Rebirth 08: Equipment God

Chapter 455 Light Green! Dark Green!
How can you describe heavy rain without actually writing about it?
Zhai Da didn't know that; all he knew was that he was about to reach his limit.
He was soaked to the bone, his telekinesis was running at full capacity, and he even had to use his hands to plug the two holes.

Although the breach was worsening irreversibly, he knew that if he withdrew, the dam would collapse instantly.

Zhai Da thought to himself: I'm really something else, I'm holding off this flood all by myself!
Seven or eight minutes had passed since I called Li Kangda. I was on patrol, and if the response was quick, the people nearby should be arriving soon.

Wang Xue, the mute girl, regained some strength and followed us over at some point. She looked down from the riverbank with a worried expression.

Even someone with little experience can guess what happened below.

Zhai Da shouted, "Don't stand there, it's not safe! Pick up the flashlight, head east, and lead the way! Someone will be here to help soon!"

After hesitating for a moment, Wang Xue picked up the flashlight and stumbled eastward.

The mud and exhaustion caused this already physically weak girl to fall heavily, but she got up without hesitation and continued running.

Sure enough, several car lights appeared below in the darkness. Wang Xue tried to turn on her flashlight, only to find that it was no longer working, so she started waving her hands frantically.

But in the pitch black, there was no one to be seen.

The subconscious sign language gestures resembled the most pitiful pantomime in the rainy night.

She suddenly realized that she had managed to do even a simple shout.

She had never hated being mute so much.

"Yeah"

After seven or eight attempts, finally, the vocal cords, riddled with holes, unleashed the loudest volume of their lives.

"Ah!!! Ah!!! Ya!!!!"

It was unpleasant to hear, hoarse, and filled with the static of a torn vocal cord, but it finally caught the attention of the people below.

"There! There's someone there!"

Li Kangda climbed up using both hands and feet, and Wang Xue led the way, with seven or eight people rushing towards the riverbank where Zhai Da was.

The county magistrate looked down:
"Mr. Zhai! What are you doing down there! It's too dangerous, come up quickly!!!"

This river has breached its banks; no one can stop it like this. Do you think this is magic?!
Zhai Da: "Stop talking nonsense, think of a solution! It's this place, how do we get to it?!"

Li Kangda instinctively said, "Fill in the stones, dig and reinforce! I'll get people right away!"

"How long?!"

"Two hours. No, one and a half hours!"

How long until the flood peak?

About an hour.

Zhai Da:
That was just in time!

It was an unexpected situation, and this was all Li Kangda could do, but it wasn't enough.

Zhai Da withdrew his hands, and water immediately began to seep through the two gaps, but his main function was telekinesis.

Those around him couldn't sense it, but Zhai Da didn't cancel out his ability and quickly climbed up the riverbank.

Li Kangda paced anxiously, shouting, "If the dike breaks, half of Dongyang, hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, will be finished! It's all over! We must evacuate! People in nearby towns and villages must be evacuated immediately! We must ensure their safety first!"

He immediately turned around to arrange the work, and instructed all cadres in the nearby towns and villages to be notified.

However, conducting such a mobilization in the dead of night, given the inevitable resistance villagers will encounter during their evacuation, is no easier than the sudden appearance of dozens of trucks hauling sand and gravel.
Anyone with paronychia knows that most people wouldn't just leave at a call and abandon their home.
Zhai Da straightened up, took a deep breath, and looked out at the dark night from the embankment.

The countryside is already dark, and the rainy night is even more silent.
But every breath of air seemed to be in dire need of attention.

In reality, it's highly unlikely that the semiconductor factory and the ring headquarters will be flooded here, but that's not important.

Zhai Da felt his pockets and took out his phone.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

In the dormitory of the research institute in Dongyang city, "painter" Lu Tao was woken up from his sleep.

"President?"

"To make a long story short, the Xinyi River has breached its banks. The cement slabs on the inner side of the riverbed have cracked, and the soil structure has become loose and honeycomb-like. The material is mainly mud and a small amount of stones. There is still a chance to salvage it. Do you have any suggestions?"

Lu Tao was suddenly thrown a question in his sleep, which made him a little dazed, but the president's cold voice made him quickly realize the seriousness of the situation.

"Let me think, let me think. Is it just the seepage stage? Right, it's about blocking the water supply and using a reverse filtration system! I read about it in the book."

Zhai Da was taken aback, wondering if he had gotten it backwards all along.

Indeed, everyone has their own area of ​​expertise, and there's no end to learning about culture!
They immediately withdrew the telekinetic force applied to the original location and instead attempted to block the section near the river surface.
Although this was the correct approach, visually, the back of the riverbank suddenly gushed out more than a dozen streams of water, just like a showerhead. Li Kangda was so frightened that he almost sat down on the ground and desperately pulled Zhai Da away.

