Chapter 395: Chapter 324: Such Is a Good Dog
The village where the incident occurred was named Deng Family Bend.
Not because it sat in a mountain bend, but because the road leading to it was winding and full of twists and turns.
If it didn’t have eighteen bends, it had at least ten.
The night was pitch-black, without streetlights, and it was raining.
Guo Jin was anxious, but he couldn’t drive any faster.
Finally, after cresting the mountain ridge, the road straightened out. He stomped on the gas, and the pickup truck roared as it shot forward.
Shen Xin quickly grabbed the handle and couldn’t help but remark, "This truck is holding up well today."
Guo Jin had been running all over the place in it today, and it hadn’t broken down once.
At the mention of this, Guo Jin grinned with a hint of pride, patting the steering wheel. "Of course. It’s a good truck."
But soon, the smile vanished from Guo Jin’s face.
The power was out. In the flat basin ahead, they could see the distant beams of flashlights.
The beams occasionally swept across the mountain. It looked as if a huge chunk had been gouged out of the perfectly good mountain, leaving an immeasurable pile of rock and earth at its base, burying a portion of the village.
By now, the light rain had become a moderate downpour.
They saw a large group of villagers gathered on the western side of the village, untouched by the landslide, while a few flashlight beams moved about in the slide zone to the east.
It turned out Shen Xin and Guo Jin were the first to arrive.
Undaunted, Guo Jin navigated the narrow path and drove right up to the edge of the landslide.
A two-story concrete building had been crushed from the side by the falling rock, rubble, tree trunks, and other assorted debris, causing most of it to collapse.
Just then, a man covered in dirt and grime crawled out of a twisted, deformed doorway on the first floor and shouted to the people outside that it was no good, he couldn’t get up.
When he looked up, he saw Guo Jin hurriedly getting out of the truck.
"Lao Guo!" His eyes lit up as he called out urgently.
Guo Jin rushed over and steadied the man, asking anxiously, "Lao Yang, how many people are buried?"
They only knew the landslide had buried some people, but not the exact number.
The man was in his forties. He was Yang Shuiping, the director of Deng Family Bend village.
He wasn’t even wearing a raincoat and was soaked to the bone, looking as if he’d just crawled out of the mud. Upon seeing Guo Jin, he lost control of his emotions, grabbing Guo Jin’s arm and slumping toward the ground.
"I don’t know! My head’s about to explode."
He shook his head violently, then quickly pointed to the second floor. "Quick, there’s a child upstairs! I heard crying. It’s Yang Feng’s daughter, Huihui."
"And Yang Feng’s wife... she’s pinned underneath. I could only see an arm. I couldn’t pull her out. It was still warm when I touched it... I don’t know if she’s still alive."
As he spoke, he couldn’t stop himself from crying.
Guo Jin’s expression changed, and he quickly looked up at the second floor.
Shen Xin also looked up.
The second floor had no balcony, only windows. The room on the right was completely destroyed, and the one on the left was mostly crushed. The window frame was bent in half, leaving just a narrow gap that looked big enough to squeeze through.
"Is there a ladder? Does anyone have a ladder? Go find a ladder!"
Shen Xin turned and shouted to another young man at the scene.
’Everyone seems to be in shock,’ he thought.
The man grunted an "Oh," muttered the word "ladder," and hurried off.
Shen Xin then asked Yang Shuiping for the location of the person trapped on the first floor.
He guessed the adult had been on the first floor while the child was upstairs.
It was only seven or eight o’clock, too early for them to be asleep.
Yang Shuiping gave him a general location.
Seeing Shen Xin about to crawl in, Guo Jin quickly stopped him, his eyes wide. "Don’t be reckless! You’re still young. I’ll go."
He then pulled rank as the chief, declaring it an order.
’A police chief from Huaiyi has no authority over a criminal detective from Nanjiang like me,’ Shen Xin thought.
But Guo Jin didn’t give him a chance to argue, grabbing a flashlight and climbing inside himself.
Resigned, Shen Xin could only remind him to try and check for a pulse to see if the person was dead.
Just as he said that, the young man returned, running with another person and carrying a bamboo ladder.
