Chapter 163

Bai Manshan had genuinely thought he was doomed.

Truly.

He couldn’t swim, the mountains were too far away, and his horse had been swept away by the floodwaters. In this overwhelming flood, who else but him would die?

Fortunately, fate had a different plan, or perhaps it was a case of good deeds being rewarded. He had not expected that his instinctive dash towards the village, shouting warnings before the flood hit, would save his own life.

The man beside him, a burly fellow named Hong Daniu, stared vacantly at the roaring floodwaters and spoke honestly, “I can swim, most people in our village can;

But swimming didn’t help. The water was too powerful, with nothing to grab onto. Just when I thought I was going to die, I grabbed hold of something.

It was a door plank. I clung to the door plank and swam towards the distant mountains, but then I saw you sinking in the water.”

“I didn’t want to save you initially. You’re not from my village, and I don’t know you. In a situation like this, who cares about anyone else?

But then it hit me that the only person who could be this close and unfamiliar at this time must be the one who woke us up that night. How could I not save you?”

He couldn’t not save him.

Even if he couldn’t save himself, he had to save the person who had saved them first.

“Fortunately, the door plank was just enough to support you too. I pushed the plank and used its buoyancy, spending half a day drifting with the current until I finally got us both to this hillside.”

“Thank you.” Bai Manshan expressed his heartfelt gratitude.

Hong Daniu’s face remained expressionless, unresponsive.

The rain continued to pour, relentlessly beating down on them.

Bai Manshan felt the sting of the rain and turned to look at Hong Daniu, who still had a blank expression. Something felt off to him, so he tried to make conversation, “Are you married?”

Without any change in his expression, Hong Daniu suddenly burst into tears.

He cried out loud, shaking uncontrollably, unable to stop.

Bai Manshan understood.

He didn’t offer words of comfort but waited silently, until Hong Daniu’s loud cries turned into soft sobs. He then handed him a roasted potato.

It was something he had roasted in the stove at Bai Family Village while waiting for the villagers to evacuate.

The mountains had firewood, and the firewood in Sun Zhuangtou’s house couldn’t all be taken away. He thought it would be a waste, so he roasted the small bag of potatoes he carried with him.

Potatoes were better than dry rations, tasty, easy to carry, and convenient to eat. Steamed, boiled, or roasted, they were good in any form. When he traveled, he always carried some salt, hid some silver, and took potatoes with him.

After roasting, he had eaten a few to fill his stomach and put the rest in a small cloth bag tied to his belt.

The horse had been swept away, and everything hanging on the saddle was gone, but he still had the salt and the gold and silver pieces hidden on him.

Luckily, Hong Daniu was an honest man.

“Eat. We need our strength to find them.”

Hong Daniu felt like crying again.

The adults could swim, but his wife and child couldn’t, especially the child who was so small.

He didn’t take the food, staring at the still-raging floodwaters, mumbling, “It’s impossible. The water is so high, higher than the houses;

In the daylight, I looked around and saw nothing but water. No people, just the two of us, and no place to land. I had to keep drifting with the current;

Do you understand? I can’t see my house, can’t see the familiar village. They’re all gone. I struggled so hard to float to this mountain.”

He didn’t mention that he had later seen several bodies floating towards him. He had turned them over to check, relieved that they weren’t from his village, but also more worried.

Other villages had been hit by the flood too!

So many people had died, including his own family, small and insignificant like grains of sand.

But they were his wife and child, his parents, siblings… They had all gone to sleep the previous night, dreaming of waking up to a sunny day. How could everything be gone when they woke up again?

He was the only one left…

Bai Manshan didn’t know how to comfort.

At times like this, any words of consolation felt feeble.

After a moment of silence, he said, “Regardless of whether they are still here or not, once the flood recedes, we’ll go search for them! If they’re still alive, we continue to live our lives well. If not, we’ll give them a proper burial. You can stay with me, and I’ll find a place for you to live.”

Hong Daniu, his eyes red, looked at Bai Manshan beside him.

He knew Bai Manshan was a good person, a very good person, otherwise he wouldn’t have warned them about the flood despite the danger.

Thinking about how his wife and child were gone, he didn’t feel like living anymore. But what Bai Manshan said was right—they needed to ensure a proper burial first before they could move on.

Seeing Hong Daniu reach for the potato, Bai Manshan sighed in relief.

As long as there was still an appetite, still emotional fluctuations, there was a will to live.

Before, Hong Daniu had a wooden expression, showing no desire to live.

Though things weren’t great now, at least he wouldn’t seek death for the time being.

“Don’t worry, I can arrange a place for you to live, not far from here, right on this land.”

“When the flood recedes, I’ll find out who your employer is. If they’re willing to sell this land, I’ll buy it.”

“If you don’t want to stay here because of painful memories, I can arrange for you to go somewhere else. Either way, we have to live well.”

…

Rain pounded on their faces painfully. Bai Manshan gnawed on the cold, soggy baked potato, thinking he must survive.

He hadn’t seen Huyu or Qian’er yet. He couldn’t die.

Huyu was in Nandu, where there wouldn’t be such floods. She should be fine.

He didn’t know about Qian’er.

He had planned to see the Bai family and hurry to see Qian’er, but an accident happened midway. Not seeing her even once left him uneasy.

…

The torrential rain lasted four days and five nights, finally showing signs of easing on the fifth morning.

The dam at the entrance of Shanshui Village was almost as tall as the houses, and the farther back they went, the more fearful everyone became.

Thinking about the bodies in the water, they couldn’t sleep well at night, fearing the raging flood would breach the dam and inundate the village with corpses.

Luckily, the rain seemed to be subsiding.

By the afternoon, the rain had stopped, and the sky was gradually clearing up.

The old village chief came out trembling with his cane.

“Dad, it just stopped raining, the roads are slippery. What if you slip?” Li Wen followed closely, holding onto his father and cautioning him.

Li Wu hurried over from the other side to support him, not bothering to argue.

His father wouldn’t rest until he had seen the condition of the village, and there was no point in trying to persuade him.

The road, washed out by the torrential rain, was covered with branches, leaves, and dry grass, along with mud from the ditches.

Yet everyone in the village, young and old, men and women, had come out, craning their necks and standing on tiptoe to look into the distance.

Seeing the old village chief emerge, they seemed to find their backbone and began asking anxiously, “Old village chief, is it true what Uncle Ding said about a plague after the flood?”

“Will it affect our village?”

“Why would there be a plague?”