Zhai Da moved a little distance away, but the phone call didn't stop. Lu Tao said, "However, this is only a temporary solution; the structural damage cannot be repaired. We need to quickly throw gabions! Wrap the stones in wire mesh and let them sink, or dig soil to fill the gaps."

"Where am I supposed to get barbed wire? But there are quite a few large trucks stuck in the factory area, so maybe they can be mobilized faster than the county government. Besides rocks and specialized flood control sandbags, is it just water?"

Lu Tao quickly answered, "Yes! Cement! Bagged cement can be used for emergency flood control! There are many at the circular headquarters construction site! And they are all intact, unopened pallets! There are also hoisting and unloading operations! Let me ask if there are any on-duty workers here!"

Three minutes later, "Machine Core Semiconductor Factory".

In the meeting room that had been converted into a lounge, dozens of employees who remained were sleeping fully clothed.

In the corner, Liu Jing ate the free bread and sausage in the dark, thinking that this experience was quite special.

I've never slept with so many boys before in my entire life.
Just as I was getting into a mental breakdown, the door was suddenly pushed open, and a man rushed in shouting, "Brothers! Emergency! The riverbank has breached! We need your help!"

"What?! The dam has burst?"

"Which section? Holy crap, my house is right by the river!"

The incident caused a huge stir, and most of the people involved were locals from Dongyang. They were all stunned when they heard about the breach in the dike.

"General Manager Zhai has given the order: wake up all the truck drivers and get them working on it immediately. The county is going to requisition their trucks! We also need to get moving and load the flood control sandbags onto the trucks. It's extremely urgent!"

20 minute later.

With limited loading and unloading capacity, only two large trucks were left to load sandbags, while the other three headed towards the "circular headquarters" construction site a few kilometers away.

The crane operator, wearing a raincoat, was already waiting: "It's windy, so after you park your truck, stay away and load it up before you get on!"

The truck driver wiped the rain off his face: "How can we even load anything in this weather? You guys are crazy! Isn't this against the rules?"

They weren't afraid of the car breaking down; the research institute had a very high reputation.

But it's not worth breaking it here.
The crane operator scoffed, "Violating regulations? Compliance is my livelihood, violating regulations is my business!"

Although I'm not a local, I felt a strong sense of participation in disaster relief and rescue efforts.

It will ignite every man's adrenaline!

With two clicks of the button, the crane started up in the wind and rain.

The radio was emitting a lot of noise.

"Welcome to Midnight Radio. The next classic song is 'The Great Wall' by Beyond."

"A flower covered up~"

Within 30 minutes, more and more people and vehicles started moving. Almost the entire county government was mobilized, and nearby villages began broadcasting and knocking on doors to urge evacuation.

Dongyang has an emergency management department, but it hasn't really responded to many emergencies over the years. It's already a miracle that things haven't gone wrong as long as the regulations are followed and reports are relayed up the chain of command. The notifications to each township and village have been completed, and each village head has been contacted to knock on doors and persuade villagers who have just gone to bed to evacuate immediately.
However, the urgently needed flood control supplies are not coming in so quickly. Sandbags that have been piling up in the warehouse for years will not just jump onto the truck by themselves. Although it seems that hundreds of people are involved, in reality only a dozen or so people are scattered at various key points.

For example, at the scene, many more people arrived within half an hour, but they could still only stare blankly.

First, the weather warning malfunctioned too suddenly; second, the relocation of the city for flood discharge was unexpected; and third, the cracks in the riverbank appeared without warning.
If Zhai Da hadn't discovered it in advance and used his telekinesis to buy some time, it might have collapsed by now.

But Zhai Da gradually couldn't hold on any longer.

On the river embankment, Zhai Da maintained a distance that seemed dangerous to outsiders. They tried to persuade him to leave several times, but to no avail. Only Zhai Da himself knew that once he left the controllable distance, the breach would cause a massive hemorrhage in no time.

Li Kangda anxiously made a phone call: "Where are the sandbags? Where's the excavator?"

"The excavator is on its way! Sandbags are being filled! There are plenty of sandbags in the warehouse, but we don't have enough manpower to load and unload them."

"Go knock on doors! Mobilize the nearby residents! Special circumstances call for special measures! Quickly!"

Just as he was about to collapse, a series of car lights appeared in the darkness and approached. Li Kangda was overjoyed and frantically waved his flashlight.

The first to arrive were the people from the research institute.

The factory has dozens of able-bodied young men, and it's close to here, making it much more convenient to move them than to the city.

In addition to two truckloads of flood control sandbags, there was also an excavator transferred from the headquarters.

