Chapter 394: Chapter 323: Time for Tian Kui to Render Meritorious Service
Ma Bao Gou Village wasn’t the only one that needed to be evacuated.
Out of the 54 villages in the entire town, nearly ten had to be evacuated based on their topography.
The town government office had descended into chaos.
The police station next door was just as chaotic.
Sun Yongjie and his men had all been dispatched to the villages to help with the evacuation.
Li Xiaowen had no time to interrogate Duan Dongqiang.
The guy had tried to slip away, but someone was keeping an eye on him. As soon as the murder weapon was found, Li Xiaowen had him apprehended.
The large contingent of officers Li Xiaowen had brought with him was also fully deployed, helping to maintain order in the villages.
"Where do you think you’re going?"
As Li Xiaowen was giving out orders, he caught a figure out of the corner of his eye and quickly grabbed him.
It was Li Shi. The kid was trying to make a run for it.
Li Shi looked frantic. "My sister! And my grandma!"
He had heard that Baijia Post was also on the list of places needing to be evacuated.
Li Xiaowen didn’t let go. "The evacuation is for the people below the post. Your family lives up on the mountain. What’s there to be afraid of?"
He had instinctively assumed that since Li Shi’s home was on the mountain—on high ground—it would be fine.
Li Shi kept struggling and shook his head. "No, it’s not safe! There’s a slope behind our house. We had a landslide a few years back that nearly buried us."
Li Xiaowen froze. He hadn’t been aware of that, but he still didn’t let go.
"You don’t need to worry about that. Don’t you think the people organizing the evacuation have already considered that? Besides, it’s too far. How would you even get back? Just stay put. They’ll be fine."
He glanced around, then shoved Li Shi and Tian Kui into a room.
However, he took what Li Shi said to heart and mentioned it to the person coordinating with the town.
Sure enough, they had already thought of it. They said the school up at the post and all remaining villagers were scheduled for evacuation.
Only then did Li Xiaowen feel at ease.
At that moment, in Baijia Post.
The downpour was torrential. Guo Jin, wearing a raincoat, directed the villagers to evacuate.
The situation was the same as Shen Xin’s in Ma Bao Gou Village.
There were those who refused to leave, no matter what.
The family in the village that raised donkeys insisted on herding all their donkeys along with them.
Add to that the sick and the chronically bedridden, and it was truly a chaotic mess.
It was past seven when the crowd of people was finally herded outside.
Guo Jin waded through the water. It was flowing downhill like a river, easily covering his ankles.
"Old Fu, do a head count! We can’t be missing a single person!" He met up with Fu Lianghui and urged him to start the count.
It had been the same at the last village he was at.
They did a roll call, only to find someone was missing.
Fu Lianghui nodded and quickly had the village committee members start the roll call and count everyone.
After they finished, they realized they were indeed missing people.
Li Yao and Geng Aiyi.
Fu Lianghui was shocked, his eyes widening as he roared into the walkie-talkie, "Chen Qing, didn’t I tell you to go up to the post and notify everyone to come down? And now you’re telling me we’re missing people?"
A voice came back over the walkie-talkie: "I got tied up with something else, so I had Zhang Maoning go. The people from the school and the houses behind it all came down. I don’t know how Li Yao’s family got missed."
Fu Lianghui slapped his thigh and started cursing.
Guo Jin wanted to curse too.
’Everyone else was notified and came down, leaving only Li Yao and Geng Aiyi.’
’And his surname is Zhang... If something really goes wrong, to put it seriously, this is murder!’
"Where’s Zhang Maoning!" Fu Lianghui roared into the walkie-talkie.
Soon, Zhang Maoning’s voice came through, defensively: "Old Fu, I notified them. Isn’t his grandma bedridden and unable to move? I said I’d go back and find a vehicle to get them, but then I got swamped and completely forgot."
Fu Lianghui blew up, roaring, "Zhang Maoning, you son of a bitch, you’d better have *actually* forgotten."
