The terror of brushing past death seized all of her senses…
No one answered.
Yun Shui was timid as a mouse. She truly hadn't dared to get close at all. She had barely managed to escape from her own crumbling building, and now she had to venture deep into another one—it was really testing the limits of her moral fortitude. Re-entering a collapsed area within such a short time was an extremely high-risk act.
But she had already put on her protective gear.
Back when she had taken the civil service exam, there had been a physical fitness test. After joining, she was actually required to do morning exercises every day. Although it was just simple morning jogs and occasional freestyle sparring practice, and she did slack off from time to time, her physical condition was still maintained at a barely passable level.
The red dot on the communicator no longer emitted a signal. Yun Shui worried about aftershocks, worried about her own life, worried about her nonexistent career prospects. Her conscience was being put on trial, her abilities questioned, but she took a deep breath and steeled herself to go in anyway.
Amidst fear and inner struggle, her legs were trembling.
Shaking, she squeezed directly through the gap.
Because the windows were broken and it had rained the night before, there was still standing water inside, giving off a putrid smell.
Fortunately, the Fleet Commander's home decor was relatively understated—no glittering, magnificent chandeliers threatening to crash down from above. She was terrified at this moment, genuinely fearing that if an aftershock struck now, she would be crushed flat like a meat patty.
She kept comforting herself, pressing hard on her trembling legs as she inched her way deeper inside.
Yun Shui's other hand gripped the strap of her helmet, as if drawing some kind of strength from it. Finally, her heart racing with panic, she made a full circuit inside. As she watched the ridgepole and beams groaning under their burden, barely maintaining their precarious balance, she heard a faint, barely perceptible tapping sound.
The soldier accompanying her heard it too.
The soldier crawled in from the other end. They both heard the rhythmic tapping.
Tap tap tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap tap tap.
A distress signal in Morse code—unmistakable. The two of them quickly moved deeper inside. The next moment, something above them collapsed immediately. Yun Shui scrambled and rolled, the soldier sprinted and dodged, as a wall lamp that had already been on the verge of falling came crashing down along with a chunk of plaster, shattering on the ground.
Tears burst from Yun Shui's eyes in fright. She was nearly scared out of her wits, but she held back and didn't make a sound.
Like a chain reaction, the staircase that had already half-collapsed seemed to sense something, emitting groans of unbearable strain. This cantilevered structure had developed cracks during the earthquake, and with the slightest misstep, it would collapse entirely!
The soldier immediately grabbed Yun Shui and ran out!
Yun Shui's mind went blank. The two of them ran out gasping for breath, barely stopping outside to catch their wind. After a moment, a thunderous crash echoed from within the villa—the entire staircase had likely collapsed.
Fortunately, their position earlier had been far from the stairs. They had only gone in a few meters, so they weren't caught in the collateral damage and managed to escape in time.
Dust billowed, thick and black.
The soldier pulled out his walkie-talkie to report, and the voice on the other end said they would dispatch personnel to assist with the rescue as soon as possible.
Yun Shui opened her mouth, but no sound would come out. The terror of brushing past death seized all of her senses. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed to the ground.
The soldier said grimly, "We can't go back in. We thought the structure had stabilized with no risk of secondary collapse, but the AI instrument assessment wasn't accurate enough. We still need structural experts to verify with laser ranging. For now, all we can do is wait. We need support kits and an aerial ladder truck."
Yun Shui dazedly reached up to touch her face—it was covered in tears. She murmured, "Artificial idiot…"
In a hoarse voice, she asked softly, "The Fleet Commander is still inside."
It had collapsed again and again. Could anyone still survive that?
The soldier remained relatively composed: "Ma'am, please accept my condolences."
Yun Shui couldn't process it. Was it already at the point of accepting condolences?!
She felt her mind in utter chaos. But there was nothing here—no assessment experts, no excavators, no machinery capable of lifting concrete and steel beams weighing a thousand jin. Two flesh-and-blood bodies were simply powerless against such odds.
She was immersed in the terror of nearly dying several times over, then plunged into anxiety over a human life, burning with helpless anguish.
The soldier said that manpower here was severely lacking. The earthquake at Gaotang Fortress had likely reached magnitude 7, and the energy sector had exploded and caught fire, causing heavy casualties. Until professional search-and-rescue teams arrived, there was nothing she could do.
The soldier led her to an open area near the villa district, where someone had hastily set up canopy shelters. Many survivors were crowded inside. With nowhere else to go, she joined them.
She woke in the early morning, cold and hungry, clutching her hiking backpack as she sat there blankly. It was already six o'clock. The familiar dawn light draped down, yet beneath that sky, everything had already changed beyond recognition.
Temporary management personnel were setting up resettlement points, housing survivors from both the residential zone and the Core Zone.
Volunteers were handing out compressed biscuits. Yun Shui took one mechanically, but she couldn't bring herself to eat it.