Li Kangda immediately asked, "Can it be self-unloaded? You mean, can the rear bed be raised?"

The driver shook his head: "That's a dump truck, I'm transporting goods!"

He brought precision equipment, which doesn't have a self-unloading function.
Li Kangda's face darkened. If it could be unloaded automatically, it could be dumped directly. Now that it has to be unloaded manually, the difficulty is more than a hundred times greater.

Zhai Da said, "Don't unload it, there's no time! Let the whole car sink."

Li Kangda: "This"

"Special circumstances require special measures, as you said!"

The truck driver was taken aback, sighed, and patted the steering wheel.

My old buddy, it looks like it's time to get a new car after all these years.
I'm actually a little excited!

Zhai Da, who can see the underwater conditions, easily located the position of the largest gap under the turbid water. Although the flood peak has not yet arrived, the scouring of the water is nonstop.

Zhai Da pointed to a location, and no one objected. After all, he was a scientist, wasn't he? If it were up to them, they felt it wouldn't matter which location they drove from.

The driver adjusted for a moment, put it in first gear, and quickly climbed down. His old buddy, which had been with him for many years, slowly moved forward and sank completely into the murky river.

Zhai Da observed intently for a moment. Good news, it's very effective!
The truck's own weight, combined with numerous sandbags, made it very sturdy.

"Another one's coming from the other side." The driver, hauling cement from the ring headquarters, quickly raised his hand: "Me! Me! Pick me!"

"Don't go this way, go around to the other side."

After the second large vehicle entered the water, Zhai Da clearly felt that the pressure from the telekinetic force was much less.

However, the underwater conditions are not visible to others, and the rescue work is still in full swing.

After that, another truckload of sandbags was delivered to the factory, and this time everyone had time to unload them. A dozen or so people lined up in a long queue, passing them from hand to hand and throwing them into the river.

The two trucks sinking to the bottom created a more effective load-bearing structure, preventing the sandbags from being thrown down and floating around.

While using his telekinetic powers, Zhai Da placed his hands together to gather strength, standing at the very end of the long line.

"Go for it! Keep it up!"

A pair of muddy hands handed over a sandbag, just as lightning illuminated the night sky, leaving Zhai Da stunned.
"Brother Haihai?!"

His hairstyle had become a buzz cut, making him look much older than he remembered, but Zhai Da wouldn't mistake his face.

Wearing a raincoat but with a light blue uniform underneath, "Brother Hai" smiled and said, "Being a network administrator all the time is boring. I want to try a different way of life."

"you"

"Being an auxiliary police officer isn't a prestigious job, but that's not important. Getting the job done is the priority."

Zhai Da nodded: "Okay! Keep it up!"

"come on!"

"come on!"

Perhaps because their physical strength and energy had reached their limits, these two words seemed to be contagious, echoing across the riverbank.

With each pass, there was a spirited shout.

"come on!"

"come on!"

Someone shouted, "Countdown! The flood peak is expected to arrive in 10 minutes!"

"rise!!"

"Quick, give me two more! I can still carry more!"

"Five minutes left! Five minutes!"

"come on!"

"Hold on, brother!"

"Three minutes! Everyone evacuate! Quick! Quick!"

Exhausted, the group threw down the last sandbag and hurriedly ran down the riverbank.

Even Zhai Da abandoned his telekinetic abilities and retreated with them.

When the flood peak arrives, it's no longer a matter of whether or not there's water seepage. If the main structure can't withstand it, his little bit of mental power is nothing in the face of the flood.

From the moment I discovered the problem and called Li Kangda, only 1 hour and 15 minutes had passed.

We've done everything we could.

The hangar has been opened, the car has sank, and the sandbags have been filled.
Whether it's Zhai Da or everyone else in Dongyang at this moment, they have already done their best.

Inside the semiconductor factory, there are employees who grit their teeth and carry sandbags even when they have broken their backs.

At the construction site of the circular headquarters, workers hoist cement in the wind and rain.

In a nearby village, Meng Tao was carrying an elderly person with mobility issues to move.

They've done everything they could; shouldn't God owe them a good outcome?

The flood peak doesn't seem to arrive on time.
Or perhaps the person who set the time was already a little ahead of schedule.

About five minutes after everyone evacuated, they observed the so-called flood peak from the embankment.

It was so obvious that the first thing to be seen was a mountain of garbage, broken logs, and mud, and the color of the flood peak was clearly distinct from the previous river water.

"They're here! They're here! Hold on! You have to hold on!"

The turbid waves swept past in an instant, and the water level rose by more than a meter.

The observer gritted his teeth, and after a long pause, shouted, "It held! It held! It didn't collapse!!"

The exhausted crowd below cheered: "Oh!! We made it!"

"We did it! We did it!!"

