The team leader’s words revealed three pieces of information.
First, the earthquake’s impact was severe, the situation dire, the entire nation, even every country in the world, was struggling to cope with its own problems, no longer able to send aid to each other the way things used to work. They could only try to recruit civilian volunteers.
Second, a new term: contribution points.
Something the rescue team leader had specifically brought up must surely be useful later. Shen Qi leaned toward thinking that the earthquake’s effects wouldn’t end anytime soon, perhaps experts had already foreseen the difficulties ahead: the difficulty of rescue, the difficulty of rebuilding, and the difficulty of keeping currency stable, since with a global earthquake, “stability” itself was practically a contradiction. Right now, no one knew exactly what contribution points were for, but later on, they might become an important supplement to currency, or even gradually replace it.
Third, the importance of food.
Logically, during the early phase of rescue, supplies given to survivors would mostly be compressed biscuits and instant noodles, and later, as rebuilding progressed and order gradually returned, living standards would return to normal too.
But the team leader had made “an extra portion of meat and vegetables, an extra bottle of water” a benefit of joining the rescue team, did that mean officials believed food would become extremely important, that one day even a single portion of meat and a bottle of water would be a major incentive for people to join the rescue effort?
All of this was what she could gather on the surface. Taking it a bit further, Shen Qi even suspected the team leader had said all this specifically aimed at her and Nuonuo.
The look he’d given her as he left had seemed rather pointed.
Shen Qi was sitting alone in the corner, there was no one else in that direction besides her and Nuonuo, and she didn’t believe the team leader had just happened to glance over by accident.
Shen Qi thought back to the search dog she’d seen earlier, and to what Nuonuo had said about being able to sense the surroundings, an ability similar to X-ray vision, and she made up her mind.
Once she’d decided to act, Shen Qi wasn’t one to hesitate.
When the rescue team leader and his search dogs came back to the square to rest, Shen Qi went up and said she wanted to join the rescue team.
The leader smiled. “Welcome aboard. Let me introduce myself, I’m Li Zhengze, you can call me Captain Li or Uncle Li, either works.”
Shen Qi went along easily: “Captain Li.”
After joining the rescue team, the tense work of search and rescue began, and only then did Shen Qi realize just how dire the situation truly was.
The rescue team had only five people and five search dogs in total, adding Shen Qi and Nuonuo made it six people and six dogs, yet they were responsible for search and rescue across a total of seven residential complexes around the square.
When the rescue team had first arrived at the square in the trucks, only five people had gotten off, and Shen Qi had assumed there were more still inside, that there couldn’t possibly be so few.
But it turned out that really was all of them, not one more.
According to Captain Li, the rescue teams responsible for other areas were in about the same situation, in fact, h City’s rescue force was already considered strong, since everyone knew this area had been hit with a high magnitude and would naturally get priority support.
Even so, the rescue personnel were nowhere near enough, and neither were the supplies.
A global earthquake, what did that mean?
It meant no other country could lend a hand to help, and even if they could, they wouldn’t, manpower and resources would be prioritized for their own countries first.
It meant that even other provinces within the country could offer only limited support, since everyone had been hit by the disaster, big or small, everyone needed rescue.
For several days straight, Shen Qi followed the rescue team, rushing about on the road to relief work.
Even with search dogs and detection technology, the work remained grueling, and the loss of life continued to play out every single day.
The first time Shen Qi saw a victim’s mutilated body with her own eyes, she went silent, and afterward, she forced herself to finish only her rice and vegetables, not touching the meat at all, giving it all to the other team members instead.
Captain Li, the oldest of them, had experience with disaster relief from before, and looked at Shen Qi almost like a daughter. Seeing her unable to eat, he offered plenty of comfort: “It’s fine to eat less if you can’t manage it. You’ll get used to it.”
The youngest member of the team was a boy named Zhao Bai, with a baby face. Despite his name meaning “white,” his skin was actually quite dark, and he was cheerful by nature, flashing a big white-toothed grin: “Sister Qi, don’t be scared, you’ll get used to it after a few more days. Then I’ll give you half my meat portion.”
Even someone younger than her, with no rescue experience, had adapted quickly on sheer resilience alone, Shen Qi had never seen him unable to eat, and that competitive streak in her flared up. Every day during rescue work, she pushed herself to the front, forcing herself to adapt to the environment.
Very quickly, in less than two days, Shen Qi’s appetite returned to normal.
