Chapter 5: The Fall from the Cliff

Xiao Hongyu’s eyes were bloodshot. He said little, simply directing everyone to board the vehicles. Apart from the scattered sounds of quiet sobbing, the crowd was eerily silent. Twenty specially modified military trucks, each packed with over a hundred people—though cramped, they were stable and fast.

All personnel at the accident site quickly regrouped and boarded the vehicles. In just ten minutes, Xiao Hongyu climbed into the passenger seat of the last truck. He looked back at the barren hills littered with the wreckage of the Rising Sun, his heart heavy with guilt. In the end… he had still failed to fulfill Old Du’s orders.

The truck carrying Wang Keyue’s family was positioned near the rear of the convoy. As the vehicles left the desert, they headed straight for the shelter built at the Rongshan Base. On the way to this refuge, they would have to pass through a mountain area; as long as the convoy moved quickly through this stretch, they would reach safety.

But misfortune never comes alone, and fate rarely bends to human will. Just as the truck with Wang Keyue’s family was traversing this section, a terrifying earthquake struck. Everyone inside felt the world lurch violently. The heavy trucks, weighing over a dozen tons, rocked like tiny boats in a stormy sea. Passengers tumbled and jolted like beans in a shaken sieve.

Then, disaster struck in an instant—a massive boulder from the mountaintop crashed straight toward the truck carrying Wang Keyue’s family. Fortunately, the young soldier driving the truck was highly skilled. At the very moment the rock would have struck, he slammed on the brakes, so the boulder smashed only the cab, sparing the main body of the vehicle.

The cab was crushed and deformed, and the truck was shoved by the force to the edge of the cliff. More than twenty young people who had been sitting in the back, including Wang Keyue, were flung out by inertia.

Wang Keyue was hurled from the truck, slamming against the trunk of a dead tree on the cliff’s edge, her vision swimming, her head spinning in a daze.

Perhaps this earthquake was only the opening act, for it lasted just three or five seconds before the earth stilled again. But everyone knew, this was only the brief calm before the storm.

The survivors crawled out of the battered truck, all dazed from the impact. Several had broken arms or legs. Among them was the third aunt, her calf shattered in the chaos, so pained she could not speak. Wang Keyue’s mother fared even worse—she had seen her daughter thrown from the truck and tried to break free of her husband’s grip to save her. Failing to reach her daughter, she crashed into the truck door and was knocked unconscious.

Xiao Hongyu and the soldiers swiftly cleared the area, directing the civilians to disperse and board the trucks behind them to evacuate. Meanwhile, Xiao Hongyu and his men had to descend the cliff to rescue the survivors who had fallen.

Wang Keyue’s entire family wanted to stay and wait for her rescue, but the third aunt and Wang Keyue’s mother were seriously injured and could not withstand further hardship. In the end, Wang’s father made the decision: he would remain behind to wait for Wang Keyue, while the others had to evacuate with the troops.

As the patriarch of the Wang family, his word was law.

A dozen other parents also chose to stay, lying at the cliff’s edge, craning their necks, calling out their children’s names.

Wang Keyue was lucky; she was caught in the branches of the dead tree. Her head throbbed, and the wind roared in her ears. When she finally managed to open her eyes, her vision was blurry, and it seemed countless points of light were flying toward her.

“Beep beep—beep beep—zzzz… zzzz…” The wind in her ears faded, replaced by the strange, persistent buzzing of electronic equipment.

Am I hallucinating from a concussion? Wang Keyue wondered.

She tried to lift her hand to pat her ear, but found she had no strength at all.

“Zzzz… zzzz… System connection successful! System login.” In her mind, a robotic voice suddenly sounded, startling the woozy, confused Wang Keyue into full awareness.