"I told you! I told you!"
Wang Kui quickly replied, "She said it's called 'Thousand Mountain Snow Lotus'! She said that just one plant can grant immortality, and it can sell for an astronomical price outside, enough for all of us to live comfortably and extravagantly for a lifetime!"
Snow lotus of a thousand mountains?
Su Tang and Qin Ye exchanged a glance and instantly understood.
A common man is innocent, but possessing a treasure is a crime.
The reason this isolated village suffered such a devastating disaster was not because of its meager food supplies, but because it became a stepping stone for A-Yun to search for the so-called miracle drug.
The avalanche was just an accident, and she didn't care about the villagers' lives at all from beginning to end.
After clarifying the situation, Qin Ye decided to temporarily detain the prisoners and, after organizing the villagers for a rescue, try to contact the military to send someone to handle the matter.
The most urgent and pressing task now is to organize the villagers to rescue the hundreds of villagers who are buried under the avalanche and whose fate is unknown.
When Su Tang and Qin Ye hurriedly led the rescued villagers back to the place where the surviving women and children were settled, most of them did not run far away to save their lives as Su Tang had told them.
In the center of the village, on the ruins covered with thick snow, dozens of figures were frantically working in the cold wind.
The sight made Su Tang's heart clench.
"Dad! Mom! Where are you?!" A girl with pigtails knelt in the snow, crying as she dug at the hard ice and snow with her little hands. Her ten fingers were already bloody and mangled.
Several elderly women, with tears streaming down their faces, chanted incomprehensible scriptures as they futilely struck the mountain-like snow with the most primitive wooden sticks and stones.
Many more men, with red eyes, silently used their hands, shoulders, and teeth to try to dig their loved ones out of this land of death.
Many lucky people were not buried very deep and were rescued by their families. Although some fell into a coma, they were still breathing.
But not everyone is so lucky.
The old village chief, a Tibetan elder with gray hair and a face etched with deep wrinkles, was shouting orders at the top of his lungs.
"Here! Dig deeper here! I remember Tashi's house is right here!"
But no sooner had he finished speaking than a man next to him cried out in despair, "Village chief! It's no use! We can't dig it up! It's all ice down there, harder than rocks! My shovel is even dulled!"
The old village chief trembled, looking at the vast expanse of white ice and snow before him, and two streams of hot tears flowed from his cloudy old eyes.
"Dig! Dig with your hands! Your fathers and mothers, your wives and children, are still waiting for us down there! We can't give up!"
All they had were a few old shovels and two pickaxes; each strike only left a faint white dot on the snow.
Qin Ye strode over, grabbed a handful of snow, squeezed it, and his brows instantly furrowed into a knot.
The snow, subjected to immense pressure and a night of frigid temperatures, had solidified into an incredibly hard layer of ice. Let alone using these rudimentary tools, even using an entrenching tool from the military to dig through and rescue people in a short time would be nothing short of a pipe dream.
For those buried below, time is life.
Every minute they delay diminishes their chances of survival.
Looking at the villagers' faces, blue and bruised from the cold, filled with despair, and their hands dripping with blood, Qin Ye's heart sank to the bottom.
He had fought on the battlefield for many years, and had never felt so powerless as he did now.
Just when everyone was about to be swallowed up by this boundless despair.
Su Tang walked to Qin Ye's side, her eyes unusually calm, yet undeniably resolute.
"Qin Ye... I need to think of a way..."
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