Yun Shu rarely saw Little Fox react so violently. Her heart gave a jolt, and she suddenly had a terrible premonition.
“Lil' Sys, what happened?”
Little Fox came tumbling and scrambling to Yun Shu’s feet, its four paws frantically pawing at the floor twice.
“Host, it’s a flood! It’s so scary!”
Yun Shu’s brows drew tightly together. The hint of languor in her voice vanished without a trace. “A flood? Wuling City has had even less rainfall than usual this year. There hasn’t been a tsunami in the South Sea, and the water levels haven’t risen at all. Why would there be a flood?”
“Host, I don’t know either! Everything was fine in Wuling City when I checked the surveillance this morning. Just now, when you told me to find Little Blue and deliver the Body-Tempering Pill to it, I ran into a flash flood on my way back!”
“It came completely out of nowhere. It burst in through the mountain valley to the west and flooded all the way into Wuling City, washing away more than half of the city walls!”
Little Fox spun anxiously in place, its fluffy tail swishing restlessly. “The crops Feng Chunya and the others had just planted were completely swept away. Even the little fishing village you saved has been submerged. I rushed back to warn you and didn’t have time to help those villagers!”
At that, Yun Shu knew there had to be something suspicious about this sudden, unheralded flood. But the situation was urgent, and she asked no further questions. She changed into Wan Liuyun and flew out of the divine temple.
Little Fox hurried after her, its expression frantic as it said, “Host, the worst-hit place should be Great Bay Fishing Village. Although Feng Chunya brought a large number of the Northern Frontier troops to reclaim farmland nearby, they’re still ordinary mortals made of flesh and blood, and they don’t have any modern rescue equipment. There’s no way they can withstand a flood of this magnitude. If you don’t go save them, they’ll all drown!”
The return portal of the Mirror of Reversal was still cooling down, so Yun Shu could only use the system space to teleport to Great Bay Fishing Village.
Invisible and suspended high in the air, she opened the system wardrobe and changed into the Nine Heavens Mystical Sound set without hesitation.
The set’s Riverlands Panorama skill was the most useful large-scale protective skill among all her outfits.
But it had a cooldown, so she had to use it carefully.
After changing clothes, she looked down and racked her brain, rapidly considering how to use the Riverlands Panorama to save as many people as possible.
Great Bay Fishing Village had vanished completely from sight.
The neat rows of houses, the bamboo racks hung with fishing nets, and the vegetable plots lining the hillsides were all submerged beneath the churning, muddy-yellow floodwaters.
Broken beams floated on the murky surface, along with uprooted tree trunks tangled with scraps of cloth and fishing line.
“Why haven’t I seen a single person?” Yun Shu’s heart sank, and her mood grew heavier by the second. “Could I have arrived too late? Are all the villagers already dead?”
“There! Host, look over there! There are people!” Little Fox suddenly pricked up its ears and pointed toward the southeast with one paw.
Yun Shu followed its gaze.
Where the water met the sky, a massive dark-blue figure was cutting through the waves.
It was a blue whale!
Its broad back was like a floating island, and its dark-blue skin stood out sharply against the muddy floodwaters.
Its back was packed with people.
Elderly men, women, children, and young men were all huddled together. Some were barefoot, while others wore nothing more than a thin shirt. They were soaked to the skin, their lips purple with cold.
An old man held two children tightly in his arms, using his thin, bony body to shield them from the waves crashing toward them.
Feng Chunya stood at the highest point of the whale’s back. Her armor was coated in mud and water, and her left arm was wrapped in a strip of cloth torn off in haste, dark-red blood seeping through it. She appeared to be seriously injured.
“Everyone, move toward the middle! Don’t crowd the edges! Hold on to the children!”
Only after settling the villagers on the whale’s back did she turn toward the water and continue searching for anyone who had not yet been rescued.
Suddenly, a weak cry for help rang out.
It was a young man.
He clung desperately to a wooden basin with his left hand. A little girl of three or four sat inside it, crying so hard that her face had turned red. Her tiny hands gripped the rim, mud packed beneath her fingernails.
The man paddled frantically with one hand, trying to move toward the blue whale, but he was not a strong swimmer. Every time a wave struck, it pushed him three feet backward.
Seeing this, Feng Chunya clenched both fists.
“Give me the rope!”
The deputy general beside her could not help trying to dissuade her. “General Feng, you injured your left arm rescuing civilians earlier. That father and daughter are far too distant from the whale, and the current is too strong. Our rope will definitely snap under the strain. If that happens, you won’t be able to save them, and you’ll end up sacrificing yourself as well!”
Feng Chunya stared fixedly at the wooden basin bobbing on the water and the man who was nearly submerged.
She clenched her teeth, her voice turning hoarse. “I can’t stand by and watch civilians suffer right in front of me!”
As she spoke, she stripped off her armor, seized the hemp rope from the deputy general, and swiftly wrapped it twice around her waist before tying a secure knot.
Then she shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow and plunged headfirst into the filthy current.
The instant she entered the water, muddy water poured into her nose and mouth. Feng Chunya held her breath and fought her way through the waves, swimming desperately toward the father and daughter.
At last, her hand reached the edge of the wooden basin.
“Don’t be afraid. I’ll save you!”
She scooped the little girl out of the basin and pressed her against her chest. With one hand, she untied the rope from her waist and swiftly wrapped it twice around the girl, binding the two of them securely together.
When she finished, she shouted toward the man in the water.
“Give me your hand!”
The man summoned every last bit of his strength to stretch out his arm, but he had been soaked and battered until he was weak with exhaustion. His lips were bluish-white, and his eyes were red-rimmed. Water streamed down from his wet hair, mingling with his tears until the two were impossible to distinguish.
He spoke in broken fragments. “General… please… take the child… Don’t worry about me… I… I can’t hold on any longer…”
Feng Chunya did not let go.
“The Northern Frontier Army will never abandon a single person!”
She clung tightly to the father, whose life was about to be torn away by the floodwaters, and fought the raging current with all the strength in her body. Inch by inch, she swam back toward the blue whale.
With every inch she advanced, the rope around her waist tightened another degree, cutting into the flesh beneath her clothes.
Everyone on the whale’s back watched the scene in the water with their hearts in their throats, holding their breath for Feng Chunya.
The deputy general was the first to react.
She lunged to the edge of the whale’s back and seized the hemp rope, which had been pulled taut as a bowstring. Gripping it with both hands, she hauled it toward herself hand over hand. The muscles in her arms bulged, and the veins on the backs of her hands stood out all the way to her forearms.
“What are you all standing around for? Pull the rope!”
Her shout jolted everyone into action.
The Northern Frontier troops moved first, but even the gaunt villagers from the fishing village rushed forward.
They all grabbed hold of the same rope.
“One, two, three—pull!”
The deputy general called out the rhythm. Every time she shouted, everyone heaved together, dragging the rope back by a short length.
