Chapter 395: A Roar in the Sky and the Shattering Earth
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“Block this well. Don’t drink the water from it anymore,” w.a.n.g Yao told the villagers.
They used a wooden board to block the well and placed a few big stones around it. It already afternoon when they finished everything.
w.a.n.g Yao planned to find a place to drink some water. The party secretary of the county, Gong Zurong, came over and invited w.a.n.g Yao to his house. He was an old man in his 50s.
“Thank you very much, Dr. w.a.n.g,” he said.
w.a.n.g Yao had treated the children and saved two families, all without asking for anything in return. A person like that was hard to come by.
“You’re welcome,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
After pausing in thought, Gong Zurong asked, “Umm, Dr. w.a.n.g, where does the poison in the well water come from?”
“I’m really not sure. We’ll have to wait for the inspection and quarantine results from Shangjun before we can make a further a.n.a.lysis and judgment,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
“Is there no problem with the well?” Gong Zurong asked.
“There’s no problem with it for the time being,” w.a.n.g Yao replied.
“Alright. Are you free tonight, Dr. w.a.n.g?” Gong Zurong asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Why don’t you have dinner here tonight?” Gong Zurong asked.
w.a.n.g Yao agreed. After dinner, he returned to Gong Aiguo’s house. He discovered there were several guests in his house.
“Dr. w.a.n.g.” They all got up and greeted him.
w.a.n.g Yao had met some of them before. He did not know some of them at all.
“h.e.l.lo,” w.a.n.g Yao responded with a smile.
“Dr. w.a.n.g, are your consultation fees expensive?” one of them asked.
“Huh?” w.a.n.g Yao was startled. He immediately realized that these people came over to have their illnesses treated.
“It depends on the type of illness,” w.a.n.g Yao answered.
“Can you please have a look? My waist is particularly uncomfortable,” the man said. “It always hurts when I bend my waist.”
w.a.n.g Yao took a look.
“It’s a lumbar muscle strain. You’re tired from work. You have to rest more. I’ll give you a ma.s.sage,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
He gave the man a ma.s.sage therapy using the ma.s.saging techniques with a tinge of neixi.
“I feel great!” The man was enjoying himself very much. He only felt that his waist was warm. It was as if he was lying on the hot kang at home. It was also not throbbing anymore.
“You’re awesome!” the man exclaimed.
The patient’s intuitive feeling was the best way to explain the problem. His body felt much better just by getting ma.s.saged for half an hour.
“Umm, how much should I pay you?” he asked.
“Forget it. Rest more when you get home. Sleep on the hot kang and apply hot compress,” w.a.n.g Yao replied.
“Alright. Thank you very much.” The man left with a smile.
The second patient was a woman in her 40s who had gray hair. She was suffering from headaches. Her head hurt very badly when it was cold. The chill had entered her brain.
w.a.n.g Yao gave her a ma.s.sage. It made her feel a lot better. Then, he prescribed her a medicine.
“This is the formula. Find a medicine shop and buy the medicinal herbs. Let me have a look after you’ve bought them,” he said.
“Okay. Thank you,” she replied.
The third patient was suffering from lower back pain. His condition was the same as the first patient. w.a.n.g Yao gave him the same treatment.
Not long after the three people left, the sky had darkened. It was night time. Gong Aiguo’s wife had begun to prepare dinner.
“We’re not having dinner at your house tonight.” w.a.n.g Yao told her that they would be having dinner at the party secretary’s house.
…
“Why is he treating us to dinner?”
“You’ll know when you get there.”
The party secretary did not have a better financial state compared to Gong Aiguo. He was even worse. There were some simple home cooked dishes for dinner. The wine was however, excellent.
“My son brought back this wine. I’m reluctant to drink it on normal days,” Gong Zurong said.
“I’ll have to taste it then,” w.a.n.g Mingbao replied with a smile.
They gradually got acquainted after sipping some wine.
“Dr. w.a.n.g, Manager w.a.n.g, thank you so much,” Gong Zurong said.
The people who came back from the county town said that the people being treated were sent to the hospital in time. Otherwise, their lives might still be in danger. They even asked how they had handled the situation. Gong Zurong knew that this was all thanks to w.a.n.g Yao.
“You’re welcome,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
“How did a well that had no problem go to waste?” The old man sighed. “Dr. w.a.n.g, I heard that you didn’t take any money from seeing a few patients in the afternoon.”
“Oh. It’s nothing,” w.a.n.g Yao answered.
“It’s nothing to you, but it’s kindness to us!” Gong Zurong took a sip of wine alone. “The traffic in our mountain village is inconvenient. There are no local specialties either. The poor have no money to see a doctor, and they don’t have the money to attend school. It’s now difficult for the villagers to have wives. They’re not willing to come over when they hear that the men are from this village.”
“The villages in the vicinity aren’t doing too well, right?” w.a.n.g Yao asked.
He saw that the road extended into the mountains. There should be other villages inside.
“They’re more or less the same as ours,” Gong Zurong said.
“I see a lot of grains and jujube trees in the village,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
The millets and jujubes in Qinzhou were famous.
