The wind roared past Yun Shu’s ears. Torrential rain poured from the sky, yet not a single drop landed on her. Beneath her, the lower-lying mountains had been almost completely swallowed by the floodwaters.
When she flew over Wuling City, she looked down.
Most likely, by the time Little Fox had returned to report to her, the flood had already surged over Wuling’s low city walls, swallowing its streets and rooftops. The entire city had been transformed into a river stretching as far as the eye could see, littered with floating beams, doors, children’s tiger-head shoes, and one silent corpse after another.
Just as Little Fox had said, the flood had come far too suddenly. It had caught not only her off guard, but probably the people of Wuling as well. Perhaps before the disaster struck, they had still been celebrating the fact that the Northern Frontier Army was helping rebuild Wuling City, believing that they would soon be able to live the good lives they had dreamed of.
No one had expected that, after surviving wars and famine, they would ultimately lose their lives to a flood.
Yun Shu clenched both hands into fists, her fingernails digging deeply into her palms, yet she seemed unable to feel the pain.
She had never been surprised that such a day would come. What she had not expected was for it to arrive so soon.
From beginning to end, her enemies had never been anyone in this fictional world. They were natural disasters, the feudal system, the harsh conditions of survival—and that lofty Lord God!
She had figured it out.
This flood was the Lord God’s warning to her. It was probably trying to tell her that no matter how she changed other people’s fates, everything remained within its control. It could effortlessly turn everything she had done into nothing, erasing it as though it had never existed.
At that moment, many things that had once puzzled her no longer did. She now had answers.
Why hadn’t the Lord God chosen people who had committed countless evil deeds to bind with the system and carry out missions? The greatest possibility was that it wasn’t necessarily because of merit. Rather, such people usually possessed extremely strong self-awareness and little sense of morality. The possibility of taming them was practically zero.
As for why a dress-up system that collected Shock Points to draw outfits, with every outfit granting miraculous, godlike abilities, would assign missions centered around winning over the male lead…
That had puzzled her as well.
It wasn’t until Little Fox mentioned that Shen Jue was affected by the romantic storyline arranged by the Lord God that she finally understood.
If the person being won over could be influenced, then the person doing the winning certainly couldn’t escape either. It was only because she had been lucky enough to encounter Little Fox, the best system ever, that so many troubles had been blocked on her behalf.
The Lord God’s ultimate goal was to absorb this fictional world—one that had been refined from falsehood into reality—into its own possession. Naturally, it had to eliminate every potential risk and prevent the people carrying out its missions from causing trouble.
Thus, it had established the missions to win over the male lead. As long as those bound to the system chose to pursue the male lead, the Lord God could influence both the pursuer and the one being pursued, making them place love above everything else and ensuring that they would never develop any desire to fight for power.
Without question, the Lord God’s methods were simply a disguised test of obedience. It wanted everyone to follow the path it had laid out and refine this fictional world into reality.
The farther she went into the city, the more desolate the scene became.
The signboard of an apothecary jutted crookedly out of the water. Of the four characters meaning “saving lives through medicine,” only the final character, “world,” remained barely recognizable after being soaked.
The shop door hung half-open, and countless medicinal herbs drifted out from within.
An old physician floated past, clutching a drawer from his medicine cabinet.
The drawer was completely empty, yet he still held on to it as though it were the last thing he had left to hold on to in this life.
Several bloated, pale corpses drifted past nearby. Their arms remained raised, frozen in the posture they had assumed at the final moment of their lives—the posture of parents trying to lift their children above the water.
Seeing this, Yun Shu wanted desperately to save them as well. But she was not a god. She could not bring the dead back to life.
Suddenly, the fierce sound of war drums tore through the air.
She spun around and looked toward the sound.
On the only patch of high ground remaining near Wuling City, the bright red banner of the Northern Frontier Army snapped in the wind. Beside it stood a tall, straight figure, sturdy as a pine. Braving the pouring rain, he swung a drumstick again and again, striking the drumhead with heavy, powerful blows.
The drumbeat was bleak, but not despairing. Instead, it gave the people struggling in the floodwaters below a glimmer of hope. As long as they followed the sound of the drums, they could reach the high ground and survive.
At the same time, the soldiers held their spears horizontally, allowing the civilians to grip the shafts as they waded through the rushing water.
One officer tucked a child whose voice had been hoarse from crying inside the armor over his chest. He carried an old man through water that reached his chest, each step sinking into the mud before he pulled himself free with all his strength.
The reins of the horses had been tied together into a long rope. Dozens of soldiers stood in the raging floodwaters, using their bodies to form a human dam while the civilians clung to their shoulders and arms and made their way across one after another.
“Quickly!”
“Everyone, retreat to the slope marked by the Northern Frontier Army’s banner!”
The hoarse shouts pierced through the sound of the rain.
The civilians supported one another as they streamed toward the hillside.
A huge wave struck without warning. A young woman carrying a swaddled infant was climbing the stone steps when her foot slipped, sending both her and the child tumbling into the water.
The water was not deep, but the path beneath it was slick. She could not keep her footing. After finally managing to get back up, she fell again.
The swaddling slipped from her hands, and the floodwaters were about to carry the baby away. Her eyes widened in terror as she tried to rush after her child.
“No! Don’t! My child!”
A nearby soldier reacted swiftly. First, he held the young woman back. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he lunged into the water and scooped up the baby. A wave flung him far away, and his back slammed into a large rock, causing him to spit out a mouthful of blood.
When he braced himself and crawled back up, he did not even have time to check his own injuries. He immediately lowered his head to look at the swaddled infant in his arms.
The child opened its round eyes and began to wail.
Only then did the soldier let out a breath of relief.
“The baby’s fine. The baby’s fine…”
He returned the swaddled child to the young woman.
Clutching her recovered baby, the young woman dropped to her knees with a thud and repeatedly kowtowed to the soldier.
The soldier hurriedly crouched down, cupped her arms in both hands, and helped her up.
“Stop bowing! Hurry and go!”
After sending the young woman away, he returned to the line and continued using his body to hold back the floodwaters for the civilians.
“You’ve stolen the credit again.”
Hearing the teasing from the soldier beside him, who was trying to make light of their bitter situation, the soldier who had rescued the baby replied helplessly, “Then you do it next time. I’ll hold the line here and let you earn some credit too.”
“Forget it. I don’t want any credit. I only hope everyone can make it safely through this damned flood.”
The surging water continued to batter their bodies, yet they remained standing in place, never moving an inch.
Yun Shu’s eyes grew moist before she even realized it.
These soldiers of the Northern Frontier Army were nothing more than ordinary people whose physiques had been strengthened by body-tempering techniques. Yet in this moment of crisis, every one of them had stepped forward, becoming the guardian deities of the people in her place.
They had never simply waited for her to come and save them. They had always been doing everything they could to save themselves and others.
And yet Heaven itself seemed determined to cut off their path, refusing to leave even the slightest chance of survival for these people who were fighting with all their might to stay alive.
