The rain was too heavy, making it difficult to keep one’s eyes open. For a moment, it was impossible to see where everyone was. Meng Qianzi heard Jiang Lian shouting from her side, “Run to the edge!” Immediately, a powerful force surged, pulling her into a sprint.
There were too many hilltops, and the rumbling sounds seemed to echo, making it impossible to discern directions. There was no time to worry about others. Every step was taken blindly, occasionally stepping into emptiness or slipping. This run became staggering and unsteady. After just a few steps, she nearly fell while being dragged. Amid chaos, Meng Qianzi glanced up the mountain and, through the layers of rain, vaguely saw a large expanse of flowing yellowish slurry about to reach them, accompanied by the rustling sound of rolling stones.
In that critical moment, Jiang Lian grabbed Meng Qianzi’s shoulder and forcefully pushed her to one side. He had no time to step away himself and was instantly knocked down by the mud flow like a giant tongue, then carried away by the mud, tumbling repeatedly down the mountain.
Jiang Lian’s push was powerful. Meng Qianzi was thrown completely off balance, rolling several times before stopping. Her body collided directly with sharp rocks, and every part of her body ached. But in this dire moment, she couldn’t care about that. She turned over and propped herself up in the heavy rain, her mind blank, and shouted, “Jiang Lian!”
She thought Jiang Lian had been buried alive by the mudslide, but it wouldn’t matter as long as they dug quickly enough—they should still be able to dig him out.
But with the pouring rain and a vast expanse of blurriness all around, it was impossible to distinguish where anyone was. Meng Qianzi desperately wiped away the rain from her face and eyelids, struggling to open her eyes and look.
At that moment, a person stood up from the muddy water not far away.
The person was covered in mud from head to toe, looking like a mud monkey. Fortunately, the heavy rain quickly diluted the mud, gradually revealing his clear features.
It was Jiang Lian.
Meng Qianzi stared at him blankly, collapsing onto the ground as all her strength suddenly drained away. She turned back, slowly wiping the water from her face, and looked up toward the higher ground.
Her prediction was correct—the serious landslide hadn’t occurred on this hilltop. The Phoenix Right Eye’s landslide was mainly a mud flow rather than a debris flow. It was probably due to continuous heavy rain that had loosened the soil, which couldn’t withstand the pressure and washed downward for a stretch. Fortunately, the mountains in Guangxi weren’t barren; they had some vegetation, so the mud flow contained few rocks, limiting its destructive power. It only raged for a short while before stopping.
Jiang Lian waded through the rainwater and mud, quickly reaching her side. He extended his hand to help her up. Meng Qianzi didn’t want to speak and directly grasped his hand, intending to stand up with his assistance. However, when she exerted force on her leg, she felt extreme pain and immediately sat back down, hissing, “It hurts, it hurts so much.”
Jiang Lian didn’t know exactly where she was hurting, but he understood the situation: moments ago, mistaking it for a life-or-death situation, he had pushed her too forcefully. Not exaggerating, if she had fallen in a different position, she might have been seriously injured.
They couldn’t just stay in the pouring rain. The path down the mountain was still far, and the mountain top, having just discharged mud, was relatively safe. Moreover, the cave at the top provided shelter from the rain. Jiang Lian turned his back to her and said, “Get on, I’ll carry you up.”
At such a time, there was no room for hesitation. Meng Qianzi, still in pain, wrapped her arms around his neck. Jiang Lian gripped her legs at the knees, stood up without much effort, checked the direction, and quickly made his way around the side.
The rain was still heavy, blurring their vision. Jiang Lian needed both hands to support Meng Qianzi and couldn’t wipe away the water from his face. He could only repeatedly close and open his eyes, or occasionally shake his head to try to get rid of some of the rain. Seeing his difficulty, Meng Qianzi hesitated for a while before finally reaching out to help wipe his face.
Jiang Lian was startled for a moment, feeling a slender, gentle hand caress his forehead, slide over his nose bridge, with her soft palm even touching his lips, before withdrawing at his chin.
He instinctively turned his head to look at her. Her long hair, soaked by the rain, was pressed against his neck, creating a very solid sensation, slightly ticklish.
Meng Qianzi, however, didn’t dare to look at him. She slightly curled the hand that had touched him, holding a palmful of wetness and heat. The warmth and tingling sensation penetrated deep into her elbow. She only remembered that her palm had seemingly touched his eyelashes, lips, and slightly prickly chin—a man’s chin, no matter how clean-shaven, always had a slightly rough texture.
She heard Jiang Lian say, “That’s better, now I can see clearly.”
Since he could see now, that was good. Meng Qianzi responded softly, but didn’t dare to help wipe his face again.
The rain was heavy but fell at an angle, leaving the cave dry inside. Jiang Lian set Meng Qianzi down and proceeded to roll up her pant leg.
