Rescue

After dark, the small mountain village was shrouded in an indelible shadow. Heavy rain poured down, and the wind kept blowing. What was introduced into the eyes was still a dense rain curtain that could not be blown away. The vision was hazy, and nothing could be seen clearly. Only a ray of moonlight could barely illuminate the road ahead.

It had been raining for a long time, and the mud on the road was wet and sticky, like a dog-skin plaster that stuck to the soles of shoes and could not be shaken off, making every step extremely difficult. However, Liang Qingqing seemed to be unaware of it and walked forward quickly step by step.

Fortunately, she was so familiar with the roads in the village that she would not go wrong even with her eyes closed, so the journey was relatively smooth. The lights of countless flashlights on the east side of the village illuminated the surroundings clearly, allowing her to see the people working hard in the mud.

Although there were many people and they were all loud-voiced men, the atmosphere was eerily quiet. The only sound that could be heard was the sound of digging. The longer the rescue took, the heavier everyone's mood became. Everyone knew that if they couldn't rescue the people in time, then...

Liang Qingqing took a deep breath and sneaked in. She silently took the hoe and began to help by imitating others' movements. The raincoat on her body rustled in the wind, and her thin figure stood out among the tall men. But no one noticed this at the moment. Everyone was busy saving people, so how could they pay attention to anything else?

After an unknown amount of time, she carefully dug the dirt under her feet with her hands. Her lips couldn't help but tremble, and after a long pause, she finally uttered, "Help, help, there's someone here!"

This sentence was undoubtedly like a thunderbolt exploding in the flat ground. The person closest to her hurried over. After seeing the two hands buried in the soil, he couldn't hide his surprise and shouted, "Come and help!"

Soon, a crowd of people came, and the person buried in the soil was successfully rescued. Liang Qingqing rushed over and wiped the dirt off his face with a handkerchief, but the next second she squeezed the cloth in disappointment.

In fact, she knew it wasn't him from his figure, but she didn't give up until she saw his face.

"It's the eldest son of the Niu family! He's still breathing. Send him to the hospital quickly! Notify his family!"

The man was dug out quickly and sent away quickly. The whole process took no more than five minutes.

Liang Qingqing sat paralyzed on the ground. Her hands were numb from the pain after exerting force for a long time. She couldn't help shaking. After a few seconds, she supported herself with the hoe and tried to stand up again. But just as she stood firm, someone held her shoulders.

"Whose little girl is coming here to cause trouble? Go home quickly." The person who came was the village chief Xie Changkun. He had been directing the work and maintaining order at the scene. After discovering Liang Qingqing's presence, he rushed up, grabbed her arm and pulled her out.

Liang Qingqing grabbed the back of Xie Changkun's hand, trying to break free from the restraint, and raised her voice to retort: ​​"I didn't cause any trouble, I was the one who found that person!"

Hearing this, Xie Changkun stopped walking, and only after hearing Liang Qingqing's words did he remember that this was indeed the case. He then cleared his throat uncomfortably, loosened his grip, and let go of Liang Qingqing.

"This is still worthy of praise."

As he spoke, he squinted at Liang Qingqing. The rain was so heavy that he took a long time to recognize her. He opened his mouth in disbelief: "Liang Qingqing? Why are you here when you don't stay at home?"

Hearing this, Liang Qingqing was stunned, her long eyelashes trembled, and her voice unconsciously lowered, "I'm here to help."

"Isn't this nonsense? What is a woman here to help?"

"Women hold up half the sky, why can't I come to help? Besides, I didn't make things worse, I even saved someone!"

Liang Qingqing put her hands on her waist and said righteously, which made Xie Changkun speechless. Seeing that she insisted on staying here to help and saved someone, he didn't know what to do for a while. He could only turn a blind eye and wave his hands and said, "Okay, okay, just don't make trouble. You don't need one more person anyway."

After saying that, he turned around and left.

Seeing that Xie Changkun didn't chase her away, Liang Qingqing breathed a sigh of relief. When she turned around, she saw someone running towards her not far away. She looked closely and saw who else could it be but Liang Junqiang!

"Little sister, little sister."

Liang Junqiang had long arms and legs, and soon he arrived. The noise of rescue here was so loud that it was hard not to notice. When he first heard the cry for help, he felt familiar. Later, Xie Changkun called out Liang Qingqing's name in such a loud voice that he was completely sure of her identity.

"Why are you here?"

Liang Qingqing, who was covering her face with a raincoat, saw that she was discovered, so she simply said, "I'll help."

"Can your mother let you come?"

Of course it's impossible! How could Ma Xiuzhi, who dotes on her daughters, let her come to such a dangerous place? The heavy rain was still falling, who knew if there would be a second mudslide? So she ran away secretly.

When she heard the news, it was time for everyone to go to bed. As a result, everyone couldn't sleep because of the bad news, so they all went to sit in the main hall. She was very panicked, so she put on her raincoat and took the hoe and ran over under the pretext of going back to her room to sleep.

"Don't worry about it, I'm just here to help. How many people have been rescued now?" Liang Qingqing changed the subject in a few words. Liang Junqiang sighed and replied, "Including the one just now, there are five."

That means there are still four people buried, including Fan Yanxing.

Liang Qingqing lowered her eyelashes, "Don't waste time, let's continue."

"Little sister, why don't you go back? I see that your hands can hardly hold the hoe." Liang Junqiang looked at Liang Qingqing's hands with heartache, and then looked at her shoes and pants covered with mud. Is this still his little sister who loves to be clean and is afraid of hardship and fatigue?

Liang Qingqing shook her head to show her attitude.