“There are a lot of them. There are people who have come to buy them, but it can’t be sold for a good price,” Gong Zurong replied.
In the mountain village, the villagers depended on the weather and soil to make a living.
“If the road is repaired, things will be better,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
“The county does not have the money,” Gong Zurong said.
“That is a problem,” w.a.n.g Yao responded.
They accompanied the old man to drink a few gla.s.ses of wine. They listened to him talk about some matters and his complaints. It was already past 8 p.m. when they left. The sky was completely dark.
w.a.n.g Yao sat in the yard alone and looked at the sky. The sky was loftier because there was less pollution.
“What are you looking at?” w.a.n.g Mingbao asked with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Astronomical phenomena,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
“What can you see from it?” w.a.n.g Mingbao asked.
Oh right. Huh? w.a.n.g Yao suddenly stood up and looked at the sky.
“What’s wrong?” w.a.n.g Mingbao asked.
“This is weird!” He saw such a strange astronomical phenomena for the first time.
w.a.n.g Mingbao did not know what his buddy was talking about.
That night, the dogs in the village barked madly non-stop for no reason.
Oh no! w.a.n.g Yao suddenly woke up.
“Wake up.”
He first woke w.a.n.g Mingbao up. He then woke Gong Aiguo’s family. They went to the yard.
“What’s wrong, Dr. w.a.n.g?”
“Wake everyone nearby up,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think there’ll be an earthquake,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
“What? Earthquake?”
“It’s too late. Cover your ears,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
w.a.n.g Mingbao subconsciously covered his ears. Gong Aiguo’s family quickly followed suit and covered their ears. They did not know what the young man was going to do.
“Wake up!”
There was a thunder-like roar. The tremor scattered. The windows of the house kept ringing.
“What’s going on?”
The villagers were frightened awake by the loud roar. w.a.n.g Mingbao and Gong Aiguo’s family were dumbfounded.
There was a rumble. Then, the earth began to shake. There was an earthquake. The villagers ran out from their houses. Then, it became calm.
Huh? There’s no more?
The dogs in the village were still barking. The villagers did not go back into their houses to sleep.
“Is it still going to shake?” w.a.n.g Mingbao asked.
“How do I know?”
They stayed in the yard for two hours. The barking of the dogs in the village gradually subsided.
“It should be fine now,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
“Let’s go back in and sleep then.”
They went back into the house to sleep. The rest of them stayed in the yard or gathered together. They were scared to go back into their houses.
“Ah. I’m so sleepy!”
“Why is there an earthquake all of a sudden when everything is fine?”
“Hey, did you hear a loud roar?”
“Of course I did. It was just like a thunder. I woke up immediately. What was that sound?”
“I don’t know. Is it the sound of firecrackers?”
“I think I heard someone shouting.”
“Someone shouted? Who has such a loud voice?”
Early in the morning, almost all of the villagers were listless since no one slept well the night before. Although they were in low spirits, they still had to work and make breakfast. Therefore, the villagers went to the only well left in the village to fetch some water while yawning. In the end, the water that was fetched was turbid.
“What’s wrong with the water?”
“Could it be that it’s poisonous too?”
People were worried. Someone took the water to w.a.n.g Yao to ask about it.
“It’s poisonous. It can’t be drunk anymore,” w.a.n.g Yao said after tasting it.
“What are we going to do?”
Both wells were poisonous. Drinking water had become a problem in the village. It was originally not poisonous. There was poison after the slight earthquake the night before.
Does the poison come from the underground? w.a.n.g Yao thought about it while staring at the bucket of water.
Although the earthquake had only lasted for a short time, it happened. The most obvious problem was that some of the old houses in the village had cracked walls. A large furrow broke open on the slope in the south of the village. It was more than 3 inches wide and 6 feet deep.
There was no drinking water in the village. This was the biggest problem faced by hundreds of families.
“What are we going to do?”
“If all else fails, we have to fetch water from the reservoir to the village.”
“That’s so far!”
There was a reservoir a little less than a mile away from the mountain village, but it was farther away from the village. It was usually used only for irrigation.
“The water doesn’t taste good too!”
“Why don’t we take this opportunity and connect tap water?”
“It’s easy for you to say. What about the money? Who’s going to spend?”
Everyone kept quiet once the issue about money was mentioned.
w.a.n.g Yao was on the hill outside the mountain village. He was staring at the crack on the ground.
What’s going on?
He felt a unique Qi was seeping out of the cracks. This was definitely not a Qi of the earth because he felt a chill from it.
This is weird!
He pondered for a moment while staring at the crack. Then, he turned around and went back to the village. After a while, he came back again with a shovel and a pick. He then chose a suitable location and started digging a hole.
“What are you doing?” w.a.n.g Mingbao came out of the village and only found w.a.n.g Yao after a long time. w.a.n.g Yao had already dug a square pit.
“I think there may be something underground,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
“Something? What is it?” w.a.n.g Mingbao asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll dig and see,” w.a.n.g Yao said.
As he continued digging, he felt the chilly Qi was getting stronger and stronger.
There must be something unusual in the underground!