It was four or five meters long, a bit on the long side.
’I’m the only officer left out here, so it has to be me,’ Shen Xin thought.
"Hold it steady."
Shen Xin positioned the ladder and quickly began to climb.
The roof had caved in, crushing more than half of the window. The aluminum alloy frame was bent outward, and all the glass was shattered, leaving only a triangular gap about forty or fifty centimeters wide—just enough for a person to squeeze through.
Shen Xin took out his flashlight and quickly knocked away the remaining glass shards.
A few pieces stuck to the sealant wouldn’t come off.
By now, Shen Xin could hear the child’s cries. With no time for second thoughts, he stuck his leg through and started to squeeze in.
At 1.8 meters tall, it was an awkward fit, but he used the ladder for leverage and managed to wriggle his way inside.
Above him was the floor slab, which had fractured and collapsed downward.
It was a bedroom with a bed and a wardrobe. The wardrobe had been a huge help; it had propped up the collapsed floor and roof, creating a small pocket of space.
A little girl, probably five or six years old, was lying in the gap. A wardrobe door panel, clothes from inside the wardrobe, storage boxes, and other miscellaneous items were piled on top of her.
The flashlight beam revealed her little face, covered in dust and streaked with two clean lines where tears had run down.
Seeing Shen Xin, she let out a WAIL and began to cry even harder.
"Mister, save me!"
Shen Xin quickly crawled over, stooping, and told her not to cry. Then he asked if she was in any pain.
"It hurts."
"Can you move your toes?"
Her body was pinned, and he didn’t know if she was injured.
If her spine was injured, her toes might be numb, and she wouldn’t be able to feel them.
The little girl nodded slightly and said she could move them, but she couldn’t climb out.
Shen Xin shone his flashlight around, assessing the structure.
’All you can say is that this wardrobe saved her life,’ he thought.
It was possible that in the instant the roof collapsed, she had gotten out of bed. Then the entire wardrobe fell over, pinning her underneath, while the bed also blocked some of the debris, which is how the gap was formed.
The clothes inside the wardrobe were what was weighing her down and keeping her from moving.
After a quick assessment, Shen Xin began to pull the clothes out.
It wasn’t too difficult to pull them out. Since he could move them, it meant the weight wasn’t from the floor slab or the roof, but just the weight of the clothes themselves after the wardrobe fell.
He stuffed the things he pulled out into a corner nearby.
Before long, Shen Xin had cleared a small space and told the girl to try and move on her own.
He was mainly worried she had injuries that could be made worse.
Seeing she could move gave him some reassurance, and he hurried to clear more debris.
With her own movements and a pull from him, the child finally crawled out. She threw herself into Shen Xin’s arms, sobbing, and said her mom was still down below and that she wanted her mom.
Shen Xin had no time for that. He quickly grabbed a couple of pieces of clothing, returned to the gap he’d entered through, and first laid them over the glass-shard-covered windowsill before calling to the people below to get ready to catch her.
Guo Jin had already climbed out. He had driven the pickup right up to the building, and by standing on the hood, he could just about reach the windowsill.
The child was caught safely. Shen Xin then backed out, got a boost from Guo Jin below, and jumped down onto the hood of the truck.
Only then did he ask about the mother.
Guo Jin said, "I think I felt a pulse. She must have fainted. She didn’t react when I patted her hand."
Shen Xin let out a small sigh of relief.
’I had a feeling her chances of survival were high,’ he thought. ’Her house was on the very edge of the landslide; she was trapped by the collapse of the house itself.’
The real trouble was the people who had been directly in the path of the landslide.
Guo Jin held onto a piece of the ruined wall and surveyed the scene, then grabbed Yang Shuiping. "Lao Yang, the rain has let up a bit. I don’t think a second landslide is likely."
"It’ll take time for people from the town to get here, and even longer for the county. We can’t just stand around and wait. Every person we can rescue now is one more person saved."
"Go organize everyone. Get all the men in the village over here. Have the women go door-to-door to find shovels, sledgehammers, crowbars, whatever. Let’s get moving and start digging. These people can still be saved."
