The Flood Arrives (Please Recommend and Bookmark)

The Flood Arrives (Please Recommend and Bookmark)

At 3:03 in the morning, Lin Wen jolted awake from a nap and found that water had already seeped in, soaking his hands and back.

Changpai Village Levee connected to Clear Breeze Mountain upstream and Craggy Ridge downstream. To shelter from the rain, Lin Wen had rested in a small cave on Clear Breeze Mountain. Though the cave entrance was slightly lower than the levee, it should still have been far above the waterline.

Lin Wen switched on the lamp attached to his miner's cap, waded through the water, and stepped out of the cave. Rain poured down in the darkness, river water surged and churned, and the world seemed drowned beneath the flood.

The river had risen by at least another 150 centimeters. The current rolled in with massive waves, howling as it came.

In just that moment, the water had already risen past his ankles. Lin Wen knew the flood crest had arrived. He clipped the radio to his chest, tuned it to the right frequency, switched on the sound, and shouting immediately came through.

"Long Mountain Commandery! Long Mountain Commandery! Attention! The first flood crest is passing through! Maximum flow rate: 175,100 cubic meters per second. Minimum duration: 13 hours. The second flood crest will arrive in 18 hours!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Wen immediately used [Strength of Nine Bulls and Two Tigers].

The strength of bull and tiger coursed through his entire body.

[Sight Without Eyes]

The world became crystal clear, every tiny detail laid bare.

Lin Wen's gaze hardened. With a leap, he crossed more than five meters and landed steadily atop the levee.

This was the result of more than twenty days of training. In the past, he would have flown straight into the river.

With a sweep of his eyes, he discovered that several concealed holes that had originally been plugged were beginning to loosen.

Lin Wen untied the shovel wrapped around his waist, went over and packed them solid with a single blow. Then he casually rummaged through the supplies piled on the levee, picked up an anchor pile made of dozens of steel rebars, gathered all his strength, roared, and drove it straight down to the bottom.

If anyone saw this brute-force method of driving anchor piles, their eyeballs would probably fall out. Every expert under the sun would surely be scrambling around the ground for their eyeballs while spraying saliva everywhere about how unscientific and unreasonable it was.

But this was the only method he had. Lin Wen might possess boundless strength, but the moment he entered the water, he was finished. He could not exert force in the water; no matter how great his strength was, it would be useless. Besides, the river current was so ferocious that even the strongest swimmer would have no way around it.

He could only drive them in by brute force from solid ground.

Lin Wen hooked the shovel back onto his waist, then untied a huge iron hammer from his belt. He brought it down on the anchor pile with one strike, bending the steel bars and making the whole pile wobble wildly. The anchor pile sank directly by two centimeters.

Only after striking it more than a dozen times did Lin Wen hang the hammer back up, shoulder sandbags, and throw them over the anchor pile. The sandbags were standard flood-control supplies. Lin Wen had found them in the town warehouse during one of his trips back to town. He had no idea why they had stockpiled so much of such cheap stuff.

Still, it worked out perfectly for Lin Wen. He had arranged for ten laborers to haul them for three days before they finally finished, then spent another half day carrying them all up. Now, half the levee was covered in woven earthwork bags and the other half in sandbags, with more flood-control supplies below the levee. Overall, the supplies were basically sufficient. All that remained was to see the final result.

After dealing with this danger, Lin Wen continued patrolling the levee through the downpour and spraying waves. Relying on the vision of [Sight Without Eyes], he could always spot hazards that were extremely difficult to detect at the first possible moment and eliminate them with a casual motion.

However, because the levee itself was poorly constructed, after several hours, small piping incidents, breaches, and seepage began appearing in multiple places.

Lin Wen raced around putting out fires, relying on his boundless strength to smash through everything by force. Piping, was it? How about shoving a ten-meter pole straight into it—still not convinced? A breach? Would several tons of sand and earth plus an anchor pile do the job? Seepage? Eat my Mighty Vajra Leg!

The battle continued until dawn. Even Lin Wen was beginning to feel the strain, but fortunately, the first flood crest passed safely.

