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Chapter 202: Chapter 202: Lin Man
By the time Si Chen and his team arrived at Shuitang Town, it was already the next morning.
The roads were destroyed and the mountain trails were difficult to traverse. They had traveled all night, only resting for three to four hours before continuing their journey. Finally, they arrived at Shuitang Town at dawn. The situation here was even worse than anywhere else.
There was no medical assistance, no rescuers. Only the villagers had formed a makeshift rescue team. Inside the rudimentary tents lay a dozen severely injured patients, including two young children. After hastily applying some first aid, they joined the search and rescue team. By the time Si Chen arrived, several people were hanging on to life by a thread.
Without thinking, they quickly opened their medical boxes and started treating the patients. Just as they managed to stabilize the patients’ conditions, they heard someone outside shouting.
"Everyone, please come and help! A girl who came to assist us is trapped under the hospital building."
Si Chen’s fingers trembled. He quickly rose from his chair, medical box on his back, and exited the tent. Several muddied men were running towards a certain direction. Si Chen followed them immediately, matching their speed despite carrying the medical box.
The disaster site was a hospital building which was half-collapsed. The other half was perilously unstable. Faint cries for help could be heard from within, but everyone was too afraid to enter. Nobody knew when the building might collapse completely, potentially burying them alive.
Everyone had witnessed the horror of the earthquake so they were fearful of these hazardous conditions. The brave girl, however, dared to venture in. But shortly after she entered, the remnants of the building suddenly collapsed. No sound was heard from within, and no one knew what happened to her.
Si Chen looked at the collapsed ruin, his heart sank. He placed his medical box on the ground and bent down, intending to clear the rubble. However, he was stopped by a man nearby.
"Doctor, let us handle this! We can’t afford you getting hurt. We’re counting on you to save lives."
As he spoke, seven or eight men began moving stone slabs and beams. Si Chen didn’t stand by idly. On one side, he participated in the rescue; on the other, he tried to call out to the person trapped under the rubble. Soon, a faint knock from beneath directed them to the specific location of the victims. Careful not to cause further harm to the trapped individuals, everyone followed Si Chen’s lead and finally found two people under the debris.
One of them was a nurse from the hospital who was trapped under a large slab. Fortunately, there was something holding up the slab, preventing the entire weight from crushing her.
Her injuries weren’t severe, but her leg was trapped under a deformed table and couldn’t move. Due to the prolonged entrapment, her lips were cracked, and her throat was dry. She hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for days and had inhaled a lot of dust, making her too weak to speak.
The other girl who had come to help was trapped on her left, pinned down by a much larger slab. Only her two muddy feet were protruding from the debris. She seemed unconscious and unresponsive. Si Chen quickly felt her pulse at her ankle, confirming she was alive, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
With combined efforts, they first removed the slab trapping the nurse. After freeing her, they proceeded to help the other girl. However, the slab on her was too large for seven or eight people to move.
In the end, Si Chen resorted to the principle of leverage. As the men lifted the slab, he bent down to lift the girl from the ground. He saw the wound on the girl’s head, her face was covered with fresh blood.
As a doctor, he was used to such scenes, but the color of blood on the girl’s face was difficult for him to bear. Just as Si Chen was about to carry the girl out, the lifted slab suddenly dropped a bit. It threatened to hit the girl’s head, so Si Chen immediately turned sideways, bearing the slab’s weight on his back. The heavy slab hit him, causing him to grunt, but he quickly lifted the girl out of harm’s way.
At the same time, the unconscious girl woke up. She screamed in fear, thinking she was about to be crushed. She closed her eyes tightly, but the anticipated pain didn’t come. Upon opening her eyes, she realized it was a doctor who had shielded her from the slab.
She was taken aback for a second and then the doctor carried her out. Looking at Si Chen with sparkling eyes, it was as if she had seen a deity descending from the heavens. Being saved by such a handsome man in this scenario, she felt that destiny had played a part.
"Doctor, I’m sorry, are you okay? I didn’t mean to slip. The rock under my foot was a bit slippery and I lost my balance," a man said apologetically. He was the one who had slipped, causing the slab to hit Si Chen.
"It’s okay. You carry her into the tent to be bandaged."
Si Chen was about to hand the girl to the man, who looked a bit shy being unaccustomed to holding a girl. Just as he extended his arms to take her, the girl tightened her grip around Si Chen’s neck and pleaded with him.
"Doctor, I don’t want him to carry me."
The man drew his hand back in embarrassment, his face turning red.
Si Chen knitted his brows, promptly placed the girl on the ground, and removed her grip from his neck. He spoke emotionlessly, "You seem to have the strength in your hands, your injuries aren’t severe. If you don’t want him to carry you, walk by yourself."
"... But I’m feeling dizzy," the girl bit her lips, looking aggrieved.
A man nearby responded, "If you don’t want him to carry you, let him carry you on his back. The doctor took quite a heavy hit from the slab just now, and you still want him to carry you?"
That the girl did not want other men to carry her but wanted Si Chen to do so was obviously because she considered the young and handsome doctor to be more attractive. Even in such a situation, she was being selective, so the man suggested that if she didn’t want one man to carry her or another, she should walk by herself!
Upon hearing that Si Chen had been injured while saving her, the girl instantly appeared remorseful. She stopped being fussy and said to the man beside her, "Then you carry me."
Her head was indeed hurting, and she was feeling dizzy. Otherwise, she would never let a man carry her. 𝖓𝔬𝔳𝔭𝔲𝔟.𝖈𝖔𝔪
They returned to the tent together. The other doctors were examining the nurse who had been trapped. Si Chen felt a sharp pain on his back where he was hit by the slab. However, based on his own professional judgment, he knew it wasn’t a bone injury but a superficial bruise, and thus, didn’t take it seriously.
However, the girl seemed quite worried about Si Chen. After her forehead was bandaged up, she insisted on following Si Chen, wanting to examine his back. Even after being denied, she was undeterred. She stuck around wherever Si Chen went, quickly blending in with the other medical personnel.
Everyone gradually got to know this pretty girl. Her name was Lin Man. She had just graduated college with a nursing degree. When she heard about the earthquake here, she came to assist with a group of friends. She lost her group and was trying to find her friends while assisting with the rescue when she met Si Chen.