She hugged her arms tightly. The cold touch of her jacket felt very real—her heart was beating forcefully, blood surging through her veins.
Yun Shui almost desperately confirmed that she "existed." The events that had unfolded in succession were both frantic and despairing, and she kept taking deep breaths to maintain her composure.
She had stayed up late last night, and when the earthquake alarm had jolted her awake, she'd probably only slept about an hour and a half. Then, after being knocked unconscious by the bathroom heater for two hours, she'd had less than four hours of sleep total. And she had used up all her courage to do things she would never normally do—sawing through a door, climbing through windows, searching for someone, venturing deep into danger and nearly being crushed to death.
She hoped this earthquake's damage was minimal, that her family was safe, and that everyone—those she knew and those she didn't—would survive.
Her usual 7:30 work alarm went off. When Yun Shui was startled awake, she realized she had fallen asleep.
Sleeping while clutching her hiking backpack hadn't been restful at all—her back and waist ached. She groggily reached for her communicator, and that ingrained biological clock of clocking in for work jolted her upright. She stood up abruptly, only to realize she was under a makeshift tent.
Suddenly, there was a weary laugh.
It was a medical worker who had just finished bandaging someone in the tent across from hers. Standing up to stretch, they had caught sight of Yun Shui's startled sleeping state and been amused.
Yun Shui felt no embarrassment at all at that moment. She felt her nerves had already gone numb. Instead, looking at the many blood-stained people lying on the temporary cots, she felt an unprecedented heaviness sink into her heart.
She ran over and asked, "Excuse me, where did these wounded come from? Have the rescue teams arrived?"
The medical worker said, "Cranes and excavators have arrived—they should have started rescue operations by now. These are the wounded who've been brought in, but we're still short on manpower. They've only searched as far as the West Zone."
The Fleet Commander's residence was in the East Zone.
She thanked them, then noticed that the soldier who had accompanied her earlier was gone. Yun Shui took the safety helmet out of her backpack and put it back on, activated the compass on her communicator, and jogged toward the Fleet Commander's residence.
The locator in the communicator had long since stopped transmitting—utter silence.
By the time she reached the red dot's position, the western district villa still had no rescue teams.
Not enough manpower…
Yun Shui had been running too hard; her lungs felt like they were about to burst, her vision swimming. She couldn't possibly be insane enough to pull people away from the western search-and-rescue operation—other people's lives mattered too.
She had no idea when the officer's promised "we'll do our best to dispatch people for the search" would actually come through, so she decided to go ask again.
She stepped forward, but dared not enter the collapsed villa again. She could only circle around the perimeter, the silent building sealed in dim, murky light. Just as she was about to hurry away, she spotted a strange brownish stain on the ground.
…That was dried blood.
Had that been there before!?
Yun Shui instinctively scanned her surroundings carefully, and as she rounded a broken wall, she actually saw a stiff figure collapsed on the ground.
She was startled, overjoyed, and terrified all at once. The person wore a plain long-sleeved shirt and pants covered in dust, looking like pajamas. Blood mixed with sand and mud covered their face, like a battered soldier in a trench. Their elbows and hands were in horrific condition—flesh and blood mangled beyond recognition. It was hard to imagine how sheer willpower had allowed them to dig themselves out of the rubble.
…It looked like a male corpse.
It was Jiang Xie.
Yun Shui dragged him out of the ruins with all her strength, all the way to a slightly safer spot on the road.
Gasping for breath, she reached out to feel the Fleet Commander's breath. Perhaps because her whole body was trembling, she couldn't detect any sign of life at all.
The Fleet Commander was dead!
Panic seized Yun Shui. She crouched down to listen for a heartbeat, but still felt nothing.
No…
It must be that she was too frantic, her body shaking so much that her senses were thrown off, unable to perceive his breathing.
Yun Shui began frantically digging through her hiking backpack, having no memory at all of what she'd haphazardly packed. After pulling out hemostatic gauze, she thought about bandaging him. Then suddenly remembered—shouldn't she do CPR first?
She tossed aside the backpack and crawled over, but feared that pressing down too hard might kill the Fleet Commander if he was still alive. Forcing herself to calm down, she parted the Fleet Commander's lips to breathe air into him. The moment their breath connected, she suddenly felt his breathing.
She stopped immediately. Her body had stopped trembling now, and she checked again—his breathing and heartbeat were both there. It really had been her panic that made her unable to sense them earlier.
The Fleet Commander was still alive.
Yun Shui frantically grabbed the hemostatic gauze again, doing her best to stop the bleeding and wrap the wounds tightly.
There seemed to be a wound on his abdomen still bleeding. She wrapped the bandage around several times, then took off her shirt and bound it tightly around him for extra compression.
She really had no experience with this, and ended up wrapping the Fleet Commander into a solid, airtight mummy.