No wonder she had difficulty standing—there was a large blue-purple bruise on the front of her shin. That wasn’t all. When he pushed up her sleeve, besides the bruising, there were two bloody cuts on her arm. The clothing on her shoulder was also torn, with a patch of skin scraped off. The wound, washed by rainwater, showed no blood and appeared pale.
Jiang Lian was in better condition. Firstly, men generally have tougher skin and flesh; secondly, he had only rolled a few times in the mud flow. The flow had followed the path downward, and there weren’t many sharp stones where he had tumbled.
However, he would rather have suffered some cuts and scrapes himself. This rescue had been too “forceful”—excessive, even. If he had done nothing, Meng Qianzi might have rolled a few times with the mud flow without getting injured. Now, her injuries were entirely caused by his push, while he remained unharmed.
Who could he blame? Surely not the mudslide for not being severe enough?
Despite her pain, Meng Qianzi found Jiang Lian’s awkwardness amusing and turned her head away, trying hard to suppress her laughter.
The situation had arisen suddenly, and there were no medical supplies at hand. Jiang Lian could only tear two strips from his clothes to roughly bandage her wounds. Then he took out his phone, intending to contact Shen Gun and the others, but after all that commotion, his phone screen was shattered and saturated with mud, making the display barely functional.
He had to put the phone back and find something to talk about: “Why haven’t they come up yet?”
With this kind of mud flow, which wouldn’t cause casualties, and since it wasn’t a real landslide, Road Three Bright and the others should be fine and should have come up by now.
Meng Qianzi knew exactly why: “They probably don’t dare to come up. I bet they’re racking their brains to come up with excuses.”
The Mountain Ghost sect had strict rules. Abandoning their leader and scattering in the face of danger constituted a serious dereliction of duty.
This incident couldn’t be dismissed so easily.
Jiang Lian walked to the cave entrance and looked at the rain lines across the sky: “The rain is too heavy. It probably won’t last long.”
Meng Qianzi raised her head upon hearing this, looking at Jiang Lian’s silhouette against the backdrop of the rain curtain, suddenly struck by a thought.
What if this wasn’t a false alarm but a real landslide? Would Jiang Lian have been buried alive?
When he was running, he could have left without pulling her along. He had always been a fast runner.
When the mud flow approached, he could have ignored her. Her subordinates, from Road Three Bright down to Pi Xiu, even the Three-Layered Lotus Petal who had sworn to “live with you, die beside you”—though this Lotus Petal was just a half-hearted pretense not to be taken seriously…
Hadn’t they all abandoned her and scattered?
Yet it was Jiang Lian, this “outsider” who had no real connection to her, who stayed by her side.
Meng Qianzi’s lips moved slightly, wanting to say something, wanting to ask him why he acted this way, but then felt the question would be awkward and would leave Jiang Lian not knowing how to respond.
As her mind wandered, she heard Jiang Lian laugh softly. She thought he was laughing at her and quickly looked up.
But he wasn’t; he was looking down the mountain and said, “Here they come, a line of black umbrellas. They’re probably coming to apologize.”
Under that line of black umbrellas was indeed a group of anxious people led by Road Three Bright and Pi Xiu.
Shen Gun wasn’t among them. His emergency response was mediocre: when Road Three Bright and the others ran, he didn’t run downward; when Jiang Lian shouted “Run to the edge,” he didn’t run fast enough; and when he was knocked down by the mud flow, he lacked Jiang Lian’s instinctive self-protection awareness when rolling. As a result, he tumbled down the mountain like a wheel, suffering quite a bit and sustaining several injuries. Later, he was carried down as a casualty by Road Three Bright and the others who had found him.
So in this entire “accident,” only two people were injured and bleeding: the boss and the boss’s Three-Layered Lotus Petal. Everyone else was unharmed except for being out of breath from running and getting soaked.
The group arrived outside the cave but pushed and shoved, none daring to enter. They stood holding umbrellas like mushrooms waiting to grow. Jiang Lian told Road Three Bright about Meng Qianzi’s injuries. Upon hearing that medical supplies were needed, one of the mountain dwellers rushed down the mountain to fetch them. Road Three Bright watched his retreating figure with envy, wishing his rank wasn’t so high that he couldn’t use fetching medicine as an excuse to escape this awkward situation.
The rain gradually subsided, but the mushrooms still clustered outside the cave. Meng Qianzi’s face grew cold as she said, “Are you planning to stand there until the rain stops?”
Jiang Lian was enjoying the spectacle and sat cross-legged to one side. He quite liked watching Meng Qianzi intimidate people, whether interrogating Yan Luo or settling accounts with Road Three Bright and the others.
Now that the boss had spoken, they couldn’t delay any longer. Road Three Bright reluctantly led Pi Xiu inside. The two had already discussed on the way: they would each say half, one expressing self-blame and the other offering self-criticism.
