"anyone there!?"

Zhuang Yan, Xu Xingguo, Wang Datong, Yan Yan, Liu Ruiyong and others followed several local cadres and used flashlights to investigate in a certain village in the flood diversion area.

Pushing open the old broken wooden door of the yard, this is a typical small farmhouse with several fish ponds not far from the door.

"anyone there?"

The local cadre shouted again.

The flashlight shone on the tiled house on the first floor, and a few chickens clucked in the chicken coop, looking at everyone with frightened eyes.

It wasn't raining today, but it was sweltering and the air seemed to stop moving.

This portends that there may be a terrible rain tomorrow.

Two local officials walked into the tiled house, checked it, and walked out.

"No one," said one of them.

Another local cadre's walkie-talkie rustled a few times, and then a man's voice came.

He stepped aside, pressed the call button, and said something locally into the walkie-talkie.

He spoke quickly, like a blazing machine gun, and his voice was full of anxiety.

anxiety.

This is a kind of emotion that everyone in all the flood-distribution areas unknowingly produced today, and it was inadvertently revealed between words.

"Zhuangyan, do you still have water?" Xu Xingguo walked over to Zhuangyan and asked in a low voice, "I just drank all my water."

Zhuang Yan took off the kettle and handed it to Xu Xingguo.

Xu Xingguo took two sips of water, returned the kettle to Zhuang Yan, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and scolded in a low voice, "This ghost weather!"

Likewise, Xu Xingguo's tone was full of irritability.

Suddenly, there was a slight noise from the tile-roofed house.

"Huh?" Serenity looked sideways in the direction of the tile-roofed house and asked the others, "Did you hear anything?"

Zhuang Yan also heard it and said, "Maybe it's just a mouse, and the mouse also has to escape."

"It's not like..." Seriously frowned, listening intently.

Liu Ruiyong aimed his flashlight at the door of the tile-roofed house, and went in...

puff--

The dull and subtle voice sounded again.

Zhuang Yan also heard clearly this time.

It sounded like something fell to the ground.

"Not in a tiled house, like..."

He raised his hand and pointed to the back of the tile-roofed house.

"Like at the back of the house?"

A few soldiers did not have time to say hello to the local cadres, flashed a flashlight, walked around the tile-roofed house, and slowly walked towards the back.

After bypassing the house, there is a small courtyard at the back. There is a dilapidated shed at the northeast corner of the courtyard, which is full of messy things.

The flashlight lit up, and it seemed to be some feed or something.

"Come out!" shouted solemnly.

If there is someone at this time, it might be a thief who is stealing from the chaos.

There are always bad people in the world, and there must be some who take advantage of the fire.

"I see you!" Zhuang Yan took a few steps forward and gently picked up a wooden stick that was leaning against a tree in the yard.

The debris in the shed suddenly wriggled, and after the rustling sound, a gruff hoarse voice came from inside.

"Are you the People's Liberation Army?"

"We are the People's Liberation Army!" replied solemnly.

Seeing that there were really people hiding in the shed, everyone immediately became vigilant and spread out one after another, surrounding the shed in a semicircle, and unknowingly stood up in battle formation.

No matter who the shed is, there is no escape now.

"Who are you!? Come out!" Zhuang Yan shouted loudly.

The man hiding in the shed said in a very accented Mandarin, "I'm not a bad person, I'm the owner of this house..."

Before he finished speaking, several local officials who were originally in the front yard had already arrived.

One of them stared at the middle-aged man who came out of the shed for a while, and said, "Li Qiang! Didn't you leave?"

The middle-aged peasant named Li Qiang raised his head and glanced at the person on the opposite side, blocking the strong light of the flashlight with his hand.

"Are you Hu Zhishu?"

"Hey! It's really you Li Qiang! What are you still doing here!? I don't know that the flood is going to be distributed!?" "

Hearing that he is the owner of the house here, solemnly threw the stick aside slightly embarrassedly.

Several soldiers stepped aside.

This kind of thing is left to the local cadres to solve by themselves.

It is absolutely impossible to stay in the flood diversion area, Li Qiang must go.

If he didn't leave, Zhuang Yan and Xu Xingguo would carry him away.

Where there is life, there is hope.

Losing anything is better than losing your life.

