Before anyone realized it, the only high ground outside Wuling City was packed with people.
The torrential rain showed no sign of stopping. Cold wind drove the rain against their bodies, making their teeth chatter.
A woman knelt on the ground, a five- or six-year-old child clutched in her arms.
The child’s face was ashen, his lips an unhealthy grayish purple. His tiny body trembled like a leaf in the wind. Then, little by little, the trembling ceased.
“Doctor Liu! Please, look at my child! He suddenly stopped shaking—and he’s not crying anymore!”
The woman was frantic, tears streaming down her face. Still clutching her child, she crawled through the mud on her knees until she reached Military Physician Liu. She seized the hem of her robe, her eyes filled with desperate pleading.
“Don’t panic. Let me take a look.”
Military Physician Liu crouched down and pressed the side of the child’s neck. Then she took out silver needles and began acupuncture, her brows drawn tightly together.
“He’s suffering from hypothermia. We need to warm him up immediately.”
She looked around and called out, “Does anyone have spare clothes? We need to wrap him in as many layers as possible. Otherwise, a child this young won’t make it.”
A deathly silence fell over the crowd.
They had all narrowly escaped the flood. Everyone was dripping from head to toe, their lips pale with cold and their teeth chattering. No one was willing to remove the clothes from their own bodies. Almost instinctively, they all took half a step back.
Military Physician Liu pressed her lips together. Then she suddenly raised her hands and moved to undo her own top, but another pair of hands clamped down on them.
“Military Physician Liu, I don’t want your clothes!”
The woman raised her face. Rain and tears had merged into a miserable mess, and she clutched Military Physician Liu’s wrist so tightly that her knuckles turned faintly white.
“If you catch cold because of this, how am I supposed to live with myself?”
As a woman herself, she knew all too well.
For a woman to remove her clothes in public—at best, it would be considered improper. At worst, she would be deemed to have lost her chastity and reputation.
If Military Physician Liu took off her clothes today, not only might her life be ruined, but people would likely point fingers at her for the rest of her life. She might never be able to hold her head up again.
Tears welled up in the woman’s eyes once more.
“I know, Military Physician Liu. You’re a good person. You wanted to save my child. I’ll remember your kindness for the rest of my life!”
As she spoke, she pulled the child tightly against her and pressed her own icy cheek to his ashen face.
For a long while, no one spoke.
Then, a rustling sound suddenly came from within the crowd.
An old woman with completely white hair trembled as she removed the gray cloth jacket she was wearing. She then summoned all her strength to wring the water from it twice before holding it out.
“Put this on the little one.”
The woman accepted it with trembling hands. The fabric was cold and heavy, but the old woman’s kindness was blazing warm.
She wrapped the jacket around the child and raised her head, wanting to say something. But the old woman had already turned away. With her back hunched and her frail figure shivering in the wind, she was so thin and small—and yet she inspired profound respect.
The woman’s tears fell in large drops onto the child’s face. For a moment, she could not even describe what she was feeling.
Just then, someone approached.
The crowd automatically parted. A tall figure walked through the curtain of rain and stopped in front of the woman.
“General Shen?”
Shen Jue ignored the calls around him and silently removed the heavy armor from his body.
The iron armor struck the muddy ground with a dull thud.
Then he began undoing the battle robe beneath it.
When he reached the ties, his fingers paused.
It was not hesitation. The fabric was cold, wet, and stiff, and the knot had become soaked and hopelessly tight. He could only tear it apart, stripping off his shirt completely.
Rainwater streamed down his shoulders and shoulder blades, washing over the old and new scars that crisscrossed his back and making them appear all the more stark.
He handed the undergarment, still holding a trace of his body heat, to the woman.
“Wrap the child in it.”
The woman stared up at him, stunned.
She remembered this young general and had always been deeply impressed by him. He rarely spoke or smiled. Whenever he punished those who caused trouble or refused to obey, he showed no mercy. Everyone feared him, and she was no exception.
Shen Jue’s brows drew together at once, and he said sternly, “What are you waiting for? It’ll be soaked through if you don’t use it now.”
The woman hurriedly accepted the garment.
“Thank you, General Shen…”
The sound of hurried footsteps came from behind them. Pei Du pushed through the crowd, undoing his belt as he ran.
“I have clothes too!”
However, before he could reach the woman, several soldiers of the Northern Army blocked his way.
“Strategist Pei, you’re a scholar. How could your body possibly be as sturdy as those of us who train in martial arts?”
“Exactly. I’ve been thinking that this armor is only getting in the way in the water. I might as well take it off and use it to save someone!”
The soldiers began removing their armor and underclothes one after another.
Clothes were offered to the woman from every direction.
Some were thick, some thin. Some were dry, others soaked.
“Sister-in-law, hurry and wrap the child up.”
“Use mine. It’s thick.”
“Mine’s wet, but my wife made it for me. She sewed two layers together, so it’s very warm.”
“And mine…”
The woman’s arms gradually filled with clothes. She sobbed so hard she could barely catch her breath, and her trembling hands struggled to wrap the garments around the child.
Seeing this, a young soldier crouched down and clumsily helped her cover the child layer by layer.
Military Physician Liu performed acupuncture once more. At last, a faint flush of color slowly returned to the child’s grayish lips. His weak breathing steadied, and his eyelashes trembled.
“He’s alive. He’s alive! Thank you all!”
Holding her child, who had regained consciousness, the woman could not stop her tears.
“Thank you… You’re all good people…”
Her sobs of joy were like a narrow shaft of sunlight breaking through at the end of a storm, shining across the rain-soaked faces of everyone present and giving them another sliver of hope.
Shen Jue glanced at the child, his gaze softening.
“Leave one unit on the hill to protect the civilians,” he ordered as he walked away. “The rest of you, come with me. We’re going back down to rescue them. We cannot abandon a single person!”
Before his words had even faded, he was already the first to step into the water.
The flood instantly rose to his waist.
Behind him, the water churned loudly as the soldiers entered one after another.
The water grew deeper and faster.
In the distance, an old man clinging to half of a rooftop caught sight of the dark figures moving through the flood. His voice was hoarse as he cried out,
“Help…”
Two soldiers swam over and rescued the old man, who was clinging to a roof beam with lips purple from the cold. As they supported him between them and swam back, he continued muttering,
“My granddaughter is still back there.”
When Shen Jue heard this, he tied a rope around his waist and waded against the current for several yards. Behind an overturned cabinet, he found a little girl curled into a ball and hauled her out.
Across the murky surface of the floodwaters, the soldiers of the Northern Army moved as though they never tired. They went back and forth, rescuing dozens more people.
One soldier looked at his pale-faced comrade.
“If you’re tired, stop going. I can manage on my own.”
The other man merely grinned.
“My body-tempering arts are better than yours. If you’re not tired, why should I be?”
The two men plunged into the water once more.
Before long, nearly all the civilians trapped within the city had been brought by the Northern Army to the relatively safe high ground.
Just as Shen Jue was about to order a retreat, a flash flood surged forward without warning, as though it intended to swallow everything in its path.
“Run—quickly, run!” he growled.
