The sun descended on one side of the sky, while the moon and stars rose from the other. Near Xiaoying Island, flames raged fiercely on the water's surface.

The earth had ceased its trembling, and everything visible in the dim light seemed to convey a sense of devastation. A large ship was still burning fiercely on the lake, devoid of people, its entire frame collapsing. Burning debris scattered outwards from the fiery core, gradually disappearing and being submerged in the water.

The surrounding pleasure boats, each centered on the flames, scattered in all directions in the darkness, like a scattered flock of geese, their lights flickering.

The Su family's small painted boat was also moving slowly on the dark lake. Not far away was the scene of the large ship burning, with floating debris. Further away, soldiers with torches were rescuing people and clearing up the aftermath on Xiaoying Island. In the distance and near at hand, some boats were searching for survivors, and shouts echoed amidst the confusing specks of light. Ning Yi stood at the bow of the painted boat, watching the outlines of the large and small boats receding.

The earthquake had subsided, and after the initial panic, most of the boats had headed towards Hangzhou at the first opportunity. At this time, West Lake was not the center of Hangzhou, but rather the suburbs. In the distance, the outline of Hangzhou City could still be seen, with the city's lights reflected in the night sky, but it looked much weaker than usual. Even without seeing it firsthand, one could imagine the scene within the city at this moment, with widespread mourning and devastation.

The crackling of the fire and the splashing of the boat poles in the water all sounded somewhat empty. There were not enough people to row the small painted boat, so it was not moving very fast. Dong Zhu, Su Wending, Su Wenfang, and others also went to help. In the previous chaos, the small painted boat had been hit several times, but fortunately, the boat was sturdy and suffered no major damage. When the night wind blew towards this side, a soft body pressed against him from behind. Su Tan'er hugged him, leaned against his back for a while, and then reached out to touch the bandage on his head.

"Are you alright?"

"It's nothing, fortunately everyone is fine."

"Yes, I wonder how things are at home, I'm afraid the houses have all collapsed. Uncle Geng and the others..."

"Don't think too much now, they should be fine." Ning Yi patted her hand. "The houses may not have all collapsed. Relax, the night is still long."

"How could there suddenly be an earthquake..."

"I don't know, there may be more tonight, but it shouldn't be as strong as this one. Tonight, we have to clear things out and sleep in the courtyard, we can't sleep in the house."

"Does my husband know this too?"

"I know, don't worry, it's alright."

Su Tan'er leaned against his back and said "hmm", silent for a moment: "It's so good to have you here." This was the atmosphere of their usual conversations on the balcony of the small building in Jiangning.

"Same here."

"When I was little, I thought that even if I was a girl, I could do everything well by myself. After marrying my husband, I gradually felt that having my husband by my side is different from being alone. Being able to be with my husband is Tan'er's blessing."

"It's still the same, I'm the one who married into the family, you're the one supporting me..."

Su Tan'er bumped the back of his neck. After a long while, she said softly, "It's different." This was just a statement, no need for an answer. The two stood at the bow of the boat for a while, and Su Tan'er said, "I'll go take a look in the back." Ning Yi nodded, and she walked away.

The night wind blew, and the shore was getting closer. Ning Yi sighed. This sudden earthquake was indeed unexpected. After all, he had never experienced an earthquake before, so he didn't know how strong this one was. He guessed it was powerful and wondered if this was the epicenter. After the earthquake, there would be a large number of refugees. It was just before the autumn harvest, and Old Qin had gone to the capital, so things would be difficult for him. However, most of the cities at this time were flat houses, so even if they were collapsed, the number and depth of people buried would be easier to rescue than in later generations. Moreover, the earthquake occurred in the evening, so most people should have been able to escape.

"Alas, copying poetry is punished by heaven..." He sighed boredly. In his heart, he hoped that the Hangzhou prefect and others could react in time - his disaster relief booklet from last year should have been distributed throughout the country, and most of it was about earthquake disaster relief measures.

The only concern was the increasingly powerful Fang La in the west. His historical knowledge was not enough in this regard, and he didn't know if Fang La had ever attacked Hangzhou. In his impression, he had a deeper understanding of the Liangshan uprising, but that was because of *Water Margin*, and he had not finished reading either the book or the TV series. Fang La's uprising was larger in scale than Liangshan's, but Hangzhou was an important town, and Fang La was quickly suppressed. He thought that it shouldn't have attacked. And he had no impression of this earthquake, otherwise he wouldn't have agreed to come here with Tan'er.

Times had changed, and it was useless to think about things he didn't know. This thought just flashed through his mind. Turning his head, he saw a thin figure standing on the side of the ship's rail. When Ning Yi looked over, she also looked over. It was Juan'er.

At this time, Juan'er was standing on tiptoe there to take a small lantern hanging on the ceiling. She had already taken it down. Seeing Ning Yi looking over, her body suddenly shrank, as if shrinking from tension. She hugged the small lantern in her arms, took two steps forward, and then turned around and walked to the back. Ning Yi knew that she had been resting in the cabin, and was originally curious about how her body was. At this time, he was a little worried that she would be burned by the lantern.

However, recalling what happened during the rescue, he really had gone too far. He had unintentionally placed his hand on the other person's chest for a long time. When he realized it later, he felt that it was soft, and he wasn't sure if he had squeezed it.