Lin Wen rested for a while and casually ate something to fill his stomach.

A few hours later, night fell again, and the second flood crest arrived. This one was even larger and would last for more than 36 hours.

The torrential rain had never stopped. Instead, it only grew heavier. The radio said rainfall had already exceeded 600 millimeters, escalating into an extraordinarily severe rainstorm.

Clearly, the true calamity was only beginning now.

Lin Wen pulled himself together and prepared to face the final trial in this world.

Meanwhile, fifteen kilometers away from Lin Wen in Ying Family Village, even beneath a raincoat and umbrella, Zhao Anping could not stop the icy chill from crawling across his back.

Ahead of him, in the ink-black night, a long string of lights wound like a dragon. Countless sandbags, loads of earth, stone cages, even cotton clothes and quilts were passed through the crowd, carried up onto Ying Family Village Levee, brought to the breach three meters wide and seven meters deep, then thrown down into it.

Emergency repairs had already continued for three hours, yet the breach had still not been fully blocked. River water rushed desperately out through every gap it could find. The second flood crest had already arrived, and the crisis had multiplied in an instant.

But there was no other way now. They had to force it shut.

And if they had not discovered it in time, if Commandery Governor Zhao had not decisively ordered the only heavy truck to reverse into the breach fully loaded with sand and earth the moment the collapse first appeared, then the levee would already have burst.

Ying Family Village Levee was one of Long Mountain Commandery's three main levees. If it broke, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Slogans rose and fell across the levee, but even the voices of 8,000 people could not overwhelm the wind, rain, and roaring river.

"Commandery Governor Zhao! Commandery Governor Zhao!" A figure came running over in a panic, crying, "The west has already been flooded! More than a dozen levees have collapsed!"

Commandery Governor Zhao shouted sharply, "Have the emergency evacuation notices been issued?"

"Th-they have, but..."

"Then why the hell are you standing around? Report upward and request rescue immediately! Broadcast it! Organize emergency relief! Go!"

Thoughts spun frantically through Zhao Anping's mind. The upstream region is vast and sparsely populated. The flood travels slowly there, and with all those mountains and ridges, there are high places everywhere to take shelter. Emergency evacuations should make it in time. The key is still here.

Just as he was thinking, a wave of alarmed cries suddenly rose from the levee. Zhao Anping abruptly looked up and saw a powerful piping eruption suddenly appear in the middle of the levee. Water shot several meters into the air along with huge amounts of sand and stone, scattering everyone nearby.

Supervisor Liao Zhi'an shouted, "Block it! Hurry and block it! Hurry!"

Commandery Governor Zhao felt a surge of vicious fury shoot straight into his head. Snatching up a loudspeaker, he bellowed, "Block your mother's whole family! Run! The levee's going down! Everybody run! Run!"

The tide of people poured down from the levee, their cries merging into one continuous roar, while the crowd below the levee ran back like mad.

Commandery Governor Zhao felt the blood vessels in his forehead pound wildly. "Hu Ping! Hu Ping! Go! Organize the people and issue emergency evacuation notices! None of the villages behind us can be saved! Tell everyone inside to run now! Don't take anything! Run downstream! Upstream is already flooded—we can only run downstream!"

Despair and rage did not interrupt Zhao Anping's calm thoughts. At least East Road Embankment is still intact. The Spring Village area should be safe. I need to lead everyone there to take shelter!

Organizing people in darkness and torrential rain was especially difficult. Amid the chaos of shouting, cries, wind, and rain, a thunderous crash rang out. Ying Family Village Levee collapsed. The flood tore open a massive thirty-meter breach and pounced violently toward Ying Family Village.

Zhao Anping could no longer worry about anything else. He sprinted wildly with the crowd. The torrential rain lashed his face, as though it were pouring straight into his heart.

No one knew how long they ran. They did not stop until they could no longer hear the flood roaring. They found a safe patch of high ground. Somehow, someone had even brought a high-powered searchlight, which was perfect for use as a beacon.

As Zhao Anping held up the searchlight and aimed it into the sky, he directed the staff to gather the crowd. With a bitter smile, he thought, Why do I look like some defeated general from ancient times, gathering his scattered troops after losing a battle?