Hu Zhishu stepped forward, almost poking his fingers on the bridge of Li Qiang's nose, and gave him a lesson.

"You Li Qiang are old and young, why are you so confused? If you stay here, do you think you are an immortal? Can you avoid the water? If you die, what will your parents do?

Hu Zhishu was stronger than Li in age, and his reprimands were almost like elders scolding their children and grandchildren.

Li Qiang hooked his head, looked at the ground, did not speak, did not make a sound, and scolded Hu Zhishu.

When he arrived, Hu Zhishu was also tired of scolding. He crossed his hips and took a few breaths. He pointed to the distance and said, "Go! Go now! Get out of here and go to the county seat. Don't you have relatives in the county again? Go! Avoid it, after dozens of days, the water will recede and come back!"

Li Qiang, who had been silent for a long time, heard this sentence, and suddenly his emotions broke out. He covered his head with his hands, grabbed his hair, squatted down, and burst into tears.

"Hu Zhishu! You said it lightly! Go? How to go?! I'm gone, can I go to the temple!?"

His shoulders twitched and he cried and said.

"My sister is in the county seat, that's right! I have long heard that the flood is going to be distributed, that's right! After four o'clock in the afternoon, I packed up my things, packed a truckload of food and some luggage with my family and headed to the city. I was blocked at the gate of the county town for two hours, I went to my sister's house to unload the food, I didn't even bother to eat and rushed back..."

"But I rushed home and took a look, and I knew it wouldn't work... I can't leave... How can I go? Hu Zhishu, how can I go?"

Li Qiang raised his hand and pointed to the front yard.

"The wardrobe in the house was made last year. I asked someone to find good wood, and then asked a carpenter in the county to customize it for me. It cost me a lot of money, but I used three wheels to get it from the county. I drove it back from dozens of miles by myself..."

"Also, in the 10-acre fish pond at the entrance, thousands of dollars were invested in the first half of the year, and the bank loan alone was 3,000 yuan. The pig house was built next to the fish pond, and there were seven pigs. The ground is dry all night, the fish is well fed, there are thousands of grass carp weighing more than three kilograms in Tangli, silver carp can also be served on the table, and the pig is more than two hundred kilograms a head, thinking about selling it before August 15th Now, I changed the bank's money, and the family had a wonderful August 15th..."

"But if the flood is distributed, what else is there to share the flood? My fish, my pig... and my chickens and ducks... gone, gone, gone... Hu Zhishu, you said, let me live I understand, my life is here, if I want to die, I will die with these fish and these pigs!"

After all, she covered her face and continued to cry.

Although Zhuang Yan could not fully understand Li Qiang's dialect, he could probably hear something from the conversation between him and Hu Zhishu.

At the beginning, when he first entered the backyard to find Li Qiang, the first thought in Zhuang Yan's mind was - why hasn't this person left? Could it be that you don't even want your life for this little property?

worth?

stupid!

But now, he suddenly understands how important these seemingly inconspicuous properties are to a farmer who depends on the sky for food.

Zhuang Yan suddenly understood as if he was enlightened, what is the purpose of being a soldier? What is the purpose of the so-called defense of the homeland?

To put it bluntly, it is to protect the peace of one side for every commoner who wants to eat and eat in this vast land.

Only when the common people are well fed, warmly dressed, and sleep soundly, can a soldier pat his chest and say without shame, I am a soldier! I gave to this country! I have a clear conscience!

Li Qiang finally left under the persuasion of Hu Zhishu.

Zhuang Yan used the only tricycle in his family to pack as much belongings as he could.

Everyone kept sending Li Qiang to the entrance of the village and the road leading to the county seat, and then they went back to the village.

Looking at Li Qiang's lonely and sad back, walking alone in the dark night where he could barely see his fingers, Zhuang Yan felt an indescribable helplessness in his heart.

On the way back to the village, he said to Xu Xingguo, who was walking beside him: "I want to go back to the embankment. Everyone else fights the flood. What kind of **** are we all doing!"

Xu Xingguo, Serenity and Liu Ruiyong were stunned for a moment, and their heads lowered.

Everyone was speechless all the way.

The night is deep.

The sky suddenly began to fall raindrops, from small to large.

The entire Jingzhou was plunged into darkness.

(=)