hold you in my arms tonight

The truck with aid to Sichuan finally entered the territory of Minchuan on the fifth day of departure.

Jiang Xun was sitting in the co-pilot of the truck. The scenery outside the truck slowly changed from trees to dilapidated houses and buildings. The car was shaking more and more, driving crookedly, and finally arrived at the rescue station.

After the earthquake, many rescue stations were built in the disaster area. The small-scale ones are based on the principle of close-distance rescue, and the larger-scale ones need to consider aftershocks and easily collapsed buildings.

The rescue station where the Liucheng volunteers arrived was still some distance away from the earthquake center. There were many people who had escaped here, many of whom had lost contact with their relatives.

Jiang Xun helped to distribute drinking water. Most of the people here were crying madly. When they came to receive drinking water and food, they had red and swollen eyes.In their eyes, it was obvious that they just woke up from a sleep, but their homes were turned into ruins, their family and friends could not be contacted, and they did not know whether they were alive or dead.

On the first night after arriving in Minchuan, Jiang Xun took a longer time to fall asleep, and when he fell asleep, he had nightmares again and again.

The Minchuan in front of me seems to have lost its color, becoming like a black-and-white TV in the [-]s. Those unfamiliar scenes gradually became familiar, like Chong'an in [-].

The scene moved to the familiar house, Jiang Xun was in it, he pushed open the door, and saw Jiang Yun and Jiang Nan holding a windmill in the living room, mother busy in the kitchen, father watching TV ball game.

Jiang Xun stood where he was, watching his family eat together. Jiang Nan was picky eaters and was beaten by his mother with a clothes hanger.As soon as the screen turned, the high-rise buildings in the city collapsed in an instant, and Jiang Xun felt the feeling of weightlessness.

He fell in vain for a long time, and finally lay on his back on the ruins. The heavy rain poured down, swallowing him bit by bit.

It turned out that he never forgot those memories.

Jiang Xun woke up from the dream and saw that Chen He beside him was also not asleep.

The rescue station was set up temporarily in an elementary school. Hundreds of people have already saturated the space. The place where they sleep is the classroom of the students. There are no beds, only thin quilts spread on the floor, and there are more than [-] people. A man of five big and three rough.

Chen He and Jiang Xun went out, and the two were smoking in the corridor.

"Can't sleep, right?" Chen He said, "I don't remember the year of the Chong'an earthquake. Seeing these displaced people and seeing the cracks on the street, I feel terrified, let alone you."

Chen He shook off the soot and said, "No one, after experiencing a disaster, can face the next disaster calmly."

Jiang Xun was not addicted to cigarettes, and basically never smoked on weekdays, but at this moment he was smoking harder than Chen He, taking one sip after another, without seeming to feel choked.

"Brother Jiang, what did you lose in the Chong'an earthquake?" Chen He lost his father and his grandfather. He and his mother survived, but his mother lost a leg.

Jiang Xun looked at the night sky and said in a low voice, "What was lost... everything was lost, father, mother, sister, brother, home, childhood, all gone."

Chen He said: "At least, you survived."

Yeah, at least.

Jiang Xun had mixed feelings. For the catastrophe of extinction, being able to survive is already a blessing of fate.

"Brother Jiang, let's work hard for Minchuan." Chen He said.

Jiang Xun nodded.

The next day, the rescue team came to the rescue station to recruit people.

There are not many local rescue teams in Minchuan consisting of soldiers, fire brigades, police, and college students. After all, most people are undefended when disaster strikes.

The main rescue team was dispatched from several nearby cities, with hundreds of people in a mighty force, but it was only when they came to Minchuan that they found that they were really not strong enough to withstand a major earthquake.

This rescue team was mainly composed of the fire brigade, and was severely understaffed, so they went to the surrounding rescue stations to recruit survivors and volunteers.

Jiang Xun and Chen He joined.

Joining the rescue team is much more dangerous than staying in the rescue station. After all, the location of the rescue station still has a certain safety factor, but the rescue team needs to go directly to the earthquake center to participate in the rescue, and danger follows everywhere.

Jiang Xun did not hesitate. Ever since he decided to become a volunteer to aid Sichuan, he was eager to do something for the innocent victims of this disaster, just like those volunteers who helped him back then.

After the rescue team came to the hardest-hit area, Jiang Xun really saw the city's riddled with holes.

When I was at the rescue station, there were cracks one after another on the street, but there were still outlines of houses, and almost all the houses in the hardest-hit areas could no longer see their original appearance.

Standing under the ruined walls, as far as the eye can see, there is no end to the earth.The people dug out of the broken walls of the ruins were either alive or dead, dripping with blood, stumped limbs and arms, shocking.

Those people who were tearing through the ruins cried out the names of their loved ones, but no one responded under the gray sky.

Jiang Xun put on the clothes of the rescue team, took a shovel and followed everyone under the ruins to look for people who were still alive.They moved stone slabs one after another, looking for the miracle of life from the reinforced concrete.