He finished speaking and turned to look up the mountain.
The two of them stood at the village entrance.
The road leading up the mountain on their right had turned into a torrent, with water gushing down.
On the main winding road up the mountain, the water was even stronger, spilling over the side and cascading down the slope.
"I’ll go."
Fu Lianghui turned and was about to head up.
Guo Jin grabbed him. "Bullshit."
"The current is so strong, it’s basically a flood. You wouldn’t even be able to keep your feet."
He turned and got into his pickup truck.
He started the engine, and the headlights pierced the darkness.
Fu Lianghui followed him. "Can this piece of junk of yours make it?"
Guo Jin looked at the current illuminated by the headlights, gritted his teeth, and said, "It has to make it."
With that, he slammed on the gas, and the pickup truck shot forward.
’Fast on sand, slow in water. Low gear, high RPM.’
The pickup threw up two great plumes of water, plowing through the torrent like a boat as it charged up the mountain in the dead of night.
But when it reached the winding road, just after rounding a bend, it let out a violent shudder—SPUTTER SPUTTER SPUTTER—and the old pickup stalled.
At the village entrance, Fu Lianghui stomped his feet anxiously.
Inside the truck, Guo Jin tried turning the key again and again, to no avail.
It hadn’t flooded from the water.
The pickup had high clearance; the truck was just too old and had simply stalled out.
The windshield wipers, on their highest setting, scraped back and forth with a rhythmic CLATTER. Guo Jin was so frustrated he wanted to slam his fist on the steering wheel.
He took a deep breath to calm himself, then started muttering to the truck like he did last time.
"Come on, truck. You’ve been with the station for eight years. You’ve run all over with me, and left me stranded on the side of the road more times than I can count."
"I’ll let all that slide. But today, you can’t fail me."
"My name is Guo Jin, like the great hero! Guo Jing rode a legendary Ferghana Horse, so you’d better put some damn effort into it!"
Guo Jin silently counted to three and turned the key again.
A violent shudder, like the rapid gasps of a dying man.
Finally, the old diesel engine, with who-knows-how-many hundreds of thousands of kilometers on it, roared to life.
Guo Jin’s eyes flew open. With a thrilled "FUCK IT!", he floored the accelerator.
Black smoke billowed from the exhaust as the engine roared. Fighting against the raging current, the pickup charged up the mountain road.
In the darkness, two pillars of light lit the path forward, carrying Guo Jin up the mountain on his reckless, duty-bound charge.
Down below, Fu Lianghui watched nervously.
As he watched the pickup restart, watched those two beams of hope charge all the way up the mountain, Fu Lianghui stomped his foot in excitement and yelled into the pouring rain.
"Guo Jin, you really fucking earned that name!"
On the mountain.
Guo Jin slammed on the brakes, leaped out of the truck, and rushed into Li Xingping’s house.
The roof was leaking, the house was filled with buckets and basins.
The power was also cut. Li Yao was huddled by Geng Aiyi, trembling as he watched Guo Jin burst through the door. His lips trembled, and he was on the verge of crying.
"Mister!"
Guo Jin sighed, strode forward, lifted Geng Aiyi onto his back, and grabbed Li Yao tightly with his other hand.
"Let’s go!"
Going up the mountain was hard; going down was no easier.
Guo Jin gripped the steering wheel tightly, fighting to keep the truck from being swept off the road as the current pushed it back and forth.
Ultimately, they made it back to the village entrance, shaken but safe.
Fu Lianghui ran up, excitedly slapping the hood of the truck. "Lao Guo, this truck is something else!"
Guo Jin laughed, his face full of pride. "Of course! It can go for another ten years."
They got the people to a safe area.
Just then, a deep RUMBLE echoed from the distance.
It was too dark to see clearly.
Fu Lianghui was horrified. He was sure it was a landslide.
With such heavy rain, a landslide was only to be expected.
Guo Jin’s expression turned grim. He told Fu Lianghui to watch over the people there and wait for the town to send transport, then got back in his pickup and headed for the other villages.