Pi Xiu spoke first. Such a large man lowered his head and hunched his shoulders, appearing like a dwarf: “Miss Meng, this matter is mainly my fault. I’m the one who couldn’t keep calm and shouted, ‘landslide, run quickly.’ I was also the first to run. Everyone was implicated because of me—I don’t know what came over me at that moment. Thinking I might die, and thinking of my wife and children at home, I forgot everything else. This was… very inappropriate of me. I accept punishment, whatever punishment you deem fit.”
Road Three Bright cleared his throat, seamlessly continuing where Pi Xiu left off: “The main responsibility still lies with me. As the person in charge of the Guangxi region, I failed to implement many things properly. In emergencies, Miss Meng should have been our priority, but our awareness was insufficient…”
What pompous speeches these were! Jiang Lian almost laughed out loud.
Meng Qianzi asked them both, “Are you finished?”
The more they said, the worse it got. The two men looked at each other and nodded one after another.
Meng Qianzi laughed coldly, suddenly becoming angry: “What rubbish! Not a single word hits the point.”
How could a single word not hit the point? Road Three Bright’s forehead began to sweat, his face alternating between red and white.
Meng Qianzi said, “Many of the Mountain Ghost sect’s rules are no longer applicable today, and I don’t care much about them. Everyone’s life is precious, and no one is obligated to sacrifice for others. Thinking of your wife and children isn’t wrong, and fleeing first is only human nature.”
The corners of Jiang Lian’s lips unconsciously curled into a smile.
“But as mountain dwellers, living near and familiar with mountains, shouldn’t you understand all mountain changes and conditions? Shouldn’t you know whether it’s a real landslide and what to do when one occurs? Today, we were fortunate that it was only a mud flow that didn’t cause much damage. If it had been a real landslide, would you have escaped with that kind of fleeing? No matter how much you think about your wife and children, they would never see you again!”
Pi Xiu’s lips dried up as he nodded continuously.
“And you,” Meng Qianzi looked at Road Three Bright, “you said yourself that you’re the person in charge of the Guangxi region, essentially managing the Southern Mountain’s Gui Shan Zhu. Your rank is so high, not for you to enjoy an easy life. When you lead people, you must be responsible for them. In dangerous situations, you should stabilize the group and provide solutions, not jump at shadows and run with others—when they run, you run. Where is your judgment?”
By this time, the rain had lessened further. Meng Qianzi’s voice carried outside, and a complete silence fell inside and outside the cave. Not even a cough broke the silence, though the sound of footsteps approached—it was the mountain dweller who had gone down to get medicine, now returning out of breath.
Jiang Lian went to the cave entrance to receive the first aid kit. Inadvertently looking down the mountain, he clicked his tongue in amazement: the rain had indeed been heavy and intense. The bases of the mountains near and far were now flooded, shining like lakes. The Phoenix Right Eye now looked as if it rose from a lake.
But this was typical of Guangxi. In some places, there were even “ton lakes” phenomena.
After a heavy rainstorm, underground waterways might become unexpectedly blocked, preventing rainwater from percolating down. Instead, it would gather in the low-lying mountain valleys to form lakes where fish could be raised and boats could sail. The most famous was the Xin Cheng County’s ten-year ton lake in Laibin City: a heavy rainstorm created a mountain lake that persisted for decades. One night, after ten years, nearby villagers heard rumbling vibrations and strange water sounds from the direction of the ton lake. The next morning, they found the lake level had dropped by more than a meter, with several huge whirlpools in the lake. A few days later, the entire lake disappeared. After the investigation, experts speculated that the long-blocked underground waterway had suddenly cleared, “swallowing” the entire lake.
However, such ton lakes were extremely rare, and there were no reports of ton lakes in the Phoenix Right Eye area. Jiang Lian estimated that the water that had accumulated in this short time would recede quickly.
Having vented her anger, Meng Qianzi felt much relieved. Seeing Jiang Lian come in with the first aid kit, she knew it was time for bandaging, so she dismissed Road Three Bright and the others: “Alright, I’ve said what I needed to say. The rest of you, go down and think about it carefully.”
Road Three Bright had been reprimanded with subordinates present both inside and outside the cave, feeling as if he was being publicly punished, wishing he could find a crack in the ground to disappear into. Now, hearing he could go down for self-reflection, he felt as if granted a great pardon and hurriedly responded, leaving. However, upon seeing the mountain dwellers outside the cave, he felt a loss of face and rushed down the mountain. The remaining mountain dwellers looked at each other in confusion, unsure whether to follow or stay, so they scattered, some following down, others stopping after a while in case there were further instructions from this end.
Jiang Lian bandaged Meng Qianzi’s wounds, smiling as he said to her, “So fierce.”
Meng Qianzi’s anger hadn’t fully subsided: “Of course! These are supposed to be mountain dwellers, yet they panic like this at a mountain change—I don’t know about their awareness level, but their professional competence is inadequate…”
At this point, she sighed involuntarily: “My Sixth Mother is in charge of this region. When she doesn’t pay attention, those below naturally become lax.”