This Damn House Is Going to Collapse!

Jiang Yanchu stared fixedly at the comment on the screen, his pupils contracting sharply.

Was the entire production team blind?

Dumping a minor in the home of an adult suspected of murder-what kind of survival-of-the-fittest reality show was this?

His fingers trembled uncontrollably as he dialed his secretary's extension. "Book me the earliest flight to Yunling."

"Second Young Master, Yunling doesn't have an airport. The nearest airport is in the city. After landing, you'll have to take a train, then a bus, then-"

"Then book the earliest flight," Jiang Yanchu interrupted her. "I'll figure out the rest myself."

He hung up and stood, banging his knee against the corner of the coffee table hard enough to make him grimace, but he never stopped moving.

He had to bring him back as soon as possible.

Every extra minute meant more danger.

His little brother, who dared to put laxatives in someone's drink and kick out two of someone's front teeth, couldn't even protect himself against a murderer.

Meanwhile, Duan Qizhao, who had finally fallen asleep after tossing and turning, was dreaming.

In his dream, he lay beside the heated pool at his family's villa, holding an iced Mojito as warm sunlight spilled across his belly.

The water suddenly began to ripple, harder and harder. Ice clinked against his glass, and he frowned-where had this wind come from?

A drop of water struck his forehead.

It was bone-chillingly cold.

Duan Qizhao's eyes snapped open, and a second drop landed squarely in his left eye.

"Fuck!"

He sprang off the long bench and smacked the back of his head against the wall, howling in pain.

Rainwater trickled down the cracks in the earthen wall, gathering into a thin stream across the dirt floor. The military coat he had spread over the bench was already more than half soaked.

"It's leaking! The roof's leaking!" Duan Qizhao scrambled around the room with the military coat in his arms. "Jiang Xun, wake up! This damn house is going to collapse!"

Jiang Xun poked his head out from under his quilt, his hair sticking up every which way. A raindrop landed right on the tip of his nose. He blinked and reached out to catch the rain leaking from the roof beams.

"It really is leaking." There was actually a hint of novelty in his voice.

"Fuck, what the hell are you getting excited about?" Duan Qizhao draped the military coat over his head, looking as bedraggled as a rain-soaked blue-haired dog.

"How are we supposed to sleep with the place leaking like this?! Fuck, my suitcase is still on the floor!"

He scrambled over to rescue his suitcase and let out a shriek the moment he unzipped it. "It's wet! Everything's wet! This T-shirt cost seven thousand eight hundred!"

"Seven thousand eight hundred for a T-shirt." Jiang Xun sat cross-legged on the bed, wrapped in his quilt, and delivered a perfectly aimed jab. "Your brain never worked properly anyway. Maybe a little rain will clear your head."

Before Duan Qizhao could retort, another wet streak seeped through the earthen wall above him. Raindrops pelted down, thoroughly soaking the urea sacks he had spread on the floor.

Shen Wangjing was already up.

Without a word, he used the light from a flash of lightning to fetch a metal bucket from the kitchen and place it beneath the worst leak.

Rain clattered against the bottom of the bucket. He turned and found an enamel basin, setting it beside his grandfather's wheelchair. Then came a third container, and a fourth.

No one knew where he had dug up so many containers to catch water: old washbasins, chipped earthenware jars, makeshift gutters folded from cleaned fertilizer bags.

The courtyard was already in complete chaos.

Awakened by the thunder, the crew rushed about frantically rescuing equipment. Some crammed cameras into the van, while others wrestled with tarps against the wind. Rain struck the equipment cases and splashed into white sprays.

The director ran through the mud and clamped down on a corner of tarp the wind had lifted, rain streaming down her face.

"Get everything you can into the vehicles! Keep the equipment dry!" the director shouted at the top of her lungs, her voice intermittently drowned out by the rain.

No one had expected so much rain.

At first, it had only been a few scattered drops, rustling against the leaves in the mountains. The production team had even been glad it was finally a little cooler; the past few days had been so muggy that even the equipment had grown hot.

But in less than half an hour, the light rain had turned moderate. Dense streaks of rain fell as though someone were pouring water from the sky, pounding against the roof of the adobe house.

Shiban Village's drainage ditches couldn't handle that much rain. The dirt road at the village entrance, usually dry and cracked, turned into a river of mud in moments. Yellow muddy water swept dead branches and leaves downhill, carving several deep channels through the road.

Shen Wangjing had put every container in the house that could catch water to use.

Metal buckets, enamel basins, chipped earthenware jars, gutters folded from cleaned fertilizer bags-there was one beneath every leak.

His grandfather woke. The old man huddled in his wheelchair, his cloudy eyes fixed on the roof as he mumbled indistinctly, his thin, withered fingers gripping the armrests.

Shen Wangjing crouched in front of the wheelchair and checked the quilt covering the old man with the back of his hand. Then he stood and shifted a plastic sheet that had been shielding the bed another half meter toward the wheelchair.

Duan Qizhao crouched in the only corner the rain had yet to invade, wrapped in his military coat. He silently watched Shen Wangjing move between the leaks, then silently turned to look at Jiang Xun.

Jiang Xun crouched beside the bed, holding his own pillow beneath a new leak above his grandfather's quilt.

The pillow quickly became soaked. He wrung it out, water pouring down, then put it back to keep blocking the leak.

"This rain's way too heavy," he muttered, looking up at the swaying light bulb hanging from the roof beam. "Will the power go out?"

The instant he finished speaking, the bulb flickered twice and went out.

The room plunged into darkness. Only when lightning flashed could they make out the outlines of one another's faces.

Duan Qizhao said, "Fuck, does everything you say come true?!"

In less than fifteen minutes, the rain went from a patter to a torrential downpour.

The dirt road outside the courtyard gate had already become a muddy river. Yellow muddy water swept dead branches and loose stones downhill, while several crooked jujube trees bent almost to the ground in the wind.

"Director! The rain's too heavy! We can't get the vehicles out!" someone shouted over the radio.

"You have to, even if you can't!" The director ran through the muddy water filling the courtyard and grabbed a corner of tarp lifted by the wind. "Pack the two cameras into their cases! Get everyone to the Village Committee first!"

The Village Committee stood on high ground at the eastern end of the village, a little over ten meters higher than Shen Wangjing's home. It counted as the safest spot in the village.

The production crew began moving the equipment in a frantic scramble.

The director rushed into the courtyard herself. The wind had blown her raincoat hood inside out, and her hair was plastered across her face. With no time to care about appearances, she grabbed Duan Qizhao as he came out of the main room.

"Get in a vehicle first! Go with the camera crew's vehicle!"

Duan Qizhao could barely open his eyes in the rain. He was about to run toward the courtyard gate when he stopped short and shouted over his shoulder, "Where's Jiang Xun?!"

The director also hurriedly turned to look for Jiang Xun.

Whatever else happened, the production team's foremost priority was keeping these two young masters safe.

After all, either of their fathers was powerful enough to call the shots in Capital City.

Duan Qizhao was the Duan Corporation's sole heir, and Jiang Xun was the Jiang family's recently recovered biological son. If either of them lost so much as a hair, the entire production team would go down with him.