Chapter 229: Chapter 225: Torrential Rain_1

Translator: 549690339

“Auntie Tang, have you seen my father?” Yingbao asked.

Tang Family replied: “Your dad, well, he just went to the village down the slope with your Grandpa Chen.”

His two sons’ families all live down the slope and had not come up, and his lame grandson Chen Boyuan was one of them. So Chen Fu invited Jiang Sanlang to go to the old house in the former village with him to help his two sons move.

Of course, those who went included his young son Chen Zhu, second nephew Chen Yin, and several men from the village.

Hearing this, Yingbao hurriedly turned back home, saddled her pony, stepped on the mounting stone, and climbed on its back.

Spring Maiden ran back and forth after her daughter, panting with exhaustion. She caught the reins, and scolded: “Baobao! Why don’t you listen?”

Yingbao snatched the reins: “Mother, you stay at home and don’t go out, I’m going to find father, I will be back soon, let go quickly, it will be dangerous if I’m late.”

Spring Maiden hesitated for a moment, then eventually released the reins.

Yingbao squeezed the horse’s belly with her legs, urging the young horse to speed up.

The pony’s hair is now shiny, its hooves are strong, and it is no longer as weak as it used to be.

It galloped off at an impressive speed, not much slower than Youyou.

With the small horse’s robust and broad back, it felt even more stable than riding a deer.

The young horse ran all the way, heading towards the old house of Clan Leader Chen in the old village.

At that time, the sky was filled with dark clouds, with occasional thunder and lightning.

There were two carriages parked outside the entrance of Clan Leader Chen’s house, and several men were standing there talking.

“Father! Don’t listen to Jiang Sanlang’s nonsense about a flood coming. I think he’s just exaggerating.” Chen Jiaxing adamantly refused to move to his fourth brother’s house on South Slope.

Right now, Chen Jiaxing, his second brother Chen Jiazhen, and Chen Shu from Chen Sanyou’s family are the only ones in Dongchen Village who haven’t built houses on South Slope.

Even his cousin Chen Ting, who was always a disappointment, also built three straw houses on South Slope with the help of his parents. His family of three have settled down there.

If the Chen Jiaxing family move to South Slope, they must move in with his fourth brother Chen Zhu. This is something he is least willing to do.

Becuse he and his fourth brother do not share the same mother, they are not close.

As they are not close, he does not want to get too involved with him.

Clan Leader Chen was so upset that he felt like giving him a beating.

But his son is all grown up, and he can’t humiliate him in front of outsiders. After all, his position as clan leader will eventually be succeeded by his eldest son.

He turned to his youngest son Chen Zhu and said: “Since your eldest brother and second brother don’t want to move, you should take your mother and me to South Slope.”

At the age of 58, he and his wife had their coffins made and they were stacked behind their beds.

They had selected top quality nanmu for the coffins and they wouldn’t let the water ruin it.

Chen Zhu nodded and went with Jiang Sanlang and a few others to his father’s bedroom to carry the coffins.

Clan Leader Chen turned to his eldest son and said: “Darong, if you’re not going, then you’re not going, but Boyuan has to follow me.”

Without waiting for his eldest son to respond, Clan Leader Chen led his second nephew into the house, to fetch his great-grandson.

Chen Boyuan didn’t want to go either, but he couldn’t resist his grandfather’s decision.

Helplessly, he could only be helped up onto Jiang family’s carriage by his second uncle.

Chen Zhu, Jiang Sanlang, and a few others brought out the coffins of the leader and his wife. They loaded them separately onto the two flatbed carts, securely tied them up with ropes, and wheeled them out of the courtyard headed for South Slope.

Clan Leader Chen followed them, walking along behind them with his hands clasped behind his back. His second nephew tried to offer him a ride on the horse carriage, but he refused.

The coffins were heavy. One person pulling the cart and another pushing from behind made the journey incredibly hard.

Just then, a sudden violent wind blew, thunder rumbled and lighting flashed, and hailstones the size of pigeon eggs fell from the sky. They pelted the lid of the coffin and the roof of the cart, making loud noises.

“Ah!” Chen Zhu felt a pain in his head, and touched it to find a bump had formed. Frightened, he quickly scrambled to take shelter under a big tree. “These hailstones are so big, they could kill someone. You guys should find shelter quickly.”