Sure enough, you never knew until you pushed yourself, human potential really was limitless.
Every day, the rescue team members came back covered in grime, the search dogs panting with exhaustion, while Shen Qi and Nuonuo had become a striking sight within the team.
Speaking of which, Shen Qi’s face darkened every time she thought of it.
Nuonuo’s frame was growing bigger by the day. Back when they’d first come out of the rubble, Shen Qi hadn’t even needed it to lie down, she could grab its back fur and swing herself up with a bit of effort.
But now, Nuonuo was practically a giant beast. Even when it lay flat, climbing onto its back was difficult for her.
In fact, Shen Qi didn’t want to be carried around like this. Every other team member led their own search dog on foot, her riding on the dog’s back felt like special treatment.
But Shen Qi had been fairly tough as a child, even with some basic hand-to-hand fighting skills, though in recent years, life had gotten more comfortable and she’d grown softer, no match for the other team members, who all came from military backgrounds. On her very first outing, a piece of rubble had cut her ankle.
Fortunately it was only a shallow scrape, or without a tetanus shot on hand it would have been a real headache.
Nuonuo wouldn’t have it, its poop-scooper getting “ambushed” right under its nose meant that no matter what she said afterward, it wouldn’t let Shen Qi walk on her own anymore. Every time they went out searching, it would insist on hoisting her onto its back first.
Carrying Shen Qi cost Nuonuo no effort at all, she no longer had to walk, only helping out with her hands once they’d found something, saving both effort and worry.
More importantly, Nuonuo was a huge help in the rescue work itself.
Whenever it detected signs of life beneath the rubble, Nuonuo would go in first. It could clear debris quickly, even slicing through solid concrete slabs with its claws, and it could sense exactly how to carry out a rescue without causing a collapse.
You could say that with Nuonuo on the job, it was worth two people. As long as Nuonuo took the lead, no survivor would be lost to a poor decision, and so, in the team members’ eyes, Nuonuo’s image shifted from “giant beast” to “uniquely capable, brilliant giant beast.” Captain Li, too, went from watching over it cautiously to essentially “handing over the reins” to Nuonuo.
“Good dog, ah, such a good dog, such a waste it never enlisted.” Zhao Bai muttered this into Shen Qi’s ear more than once, endlessly curious and pestering her for her secret training methods.
Of course, Shen Qi had no secret at all, she’d just raised it normally. Through all this back and forth, Shen Qi realized the other team members weren’t at all surprised by Nuonuo’s abilities, and she quietly guessed that perhaps some of the search dogs had developed similar abilities too.
For a good while afterward, she kept watching the other search dogs closely in the truck.
But unfortunately, she never noticed anything.
The other search dogs, however, seemed to love Shen Qi. Whenever she looked their way during a break, they’d all sneak over to cuddle up to her, though every time, Nuonuo would swat them all away with a paw, leaving their respective handlers watching with a mix of envy and sourness.
The rescue work carried on this way, busy but fulfilling, for nearly half a month.
Another evening.
Shen Qi hopped off the military truck, collected her dinner, and headed back to her tent.
She’d moved out of the group tent long ago, thanks to her and Nuonuo’s (mostly Nuonuo’s ヽ(^o^)ノ) contributions to the rescue team, as well as Nuonuo’s ever-increasing size, the whole thing had gone quite smoothly.
More and more survivors kept arriving at the square. Those with light injuries or none at all settled in here, waiting to help with rebuilding, while the severely injured and the deceased were transported by helicopter or subway to hospitals in surrounding counties and cities for treatment or cremation.
The local hospitals in h City had long since been overwhelmed.
Nuonuo’s size grew larger by the day, impossible to hide, and survivors regarded it with plenty of fear.
Besides eating the dog food allotted to search dogs, Nuonuo also went hunting on its own. h City sat in a hilly region, and it usually wandered off into the less-developed, plant-covered hills nearby, often bringing back rabbits, wild pheasants, and the like as extra meals for Shen Qi.
Over time, Shen Qi had figured out the pattern.
Nuonuo was quite hardy now, perfectly fine eating raw meat, and every time, it would eat its fill before coming back, whatever it brought home was a gift for her.
There was just one problem: Nuonuo often came back covered in blood, especially around its teeth, face, and neck, its fur stained a deep red, and with a dead chicken or dead rabbit dangling from its mouth, it looked more than a little unsettling.
