Chapter 394: Chapter 394: Hidden Spring in the Levee

Two-thirds of the personnel on the dike have been evacuated. Ling Chengyan asked the team members to continue resting, but she couldn’t sleep any longer. She stopped Fu Qiang from following and told him to rest a bit more, while she walked out of the tent, heading along the dike.

After emergency repairs and reinforcements, the dike had been raised by more than thirty centimeters with sandbags.

Walking on the sandbags, it wasn’t just muddy; it was uneven and slippery, making it easy to fall if not careful.

Ling Chengyan, however, walked as if on level ground, moving at a steady pace, while her eyes meticulously scanned the inside and outside of the dike.

After passing a water-filled section, about a hundred meters away, Ling Chengyan heard a subtle gurgling sound. She squinted, and as she inspected the dike’s outer edge, she was puzzled because it was intact except for signs of rainwater erosion; there were no conspicuous water eruptions.

She searched forward and backward along the outer edge of the dike for about a hundred meters but still found nothing.

Ling Chengyan dared not be careless. Holding her breath and listening carefully, the subtle gurgling sound persisted.

She stopped, closed her eyes, and carefully distinguished the direction of the sound.

The heavy rain was still pouring down, and with the disturbance of the rain, it was challenging to identify the sound. She stood still for nearly ten minutes, and finally, determined the direction the sound was coming from, and walked towards it step by step.

In the pouring rain under a sky overcast with clouds, even during broad daylight, visibility was quite low. Coupled with the rain pooling everywhere, identifying a minuscule spring point was quite challenging.

Even with Ling Chengyan’s exceptional vision, she instinctively bent over to get closer to the ground to search for any irregularities.

The gurgling sound became increasingly clear, and Ling Chengyan felt a surge of joy, instinctively quickening her pace. Even when the water seeped into her boots and soaked most of her pants, she didn’t notice.

Suddenly, she saw ripples not far on the surface of the pooled water, like a spring gushing from the bottom of a pond, but much smaller than an average spring. If not for her exceptional hearing and vision, it would have been hard to detect.

She walked over, confirmed the location, and then searched for a dry branch nearby, placing it at the spring to mark it.

Turning around, she headed back directly to the command post on the dike and reported the situation: "...I’m not sure if there’s an issue..."

Before she could finish, four or five people who had been resting in the tent jumped up, grabbed their raincoats, and rushed outside eagerly.

Seeing this reaction, Ling Chengyan realized that the ’spring’ was likely something significant. She quickly held back the remaining words, followed them swiftly, and led the group to the spot of the spring.

When the others followed Ling Chengyan’s directions and saw the continuous bubbling of water under the dry branch, their faces grew somber. After a moment of silence, the eldest among them immediately ordered, "Assemble all personnel, inspect along the dike, and check for any other piping issues."

It turned out that the term used for such springs on the dike was ’piping.’

The others swiftly left upon receiving orders, while the elder stopped Ling Chengyan, who was about to follow along, reached out, and shook her hand, saying, "Really, thank you, Captain Ling. If not for your discovery, this concealed piping might have caused a major disaster."

Ling Chengyan smiled without saying much, but the elder introduced himself. He was an engineer from the local water department, surnamed Fan, Fan Danian.

Ling Chengyan greeted him with a smile, "Hello, Engineer Fan. Although we do not know much about water conservancy, feel free to assign us any work. No need to be polite."

After a brief exchange, Ling Chengyan accompanied Engineer Fan up the steep and slippery dike, and only then did she return to gather the team to transport materials to address the piping issue.

The rest of the personnel mobilized en masse, conducting a carpet inspection along the dike to prevent piping issues and avert the significant risk of a breach or collapse.

A small and easily overlooked piping issue was not simple to address. Under Engineer Fan’s scientific and orderly command, handling a single small piping issue took over an hour.

Alarmingly, in their thorough inspection, they discovered three more piping issues, which required emergency handling, and by the time everything was dealt with, it was already noon.

However, before the piping issues were completely resolved, Ling Chengyan and her specially trained team were urgently dispatched to Dali Town, where a significant hazard had arisen, for emergency rescue efforts.

Based on their specialties, this time they weren’t assigned to labor on the dike but were tasked with searching for missing persons.

Despite preceding evacuations, there were still missing persons, requiring personnel to be sent everywhere for search and rescue.

This time, they were assigned two assault boats. Belonging to the Army’s special training team, they had to temporarily shift to waterborne operations, maneuvering the boats around to search everywhere.

From morning until nightfall, they rescued eleven people, but unfortunately, six had already lost their vital signs. The remaining five, either clinging to trees or clutching wood or furniture, managed to survive. After rescuing them, two individuals were in poor condition and were rushed to the city hospital for treatment, while the rest were sent to resettlement sites, where medical staff were waiting to provide health checks and further assistance or resettlement.

That night, the special training team members took a short rest in tents outside the refugee accommodation site.

The reserved clean water was limited, and with the large number of resettled citizens, it was insufficient for everyone’s needs. Ling Chengyan had no choice but to have the team members fetch water, which they purified with water purification agents before boiling for drinking.

Perhaps it was due to climate and water quality issues, but that night, some special training team members developed symptoms of diarrhea.

Ling Chengyan promptly isolated the sick team members for observation, temporarily excusing them from missions and preventing contact with other team members.

She administered regular anti-diarrhea medication to the team members while sending someone specially to the city hospital to have their waste samples tested.

The rushed test results came back showing no pathogenic bacteria, allowing Ling Chengyan to breathe a sigh of relief.

The four sick team members thus temporarily took on the role of the cooking squad, focusing on filtering and boiling water to supply drinking water for their teammates and the refugees.

Thanks to Ling Chengyan’s suggestion, the resettlement site promptly made adjustments, promoting the prevention of infectious diseases to the refugees, rapidly constructing toilets, educating the refugees on maintaining personal hygiene, not drinking raw water, washing hands before meals and after using the toilet, and so on...

The special training team stayed in Dali Town for less than two days before being urgently redeployed to a neighboring county, where a larger tributary had posed a more severe threat with a breach in the dam, flooding over forty natural villages across two townships.

With incessant rain and ongoing flooding, Ling Chengyan led the special training team to the disaster-stricken area for emergency relief, and before they knew it, a week had passed.

In a short span of seven days, they personally witnessed rescue team members drowning in sacrifice, saw locals perish in the flood, and numerous livestock and poultry drowned and floating around...

Truly, it was a hell on earth, unbearable to witness.