The scenes of Liuhe Village after the flood receded, although Wen Qian had not witnessed them in person, many people in the town shared videos of it.
These days, with the widespread use of smartphones, even a pumpkin growing a bit larger or a radish with an odd shape in the village would be posted online.
When the flood came, someone from the town across the river captured the footage.
After the waters receded, videos of each household clearing mud, scraping walls, and cleaning up started appearing.
Wen Qian only needed to check nearby people's posts to see a lot of flood-related content.
The electricity was cut off when the flood arrived but was restored the second day after it receded.
After scraping off the flooded wall plaster, people would either repaint or retile the walls once their homes dried up. Some even had to replace their doors that were swept away by the floodwaters.
At the bridge entrance, mineral water, instant noodles, and a medicine stall were set up.
Those who had experienced the flood often felt a sore throat and skin problems shortly after returning home.
The staff at the medicine stall provided free medicines for the flood victims, including treatments for bruises, skin disinfectants, and anti-inflammatories. Minor ailments could be treated by getting medicines there.
Disinfection workers would come and spray disinfectants in the mornings and evenings. Extra attention was paid to sanitation after the flood to prevent outbreaks.
At this time, people's respiratory and digestive systems were vulnerable, and the elderly and children could easily fall ill, which would only worsen the situation.
Every household was cleaning and sanitizing, and many who had sought shelter with relatives or friends had returned.
Those with relatives in town went to check and reported that it was a mess with a lot of garbage on the streets.
When the flood came from upstream, it washed down a lot of things, including many large logs of wood.
So in the downstream sections where the river slowed, some things would get stranded, and many people were salvaging items like motorcycles and lumber.
There were even those checking electronic devices, though it was uncertain whether they would still work.
People were picking up discarded items, and Wen Qian even considered joining them, mainly to collect wood.
But with so many people there, she would have to drag away anything she picked up herself, so she decided against it.
Thinking about how difficult it was to obtain building materials, Wen Qian turned her attention to the nearby bamboo grove.
After the rain, new bamboo shoots had grown into a new batch of bamboo trees.
Wen Qian cut down a lot of bamboo, reducing the density of the grove and storing a good amount in her space.
Uncle Chen told her that there was a bamboo grove in Dachenwa with much thicker bamboo trunks compared to the thin ones near her home.
After inspecting it and asking the villagers who didn't have much use for it, Wen Qian cut down over a dozen particularly thick bamboo trees and took them away.
Considering the high altitude of their location, with everyone living in the valley, Wen Qian figured they were unlikely to encounter floods that could submerge their homes.
Floods and waterlogging generally occurred in flat and low-lying areas.
The heaviest rainfall in their area only caused the river downstream to overflow and submerge some farmland, temporarily disrupting transportation but not causing much else.
The small river in the village had long been segmented, with bridges built over each section and the sections made narrow. When water needed to be stored, sandbags would block the openings to raise the water level for irrigation.
During times of abundant water flow, the openings would be unblocked to allow water to drain.
After this major flood, one or two bridges had issues where the connection between the concrete and soil was eroded away.
However, since there were many bridges in their area, if one bridge couldn't be used, they could simply walk a bit further to cross another one.
Wen Qian searched and found that An Province wasn't actually at a very high altitude.
If living on flat land became impossible one day, people would inevitably have to move to mountainous, hilly, or plateau regions.
Wen Qian wondered if one day the population of her village might increase, with more people seeking refuge in their hometowns.
Wen Qian felt that her ideal place should have both forests and flat land, far from areas prone to disasters like floods, snowstorms, and earthquakes.
At the same time, it should have a sparse population, naturally leading her to consider the western regions.
However, she wasn't sure whether to leave now or wait until later.
While transportation would be more convenient now, Wen Qian felt she wasn't adequately prepared, and it wouldn't be easy to adapt to a completely unfamiliar environment.
She even wished she could continue living in this small valley, but with no one around to notice it except her.
Unfortunately, she didn't know any blinding or barrier spells, so someone like Wang Xiaoping could come and bother her anytime, coming and going as they pleased.
For now, the situation was tolerable, so Wen Qian planned to observe for a while since living anywhere was just about passing time.
Over the next week, it was sunny in their area, and people affected by the flood or those unharmed in the village all took their belongings out to wash and sun-dry.
Within a week, the cleanup in town was mostly done.
When Wen Qian went there, she noticed that the first-floor walls of every home had been scraped off, and an interesting phenomenon was that every household had mahjong tables drying outside their doors.
The local community halls had large wooden tables, and adding a mahjong table would make them feel cramped.
So clever people placed the mahjong tables inside the wooden tables. During meals, it served as a dining table, but when flipped over, there was a mahjong table underneath that could be used by plugging it in.
Many households felt it wasn't trendy not to have a mahjong table at home. Even if they couldn't afford fancy meals, they would still buy a mahjong table to display at home.
When evacuating, many people carried refrigerators and washing machines upstairs, but the heavy mahjong tables were left on the first floor.
Yet even when the floodwaters burst open their doors, the sturdy mahjong tables remained unmoved.
After the flood, they disassembled and cleaned the tables, allowing them to be used again.
So when Wen Qian came to town, she saw mahjong tables drying outside.
The garbage on the streets had been cleared, leaving the entire street clean with the lingering scent of disinfectant.
Wen Qian hurried across the bridge to the town on the other side, where only one row of residential buildings had been flooded this time, with no other major damage.
Even during peak hours, there were still many people in this town.
Whenever Wen Qian had the chance to go out, she would definitely go and spend some money buying things to store more items in her space.
She felt she had become addicted to hoarding.
People were discussing this recent flood, which hadn't caused any casualties on this street, but they had heard that upstream, someone holding a child fell from a bridge while watching the flood. The child fell into the water and the body still hadn't been found.
Wen Qian couldn't understand the mentality of people watching the spectacle. Couldn't they just observe from a safe distance?
As she listened to the conversations around her, she waited for the rotating dough sticks in the pot to be ready for serving.
The only casualty caused by the flood on this street was an elderly man who had left home to stay with relatives before the flood. After the waters receded, he returned with his family to clean up.
The second day after the flood, when the river level had significantly dropped, many people were washing things or rinsing mops on the usual river steps.
Around noon, when most were resting at home after cleaning, this elderly man went to wash his mop but never returned.
His family assumed he had gone for a walk and became worried when they couldn't find him anywhere in the village or town after a few hours.
Eventually, they discovered his drowned body not far from the steps. He had likely slipped and fallen, without anyone nearby to notice or rescue him.
His family wailed as they carried his body home.
Having survived the flood, yet perished in its aftermath.
People sighed at the impermanence of life.