After the makeshift wound treatment, she struggled to carry him for a long time, drenched in sweat from exhaustion. Finally, unable to carry him any further, she stopped midway, utterly spent. Yun Shui opened her compass and ran back toward the earlier temporary outpost.
As soon as she arrived, she found the medic from before, explained the situation, and several people brought a stretcher cart to go with her, hauling the Fleet Commander from where he lay halfway down the road.
Only when professionals began treating him did Yun Shui stop there, gasping for breath. Not caring about anything else, she collapsed flat on the ground on the spot.
That feeling of utter exhaustion—from high-intensity running and nervous tension—was about the same as after finishing a 2000-meter physical fitness test, collapsing on the track with no strength left in her body. Her lungs felt like they were about to give out, and she could even taste blood in her mouth.
Yun Shui hugged her hiking backpack and sobbed.
She was simply too exhausted—so tired that she cried.
It wasn't despair, exactly. Just an overflow of emotion that desperately needed an outlet at that moment. She wept silently, but after only a minute, she had no strength left. Done crying, she wiped her face and collapsed into her hiking backpack, sinking into deep sleep.
She slept straight through until evening.
Starving, Yun Shui felt crazier than the demons who wanted to eat Tang Sanzang's flesh. Her whole body ached, her stomach burned—she could probably devour an entire cow out of thin air.
A down jacket was draped over her—the one she'd stuffed into her backpack earlier. Supplies were probably so scarce that there were no spare blankets, and some kind soul had apparently fished out her clothes and covered her with them. No wonder the zipper on her duffel bag was half open.
She swayed unsteadily and let out a sigh. The sky had gone completely dark, yet curled up in the corner of this tent, she felt a rare sense of security she hadn't known in a long time.
She pulled out her communicator and opened the group chat with her parents. She typed: There was an earthquake today, pretty serious, but I'm fine. I'm at a temporary shelter. Everything's safe.
She hit send—an exclamation mark appeared. No signal. The message failed to send. Communications still hadn't been restored. She couldn't help but feel the Alliance had been unprecedentedly inefficient today.
"You're awake. Have something to eat." It was the medical worker she'd seen earlier—the one who'd called people to go retrieve the Fleet Commander. Only now, by the light of the temporary bulb, did Yun Shui notice his eyes—curved and gentle. His mask and cap were still firmly in place.
Yun Shui took the bread he offered and thanked him.
He was probably exhausted too. He sat down on the ground beside her, pulled off his mask, and sighed. "I still have twenty minutes of rest."
Yun Shui asked, "The general… I mean, my commanding officer from this morning—is he alright? How is he?" She trailed off mid-question as the medical worker removed his mask to catch his breath.
The medical worker said, "Bai Mingyi."
Yun Shui stammered, "Yun Shui."
Bai Mingyi gave a weary smile. He truly had a bright, handsome face—even with his eyelids heavy and folded from exhaustion, he was strikingly attractive.
It was just… perhaps he was too perfectly put together, giving off a subtle sense of unreality.
She tore open the packaging.
This kind of bagged bread with the desiccant packet inside wasn't fresh, but it was cheap. Dry and bland, with an artificially sweet filling. The yogurt flavor wasn't bad, though, and Yun Shui was ravenous—she devoured it in a whirlwind.
Bai Mingyi, by contrast, was picky, eating without much enthusiasm. Grateful that he'd immediately brought people to help her retrieve the Fleet Commander, Yun Shui dug through her backpack and pressed some chocolate and beef jerky into his hands.
After they finished eating, Bai Mingyi pointed at her clothes, which were caked in dust. "You're hurt too. Let me help."
Yun Shui thanked him. The wound on her palm had worsened, and she had scrapes on her knees, forehead, and various other places.
As he applied medicine, Bai Mingyi said, "Your commanding officer woke up once in the middle, then passed out again. Captains really are different. He took a severe blow to the abdomen—must have been crushed by something heavy. This is the first time I've heard of someone digging themselves out of rubble. His fingernails were nearly torn off. Remarkable courage."
Yun Shui could hardly imagine it. The Fleet Commander must have used some kind of tool along the way—there were marks on his palms—but his ferocity and willpower were truly extraordinary. She said, "Actually, we almost found him earlier, but the villa collapsed a second time."
Bai Mingyi held the snacks in his hands, looking surprised. "He's very lucky."
Yun Shui nodded in agreement.
She recalled that when she had first joined, she had actually seen the Fleet Commander wounded—when he was brought into the military Medical Pod, his body was utterly ravaged. Yun Shui had caught only a distant glimpse and genuinely thought they were carrying a corpse to be cremated.
Later, the Fleet Commander returned to duty, stationed at Gaotang Fortress, and his frequency of frontline combat decreased. At that time, he had just recovered; his cheeks were pallid and bloodless, yet his posture remained ramrod straight, unmovable as a mountain.
"Ma'am!" Suddenly a familiar-looking medical staff member ran over to call her. "The person you brought in has woken up!"