On the way, he saw in a group chat on his phone that a mudslide had occurred in Ma Bao Gou Village.
Guo Jin’s heart leaped. If he remembered correctly, Li Xiaowen had said that Shen Xin was staying in Ma Bao Gou Village to look after Ten Thousand.
He hurriedly stepped on the gas and turned onto the road to Ma Bao Gou Village.
Soon, he saw lights on the mountain. He drove straight there and only breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Shen Xin ushering people onto a vehicle, heading for town.
By this time, the rain had lessened considerably.
Guo Jin hurried to meet him. He was about to ask something, but then he glanced into the distance from his vantage point on the mountain and was startled.
He could faintly see that more than half of Ma Bao Gou Village had been swallowed up.
"Shen Xin, are you guys okay?" Guo Jin asked urgently.
Shen Xin waved his hand and said they were fine.
A nearby villager chimed in, saying they all saw it; the mudslide had spread over and nearly swallowed Shen Xin and the others.
Guo Jin’s heart pounded in his chest as he listened.
"It’s all in the past now. We’re fine, aren’t we?" Shen Xin shook his head.
’Of course it was dangerous. But for real danger, you’d have to go back to last year in Huibei Village. That was a hail of bullets. A single ricochet could’ve been the end of me.’
’And Dai Yajun, on those narrow, twisting village paths, had driven a three-wheeler like he was Ma Bao Gou’s very own God of Racing.’
Guo Jin stayed behind to help maintain order at the scene.
There were quite a few people sitting on the ground, wailing. The scene was chaotic.
When most of the people had been transferred, his phone rang in the truck.
After Guo Jin answered it, his expression changed drastically.
The villages that were considered at risk had all been evacuated, but an accident had still happened.
A nearby village called Deng Family Bend had been hit by a landslide.
"Shit."
Guo Jin cursed and turned to get in the truck.
"Guo Suo, I’ll go with you." Shen Xin quickly followed. The evacuation here was almost complete.
Guo Jin hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
’We’re both cops. If we don’t step up now, we’re not worthy of the title.’
"Right, what about Ten Thousand?" Guo Jin glanced over at the donkey.
This was a donkey that had performed meritorious service.
Dai Yajun quickly said, "Shen Xin, you guys go first. I’ll watch Ten Thousand. Don’t worry. As long as I’m here, the donkey will be here."
’The oath was a little cringey.’
Shen Xin waved it off and quickly got into the truck.
The pickup truck drove down the mountain, parting the waters, rumbling with surprising power.
Shen Xin asked for details about the situation.
Guo Jin shook his head, saying he didn’t know. He only said that they had previously thought Deng Family Bend would be fine, but unexpectedly, a landslide happened in the one place they thought was safe.
He’d heard it had buried nearly half the village.
He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, saying resentfully that he never expected the rain to be this heavy.
Shen Xin felt the same heavy mood, and quickly added, "Guo Suo, contact the station right away. Have them bring Tian Kui over. He can be used as a search and rescue dog."
The people in Deng Family Bend hadn’t been evacuated. With such heavy rain, they must have all been indoors.
It happened so suddenly, people had to be buried in their houses.
Ma Chang Town was so remote, it would definitely take some time to mobilize rescue teams from the county or the city.
At a time like this, if they could confirm people’s locations in advance, they might be able to save more lives.
’Thinking back to Tian Kui’s performance in the big competition, he was more than qualified to moonlight as a top-tier search and rescue dog.’
Guo Jin’s eyes lit up. ’That’s right! Ma Chang Town has its own police dog.’
He immediately called the station and told them to bring Tian Kui to rendezvous at Deng Family Bend.
After hanging up, Guo Jin frowned again. "The rain hasn’t stopped. Won’t it be too dangerous?"
’It’s dangerous, but what can you do?’ Shen Xin thought. ’We’re here now. It’s Tian Kui’s time to be a hero.’
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