Peerless Beauty – Chapter 79

Rescue (2)

A city of death

The earth collapses, the mountains crumble, and the warriors die, then the sky ladders and stone paths connect each other.

When consciousness was clear, Jian Qing was in a half-awake, half-asleep state, and heard Zhang Qin and several teammates discussing in low voices: “Just now, the mountain collapsed, and the mudslide directly buried a vehicle of the People’s Liberation Army.”

She suddenly thought of that line of poetry from 《The Difficulty of the Shu Road》.

Last week, in the 《Ancient Poetry Appreciation》 elective class, she and the students had just analyzed and appreciated this poem.

She had once stayed in the land of Shu for twelve years, spending her primary and middle school years there.

In the previous weeks, while making course materials, she perused the obscure and difficult-to-understand poems and subconsciously included 《The Difficulty of the Shu Road》 upon seeing it.

She recalled the time in middle school when the language teacher often said: the meaning of poetry lies in the ability to blurt out precise descriptions when seeing similar scenes and experiences. Although a thousand years or ten thousand years may pass, although the sea changes into mulberry fields and the world changes, ancient people and present people share the same mood.

Ancient people and present people share the same mood.

At 6:15, it rained again.

The sky was densely covered with black clouds, visibility was still very low, and fine rain passed through the forest, hitting the face. A young nurse opened her mouth to catch the rainwater.

Their supply bags originally contained five bottles of mineral water. To make room for medicine, everyone threw out three bottles, bringing only two bottles of mineral water on foot.

Her water was already finished.

Jian Qing saw this and threw her remaining bottle of mineral water over, reminding her, “Besides mineral water, do not drink unboiled water these days.”

There is a folk saying: after a big disaster, there must be a big epidemic.

This means that the sanitation conditions in disaster areas are backward, making an outbreak of infectious diseases highly possible.

The epidemic control and anti-epidemic teams from within the province and neighboring provinces should have already set off and are on the way.

Their hospital’s first batch sent out is the vanguard team, consisting either of professional backbones from various departments or medical staff with rich aid experience, needing to establish and carry out rescue activities immediately.

The second batch to follow must bring logistics supplies to support the first batch of teammates and consider post-disaster epidemic prevention and psychological intervention. Personnel will be drawn from public health and psychology professionals.

Fifteen minutes passed, and Zhang Qin shook each comatose teammate awake: “Everyone, wake up, wake up! Get up and continue on the road!”

She hadn’t closed her eyes for a full sixteen hours and didn’t dare to. She needed to be attentive to aftershock situations at all times. Along the way, she instructed teammates to contact their families, but she had no time to contact her own.

Jian Qing helped her call and pull each person up, over thirty team members, supporting each other, continued to climb mountains and cross ridges.

As the sky was just barely light, many army green helicopters hovered above them.

Hearing the sound, everyone looked up and discussed, “They want to drop paratroopers in.”

“The climate conditions are too bad, landing in such a place will cause deaths.”

“Even if people die, there is no other way. Right now, we don’t even know how many have died.”

Along the way, they encountered many refugees fleeing the disaster, covered in dust, supporting the old and carrying the young, hastily escaping.

Some people had wounds on their bodies that were already rotting and smelling bad. The medical team stopped to distribute masks, perform simple treatments on their wounds, remind them of some epidemic prevention matters, inquire about some news from B County, provide some medicine, and then continued on their way.

During the golden rescue time, as every minute and second passed, the refugees along the way said that B County was already in ruins, all the houses had collapsed, no one could be rescued, everyone had died, and going there was of no use.

But the medical team still had to go, to personally confirm the situation and rescue those buried under the ruins. The golden seventy-two hours had not yet passed, and there must still be survivors under the ruins.

Dozens of kilometers of mountain roads, climbing mountains and crossing ridges, team members fainted several times, walking in the rain for more than ten hours, from night to day, and then from day to night, finally reaching their destination.

At six in the evening, in the twenty-eighth hour after the quake, the medical team limped in and saw the county town flattened to the ground.

The sky was dark.

The empty county town had no lights, no sound, just dead silence, only their flashlights flickering back and forth, only their loud calls:

“Is anyone there? We are the Jiangzhou City medical team!”

“Is anyone nearby?”

“Hello! Is anyone there?”

Their voices echoed in the empty county town, the distant hillside still faintly trembling, the road lined with scattered bodies.

Jian Qing reminded everyone: “Do not walk under dangerous buildings to look; aftershocks can occur at any time.”

An attending doctor from the emergency department squatted down, looked over a roadside corpse, with tearful eyes blurred, and said, “None have vital signs…”

Someone cried and asked, “Are there any living people we can rescue?”

They climbed mountains and crossed ridges to arrive, seeing a dead city.

Zhang Qin comforted everyone’s emotions: “Don’t cry, let’s go forward and see, go to the school, go to the mall, go to crowded places, there must still be living people!”

They walked further along the road, seeing no intact houses, the air filled with a foul smell, as far as the eye could see, just broken walls and ruins.

Further on, they gradually heard some weak sounds, and everyone, limping, quickened their pace.