That old woman, Liang Chunhua, had grumbled more than once: “That dog is bound to bite someone sooner or later, so fierce, covered in blood every time! And besides, how could one little girl possibly eat that much, rescue rations plus rabbit and chicken on top? Doesn’t she know to share with everyone? That dog can hunt, she’s not exactly short on food!”
Liang Chunhua had been scared out of confronting them directly, so she just muttered to others behind their backs, but everyone else was too afraid to respond.
Shen Qi didn’t care in the slightest. She borrowed solid alcohol fuel and seasoning, grilling up chicken and rabbit to her heart’s content, sharing it around with the other rescue team members, and everyone enjoyed the fragrant feast together.
Liang Chunhua was so angry her eyes rolled back, but since it had no effect on Shen Qi, she turned around and started pushing her son to join the rescue team instead, so he could bring home extra rescue rations every day.
Up to that point, rescue supplies still mainly consisted of compressed biscuits and bottled water, with instant noodles being fairly rare.
On one hand, these items really were easier to transport, on the other, no other place had the spare resources to donate supplies, anywhere with large stockpiles had already been secured by the military and was being prioritized for rescue teams, medical staff, and the injured, with other survivors coming after.
Besides, having narrowly escaped death in a midnight earthquake, the survivors in the square had no cooking tools of their own, they all had to borrow from the rescue team. The team had brought very few cooking utensils, so everyone had to share the limited supply, which made it easier to just eat compressed biscuits with water.
Still, given the overall circumstances, the rescue team’s meals were genuinely enviable, three meals a day of rice, with a proper mix of meat and vegetables, quite tempting indeed, and Liang Chunhua had been tempted too.
No one knew who exactly had refused to let her son join in the first place, arguing self-righteously: “Rescue work is exhausting and grueling, only a fool would do it, who’s that hungry for a bit of food.”
Actually, up until now, only Shen Qi had joined the rescue team, because everyone else shared the same mindset as Liang Chunhua, they all wanted to wait and see first, to check whether what the rescue team offered was worth the hardship of participating.
Li Zhengze understood all this perfectly well, but he only did things by the rules, so his response to Liang Chunhua was quite cold: “To join the rescue team, one must register in person. Each registered member can only receive one person’s worth of the three daily meals, no extra portions, and it cannot be transferred to someone else. Violators will receive a demerit, recorded in their file, equivalent to detention.”
No transferring, but sharing was another matter, the rule couldn’t be that rigid, but Li Zhengze also disliked Liang Chunhua’s unreasonable antics.
If her son wanted to join the rescue team on his own, Li Zhengze would gladly accept him, they were short on manpower, and her son was a tall, strong young man.
But right now, the young man hadn’t said a single word himself, and Li Zhengze wouldn’t let Liang Chunhua make that decision on her son’s behalf, that wasn’t how the rules worked.
Liang Chunhua’s face turned red with frustration, still wanting to argue, but her son silently dragged her away.
After that, she went on shouting at her son for being spineless, taking veiled jabs at the rescue team for being unreasonable, and even implying that Shen Qi was freeloading off the rescue team without contributing anything.
Shen Qi wasn’t about to let that slide. She turned around and grilled Nuonuo a whole chicken, sending it over to eat right in front of Liang Chunhua, making the old woman’s mouth water while she cursed furiously.
After finishing, Nuonuo licked its paws while staring at Liang Chunhua, a look of (feigned) hunger in its eyes, scaring her so badly she screamed for the rescue team to settle the matter fairly.
The rescue team, naturally, wasn’t going to take Shen Qi’s side against anyone, and just stood back watching the show unfold.
Captain Li Zhengze felt not the slightest bit guilty. He knew a little more than the others, that the world ahead would only grow harder, that the order of the old civilized society would soon be overturned, and that new official guidelines would follow, like a new set of laws. Under those new standards, Shen Qi’s behavior would honestly be considered quite merciful, and with Nuonuo by her side, the authorities would only be more tolerant of her.
Seeing that the rescue team wasn’t going to intervene, and with Nuonuo gradually closing in, Liang Chunhua’s face went pale and she stopped talking, looking as if she’d stay quiet for a good while.
Shen Qi, in a good mood, called Nuonuo back over and patted its head.
Well, that settled it! As they say, no need to panic over anything, as long as you’ve got your fists and the strength to back up your reasoning, everything works itself out.