The first person Jiang Xun rescued was a child whose leg was pierced by a steel bar. The accompanying doctors and nurses made a simple surgery site and amputated the limb on the spot.

The child passed out on the spot, completely unaware that his life would change completely in the future.

At this time, a week had passed since the first earthquake, and those who were buried in the depths had almost no possibility of survival.

In order to cut off contact with the imperial capital, Jiang Xun's cell phone had never been turned on. The more people he saved, the more frightened he became. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and borrowed a power bank from Chen He to charge his cell phone.

He didn't expect Xie Yuan's phone call or text message, but Meng Yan sent several messages over.

An Xiaoqian's child is gone.

Meng Yan told Jiang Xun what happened at the engagement ceremony in detail. These things can only be said to be predetermined in the dark.

Jiang Xun felt a little sad when he thought of the child who left without seeing the world. That kind of sadness was the same as the sadness for those who lost their lives in the Minchuan earthquake.

Jiang Xun called Meng Yan back, and Meng Yan asked him: "Jiang Xun, do you want to go back to the imperial capital? Do you want to give Xie Yuan another chance?"

Jiang Xun said, "I'm in Minchuan."

"My God," Meng Yan was startled, "Is it the Minchuan where the earthquake happened?"

"correct."

Meng Yan said: "Wow, Jiang Xun, you are so cool!"

Jiang Xun said: "It's not cool, it's just instinct, just like the child who can't give up An Xiaoqian, it's just instinct."

Meng Yan asked again: "Are you going back to the imperial capital?"

Jiang Xun thought for a long time, and when Meng Yan thought he was not answering the phone, he said, "I will go back."

He said: "I will return to the imperial capital, and I will return to Xie Yuan's side. This time, I will never leave him even if I die."

"Hahahahaha," Meng Yan laughed, "Jiang Xiaoxun, don't you lose face at all?"

"I want Xie Yuan, don't lose face."

Jiang Xun added: "Don't tell Xie Yuan about my time in Minchuan, I'm afraid he might be in a hurry."

"Okay," Meng Yan said.

After hanging up the phone, Jiang Xun felt much more at ease.

He couldn't explain his own psychology, he couldn't just watch An Xiaoqian kill the child and do nothing, even if he gave up Xie Yuan, he still had to fight for the chance for that child to survive for the code in his heart .

But when Meng Yan said that the child was gone, his first reaction was that he could still be with Xie Yuan.

He feels sorry for that child, it has nothing to do with Xie Yuan or An Xiaoqian, just because it is a life, a life like the people of Minchuan.

The rescue is still going on, even if there is no life, they hope to find the remains.If a person does not even know life and death, it is another kind of torture for the living.

During the ninth day of the search, Chen He and his troops went to clear the roadblocks. When they were resting by the side of the street, the wall behind them collapsed, killing three people.

Chen He is one of them.

This boy, who had just grown up, selflessly dedicated his young life in this disaster.

On the night of Chen He's accident, a boy who came with Liucheng suddenly collapsed. He said to Jiang Xun, "Brother Jiang, let's leave! Let's go back to Liucheng! Chen He is dead, if he stays in Liucheng I won't die! It's too dangerous, I'm afraid..."

Jiang Xun understood him, but he would not leave by himself.Like Chen He, he has no way to go against his own heart.

The boy left the next day. He didn't disturb anyone, and left with the medical team returning to Liucheng to get supplies.

Jiang Xun was wearing a black sweater given by Chen He. The sleeves were torn out by steel bars, and the sweat, rain, and blood could not see the color.

He was busy all morning, sitting on the slate and smoking.

The person in charge of the rescue station not far away was a policeman. He was out of breath when he found Jiang Xun, and asked Jiang Xun, "Listen to them, are you a teacher?"

Jiang Xun nodded and admitted.

The policeman was overjoyed and said, "Our rescue station has just received more than a dozen elementary school students, and they all freaked out. Mr. Jiang, can you go to our rescue station to comfort the children?"

Jiang Xun said, "But I still have to help here."

"I'll come here," the policeman said, "I'm a rough man. I can do these kinds of hard work, but I'm afraid it won't work if I try to comfort the children. You are a teacher, and you are also fair and bookish. The children will I like you a little."

Jiang Xun thought about it for a while and agreed.

The rescue station mentioned by the police is the nearest rescue station to the earthquake center. It is not mainly used to accommodate the victims of the disaster, but to rescue the wounded. Most of the volunteers are also doctors and nurses.

The elementary school students that the police said had just been searched and rescued, and several of them were seriously injured.

Jiang Xun followed a female nurse to take care of the children. The female nurse took care of the seriously injured children, while Jiang Xun took care of the frightened children.

The role of a teacher in the rescue station may be to accompany the children to face the darkness.

Jiang Xun actually couldn't bear to look into their eyes, panic, uneasiness, fear, and numbness and despair after trauma.

He tried his best to help them, hoping that they could go on in their future lives.