Under the broken walls and ruins, some were crying, some calling for help, some groaning in pain, while others were already silent in death.

In the face of nature, humans are as small and fragile as ants.

A team member walking ahead suddenly shouted: “Someone! There are People’s Liberation Army soldiers!”

The first thing in view was a sea of green, soldiers in green military uniforms, carrying iron shovels, wearing gloves, digging on the ruins.

Everyone wearing white gloves had their palms stained red with blood.

With roads impassable, large rescue equipment couldn’t come in, the People’s Liberation Army and surviving people, regardless of their own wounds, dug with bloodstained hands.

In front of the pile of ruins stood many dust-covered people, their faces and bodies marked with bloodstains. Seeing doctors in white coats, they all rushed over, with cries and shouts for help merging into one.

“Doctor! Save my child!”

“Doctor, please, save my child!”

“Doctor, my child is inside, please help me look at her!”

The army sent people to liaise with Zhang Qin, introducing the situation here: “This is a primary school, and inside are students without the ability to rescue themselves. When we arrived, the local county government and student parents had already organized rescue work here. After we arrived, we also began rescue efforts starting with the school.”

Zhang Qin asked, “What about the situation with local medical institutions and medicine?”

The task their medical team received was to station in the local county hospital, enter local villages, and assist in conducting rescue work.

“Local medical staff suffered over 80% casualties. The county government sent people to the hospital and pharmacy ruins to rescue and dig out a batch of medicine. At noon, a batch of navy medical troops was stationed. The county hospital is gone, and everyone is working in constructed temporary tents to carry out treatment.”

The People’s Liberation Army troops and military medical troops from the province all advanced into the disaster area within 24 hours after the quake.

Roads were cut off, and communication severed, turning this place into a solitary city. The first batch of troops all walked in on foot, and almost all soldiers and military doctors were in a limping state.

The situation was far more severe than expected.

“There are several villages nearby, but during the earthquake, two mountains simultaneously compressed into one mountain, and the entire village disappeared.”

Zhang Qin was silent for half a second and then instructed the team members: “Set up tents, move the medicine inside. Next, we will divide into temporary departments: the party office, the medical department, the pharmacy department, internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, and gynecology. Each department will have one person in charge, responsible for leading the medical staff to immediately carry out the treatment work for the injured…”

Initially, before the People’s Liberation Army arrived, the local area had no tents or supplies.

Everyone picked bricks, columns, and white cloth from the ruins to temporarily set up several shelters. They moved several tables, and on the tables stood a piece of corrugated paper, where they wrote with a black marker “County People’s Government,” “County People’s Congress,” “County Party Committee.” Inside the shelters were dug-up mineral water and instant noodles, distributed to the surviving disaster victims.

The First Affiliated Hospital medical team set up temporary tents right beside these shelters.

Zhang Qin picked up a piece of wood, took a red flag from his pocket, hung it properly, and stood it in front of the tent.

Jian Qing picked up a piece of wood from the ruins and wrote the words “Temporary Medical Rescue Point” and “Jiangzhou University’s First Affiliated Hospital Party Branch.”

After setting up the tents, the medical team, enduring hunger, thirst, and fatigue, began to admit patients.

The People’s Liberation Army carried one child after another out of the ruins, their whole bodies stained with blood.

There is no electricity here, no instruments, so they can only use their hands to feel and rely on experience to judge the injuries; although departments are said to be divided, most cases are crush injuries and compression injuries, and everyone has become emergency medical staff.

Their water and food have already been completely consumed. Zhang Qin managed to get some compressed biscuits and mineral water from the People’s Liberation Army and gave them to the team members to eat.

Local refugees saw this and threw instant noodles and mineral water into their tents.

They originally intended to give these to the People’s Liberation Army face-to-face, but since the People’s Liberation Army does not eat things from the common people, the locals learned to throw them directly into their tents.

Jian Qing and a doctor from anesthesiology were sent to the frontline rescue scene, responsible for the emergency treatment of critically ill patients, judging the injuries of children whose heads were exposed from the ruins, establishing airways, or establishing intravenous access, infusing to fight infection and treat shock, waiting for the People’s Liberation Army to dig them out, then moving them to the temporary treatment point, where the surgical team would judge whether amputation or other surgery was needed.

Facing the scene directly means facing death directly.

The hollow slabs of the teaching building were lifted by the People’s Liberation Army, and inside were children’s bodies in various postures, limbs incomplete, faces swollen and pale.

Surrounding parents cried heart-wrenchingly, constantly calling their children’s names.

Jian Qing sat on a stone, silently watching all this.

Beside her was a female doctor, a surviving doctor from the county hospital, whose daughter was also a student at this school. Her daughter’s body had just been dug out; she only went to look once, then returned to the rescue scene to continue her work.

The author has something to say:

This month, I went on several business trips and accumulated a lot of compensatory leave. Next month, with May Day, I will take about half a month off. I won’t be going out to play; I’ll stay home to update and also try to challenge myself to update daily continuously, as compensation for this month’s intermittent updates. Thank you all for your continuous support.