Living meant hope; you can’t take away anything when you die. A broken house can be rebuilt, but a dead person is forever lost, along with what he owned.
Wearing the pair of shoes that didn’t fit too well, Lu Jin led a group of people on a search for survivors, saving the lives of many.
The dark sky foreshadowed rain—doubtlessly a hindrance to the rescue mission, yet the prospect of water gave the survivors hope.
They need water. And food.
Yan Huan’s bag was empty by now, all the edibles in it long expended. They had been working on the rescue mission since the day before, a job that was extremely physically-demanding. They were all famished by now, and the lack of water wasn’t helping.
Yan Huan licked her cracked lips. Her throat was parched. She needed a drink. Even river water would do. She had never been this thirsty throughout both of her lives.
She looked up, her eyes slightly dazed. Without water, she thought, we might not make it. The healthy ones might be fine in the absence of water, but what about the casualties? It hadn’t been an easy effort to rescue them. Were they going to lose them to the water shortage?
Suddenly, she saw something falling from the sky. She looked up with difficulty—and realized she was right. Airdrops were falling from the sky.
The bags of items kept coming from the sky, dropping to vacant land so that no one would get injured. Yan Huan opened a bag and discovered food and water.
“We have food and water!” cheered the others in high spirits.
“Distribute the food and water, the wounded first. The ones who can still move, bear with it for now, you’ll get your turn,” commanded Lu Yi. He trusted that everyone knew the priorities at this dire moment.
Indeed, the healthy ones began to nurse the wounded after collecting food and water, feeding it to them in tiny sips while they themselves abstained.
Yan Huan took out a bottle of water from the bag and joined them, carefully feeding sprawling casualties. When she had hydrated all of them, she passed a bottle of water and a pack of cup noodles to Lu Jin.
They were beyond hungry and thirsty.
Throughout her two lives, Yan Huan had never found cup noodles this tasty. She hadn’t had cup noodles in a long time, and it was so delicious right now that she was nearly brought to tears.
She gulped down a piece of dry cup noodles, but the hard bits scraped at her throat. She quickly drank a mouthful of water, but that didn’t stop her from coughing violently.
Lu Jin held out his hand and patted her back gently.
“Slowly. It’s all yours.”
“I’m hungry,” said Yan Huan, taking another bite out of the cup noodles. “This tastes so good, Dad. I’m going to host a cup noodles party when we get back! I’ll stir-fry it, boil it, roast it, steam it, braise it…Nah, actually I think it’ll taste best with hot water.”
The thought of cup-noodles with hot water made her drool. At a moment like this, she wasn’t thinking of feasts and delicacies, but a bowl of cup-noodles cooked with hot water.
“Alright. Mom will cook the noodles when we get back,” said Lu Jin, taking a bite out of the cup noodles himself. Sure enough, it tasted amazing. He hasn’t tasted such tasty cup noodles in years too.
He was well aware that the wonderful taste came from the hope of survival and the much-anticipated food, not the cup noodles itself.
Not a single person slacked off when they were done eating. Everyone got up and continued searching for survivors; the people buried down there could be their kins, their parents, their children, or their cousins and siblings.
Soon, another round of airdrops came. Bottom line, they had food and water now. However, rain fell at around noon, followed by a minor aftershock.
Yan Huan began propping up the tents she found in the airdrops for the young, old, and wounded.
They had saved even more people than what they expected, and the tents filled up fast, leaving more to combat the elements.
Yan Huan was thoroughly drenched in the cold rain of the season. She was placing her hand on her forehead when she saw Lu Jin approaching with an apologetic look.
Yan Huan gave him a big grin to show that she’s fine. She was young, and she could endure more than this.
Suddenly, something caught her eye. She ran into the rain, pulling out a waterproof cloth from the ground. If they hung this up, it could shelter more people from the rain. The others soon caught on and aided her in dragging out the enormous piece of waterproof cloth.
A few people hung the cloth up and secured it in place. The large and thick cloth sheltered the people below it from the heavy rain, but the drenched ones could do nothing but endure in their sodden clothes.
And the rain kept falling.
“Let’s continue searching. We can’t just stay here forever,” said Lu Jin. Many casualties were waiting for their aid—they couldn’t just stay here and hope for something to happen.
Lu Jin led another group off to search for more survivors. Yan Huan joined them. She couldn’t sit around either.
The incessant rain made everyone’s heart leaden, each drop hitting like an icicle.
“Survivor here!” shouted a person frantically.
Lu Jin went to him and saw a man with his leg pinned down by a stone slab.
A few men extricated him with sticks and similar objects, but the man’s leg… Yan Huan turned away. She couldn’t look. The man’s leg was a bloody mess. Even if he lived, an amputation awaited him. His leg was broken, and the ground was bestrewn with pieces of his flesh. Even his bones were visible.
It was a terrible sight.
Yan Huan looked up, allowing the rain to brush across her face. This was the first time she realized how helpless she was before the wrath of nature. She cried, her tears mingling with the rain as they rolled off her cheeks.