Gu Qingcheng thought: I've learned something!
"Village Chief, can we borrow a few catties of rice from the public stores for our family? All our meat and grain were washed away by the flood last night!"
At this moment, a dishevelled old woman cried out to the village chief.
Gu Qingcheng found the voice familiar, and upon closer inspection, realized it was Grandma Gu!
No way, that's terrible, was all their grain really lost? Even the meat and rice? Had the 60 catties of meat her family gave yesterday, and the 30 catties of meat from Butcher Liu, all been lost?
A smile spread across Gu Qingcheng's lips, and she seemed quite happy!
Hu Lanfang also saw her mother-in-law's actions. Her gossipy nature piqued, her eyes rolled, and she slipped into the crowd to find out what was going on. As a community committee cadre, Hu Lanfang was best at chatting with all sorts of relatives and extracting useful information from them. It looked like she was back to her old ways.
Village Chief Gu raised an eyelid and said, "Madam Gu Lin, this is not something I can decide. Too many people in the village have lost grain, and the public grain also suffered losses last night. If I give yours to your family, what about the others? There's simply not enough to go around! The public grain has other uses and cannot be easily distributed as compensation!"
"Ah, we're all villagers, why are you holding onto the public grain? Do you want to monopolize it?" Grandma Gu, upon hearing that the village chief couldn't meet her request, began to accuse him wildly.
Grandma Gu's words caused an uproar among the villagers. In fact, didn't many villagers harbor the same thought? They were just more cautious and didn't dare to voice it. Now that someone had spoken up, they couldn't help but whisper among themselves.
Village Chief Gu, upon hearing this, became furious and said, "Madam Gu Lin, what fault can't be found if one seeks it? I won't hold this against you since it's the first time you've spoken so recklessly. If you say it again, you'll have more than just a rough time!" With that, Village Chief Gu flicked his sleeve, turned, and stomped away angrily.
Seeing the village chief's temper flare, Gu Qingcheng secretly gave him a thumbs-up. Grandma Gu's level wasn't that high either; to get some benefit from the public stores, she'd gotten flustered and fallen out with the village chief. Although he was just a village chief, he held many practical powers that affected the villagers' livelihoods and futures. He had the authority granted by the imperial court for conscription, land allocation, housing plots, and so on. Grandma Gu hadn't expected to offend Village Chief Gu so easily. Seeing the village chief angry, she was dumbfounded, immediately deflated, and mumbled as she left.
Gu Qingcheng came back to her senses and found that her mother, Hu Lanfang, had already found out what had happened to Old Man Gu's family last night. This was all thanks to Hu Lanfang using her skills as a community cadre to gather information. Old Man Gu had almost been washed away by the flood last night, but fortunately, Old Man Gu caught him. Gu Old Man had even momentarily let go in the water, but he hadn't expected his father to be so cunning and tie them together with a belt after catching him. In the end, the two of them grabbed a vine by the bank and managed to climb ashore in a sorry state. Although they had saved their lives, they had been too busy escaping last night and had forgotten about the grain cart, resulting in all their stored grain being washed away by the water. Old Man Gu had been in charge of the cart that stored the grain. Fearing that his family might steal it, he slept beside the grain cart every night to supervise it. But when the flood came, he forgot all about the grain and only thought about escaping. The family members escaped separately. Although everyone survived, their meat and grain were gone.
Hearing the news her mother had gathered, Gu Qingcheng felt it was incredibly satisfying and a huge relief! Even though she had also been frightened by the flood last night, she now truly wanted to award the flood a banner inscribed with: "Best Test of Humanity Award!" Flood: ...I'm speechless!
Village Chief Gu was resolute. He ignored the noisy opposition from the villagers and continued to sternly urge them to move forward. The villagers were like a flock of penned ducks; when the duck herder waved his stick with determination, no matter how unhappy they were, they could only follow the crowd.
However, after walking about five li, the sight that appeared before them made everyone gasp in cold air. It turned out that last night, in addition to the heavy rain causing the flood upstream, an earthquake had also caused a landslide in the narrowest part of the mountain valley. The landslide was quite severe, with mud and rocks pouring down from both sides, completely blocking the small river channel. The amount of earth that had collapsed was thousands of cubic meters, effectively blocking the valley and the river tightly.
Gu Qingcheng was very familiar with this scene. They often saw reports about earthquakes on television, and this situation was called a barrier lake. With the formation of a barrier lake, the river water would accumulate, and when the water level rose to a certain height, the dam formed by the blockage would collapse, and the rushing water would create a new flood surge. But this was a matter for the future. What troubled Village Chief Gu most at the moment was that their path forward was blocked.
Seeing that Old Man Gu's sixth son's family was standing nearby, Village Chief Gu sighed and said, "Old Six, what do we do? We can't get through. Even if young people could climb up, it's quite dangerous. Rocks are still falling from time to time, and if another landslide occurs, we'll be done for."
"Village Chief, is there any other way?" Gu Zhaobei asked.
"Yes, but we'd have to detour through another valley. This place is less than five li from Jinsha City. If the road hadn't been blocked, we would have arrived by evening. But now, if we take another route, it will take at least three days."
"Oh, that's quite far. But trying to break through here isn't safe either. I see that this loose soil from the landslide is also dangerous. You might step on it and be buried from head to toe." Gu Zhaobei dared not take the risk. It wasn't just about himself, but he also had a wife and daughter.
Looking at the group of old, weak, sick, and disabled people he had brought, Village Chief Gu couldn't help but sigh, "We haven't even reached Jinsha City, and the food everyone brought is almost gone. If we have to take a three-day detour, many people will likely go hungry for three days."
Gu Zhaobei's eyes darted around, and he nodded, saying, "Village Chief, no matter what, we need to leave this place quickly. Otherwise, once the river water rises to a high level and the dam bursts, our people will be in trouble again."
"That's true, you're absolutely right." Village Chief Gu felt a jolt in his heart, knowing he couldn't hesitate any longer.
Therefore, Village Chief Gu gathered all the villagers and informed them of the situation. In truth, there wasn't much to say. Everyone was standing before the collapsed valley, and everything was clearly visible. Since things had reached this point, there was no other option but to accept it.
"Village Chief, how do we detour?" someone asked.
"We'll have to climb over through this gully on the right, but it will definitely be harder than the original path. There will be small bushes, thorns, and weeds all along the way." Village Chief Gu gave them a heads-up.