Holley never wanted to came here,
but she found it hard to escape the team's influence. After a period of hesitation, she reluctantly gave in
to their goading and agreed.
If she decided to quit, she would be the only one who wouldn't join the rescue.
Even though most would not dare say anything about it, nothing was so certain when they left.
Holley regretted that she allowed herself to agree to follow them there, but she made sure not to show
a hint of regret to the others.
Rachel slumped down on the stone bar behind her. She felt so tired that she didn't care whether it was
dirty or not. She stared at the bottled water in her hand, and felt moved by Holley's thoughtfulness.
She felt ashamed by her first reaction of feeling wary of Holley when she first came over.
She realized that some small acts of kindness could easily move some people in the kind of
environment that they were in.
But the feeling did not last long for Rachel. They had to eat quickly and then continued to focus on
tending to the wounded patients.
Their priority was to set up some tents so that they'd have a place that could be better prepared for
helping others who were in trouble.
None of them had ever experienced anything like it before. The long line of wounded children melted
their hearts and made each one of them feel sad.
Most of the wounded victims were the elderly and children. There were also some injured middle-aged
couples who stayed in their hometown.
Some of the injured aged people who waited for medical aid were soaked in the rain before getting
there.
Rachel set up a tent with another member of the same team. They then moved the badly injured elderly
victims in there with the others.
She felt exhausted after she completed a lot of the tasks. Her clothes were wet and they had already
stuck to her body making her body feel cold and numb. The scrubs and lab coat didn't offer much when
it came to rain protection. Her inner clothes were wet and she felt extremely uncomfortable.
But the only thing that she could do was push on.
Fortunately, they'd received news that the rescue team was on their way. Even the medical team got
involved and was on their way as well.
Once the other teams arrived, they could leave and rest.
The news brought hope and relief to everyone in the team. But not long after the news arrived, Holley
came running to her in such urgency.
She went straight to talk to Rachel and motioned for Rachel to follow her. Rachel followed her right
away.
When they reached a secluded area, Holley suddenly lowered her voice and said nervously to Rachel,
"Rachel! Please, help me! Please!"
"Why? What's wrong?"
Holley grabbed Rachel's hand and brought her to another location. Rachel staggered to keep up with
her as she followed her through the maze of tents. After what seemed like several minutes of
navigating through the tents, Holley finally slowed down until they completely stopped. "Can you tell me
what happened?" Rachel asked as she gasped for air. Their quickened jaunt through the area left her
almost breathless.
"I lost one of the children!" Holley replied in a lowered voice. Her voice was filled with anxiety.
"What?" Rachel exclaimed in surprise. Holley looked back at her with fearful eyes filled with panic. "A
kid said that he needed to go to the washroom. So, I took him out to go to the washroom. I guess, I
didn't pay attention too much and now I don't know where he went."
Holley was one of the pediatric doctors. She was good at coaxing children, so she was assigned to
look after the children in the area.
But she never expected that the kid would pull a trick on her. "Can you help me find him?" Holley
pleaded. "This kid's left arm was broken and it was just set in place with a cast. He was talking about
wanting to go back to see his grandpa."
There was a sudden determination that flashed in Rachel's eyes. Without warning, she replied in an
urgent tone of voice, "Let's go!"
They started walking to look for the missing kid when Holley suddenly said, "The kid's family were
buried under their collapsed house."
They decided it was best to look for the missing kid there first. If the kid went anywhere, then he would
likely go straight back to his family's house.
However, they were not sure where the kid's house was.
Rachel hesitated and thought for a moment. She then suddenly stopped and turned to Holley. "We
don't know where his family is. Let's go back and find out first before we head out."
"I went to find out where they lived, but I didn't dare to go there alone. So I went to ask for your help."
When Rachel heard this, she knew that they'd be able to find the house of the missing kid. All of a
sudden, there was a brief feeling of skepticism that gripped her heart.
But she immediately shrugged it off.
Jack, on the other hand, completed booking a flight to the neighboring province for the morning of the
next day.
He kept trying to get a call to Rachel, but the call wouldn't get through. After he thought for a while, he
decided to just send her a message.
He found it hard to sleep the entire evening. He felt restless and the anxiety in his chest made it difficult
for him to sleep.
He got up and walked a little to calm himself down, but it was ineffective in reducing his quickened
heartbeat.
When he thought about getting cleaned and preparing to go to the hospital, the restlessness started to
fade away.
He waited a while longer and he finally felt better. He then lay down on the bed once more to try and
get some sleep.
But he was still unable to asleep. After a few moments of tossing and turning in bed, he got up and
went to the collection room. He opened the wine cabinet and took out a bottle of wine. He took out a
wine glass and poured wine into it.
He drank the wine and waited until the wine took effect on him. A few minutes later, he fell sleep.
In less than six hours, he would need to board the plane that would fly him to where Rachel was.
And he was sleepless until midnight.
There had been massive flooding in the three cities of the neighboring province. And the unusually
heavy rain had caused landslides from the surrounding mountains. The landslides were especially
massive that they destroyed a lot of properties and structures.
