At dusk, more than a dozen bonfires were lit on the riverbank of the Black Ditch Platform. Mu Qiaoling stood in an open space on the riverbank and called more than a dozen young children back to their rooms to sleep. Most of these children were only five or six years old. After eating, they were full of energy and ran around playing.
Because it would take two to three days to evacuate by water, the Black Ditch Platform was chosen as one of the resting points for Zhou Qingfeng's team on the way to the camp. Before the large-scale transportation began, simple and crude houses were built here to provide transportation personnel with rest and all kinds of emergency services.
Mu Qiaoling was only fourteen. Before the transportation began, she received two days of first aid training and stayed at the Black Ditch Platform as a medical staff. She became a seemingly insignificant screw in the entire operation but played a great role.
In the past half a month, a large number of fleets from the Hun River entered the Liao River, and the number of people and supplies on the river increased. At first, there were more than a hundred rafts a day. This number made Mu Qiaoling, who grew up in the village, very surprised, but later, every hour, every quarter of an hour, there would be rafts coming down the river. The number of rafts quickly increased to hundreds or even thousands.
It was said that in order to build these rafts, more than a dozen docks were opened in Fushun and Shenyang, and thousands of people worked non-stop. And behind the scenes, there were thousands of people providing food, transportation, and other services. Mu Qiaoling remembered a few classes she had attended. Xu Bing had talked about organization and management. Although it was all superficial knowledge, it proved that the current smooth logistics system was truly shocking.
Accidents were inevitable during transportation, such as the rafts capsizing, people falling ill, or children getting lost. Mu Qiaoling used the first aid knowledge she learned from her short training to take care of many patients, and she was also responsible for taking care of a group of children. Speaking of which, she was a child herself.
"Okay, okay, go back to sleep, all go back to sleep." Mu Qiaoling shouted loudly, but the group of children were very naughty. Their origins were very complicated. Some were taken in on the streets, some were bought and sold, and some were rescued. Most of these children had very poor physiques and would get seasick on the water, so they had to go ashore halfway to rest and let her take care of them.
In the system of transmigrators, the children's meals were not bad. After eating and drinking, they quickly forgot their worries and were extremely happy. They did not need to worry about their next meal. Mu Qiaoling would teach them how to read and sing when she had nothing to do. They would play for the whole day until the sky turned dark.
"Sister-in-law Mu, the man from yesterday is here again." The guard at the resting area of the Black Ditch Platform walked over and said.
Everyone in the Imperial Guard knew that Mu Qiaoling was Gao Daniu's wife. Someone else was in charge of the camp. But if there was anything, the guards would still choose to inform her.
After sending the group of children to sleep, Mu Qiaoling looked at the dark night outside through the campfire. Under the illumination of the fire, there was a lonely figure standing there. She only knew that it was a man from a nearby village who came to the camp every day. The people in the camp would occasionally give him something to eat, but forbade him to get too close.
"We drove him away, but he refused to leave. He kept kowtowing," the guard said.
"I'll go take a look." Mu Qiaoling felt that the man was strange, but he shouldn't be in danger. She asked the guard to lead the way and walked out of the camp. Sure enough, she saw a man dressed in rags.
It was dark, so she couldn't see the man's face clearly. But his skinny appearance was very obvious under the illumination of the fire. When he saw Mu Qiaoling, he hurried forward. But the guard snorted coldly and put down the spearhead to stop him from approaching. The man groaned and knelt on the ground. He lowered his head and held up a bundle with both hands.
Only then did Mu Qiaoling see that there was a woman behind the man. She was also disheveled and dirty. She was dirty and thin, and had already knelt down. And there were a few extremely weak cries of a baby coming from the bundle held up by the man's hands. It was a very, very small swaddling cloth. The child was as big as a kitten and was extremely weak.
"Madam, I beg you." The man knelt on the ground and finally spoke. "You can take care of so many children. You must be a kind and rich wife. Please take my child away. We really can't take care of him. "
The baby in the swaddling cloth was probably less than a month old. He was hungry and kept crying. But the child was too weak. He couldn't even cry loudly. It was so weak that it made people worried. The man on the ground kept begging, and the woman behind him kept kowtowing.
Mu Qiaoling couldn't bear it. She took a few steps forward and carried the child over. She looked at him with the light of the bonfire. The swaddling cloth was just a piece of rag. The child's wrinkled face hadn't even opened yet. He was so light in her arms that he didn't weigh much. She immediately realized that the child was too weak. She was afraid that she wouldn't be able to take care of him. This situation was very common in the countryside.
Mu Qiaoling looked up again to find the man and woman who brought the child, but there was no one in the dark. She hurriedly asked the guard. The guard said, "They definitely can't take care of this child. They can only entrust it to sister-in-law."
"But I …" Mu Qiaoling thought, "I just got married and haven't had a child. I also can't take care of a child as big as a kitten? We have to send this child back. At most, we can give him something to eat. "
In her anxiety, there was the sound of splashing water upstream. A fleet of rafts with lit lanterns appeared from the darkness. The fleet was very large. There were more than a hundred rafts connected in front and behind. When the fleet approached the camp, a loud shout came from the rafts. "All personnel of the Black Groove Platform, gather. This is the last fleet. Everyone, get on the boats and evacuate. Take all the supplies and tools with you. "
The rafts approached the trestle on the shore. The person who shouted jumped ashore and strode to the middle of the camp. Mu Qiaoling only just saw that the person who came was actually Zhou Qingfeng. The manager of the camp hurriedly came out to greet him. At the same time, he quickly arranged for everyone in the camp to board the rafts and leave.