Zhai Da's lips unconsciously curled up, and he let out a long breath before turning to look at Hai Ge beside him. Just as he was about to say something, Hai Ge pointed at Zhai Da's face and said, "Your nose is bleeding?!"

Zhai Da was taken aback. He touched the area under his nose and, sure enough, there was a smear of bright red on his finger, which was quickly washed away by the rain.

It seems the intensity of the telekinetic power was too high.
Zhai Da smiled and pointed to the riverbank: "It's a small problem. Let more flow here and less flow there. It's worth it."

Hai Ge laughed too, raising his hand. It turned out his forearm was also cut, with blood mixed with mud flowing down: "You're right. It's a good deal!"

The flood peak has passed for several tens of seconds, and the riverbank still looks calm and stable. Is it really over?
Zhai Da pulled out a pure gold cane from his pocket, slammed it on the ground, and the white model's vision opened again for a final confirmation.

But I saw...
The truck was pushed away underwater!

Yes, even a fully loaded truck, capable of handling hundreds of tons, was pushed around in the turbulent, muddy water! It was moved from its original, most suitable position.

The small gap gradually widened, and the surging water began to erode the riverbank again, even creating eddies.

"Grass!"

Zhai Da felt a chill in his heart.
I've done everything I could.
He gritted his teeth and shouted, "It's not completely safe yet! Let's keep filling sandbags! Where's the truck? Are there any more big trucks?!"

Everyone stared in disbelief, not understanding why this was being said: "Wasn't it already healed? How could it be?"

But soon, reality told them the answer.

Several fountains suddenly appeared beneath my feet.

Suddenly, mud gushed out from the ground, rising more than ten centimeters high, bubbling and gurgling.

"Piping" is a very dangerous sign during flood control. What may not be able to hold up the river embankment is the river channel itself.
Zhai Da was about to return to the riverbank to use his telekinesis to buy himself some more time when a pair of hands held him tightly.

Li Kangda's expression was as hard as iron: "You, evacuate!"

"County Chief Li"

The county head said, word by word, "Thank you for participating in the rescue work, but you should go now. We will continue to move sandbags and make a final effort. Listen to your uncle."

You can't get into trouble. Otherwise, I won't be able to explain it to the country, nor to the people of Dongyang!
In Zhai Da's eyes, a faint green flame appeared on Li Kangda's body.

That represents the will to live among the eight sufferings.

But Li Kangda didn't move an inch. Instead, he turned around to face the river and made a resolute decision.

Several men pulled Zhai Da away, while Li Kangda put his raincoat back on and said in a deep voice to the people around him:

"Just like I said, keep moving sandbags and keep going until the very last moment. Divide into two groups, one to deal with piping and the other to go up the river embankment. I'll lead the second group."

This time, there was no cheering like before, only deep breaths.

Everyone knows that staying here at this moment is like risking your life.
However, the organization's orders are their mission; they have neither the right nor the intention to refuse.

His hometown is right behind him.
A series of pale green flames ignited, burning silently unnoticed in the rainy night, yet no one moved.

Even Zhai Da, who was still unwilling to give up, shouted from afar:

"Hey! County Chief Li! You don't need to make things worse anymore!"

Li Kangda turned around and said solemnly, "President Zhai, let's go quickly. Leave this to us."

Zhai Da shook his head: "What use are you? You bunch of old, weak, sick, and disabled people! The real capable ones have arrived!!"

Having said that, he pointed into the distance.

One vehicle after another, in convoys and columns, seemingly endless, like a united front against a common enemy.
Large, dark green vehicles arrived in unison, their bright headlights shattering the darkness.

The hum of the engine is humanity's march in its struggle against nature!
After the lead vehicle stopped, countless soldiers jumped off the carriages and lined up in an orderly fashion to carry supplies.

And there are dozens more of these troop transport vehicles and supplies.
Teams of soldiers in camouflage, with a resolve even stronger than the river itself, crossed the crowd that stood motionless like rocks and headed towards the riverbank.

The intense high beams blinded people, turning each figure into a silhouette.

They possessed no "light green" flames, but rather a "deep green" radiance.

Li Kangda and the others stood there, stunned.

At this moment, an officer walked up to the group.

With a snap, he saluted.

"The 13th Battalion of the 8th Division of the Jinling Military Region has completed its special emergency rescue mission and arrived at the designated location. Thank you all for buying us the most precious time. Your response was very timely. Please have a few people from the emergency command center stay behind to assist in exchanging information."

The officer released his hand, which landed precisely on the seam of his trousers, and smiled:

"The rest"

"Leave it to us with confidence!"

When that deep green appeared.

Everyone knew there was hope.
　Yes, this chapter is long, but it's still not an extra chapter.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)