even have a single grain of food left. How are we going to survive?"

"Sir, please save us!"

The victims gathered around, crying and recounting their plight, pleading with the government to intervene and provide aid.

Seeing this, Magistrate Lü had no choice but to call out to comfort them.

“Fellow villagers, the county government is aware of your plight. The government will not abandon you and will not let you go hungry.”

Faced with such a situation, Magistrate Lü could not ignore it, but the fate of Marquis Zhengyang and the Princess was unknown, and he had to rush over to rescue them as soon as possible.

With that in mind, Magistrate Lü left two officials and several yamen runners to handle the matter, while he found a wooden boat and took his men away.

The constables rowed with all their might, and the boat moved forward quickly. Before long, the boat arrived at the scene of the accident, which was near the reservoir.

The group quickly disembarked and began climbing the mountain. After walking for a short while, they found many villagers, and many people went down into the valley to search in the ravine.

It hadn't rained all night, and the floodwaters flowing from the mountain streams were getting smaller and smaller, making the situation in the streams clear at a glance.

The Marquis of Zhengyang and the Princess were not in this mountain stream at all, nor were they swept away by the flood, so why can't we find them?

Just then, the villagers saw the government officials arrive and rushed forward.

"I am Lü Linfang, the magistrate of Xunyang County. I heard that Marquis Zhengyang and the princess fell into a ravine while trying to save someone. Have you found them?" Magistrate Lü asked.

“Your Excellency, we are the princess’s guards. Yesterday, when we went up the mountain to escape the flood, Marquis Zhengyang and the princess fell into the ravine while trying to save people. We followed them down, but we couldn’t find them.”

We've searched this ravine countless times, but we haven't found them. What should we do now?

After one of Li Xue's guards finished speaking, tears fell from her eyes.

Magistrate Lü already knew about this matter. In his view, if someone falls into the ravine from above, someone will immediately come down to search for them. If they cannot find the person, there is only one possibility: they were swept away by the flash flood.

Thinking of this, Magistrate Lü said, "Since you went down and didn't find Marquis Zhengyang and the Princess, were they swept away by the flash flood?"

"It's probably impossible. The big rock fell before them. After it fell, it basically blocked most of the flood. The weakened floodwaters would hardly sweep the three of them away at once."

Once we reached the bottom of the cliff, we could run much faster than the torrent; even if the three were swept away, we could still catch them.

“Yes, when the Marquis of Zhengyang and the princess fell, many villagers were watching from above. If they had been swept away by the flood, they would have definitely seen it,” a villager nearby added.

That was strange. Magistrate Lü was puzzled. If the three people hadn't been swept away by the flood, then where did they go?

"Which places did you search?" Magistrate Lü asked.

“We searched everywhere except the other side of the mountain stream, including the upper reaches of the stream.”

Magistrate Lü looked across the ravine. The cliff face on the other side was vertical and impossible to climb, so they were definitely not on the other side.

At this point, Magistrate Lü was also at a loss. The problem was not whether to look for it or not, but that there was nowhere to look at it at all.

Just as everyone was racking their brains to figure out how to find Zhao Xian and Li Xue, they had been sleeping soundly in the storage space for several hours and were just waking up.

"Brother Zhao, I slept so well, even better than the big bed at the inn. How long have we been in this life bag?"

After considering for a moment, Zhao Xian said, "In another two or three hours, we will have been here for a full day."

"That means it must be the morning of the second day now. I wonder what it's like outside, whether it's still raining."

"I'm not sure about that. The life-saving bag is isolated from the outside world. People outside don't know what's going on inside, and people inside don't know what's going on outside."

"Does Your Highness wish to leave? I have a small knife here. If we use it to cut open the life bag, we can leave."

"I don't want to go out right now. Let's talk about it in two days. That way, we can spend one more day together," Li Xue said, then took Zhao Xian's arm.

The little girl next to them had also woken up and was looking at them with her big eyes open.

At this moment, Li Xue was a little carried away and forgot that there was a little third wheel next to her. Zhao Xian then spoke up:

"Your Highness is mistaken. It should be that the three of us can spend another day here."

Li Xue looked at the little girl and said with a smile, "The little girl is too young, she doesn't understand anything. Whether there are three people or two people, it's about the same."