Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

Everyone turned their head only to see Wen Xuehui, lying on Jiang Yao’s bed, listening to the radio on her cell phone with Moe in her arms.

Cell phones nowadays had few features, but listening to the radio was one of the rarely available ones.

“Why are you listening to the radio?” Jiang Yao asked.

“I went back home with my father for dinner last night. While we were eating, I heard my parents discussing the massive flood in Province C’s Rong County. The flood took many lives and left a lot of people stranded. I was a little bored so I wanted to catch up on the news.”

Wen Xuehui muttered while she was fiddling with the radio channels. She then continued, “The flood in Rong County was very severe, apparently the surrounding cities and counties were also affected. There are no communication services and no electricity and water supplies in the affected areas.”

Jiang Yao’s attention was piqued as she walked over and had Wen Xuehui scoot in. She lifted Moe up and put him back at his nest before lying down next to Wen Xuehui.

A news report caught everybody’s attention as the rest of the girls huddled together around Jiang Yao and Wen Xuehui.

“Rong County is not too far from where we are right now. Even though the past few days were rainy and overcast, there wasn’t a lot of rain. Why did the flood happen?” Chen Siyang sighed. “The people that are affected the most in a natural disaster like this are your regular citizens. I remember a flash flood, similar to this one, happening in my hometown years ago. The scariest thing was that the low-lying areas of the village were completely flooded. Only those who weren’t there were spared, everyone who was there drowned that night. Even till now, nobody dares to enter that part of the village.”

Jiang Yao shifted her attention to Chen Siyang and asked, “How could it be?”

“I’m not lying, it’s true.” She did not want Jiang Yao to think that she was exaggerating so she continued, “It was summer then and it had been raining heavily for a while. There was a river flowing through the center of the village with an upstream dam. Usually, there wasn’t much water in the river but since it rained daily, the water level in the river started rising. That night, the spillway of the dam upstream was opened up without any warning while the dam downstream remained closed. Caught in the middle were the low-lying areas of the village. It was dead at night and the water came too quickly, nobody had time to escape.”

Back then, the houses were built with wood, unlike the sturdy brick houses found more commonly today among the well-to-do.

Wen Xuehui put her cell phone aside and sat up. She looked at Chen Siyang with anger on her face and said, “What was the person-in-charge thinking? Was it done furtively?”

“Yes. The police were involved after the tragedy,” said Chen Siyang. “It was the residents of the village. They were worried that their village would get flooded with the never-ending rain so they sent two representatives to open the spillways, of course, it was done without anyone else knowing. The two people were later sentenced to death by firing squad.”