Yang Shuiping nodded and turned to leave.
Guo Jin suddenly grabbed him again and said urgently, "Take a roll call! Have someone do a headcount and ask around. We have to confirm exactly how many people are buried."
With someone giving orders, everyone immediately sprang into action.
Most of the house had collapsed, but the foundation was still there. That was a good sign.
And since they had a rough idea of where the woman was trapped, they started clearing the debris from the top down.
This house had a roof made of precast concrete slabs, which was actually better than a poured concrete roof in this situation.
The slabs had collapsed separately, making them somewhat easier to clear.
Everyone pitched in, removing roof tiles and clearing away the shattered slabs.
In a situation like this, there was no better method than brute force.
After about twenty minutes of digging, reinforcements from the town arrived.
A lot of people showed up: the town’s micro fire station, as well as Li Xiaowen and his team.
And, of course, Tian Kui.
The town mayor, Miao Dingqiang, was stunned silent when he saw the scene.
’I’m finished,’ he thought.
But he couldn’t dwell on that. He immediately ordered everyone to go down and help.
At the same time, the most important task was to locate the trapped people.
It was a huge area. Even though the disaster struck suddenly and it was raining, many people would have been at home.
But with the rocks sliding down and houses collapsing, no one knew where people might have been swept away to.
The town didn’t have professional life-detection equipment. The county did, and it was on its way.
So for now, their only hope was Tian Kui.
Miao Dingqiang walked up to Shen Xin and gripped his hand tightly. "You’re Shen Xin, right? I have no words. Thank you."
It was a stroke of luck that Shen Xin had been coming over to deliver the police dog.
There was only one police dog in all of Shiyao County, and it just so happened to be in Ma Chang Town. It was truly a fortunate coincidence.
Li Xiaowen was right there, nervously asking if they needed any help.
Shen Xin had already surveyed the impact zone.
It was the size of several football fields, covered in rocks, mud, and trees of all sizes that had washed down from the mountain, followed by building debris.
A roof poked out here, a fallen wall there.
The rain hadn’t stopped, and the scene was a muddy mess, like a swamp.
There was a risk of your foot sinking into nothing with every step.
Shen Xin was holding Tian Kui, murmuring to him to explain the situation and instruct him on what to do. He looked up and told Li Xiaowen to find some police shoulder lamps.
Normally, they would use flags to mark locations.
But it was pitch-black, and flags would be impossible to see. The police shoulder lamps were a better option.
They flashed red and blue, were extremely conspicuous, waterproof, and could clearly mark a location.
Li Xiaowen quickly told Zhu Qiuwei to go get them.
Once he had the lamps, Shen Xin turned one on, had Tian Kui hold it in his mouth, and immediately sent him off.
The dog was fast; holding him on a leash would only slow him down.
With a WHOOSH, Tian Kui shot off.
The rain interfered with Tian Kui’s senses to some extent, but it wasn’t a major problem.
During the major competition, he had been able to accurately locate hidden targets even with irritating smells as interference.
Clenching the shoulder lamp in his teeth, he weaved through the mud.
Shen Xin called for everyone to shine their flashlights to help illuminate the surroundings for the dog.
They watched him move nimbly through the debris. Protruding branches and piles of rubble couldn’t stop him.
Shen Xin also took out Tian Kui’s helmet, which had a blue laser on it for pointing out locations from a distance.
After asking Yang Shuiping to recall the layout of the houses, they were able to roughly define a search area.
In just over a minute, Tian Kui locked onto a pile of rubble, dropped the flashing shoulder lamp on the ground, and quickly ran back.
"There!"
Shen Xin pointed. "Right there. There’s someone underneath."
"Quick!"
Miao Dingqiang hurriedly called for people to go over and check the situation.
Tian Kui had already returned, and he set off again with a second shoulder lamp in his mouth.
In the dark night, he held the shoulder lamp in his mouth, its red and blue light cutting through the blackness like a brave and fearless police officer bringing hope to the victims.
At that moment, Miao Dingqiang stared, his eyes fixed on the points of light spreading out into the distance. He felt a sting in his nose, and his heart was heavy.
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