Mu Qiaoling was holding the swaddle and was in a dilemma. She walked to Zhou Qingfeng and told him what had happened. She said with a bitter face, "It's probably premature. This child is really too small. I definitely can't take care of him."
Mu Qiaoling hoped that Zhou Qingfeng would find someone else to take care of the cat-sized child, or find the man and woman who had just left and return the child to them. In short, she did not want to bear this responsibility.
But Zhou Qingfeng only glanced at the little wrinkled face in the swaddle and said unreasonably, "Since that man and woman entrusted the child to you, it means that they trust you. You can take care of him as your own child."
"No, no." Mu Qiaoling immediately shook her head. She was so anxious that she was about to cry. She did not even have her own child. How could she take care of someone else's child? But Zhou Qingfeng had no time to care about this. He directly ordered, "This child has fallen into your hands. You can't abandon him. Do your best."
"But I really don't know how to take care of him." Mu Qiaoling thought that the child was about to starve to death. How could she take care of him?
But Zhou Qingfeng waved his hand. "Get on the rafts. Everyone, get on the rafts. We must leave here as soon as possible. We must leave overnight. "
There were about a hundred people in this resting camp. The manager of the camp had already received the news. In about a quarter of an hour, all the people and various supplies had been put on the rafts. The boatmen on the rafts exerted some strength, and the series of boats set off again, disappearing into the dark waterway.
In the resting camp, more than a dozen bonfires were still burning. In the darkness, the lonely man and woman who had sent the child appeared again. The woman was sobbing in a low voice. The man patted the woman's shoulder and comforted her. "Don't cry, don't cry. We have no food to eat. Who knows, we might die one day. That child suffered in our family. It's a blessing to leave with the master. "
The woman cried even louder, but helplessly followed the man into the darkness and never came out again.
On the rafts that had just left, Mu Qiaoling was holding the little swaddle and was sweating profusely. The crying of the child in her arms was getting weaker and weaker. It had already reached the point where it was almost undetectable. In a while, he might really die. She asked around on the raft, hoping to find someone to help, at least to get some food for the child. And when she walked to the back of the raft …
"Here." Zhou Qingfeng walked out of the darkness. A glass milk bottle and two cans of milk powder appeared in his hand.
Mu Qiaoling smelled milk. She reached out to take the bottle and found that it was filled with milk. The bottle was even warm. She looked at the nipple on the bottle and immediately understood the use of this thing. She quickly stuffed it into the mouth of the swaddled child. The child was starving. As soon as there was milk, he desperately sucked. In a short while, the two hundred milliliters were all drunk. He fell asleep and stopped crying.
"These two cans of milk powder are for you. There is a spoon inside. Give the child milk four or five times a day. Each time, two or three spoons. Brew it with warm boiled water. When the milk powder is finished, give him rice paste. I don't have any more milk powder here. "Zhou Qingfeng said.
Mu Qiaoling didn't know what milk powder was, but she roughly knew that it was for the child. But she still said with difficulty, "This child is too weak. He is thin and small. Also, can he eat rice paste after drinking this milk powder? If we can't save him after spending so much effort, what should we do? "She asked many questions in one breath, listing all kinds of difficulties.
"Even if we can't save him, we have to save him. Just take it as our responsibility." Zhou Qingfeng said in a deep voice, "When I killed the bandits outside your village, I didn't think about what would happen if I couldn't kill them all. I didn't think about what would happen if I couldn't save you after killing the bandits. I brought so many people from Fushun, but I didn't think about what would happen if I couldn't feed them all.
We have more than a hundred thousand dans of food now, but the people we have to feed will soon be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions. Even if we feed them this year, where will we find food next year? If we talk about trouble, you definitely don't have as much as I do. What should I do? I don't even know.
Since you have joined my team, there are some things that you must do within your power. Don't think too much. This is your and Gao Daniu's child. Saving him is the same as saving yourself. If you still don't understand, just take this as an order from me and carry it out. "
Mu Qiaoling was dizzy, but she knew that this child was going to be raised. Although she was anxious, she still took the child and found a place to sit down. She stared blankly at the night sky. When the sky shone with golden light, she woke up to a burst of cheers and laughter. Looking up, there was a boundless sea in front of her. A large number of trestles and docks were built along the coast.
The people on the rafts were shouting, and the people on the shore were also shouting. Both sides were celebrating this moment in excitement, celebrating their escape from the flames of war in Fushun and the peak of Kennu soldiers. When they reached the shore, Zhou Qingfeng jumped onto the dock and laughed. At this moment, he was bold, strong, and full of optimism and hope.
Mu Qiaoling came ashore with the swaddle in her arms. A string of older children followed behind her to join this strange family. Several stout women on the quay came forward to receive the older children. One of them walked up to Mu Qiaoling and looked at the cat-sized child. She frowned and said, "This child is too young. I'm afraid he won't survive. Give him to me first. I'll try raising him for a few days. "
The strong woman in charge of raising the child reached out to take the child. Obviously, she was not very optimistic about the child's fate. Too many children died prematurely these days. No one would care if one or two died. Mu Qiaoling had already stretched out the swaddle, but she could hear the strong woman's perfunctory tone. Her heart softened and she pulled back her hand. "Forget it, I'll raise him myself."
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