At that time, blood was flowing down his head, so he reacted naturally. After realizing it, he lightly let go of his hand, and then looked at the surrounding situation. Tan'er and the others had strange expressions, but they didn't say anything. This matter could only be handled this way. The damage to the little girl was probably not small, but the situation was urgent, and the most important thing right now was not to solve this matter. Future problems could only be dealt with later.

CPR, artificial respiration, alas...

After that, the boat docked. The post station on the shore, specially designed for lake tours, was also a mess. He found his own carriage, but the horse was gone. At this time, there was no way to investigate. The group walked along the road towards Hangzhou City. As they approached, they saw that the western city wall had collapsed with a large opening. Entering the city gate, fires stretched endlessly, and wailing filled the ground.

Throughout the city, everything in sight was a shocking scene of desolation. Six or seven out of ten houses in the city had collapsed, and shouts, screams, and cries were continuous. Ning Yi found that what he had thought before was still optimistic. Or perhaps because he had never experienced such a large-scale scene of death and injury, the surrounding cries, rescue efforts, looting of property, and the corpses and blood that were constantly exposed in his field of vision still made him feel a bit unbearable.

This was ultimately because of the mentality of a person from later generations, and now was not the time to think about these things. The group passed through the city and headed towards home. On the way, when they passed a waterway, they found that the bridge had also collapsed, so they had to detour. All around were ruins and debris. Even in the city's waterways, they could see floating corpses. They also saw several wealthy people who had been seen on Xiaoying Island. They had already returned ahead of them, and were now directing the rescue of property and family members. Soldiers with torches ran past in the city. Some injured people were crying and kneeling in front of their own ruins, calling for help. There were neighbors helping each other, rescuing their own families and then rescuing others. But in this situation, the manpower was not enough.

After such a journey back to Taiping Lane, more than half an hour had passed. Most of his own courtyard had also collapsed. Torches were burning around the ruins, with both dead and injured. Geng the bodyguard was not injured. At this time, he was directing some family members to dig open the collapsed houses. The scene in the entire Taiping Lane was basically the same. Even if there were a few houses that still looked intact, most of the tiles had fallen off, and probably no one dared to live in them. Seeing Su Tan'er, Ning Yi, and others return, some people immediately greeted them. Several women were still crying, they were the family members of the stewards and accountants who had come with them. In the ruins, three of his own people were still pressed underneath, and many people outside were injured, and two had died.

"Let's save people." There was nothing to say at this time. Ning Yi just took a look, waved his hand, and then walked straight into the ruins, joining the ranks of transporting and digging. Su Wending and Su Wenfang might have been more pampered in Jiangning, but since following their older sister and brother-in-law here, they had been quite worshipful of Ning Yi. When Ning Yi went over, they also followed.

Half an hour later, the first aftershock arrived as promised, bringing more despair to this city that had become ruins. Ning Yi rescued two people, but more of the buried who had not yet been rescued permanently lost their chance.

The night was still long. In the roaring sound brought by the earth's vibration, the flames in this ancient city had burned brighter than before. The red light shook and illuminated the sky. Birds flew at night, sometimes sounding like the calls of crows. Two aftershocks occurred that night. In the second half of the night, looting began to occur in the city. The officials had not reacted for the time being, and some places were desolate like ownerless land. A fire broke out in the east of the city due to the looting of some desperadoes and was not extinguished until dawn.

The next day, the entire city was still based on rescuing people and salvaging property from the ruins. Various news also came one after another. Quarrels and fights occurred due to disputes over property. Some desperadoes and hooligans with nothing to their names began to make a fortune by taking advantage of the chaos. The government began to try to organize order, conflicts gradually arose, and several people were arrested and killed on the spot. Ning Yi went to inquire about the possibility of leaving Hangzhou, but the canal waterway was blocked by upstream collapses, and water transportation was temporarily suspended.

In the afternoon, Qian Xiwen sent a steward to check on his safety. Ning Yi gave a reply and then asked Geng the bodyguard to pick some servants to follow him to the Qian residence, using a carriage to transport back a large amount of grain and then seal it up - Qian Xiwen was a large landlord here, and his family had the most grain. The earthquake probably damaged many storage warehouses, and it would be no problem to ask for some now. But after all, he owed a favor. Ning Yi made a few suggestions in the letter on how to deal with the earthquake, but these were also in last year's disaster relief terms. If Hangzhou Prefecture did well, he would ultimately owe a favor. But there was no other way at this time.

That night, the city was again illuminated by firelight, not the usual lights, but the desolation and firelight on the ruins. However, the strength of the army and Hangzhou Prefecture finally forcibly controlled part of the order. A large number of corpses were transported out of the city and burned. It was still the dog days of summer, and a little later, there would probably be an epidemic. Then, on the third day, heavy rain fell. In this violent rain curtain during the transition from summer to autumn, Hangzhou City became a vast expanse of water...

That evening, on the post road leaving near Xuzhou, a galloping horse carrying a tired and dying knight on its back was still running for its life, carrying the knight's urgent eight-hundred-li report recording the earth-shattering events in the southeast, constantly approaching the capital of the Wu Dynasty, Bianjing.

The lone horse galloped, the setting sun had sunk, and the night was approaching...

**********

I almost thought I ate something wrong this afternoon, but fortunately, I finally managed to write it out.

Should I say: Yeah, I didn't stop... So I'm asking for monthly votes ^_^ (To be continued.) Vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation.)

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