The Flood Arrives

In truth, Huang Si was currently in the Earth Realm, though he was not in the Biology Department, but rather the Robotics R&D Department.

He was working on a grand design.

This kept him busier than any artificial intelligence, and Xiao Ke was assisting him with all her might.

Every day, Huang Si produced vast quantities of metallic materials, testing them one by one and discarding anything that proved problematic.

The Robotics R&D Department was quite far from the Biology Department, so most of the artificial intelligences were unaware that Huang Si was busy over here.

Furthermore, he was not using a prosthetic body.

When he did not use a prosthetic body, no one could see Huang Si. Except for Xiao Ke.

Once the general framework was completed, Huang Si summoned Wei Ji.

This was Wei Ji's first time visiting the Robotics R&D Department; had Huang Si not been guiding him with his consciousness the entire way, he would have nearly gotten lost.

One had to understand that the Earth Realm was vast, containing many departments that the artificial intelligences had never visited.

Huang Si was inside a large shed within the Robotics R&D Department, a shed that was unusually large.

When Wei Ji stepped into the shed, he was stunned.

Under the sunlight, the shadow of that massive object enveloped Wei Ji.

He had to tilt his head back to barely take in the full scope of the thing.

"Father God, this is...?" Wei Ji asked.

"This is a man's romance," Huang Si said, standing to the side. "From today on, you don't need to go to the Biology Department. Help me here instead."

Wei Ji was confused.

Just as Huang Si was busy tinkering with the new device alongside Wei Ji, time in the Green World was passing rapidly.

The pointer of fate moved as if in flight, and soon, it arrived at that moment of disaster.

One day, Xiao Ke sent an urgent communication.

According to global big-data climate projections, the flood would arrive not in a hundred years, but in the 68th year—that is, two years from now.

In the Green World's Continent No. 1, summer began with nothing more than persistent, drizzling rain.

Later, the rain never stopped; instead, it grew heavier and heavier.

In the areas inhabited by the Human Race, there were two large rivers and three smaller ones.

Days of continuous rainfall meant the upper reaches of the rivers could no longer withstand the pressure of the water, and the embankments collapsed one after another.

Of the four major tribes of the Human Race, only the God Bow Tribe in the south, which relied on Fang Mountain as its core, suffered relatively minor damage; all other regions were plunged into severe flooding.

However, the casualties were not particularly high.

"Thank you, Ancestral Deities. Thank you, Moon Goddess."

The water had already flooded the entire village, but most people had relied on the wooden boats they had prepared long ago to relocate to slightly higher ground.

They had previously buried a portion of the village's food supply here, which now proved to be exactly what they needed.

The many elders in the village were the ones now kneeling on the ground, murmuring their thanks to the deities.

After the young and able-bodied villagers had saved the elderly and children, they had gone off to prepare tools for surviving the disaster.

Thus, on the mountain, there were only the elderly, the children, and some of the physically weaker women.

"How can you call her a girl?" a woman who looked like a shaman said, torn between laughter and tears. "The Moon Goddess is also a deity; you cannot address her in the human fashion."

"But I look at the Moon Goddess, and she just feels so kind," an old grandmother said with nostalgia. "If it weren't for the Moon Goddess teaching us how to make wooden boats, and the Ancestral Deities sending down divine revelations for us to stockpile food, I fear that not a single one of us in the village would have survived today."

Hearing this, a boy of about ten in the crowd spoke his mind: "That's right! The Moon Goddess is really beautiful! As expected of a great deity from the heavens, I've never seen anyone so beautiful!"

The female shaman quickly made a gesture of prayer and said, "One must be respectful toward the gods; do not discuss their appearance."

The boy's elders also hurriedly scolded him and led him to the side.

Similar situations were occurring in many places across this land.

Before the flood arrived, there had been many omens, and with the Ancestral Deities constantly sending down divine revelations to allow people to prepare in advance, and various deities descending to teach people all kinds of knowledge, many places had already taken precautions when the flood finally arrived. Only a small number of people were swept away, and the majority survived for the time being.

However, some places still faced extreme crises for various reasons.