He looked around. Everyone was drenched by the torrential rain, frightened and uneasy, hanging their heads in despair. They really did look the part.

Mm. The enemy army must have launched a surprise attack under cover of rain and night, while also using a water assault. Zhao Anping led the Long Mountain Army to a crushing defeat. After this battle, Zhao Anping never recovered and died with bitterness in his heart.

After amusing himself amid the bitterness, Zhao Anping quickly rallied. Seeing more and more people gathering, he raised the loudspeaker and shouted, "This place is safe. As long as everyone is alive, that is enough. This flood is unprecedented in the world. The Empire will definitely help everyone rebuild their homes."

That single sentence calmed the crowd considerably. Zhao Anping was about to take the opportunity to say more when he saw another group of people running desperately from the north. The leader spotted Zhao Anping and wailed, "Commandery Governor Zhao! East Road Embankment has collapsed! More than a hundred thousand people have been hit by the disaster!"

Zhao Anping's head buzzed. He grabbed the man and shouted harshly, "What did you say?!"

Rain and tears mixed across the man's face as he cried, "The water was too strong! East Road Embankment couldn't hold! I saw things were going bad, so I told everyone to run. Only a few minutes after we left, the levee collapsed. The water rushed out like it had gone mad. I... I..." He began crying again.

Zhao Anping felt an icy chill pour from the crown of his head to the bottom of his body. In an instant, he realized that if both Ying Family Village Levee and East Road Embankment had collapsed, then this place was not safe either. They had to keep running downstream.

He raised the loudspeaker and shouted with every ounce of strength in his body, "East Road Embankment has collapsed! The flood is coming! This place isn't safe either—we have to keep running!"

In an instant, crying and shouting erupted again. Zhao Anping had three people carry the searchlight and led them farther downstream. The crowd was forced to move again.

They had not walked for thirty minutes before the roar of water rose behind them. Someone shouted, "The water's here! Run! Hurry, run!"

The crowd began running. No one knew how long they ran through the darkness before they finally could no longer hear the water. Fortunately, the searchlight had guided them the entire time, and not too many people had fallen behind.

Zhao Anping found another place sheltered from the rain and temporarily settled everyone down. "Where are we now?" he asked.

The people around him looked at one another. After a long while, someone tentatively answered, "I think... we're near Ox Horn Village."

"It is Ox Horn Village. I used to herd cattle here," someone confirmed.

Zhao Anping calculated in his head. "Then we should be safe. The flood can't possibly reach here."

"No!"

Zhao Anping suddenly jumped to his feet.

"Isn't Changpai Village right next to Ox Horn Village?"

The faces of those around him went white in an instant. They immediately realized they were directly facing Changpai Village Levee!

Several people had already started running away.

"No, no!"

Zhao Anping immediately rejected his previous thought. "If Changpai Village Levee was going to collapse, it would have collapsed long ago! There's no reason East Road Embankment would collapse while Changpai Village Levee still stands!"

That was right.

Everyone thought.

If it was going to collapse, it would have done so already. East Road Embankment had poured in so much manpower and material resources, yet it still could not survive the second wave. What did Changpai Village Levee have going for it? The fact that it collapsed twice every five years?

But look around. Did this place look like floodwater had passed through it?

"Thinking won't help," Zhao Anping said. "We'll know once we go take a look. Changpai Village Levee isn't far, only a few li away."

"But..." Little Zhang trembled all over, his legs shaking. The terrifying sight of the levee collapsing had badly frightened him. "How about we just evacuate directly?"

"Evacuate?" Zhao Anping looked around. Tens of thousands of people lay exhausted on the ground. Many were injured, and crying never ceased. No one even knew how many people had become separated along the way.

"Look at them. Can they still walk?"

"But... but what use will it be if we go look?"

Zhao Anping still carried the authority of a commandery governor. He directly chose ten people to go with him. "If there's some emergency on the levee, we can still lend a hand."

"Let's go."

Zhao Anping said it, but inside, he was thinking, Is it you, Lin Wen?