Fleeing outward, I tried calling YaoYao repeatedly, but couldn’t get through.
I called Cui Ping again, but her 24-hour on-call phone was also unreachable;
Gu Ruandong’s hand trembled again, and his heart was like being shaken, falling into an abyss, and he could hardly breathe.
I tried calling Xu ZeFang, luckily the call went through quickly, though there was a lot of noise on the line, and it seemed like Xu ZeFang was also running outside. Without needing Gu Ruandong to say much, they understood each other perfectly. Xu ZeFang directly said, “Don’t worry, I’m on my way to the county.”
He usually lives in the city and not in the county, but because it’s close by, he felt the tremors strongly. He set off with people, speeding towards the county, with aftershocks constantly shaking the car, making it almost overturn several times. But when he took the call, he still spoke concisely: “I’m heading over now, don’t worry. Your sister-in-law’s villa is at least built to withstand an eight-magnitude earthquake or more. I just saw the news, things in the county… aren’t that bad.” The last few words were pure comfort. Judging by the tremors, it definitely wasn’t small. It was just sudden, and the magnitude hadn’t been officially released yet.
“Well, be careful yourself.”
Gu Ruandong had just finished his shower, it was summer again, but he felt a chill all over his body, his fingers were ice cold. On the way to the airport, he finally had time to look at the news, but because of communication interruptions, there were no pictures, only reports that a 6.7 magnitude earthquake occurred in the county, and the current casualties are unknown. Relevant departments and rescue personnel are on their way.
The county is surrounded by mountains on all sides. The only road out of the county seat is a newly built highway, but the highway passes through several tunnels. Road interruptions are not due to earthquakes, but are for safety reasons and traffic control measures are in place to prevent any vehicles from entering the highway.
The group from the big ship was extremely anxious and unwilling to abide by the regulations. They made numerous calls, leveraging connections, and worked behind the scenes before finally forcing their way through. The barricades set up on the highway were no match for them as they simply drove right over them.
Gu Ruan Dong’s situation is much more difficult. There are already fewer late-night flights, and with the earthquake, all flights to the area have been canceled. Moreover, private planes are also prohibited from flying due to the earthquake.
He had gone through countless moments of life and death, but never before had he felt like this. Thinking about Yaoyao and the children over there, not knowing what kind of hardships they were going through, made him feel empty. It was like falling into a frozen lake. He struggled beneath the surface, unable to catch his breath.
It wasn’t until he saw Lu Kuo run up to him, his face pale, that he finally emerged from the lake. His breathing gradually returned to normal, and his thoughts slowly came back to him.
When Lu Kuò asked him what was going on, catching his breath, he had already regained his composure. No matter what kind of upheaval he had gone through internally, he could still remain calm and collected in front of others.
He succinctly stated: “All routes are impassable, we’ll drive there.”
Without any hesitation, he turned and walked out. He didn’t even have time to take the driver with him. He and Lu Ku personally drove over there, then asked Xiao Cai and the driver to drive over as well to meet them.
Along the way, both he and Lu Kuo remained silent, their hearts filled with worry. They feared that if they spoke, any words uttered would be discouraging, and that fragile thread of hope couldn’t be broken.
But Lu Kuo wasn’t the type to keep things bottled up, “It’s fine, she’s lucky.”
In this situation, his words not only offered no comfort but instead seemed to emphasize that Yaoyao was in grave danger.
Gu Ruandong tightened his grip on the steering wheel, focused on driving.
<<>>
Speaking of which, he suddenly realized that he was talking nonsense: “Oh, no, it’s not true. When I was a child, our grandmother was still alive, and she had a fortune teller calculate our fortunes for us. He said her fate was better than mine.”
Gu Ruandong remained silent, but his arms gripping the steering wheel were tense. As Lu Kuò had said, it was true that since Yaoyao started dating him, disaster seemed to follow her wherever she went.
The materialist suddenly felt whether there was really something like “marital incompatibility.” The materialist also suddenly prayed, hoping that as their grandmother had calculated, she would live a healthy and happy life.
He was just as troubled in his mind as Lu Kuo, but he didn’t show it.
He was panicked and instinctively wanted to see her as soon as possible, the closer the better. So he drove over, forgetting that he could ask someone for help and instead flew directly there like a rescue team.
They took turns driving every three hours and didn’t arrive at the provincial capital where the county was located until the morning of the next day.
After the call last night, Dafang sent him another message saying he had gotten onto the expressway to the county. But for some reason, he didn’t contact him all morning.
As you can well imagine, the situation in the county is dire.
They reached the highway entrance and were also stopped. Gu Ruandong stayed in the driver’s seat and couldn’t speak, so Lu Kuò went to negotiate.
The other party shouted hoarsely, “It’s useless to go on the highway now, you can’t get in. There was a rockslide that blocked one of the tunnel entrances. A car went in last night and we can’t get in touch with them now. Half of the surveillance cameras along the way are broken.”
“Get back as fast as you can, there will be aftershocks.”
Whatever you do, don’t let them on the highway.
Lu Kuo was worried not only about Lu Yaoyao, but also about the workers at the mining company. They were living in makeshift steel sheet houses in the mountains. If they didn’t escape in time, the consequences would be unimaginable.
As soon as Gu Ruandong heard that a car had gone in last night and the person was now missing, his heart sank even further, worried it might be from Dafang’s car.
He always believed in human beings overcoming nature, but when he truly faced the disasters of nature, he realized how small human power was.
The sky was rolling with dark, heavy clouds, as if a storm was brewing; even at noon, the day was gloomy. The mountain winds whistled all around, chilling anyone who dared step outside. In the distance, the sound of helicopters droned overhead, probably rescue aircraft.
Gu Ruandong was now completely calm. He asked in a steady voice, “Has anyone gone to repair the blocked tunnel? How can the ground rescue team get into the county?”
“Some firefighters entered the old abandoned provincial road, but that road also has landslides and is very dangerous. The first rescue team has been organized to go into this highway tunnel for repairs.”
Gu Ruan dong calmly said: “This highway was built by us. Only our engineers know the structure inside the tunnel, I will have them come and cooperate with the rescue team.”
His only thought at the time was to clear the tunnel as quickly as possible and get into the county.