Chen Haiting was receiving a red phone call.
He stood ramrod straight, his thin face as hard as stone. "...Yes, it has been confirmed that 23 people have died and 254 have been injured. Important means of production have already been properly transferred, and the property losses suffered by the people are being tallied."
......
"Disaster relief and rescue work has been carried out in an orderly manner, and the people have been properly resettled. Now the main task is post-disaster reconstruction."
......
"Okay, I understand!"
Behind Chen Haiting stood a group of leading cadres, headed by Vice Mayor Wang, who all dared not utter a sound and listened intently to Chen Haiting's phone call.
Chen Haiting hung up the phone, his face extremely solemn. "Comrades, unfortunately, our Yanling City has been hit by a once-in-a-century earthquake. However, fortunately, we only suffered a little over a hundred casualties in this earthquake! Now the people are eagerly awaiting the restoration of normal production and life. Everyone, immediately return to your posts and actively carry out rescue and relief work!"
"The people are waiting for us!"
At first, everyone was filled with fear, but after Chen Haiting finished speaking, all they could think about was how to quickly carry out disaster relief.
The crowd hurried out in single file, leaving only Vice Mayor Wang and Chen Haiting inside the tent.
Vice Mayor Wang's hair turned mostly white overnight. He looked at Chen Haiting with a face full of shame, "Old Chen, thank goodness you held on..."
Vice Mayor Wang's voice was already choked with emotion.
Chen Haiting didn't mind at all that Vice Mayor Wang had previously opposed him.
Vice Mayor Wang is a native of Yanling. He is an upright person, and his words were made from a fair standpoint, not out of petty or narrow-mindedness.
Chen Haiting grasped Vice Mayor Wang's cold, trembling hand, "Brother, Yanling still needs you and me, the people still need you and me!"
With just those two sentences, Vice Mayor Wang rallied, firmly grasped Chen Haiting's hand, and said, "Good!"
The leadership team performed their respective duties, with leaders at the city, county, commune, and brigade levels all on the front lines of disaster relief, and the people actively engaged in self-rescue.
Thus, after such a massive earthquake, Yanling City remained busy yet orderly.
This also amazed the soldiers who rushed to the disaster relief site.
......
Li Xiangdong, Liu Donglai, Factory Director Yan, and Huang Guimei sat on the kang (a heated brick bed) eating watermelon, the rich, sweet aroma of the watermelon filling their mouths and noses.
Li Xiangdong asked Liu Donglai curiously, "Uncle Liu, didn't Mayor Chen tell everyone to stay in the tents? How come there are still so many casualties?"
Liu Donglai sighed and said, "I'm puzzled too! After they investigated, they said that some people thought it was too cold outside and secretly went home to sleep. A few others were habitual thieves who wanted to steal things while everyone was away from home."
Li Xiangdong really didn't know how to comment. Perhaps this is what they mean by "good advice is useless against a damned devil."
"Also, during the earthquake, a fissure appeared in the ground where a tent was located, and many people fell into the fissure."
ah?!
The three were shocked, forgetting to eat the melon in their hands.
"A young man of eighteen or nineteen had just lifted two children up when he himself was buried forever underground by the closing crack!"
People who have never experienced an earthquake have no idea that such a terrifying situation exists.
The fissure in the earth was like a gaping maw, swallowing up all living things on the ground.
The group sighed again, and Huang Guimei shed tears.
Factory Director Yan silently handed his wife a handkerchief and comforted her, saying, "In such a great disaster, it's already a blessing that a few hundred people have died or been injured!"
Liu Donglai nodded heavily, "Yes!"
Huang Guimei wiped away her tears, "Thanks to Mayor Chen's decisive and brilliant decision. But even the earthquake bureau couldn't detect it, how did Mayor Chen know?"
Liu Donglai and Li Xiangdong exchanged a glance, and Liu Donglai chuckled, "Perhaps there are other channels."
Huang Guimei and Factory Director Yan nodded.
After leaving Director Yan's house, Li Xiangdong asked Liu Donglai, "You didn't leave me out, did you?"
Liu Donglai patted him on the shoulder, "I didn't mention your name."
It would be best if this matter were left to fade into silence; Li Xiangdong didn't want to draw attention to it.
As for the later matter of the government secretly sending people to western Sichuan to find a blind man, that was a secret that Li Xiangdong could not know.
......
With a major matter settled, Li Xiangdong could finally get a good night's sleep.
But at night, he dreamed that he went to the underworld.
Ox-Head and Horse-Face shoved him into the Yama's Palace with annoyance.
King Yama slammed his gavel and asked him with a dark face, "The underworld is building a new city. Originally, more than 200,000 people were scheduled to go down to the underworld to work, but because of Li Xiangdong, the underworld only sent more than 20 people!"
There are martyrs among them; they cannot be made to perform corvée labor!
Li Xiangdong looked at the King of Hell, whose face was as black as if it were about to drip water, but he wasn't afraid at all.
He even jokingly said that he would send him several ready-made villas as an apology, plus Bentleys, Maybachs, yachts, and several beautiful women.
If that's still not enough, there are also tanks, long-range rocket launchers, helicopters, aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, destroyers, nuclear submarines, stealth fighters, and various types of missiles...
King Yama, you can simply conquer a city instead of going through the trouble of building one yourself!
Before he could finish speaking, Li Xiangdong felt someone push him hard on the back, and then he suddenly woke up from his dream!
Rubbing his eyes, Li Xiangdong recalled the scene in his dream and chuckled to himself. This was probably a case of what he thought about during the day manifesting in his dreams at night!
However, as a theist educated by reality, he still secretly wanted to find Master Guo, who knew how to make paper offerings, and fulfill his promise.
The earthquake in Yanling City did not affect Dongfang City. Although I am worried about the people of Yanling City who were affected by the disaster, I still have to go on with my life as usual.
Since the Yanling earthquake, the weather seems to have returned to normal all of a sudden.
These days, it's getting colder every day.
The workload in Lijiapo is twice that of other brigades; now one person is doing the work of two.
Li Xiangdong entrusted the task of renovating Grandma Jiang's house to his third brother-in-law, giving him two thousand yuan to spend as he saw fit, as long as the master was satisfied.
The commune members are making the most of the time to pick watermelons. Now, not only is the brigade headquarters' warehouse full, but each family's cellar is also filled with watermelons.
A lot of people are extremely worried. Given the current consumption capacity of the two department stores in Yanjing, it's estimated that they won't be able to finish these millions of kilograms of watermelons in half a year.
Liu Changhai, Guo Daming and the others have been gone for several days now, and there's been no news of them at all. It's really worrying.
Aunt Niu, who hadn't shown her face for a while, started bouncing around again, gossiping to everyone, "Watermelons are so expensive, who has that much spare money to buy them? It looks like they're all going to rot in the fields!"
How vicious those words are!
On the spot, a group of aunties and older women rushed forward and beat Aunt Niu until her face was bruised and swollen!
Pooh!
What a heartless, foul-mouthed woman!
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