Green World, Human Race settlement area, a small village in the Wild River Tribe.

This small village, named Li River Village, was situated right beside the Li River.

The Li River was a tributary of the Fu River, one of the two major rivers.

At this moment, the villagers were at the riverbank, struggling to pile earth and stones to build up the embankment.

Basket after basket of soil was passed up by them in turns using rattan crates, and those above used stone shovels to pack the soil onto the embankment and flatten it.

This was almost every person in the village who still had the ability to work.

In their view, only by continuously building the embankment higher could they survive this rising floodwater.

Everyone was covered in mud, and the torrential rain carved deep gullies through the filth on their bodies.

These people dared not stop; only when mud caked their eyes did they hurriedly wipe them clear.

"The water is rising again." Uncle Axe looked at the wooden pole he had previously placed by the water's edge. "This won't do. We don't have enough hands. Has Cao Jiu returned yet?"

Another man craned his neck to look toward the road leading into the village. "Not yet. It's truly worrying. Didn't the Chieftain say he would help us? If Cao Jiu found them, he should have been able to bring men over to help immediately!"

A woman named Sister Wood shook her hair, wiped the mud and water from her face, and said indignantly, "You're still counting on the Chieftain! Isn't it because of the Chieftain that we have to build this levee today?"

Uncle Axe's expression dimmed. "You're right. Back then, the Ancestral Deities sent down a divine omen, telling us to store grain, build levees, and craft boats to prepare for disaster. But the Chieftain said there wouldn't be a flood and even drove the shaman away."

Sister Wood roared with a hoarse voice, "Exactly! Now, we don't even know how to build boats. I heard other villages already have them."

A man said, "Stop being angry. Let's keep building the levee. As long as we hold back this water, we can all survive, and our homes can be saved."

A middle-aged man sneered upon hearing this, "And if we can't hold it back? Are we just going to let the old and young at home die with us?"

"We should still wait for the Chieftain," Uncle Axe said. "The Chieftain has men and tools; he will surely be able to save us."

Meanwhile, on the road from Li River Village leading to the area where the Chieftain resided, a youth named Cao Jiu was running in a hurry.

His skin was dark, and although his arms and legs were thin, he ran with great strength.

Cao Jiu was only seventeen, but he was agile and the fastest young man in the village.

Usually, whenever the folks had any errands to run, they would entrust them to him.

And he would always accept them cheerfully.

Cao Jiu was an orphan.

His father was a villager, and his mother had come over to escape the chaos of war.

His mother's health was poor, and she died in childbirth when Cao Jiu was born.

Cao Jiu was left in the grass the moment he was born; his father was too busy trying to save his mother to look after him.

If it hadn't been for a woman in the village who had just given birth and immediately fed Cao Jiu, he would have lost his life the moment he arrived.

Following village custom, because he was the ninth child of that generation in the village, his father named him Cao Jiu.

Cao Jiu was raised by the entire village in turns.

When he was eight years old, his father died.

He was killed while out fighting for the Chieftain. Cao Jiu never even saw his father's body; no one brought it back.

From then on, Cao Jiu became the child of the whole village.

But now, as Cao Jiu ran back, his face was filled with despair.

He did not know how to face the fellow villagers waiting for him on the levee.

On the levee, Uncle Axe suddenly shouted, "Xiao Jiu! Xiao Jiu is back!"

The villagers' hopes were instantly ignited, and they all turned to look behind them.

However, their smiles froze on their faces.

"Where is the Chieftain? Where are the Chieftain's warriors? Why didn't they come with you?"

"Could it be..."

Cao Jiu ran quickly up to the embankment and burst into tears:

"The Chieftain—the Chieftain took his men and fled! He took everything with him!"

This sentence struck the villagers present like a bolt of lightning, shattering them.

It was impossible for them to hold back the flood on their own, but the Chieftain had warriors and all sorts of tools. If the Chieftain had come, they might have been able to hold it back and save the entire village.

He was the one who failed to prepare for the flood, so how could he just abandon the whole village and flee the moment the disaster arrived?

The Chieftain was supposed to be the one who protected the land; the three villages here all relied on him. How could he just walk away?