Because of the urgent situation, Jack was unable to fly directly to his destination. He had to transfer
flights in order to get to where he wanted to go.
Austin called Jack early in the morning and it woke him up. He called to tell Jack of the news. The call
banished the last traces of sleep from Jack and he was fully awake when he grabbed his phone.
He sat up and answered the call in his usual low baritone voice. "I have to change my flight?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Austin answered. "I booked a flight to another city and then booked a transfer
flight for you."
Jack instantly placed his hand to his temple and massaged it before pressing hard on his brow. "Okay.
Set everything up as soon as possible. I need to be there today," he said with such urgency.
After he hang up the phone, he tried to call Rachel again. This time, there was a mechanical female
voice that answered his call and informed him that the other party's phone was turned off.
He suddenly felt even more worried and started to search for any news about the flood and destruction
in that province.
The incident happened without warning. And there was very little information that came from the
Internet because the landslides destroyed most of the communication lines and it made it difficult to
relay any information on the disaster.
Jack's heart was suddenly overwhelmed with panic. He had people scour through all the media and
news sources in the neighboring province to get any information related to the disaster. He then dialed
Eric's number. Eric's deep slumber was suddenly interrupted that he felt furious for the interruption.
When he saw that the call was from Jack, he immediately canceled the call without thinking twice. He
removed the battery and threw the phone away to the opposite end of the bed.
He muttered to himself that he would tear Jack to pieces some day! 'He's such a bastard!' Eric thought
to himself. 'He keeps disturbing my sleep all the time. All the time!'
Although the phone's batteries were already disconnected, Eric suddenly became restless and couldn't
get back to sleep.
His heart was beating so fast. The other two times that Jack woke him up left him with a bad memory
that made his heart react negatively to Jack's call.
Since the last two instances that Jack disturbed his sleep, Eric had been really worried that Jack would
come to disturb his sleep at any time.
Eric could not get back to sleep. His mind dwelt on many thoughts.
He eventually decided that it was better to talk to Jack about the call instead of getting anxious about it
the entire day.
So he got up and picked up his phone and placed the battery back into it.
After Eric canceled the call, Jack never called back again.
It made Eric more anxious to find out what the call was all about.
Jack knew that it was normal for Eric to hang up on him. But he was surprised when his phone rang
and found that it was Eric who was calling him back.
"Jack!" Eric called out as soon as Jack answered the call. "What the hell did you call me for? Tell me
right now!" Jack frowned from the other side of the call,
but he was not in the mood to make fun of Eric.
"When was the last time that you spoke with Rachel on the phone?" Jack asked right away as soon as
Eric finished speaking. His voice sounded serious and it caught Eric off guard. "What? Um..." Eric
touched his head and tried to focus. He thought for a while and then suddenly looked confused. "Well,
it was some days ago. The day she told me that her schedule would change. Why? What's wrong?"
Jack made a quick time estimate based on the facts that he knew and he determined that Eric's
conversation with Rachel was around the time before he called her.
His heart suddenly sank and he felt weak all of a sudden. "What about after this call?" he asked Eric.
"Have you tried to call her?"
"No, I haven't," Eric replied. "Why? What's going on? Do you want me to call her for you again?"
He really had no idea what Jack wanted him to do.
'What the hell, Jack! It would just never end, right?'
He thought to himself and gritted his teeth tightly in anger.
"Can you try to call her again, right now?" Jack said in a tone that sounded more like a command than
a request.
"Can the two of you stop torturing me?" Eric complained to Jack helplessly. "Why don't you just go to
her and see her personally? Or are you actually interested in me?"
"I'm worried about her. So, I wanted to know when was the last time that you tried to call her," Jack
said.
"Why? What's wrong with her?" Eric asked. Panic started to build up inside him after he heard Jack's
words. "What's going on, Jack? I will call her now!"
He wasn't talking nonsense anymore and called Rachel.
As soon as Eric ended the call, Jack's phone rang once more. It was a call from Austin.
Jack closed his eyes to try and refocus himself. He then massaged the middle of his eyebrows with his
fingers. A moment later, he picked up his phone and answered the call.
"Mr. Fu, I have fixed your flights and have also obtained your plane tickets. The driver will be at your
home very soon," Austin said right away as soon as Jack answered his call.
"Okay," Jack replied flatly. "What about the other thing that I asked you to check?"
"I don't have any news yet."
"Okay." Jack knew that all he could do at that point was wait.
He went downstairs and then called Eric once more. "So? How did it go?"
At that point, Jack hoped that Rachel simply deliberately blocked his calls once more, which would
explain why he was unable to connect with Rachel.
Eric sounded confused from the other end of the call. "I can't get through her. Are you able to get any
information? As to what happened to her?"
Eric's response made Jack feel even more worried. His heart sank right away. He knew that he couldn't
make any hasty decision before he figured everything out. He understood that he could only
temporarily comfort Eric. "Don't worry. I will go and see what's going on there."
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