Jiang Sanlang and the others were also pelted by the hail with nowhere to hide. They could only run under a big tree on the side of the road for cover.

At that moment, everyone saw a pony galloping towards them, braving the storm and the hail.

“Yingbao?” Jiang Sanlang recognized his daughter at a glance and waved frantically, “Baobao, hurry up and come over!”

The small child, wearing a bamboo hat, was spurring her horse towards them at full speed.

But she paused not far off, waving her arms frantically, her face filled with terror. “Dad! Hurry up!”

“You all hurry over! It’s dangerous over there!”

Jiang Sanlang didn’t know why, but his intuition told him he must listen to Baobao. He quickly summoned the others to hurry towards Yingbao. “Baobao! What’s the matter?”

Chen Yin and Chen Zhu looked at each other and also rushed towards them on the carriage.

The Clan Leader Chen initially had no intention of following, but his arm was being tugged by his youngest son, so he had no choice but to go.

Just as they left the large tree, a flash of lightning shot over their heads, striking the tree directly.

A loud crackling sound echoed.

Looking back, they saw that half the trunk of the tree had been severed by the lightning.

Everyone was stunned, disregarding the hail hitting their heads, they hurried to Baobao’s side.

At that moment, Baobao was holding several bamboo hats, of all sizes, two of which were damaged.

“Here, put these on quickly,” she handed the biggest and best hat to her father and distributed the rest to the others.

The Clan Leader Chen turned as pale as a ghost from fear, quickly climbed onto the carriage with his grandson, took a look at the tree through the small window of the carriage.

After the trunk of the tree was severed, it fell down, covering the two flatbed carts underneath.

So close! If not for Baobao’s timely warning to leave the tree, he estimated that he would have soon found himself inside his own coffin.

The hail was followed by a torrential rain.

Jiang Sanlang, worried about his daughter getting wet in the rain, took her into the carriage, squeezed in together with the Clan Leader and Chen Boyuan, while he braved the rain to drive the carriage back to the South Slope.

As for those two coffins, they could be left for the Chen family to deal with.

After bringing his daughter home and having his wife quickly get her into a warm bath and new clothes, Jiang Sanlang then drove the Clan Leader and Chen Boyuan to Chen Zhu’s home.

The rain continued relentlessly, making rivers out of the road, promptly filling up the ponds and ditches on the South Slope.

Not only that, the stream downhill was quickly filling up. The rainwater overflowed the stone bridge, making the road indistinguishable.

Seeing the danger, Chen Yin and Chen Zhu quickly moved the two flatbeds to higher ground, waded through the stream, and ran back to their own homes to shelter from the rain.

The rainstorm lasted the whole night, and only gradually lessened the next day, but it continued unabated.

At dawn, Jiang Sanlang put on a straw cape and bamboo hat and came out of the house to check the conditions downhill.

Many individuals shared his concerns, and Clan Leader Chen was one of them.

His and his wife’s coffins, abandoned by their youngest son by the stream, who knows if they’ve been washed away by the rainwater.

Villagers of Dongchen Village stood on the high slope looking into the distance, they could see many areas downhill filled with rainwater. The dirt road uphill was bisected by a four to five feet wide muddy flow of water.

Chen Fu could just make out, that his and his wife’s glossy black coffins were sitting on the flatbed, lonely on the far bank of the stream.

He shot a glance at his fourth son, his heart aching terribly.

Those two coffins, crafted from century-old Nanmu wood, each held two sets of silk burial clothes and several duvet quilts. Who knows if they had been soaked by the rainwater.

Seeing this, Mrs. Tang, standing aside with an umbrella, snapped, “What are you staring at? If it weren’t for your coffins, my Zhuzhu and others almost got struck by lightning.”

She had heard all about yesterday’s events from Zhuzhu.

If not for Yingbao’s timely arrival, her son and several villagers might all have been victims.

Oh my, little Fairy Child really is a fairy child. How did she know that the tree they hid under would be struck by lightning?

This is truly miraculous.

Fortunately, Yingbao went there, otherwise…sigh, we owe her yet another life debt.

No, it’s two lives, this old man’s life too.