Chapter 384: Earthquake in Shangjing (16)

Jiang Pengji scraped the ground with her feet. She then randomly took a branch and drew an irregular rectangle on the ground. With a few strokes, a regional map of Shangjing City was formed. During her time in Shangjing, she basically strolled around without a purpose. She knew the regional plan of the city by heart.

Searching and rescuing at random was not going to work. It would only waste time. Most of the areas outside the city limits could not be taken care of.

Including the available staff of the two residences, in addition to the young men hired, the entire search and rescue team only had 71 people.

She mapped out the path she wanted people to take in order to maximize efficiency levels.

“There are still too few people…” Feng Jin’s face was pale. The number of people was not even enough to cover the eastern area of the city.

“Do your best, and leave the rest to God’s will. If the emperor can provide some manpower, it may be easier for us.”

Xu Ke was so tired that he was panting. However, Jiang Pengji’s lips were dry and pale, her clothes were drenched with sweat, and her hands were injured. Seeing her, he did not dare to make a sound, no matter how difficult things were and how worn out he was. He swallowed his fatigue down to his stomach.

“Night will fall in another six to eight hours. This is what’s troublesome…” Jiang Pengji voiced out the difficulty that the two people beside her could not bear to say. Her voice was hoarse.

The lighting equipment in the ancient times was ineffecient. The rich could make fire with candles; the poorer people used oil lamps; whereas the poverty-stricken people would wash up and go to bed as soon as night fell… After the earthquake, it was conceivable how huge the impact was on the search and rescue effort without any lighting equipment at night.

It could be said that, except for Jiang Pengji, the others were basically not useful anymore.

The only good news was that the sky would darken later now that it was summer.

Feng Jin said, “We have to rescue them even if we have to hold candles. Human lives are precious. How can candles compare to that?”

The wealthy families spent a lot on candles, so the candles found in the warehouses of the two residences managed to make a box. They were estimated to last for a night.

However, the light of a candle was incomparable to the bright rays of the sun. It would definitely cause a great inconvenience to the rescue effort.

Jiang Pengji raised her hand to massage her brows. There were a lot of blisters on her palms, and many of them had burst due to friction. Others who saw them felt a pain in their hands, but she was completely indifferent to it, as if she could not feel any pain. “That is all for today. Take turns resting. We still have work to do tonight.”

There were only a small number of people. Not everyone was as tireless as her. They could not stand the high-intensity search and rescue effort all day and all night.

Jiang Pengji missed her own troops once again. They were all well-trained and a lot stronger than ordinary people.

“I wish the troops could be airborne at this moment…” She smiled bitterly and took a bowl of warm water from Taxue. She tilted her head and finished the entire bowl. She felt that it was not enough when she finished it, so she asked Taxue to give her another.

“If we are wishing for things, then I wish I had the ability to magically transform beans cast on the ground into soldiers.” Xu Ke sought pleasure under adverse circumstances. He held a bowl containing some diluted gruel and gulped it down. He no longer cared about maintaining a gentlemanly demeanor.

Feng Jin sighed and simply drank a bowl of gruel. He was half-full. “I’m going to take a look at my wife.” He was most worried about his wife and daughter now.

Jiang Pengji cleared her carriage. It was spacious inside and things were complete. Moreover, it had a good shock absorption system. As long as a thick quilt was placed underneath Wei Jingxian, she would not feel a strong shock while laying inside the carriage, even if there was an aftershock.

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Since she had just given birth and she had to feed her baby, another small stove naturally had to be set up.

All of the food she ate was to restore her vitality and to induce the production of her breast milk. Anyone else could starve, but not the mother and daughter.

There were too many wounded, and almost all of them were covered in blood. The air was filled with the strong smell of blood.

Bedridden women could not withstand much irritation, so the carriage was tightly shut, and it was too stuffy. He asked a servant girl to soak a cloth with warm water and squeeze it. She only felt slightly better after it was used to wipe her sweat away… Feng Jin only felt guilty about it when he thought about the current crude conditions…

“I don’t have the appetite. Why don’t you have some?”

Feng Jin entered the carriage and tidied himself up. He wiped his hands and his skin, which were exposed. He changed into a new shirt, so as not to dirty the carriage. He lifted the curtain and the heat inside greeted him. He felt uncomfortable and he was sweating, although it was just for a while.

“It’s okay. I’ve already eaten. You’re still in confinement and you need to invigorate your body so you won’t suffer from any incompletely cured illnesses.” Feng Jin sighed and turned to look at his daughter.

Due to the high temperature in the carriage, the swaddling clothes wrapped around the baby had already been untied. She was wearing two cotton blouses and was covered with a small blanket.

“It’s a bit hot inside. Lift the curtain from time to time so that there’s ventilation and it won’t be stuffy,” Feng Jin said.

Wei Jingxian replied, “I know. The servant girl is doing very well.”

“When the air is let in, you and the baby should cover yourselves well so you two do not catch a cold,” Feng Jin could not help but exhort.

Wei Jingxian listened to him patiently. The relationship between the couple had advanced at a tremendous pace, and it was growing stronger and stronger everday.

Jiang Pengji’s booklet was sent to the summer royal village outside the city at top speed. After the earthquake, many precautions were taken by the royal village, and it was heavily guarded by imperial guards. The booklet was only delivered to the Emperor after going through many twists and turns.

Although it was a tent, it was not too different from the palace.

There was still a study inside where the Emperor handled his official affairs and met with the ministers. There was a bathroom and a huge state bed, which was used to copulate with the concubines. The interior was extremely luxurious. One would not know when the tent was built while they were inside it. One would have thought that it was a palace with its extravagant decorations.

The people in the ancient times could not explain the cause of the earthquake, so they used their imagination and explained it forcibly. One of the most widely spread reasons was the trundling of the dragon underground. Therefore, every earthquake could be interpreted as God’s warning and dissatisfaction towards the Emperor. That was what the Emperor hated the most. The Emperor had been in a very bad mood since the earthquake struck the night before.

When he could not suppress his rage, he pulled out his sword and killed several courtiers, who had swayed the people’s hearts and deluged people with strange doctrines.

An exceedingly beautiful woman was laying on the recliner behind the screen. She opened her eyes slightly and got down from the recliner barefoot. She stepped on the delicate, soft, animal skin carpet. She was only loosely wearing a vaguely transparent, large-sleeved shirt that was embroidered with hundreds of birds worshipping a phoenix.

Apart from that, she did not wear anything to cover her body.

Her long hair draped across both sides of her breasts, vaguely covering her nipples. Her snowy white skin was covered with hickeys; some were dark and some were light. The new and old marks were obvious. They did not seem like they were formed over a short period of time. Instead, they looked like they were formed over the course of a few days.

Her footsteps were light. Her two straight, long legs swayed people’s hearts, making people linger their gazes on her breasts and vagina uncontrollably.

The woman gathered her large-sleeved shirt. Her face was enchantingly seductive, and her body was curvy. She curled her plump, red lips provocatively, like a blossoming, beautiful peony.

She did not care that she was naked. She ignored the servant girls standing with their hands down on both sides. She went around the screen and looked for the Emperor.