She didn't know why she came here. Just like Xie Changkun said, there are enough people here, and she is not short of one more. But if she didn't come, she always felt that she would miss something and regret it for the rest of her life.

"Then I'll accompany you by your side. If you are too tired and can't hold on, don't be stubborn and go back to rest directly." Liang Junqiang couldn't persuade Liang Qingqing, so he could only compromise.

The two siblings stayed together, talking from time to time, and it seemed that they were not so tired in the heavy rain.

"Village chief, is the captain here? Can you send some people to help me find my granddaughter? My granddaughter is missing!" A hoarse and weak voice sounded outside. Liang Qingqing looked back and saw two women, one old and one young, asking for help.

"Go back to the village to look for her. Maybe she is playing at someone else's house. This is a matter of life and death. How can we have time to help you find a child?" Xie Changkun waved his hand and didn't take it seriously.

"We've looked everywhere, but she's not there!" Aunt Zhou was crying. She didn't take it seriously at first, just like Xie Changkun. But after a long time after dark, she didn't see her granddaughter coming home. She got anxious and went to all the places where the child usually went with her mother under an umbrella, but she didn't see a single person.

She didn't want to delay the rescue, but it was raining so hard, and the probability of a child getting into trouble was too high. How could she feel at ease if she didn't find her soon?

"Don't make a fuss here at this late hour. Can't you see there are four people waiting for us to rescue them?" Xie Changkun was so annoyed that he waved his hand to chase the people away.

"The child is really missing. Please, please." Aunt Zhou almost knelt down.

Seeing that Aunt Zhou was old, Xie Changkun stopped chasing people away and said softly, "We really can't help here. So, I will go back to the village with you and ask the aunts in each household to help. Let's look for it together."

A few words calmed the people down, and the scene returned to peace again.

Time passed by minute by minute. Half an hour later, someone heard a cry for help. It was very weak, but it pointed everyone in the direction. Liang Qingqing recognized that it was the voice of a little girl. Then she thought about what the Zhou family said about their granddaughter's disappearance. Could it be...

"The sound came from this side."

"Everyone dig together, be careful."

"I saw people. There are two people who are pressed by the tree. Lift them hard. Everyone, use all your strength."

Liang Qingqing stood outside the crowd, her heart pounding. She didn't know where to put her hands. Her palms were sweating. She stared at that place without blinking. The rain blurred her vision. She didn't care that her hands were full of mud. She rubbed her face into a cat.

Finally, with the unremitting efforts of everyone, two people, one big and one small, were dragged out of the mud pit.

The tree was an obstacle when rescuing people, but it just happened to form a protective shield for the two buried people, leaving a certain gap. In addition, the adults protected the little girl at the first moment of the mudslide and bore most of the impact, so the little girl was able to retain a little consciousness and strength to call for help.

Otherwise, the two people were buried in the corner, and it was unknown when people would notice them.

"It's Yanxing!" Liang Junqiang, who rushed to the front, recognized the motionless figure lying on the ground at a glance after he and others worked together to carry the tree to the side.

"The adult is not breathing, but the child is still alive. Send him to the hospital first."

Hearing this, Liang Qingqing, who had just been glad to find Fan Yanxing, suddenly began to breathe harder. All the blood in her body rushed to her head. She almost fell to the ground. After finally catching herself, she pushed aside the person in front of her and ran to him.

Fan Yanxing was covered in mud and water, lying on the ground in a cowardly state. The rain hit his face but he did not respond at all.

"How could you die like this? You are an important character in this book." Looking at Fan Yanxing's pale face, Liang Qingqing could not help but murmur, and touched his neck with her fingertips. There was no beating and no temperature.

But she did not believe that he died like this.

Forcing herself to calm down, Liang Qingqing quickly checked Fan Yanxing's condition and found that he was not without breathing and pulse, but it was too weak to be noticed without careful observation.

He's still alive, he's still alive!

Liang Qingqing took a deep breath, stretched out her hand to pry open Fan Yanxing's mouth, first cleaned the mud inside, then bent down to give him artificial respiration, but just as she bent down, she was stopped by Liang Junqiang.

"Little sister, what are you doing?" Liang Junqiang was still immersed in the sadness of his good brother's death. The 1.80-meter-tall man was about to cry like a fool, but he didn't forget to pay attention to his sister. When he saw her suddenly bend over to kiss Fan Yanxing, his eyes almost popped out.

"Let go, don't hinder me from saving people."

Liang Qingqing shook off Liang Junqiang's hand, and then quickly put her lips on him. Suddenly, there was a sound of gasps around him. When I couldn't help but wonder if Liang Qingqing was crazy, I saw her cross her hands and pressed hard on Fan Yanxing's chest.

"What is she doing?"

"Didn't you hear? She said she was saving people."

"But the people are dead..."

As soon as the voice fell, I saw that under Liang Qingqing's series of "confusing" operations, the "dead" person actually started coughing!

"Alive, alive!"

"Don't dawdle, send him to the hospital."

Liang Qingqing sat paralyzed on the ground and watched Fan Yanxing being carried away. After she recovered, she quickly asked Liang Junqiang, who was standing there in a daze, to help her up. "Let's go with you to check it out. Otherwise, what if no one takes care of him in the hospital?"

"Yes, yes, we must go with you to check it out." Liang Junqiang was still immersed in Liang Qingqing's action of saving people just now. He caught a glimpse of her wiping her lips and wanted to say something, but he didn't know how to start the conversation for a moment. He suppressed the words in his heart and followed her silently onto the tractor heading to the hospital.

It was called a hospital, but it was actually a clinic in the commune. It was packed with patients and their families, most of whom were victims of the mudslide. The rainwater and mud on the ground were mixed together, and there was not even a dry place to stand.