Free Web NovelChapter 334: Chapter 268 Tan Qianqiu
"The gong echoed..."
In the ruins, a giant horizontal beam approximately four meters long, 75 centimeters wide, and about twenty to thirty centimeters thick lifted a mass of rubble above it, forming a large pit.
The instant the beam hovered in the air, Fang Huai rolled on the spot and dived straight into the pit, burying his body and finding a relatively flat slate to firmly stand the lifesaving prop, ensuring that even if the beam snapped and fell, there would be something to hold it up, granting a chance for the children trapped below.
Dust and small stones fell from above, preventing him from looking up. Fang Huai could not help but close his eyes, waiting for that moment.
But, there was a long silence.
All he felt was darkness encroaching.
When Fang Huai looked up again, the surrounding light could not penetrate an inch; the top of the pit was tightly enclosed by dozens of people, with over a hundred hands desperately propping up the beam.
Many others had jumped down beside him, standing upright, supporting the beam.
"Move out of the way, move!" the lieutenant colonel yelled at the crane.
A People’s Liberation Army soldier beside him, mustering all his strength to prop up the beam, struggled to smile at him and said,
"Brother, how can you support it alone? We’re here too!"
"Yes, we’re here too!"
The sound of cameras clicking and the reporter’s trembling voice could be heard around him.
"It is 8:08 BJ time, and the rescue effort has found new life. Beneath this large stone slab is the life of a child, and the lifting of a heavy beam is the selfless struggle of dozens of endearing soldiers. They are using their bodies to support this section of the beam to prevent it from breaking! They are the hope of life, and the backbone of the nation!"
The reporter’s voice, filled with hope for life, used the live broadcast equipment to reach every corner of Divine Land.
In times of danger, loyalty emerges.
Countless people will be moved to tears for them.
Fang Huai, holding back tears, slowly stood up and straightened the badge on his helmet.
The beam did not break.
As the soldiers carefully moved away the beam step by step, light spread out, and everyone saw that beneath the beam, there was a piece of half-broken concrete slab.
It was now clear that below was a podium.
"Come on, lift it off!" Fang Huai extended his hand to touch the concrete slab still covered with bricks and debris.
Several soldiers in the pit reached out their hands in unison.
"One, two, up!"
The concrete slab was quite heavy too.
But it wasn’t as frightening as the large beam; its several-hundred-kilogram weight was cautiously lifted and moved aside by the well-trained soldiers.
The scene under the concrete slab stunned everyone.
People who kept returning to the scene became momentarily numb upon witnessing it.
A middle-aged man with a deformed and indented back of the head lay spread-eagled over the silver-gray podium, his head tilted slightly to one side, his glasses missing a lens, his pale blue shirt bearing deep marks of the oppressive weight of the concrete slab.
Dark red bloodstains spilled over the podium, half-covered by yellow dust, yet still conspicuous.
Fang Huai bent down; curled under the podium were not two but four children.
Each of them had an unharmed body, except for a girl whose trousers bore bloodstains from being scratched by something sharp.
That figure firmed protected the entire podium, safeguarding the lives of the young students underneath.
Everyone swallowed hard and quietly watched the scene, feeling both tension and warmth coexist in the cold rescue site.
"It’s Teacher Tan, the teacher of 11th grade class 1!"
"Yes! That clothing... Director Tan, it’s Director Tan!"
The surrounding residents, some still far away, managed to recognize the teacher just by a piece of clothing and a figure, which speaks volumes of how deeply regarded the teacher was in their hearts.
A woman’s cry of anguish suddenly echoed through the heavens and the earth.
"Qianqiu, Qianqiu..."
A bespectacled woman holding a child broke through the cordon and ran, collapsing weakly onto the debris beside her.
A young soldier nearby, eyes brimming with tears, stepped forward, extending his hand with hope, to check his breath.
But feeling the chill and silence, he quickly withdrew his hand, looking up at the lieutenant colonel with a shocked expression, his voice quivering as he said,
"There’s... there’s nothing."
In fact, everyone already knew; he was gone.
His deformed head had more than one indentation, revealing multiple injuries, and his whole body had been under the weight of this heavy concrete slab for a full thirty hours.
There were traces of facial movement on the desk surface, toward the injured female student.
There, was a trail of dragged blood.
Fang Huai knew who Teacher Tan was as soon as he saw the four students below.
Tan Qianqiu.
He had heard this name and knew his story, but there were many hero teachers at that time, and he didn’t know which earthquake zone this one was from.
And now, he was lying there before his eyes.
He had heard from his students that the girl under the table had been stabbed, and even after suffering a blow to the head, he had spoken to comfort the students, telling them not to shout and cause panic among others, to conserve their strength and hold on for survival.
Before dying, he still persisted, giving his last lesson to the four students underneath him.
Some say such accounts are fabricated, inventions by the children to portray their teacher’s greatness, and others say that at that time, China needed heroes.
But gazing at the trail of dragged blood right before him, Fang Huai was deeply convinced it was true.
In those hours of the rescue, he heard nearby residents say that at the beginning of the earthquake, there was a slight swaying for about seven or eight seconds before the violent shaking began.
The school started classes at two o’clock. At 2:28, this teacher was in the middle of a lesson, in a favorable position by the door. He didn’t run outside but used that time to gather four students under the podium. He then took this protective stance, and in the long process that followed, to say he had no chance to run outside would be impossible.
And that posture signified that he was willing to use his own flesh and blood, embracing the belief of certain death, to get these children across.
The soldiers, all silently watched this scene.
Around them, many people outside the cordon had run to higher ground, stretching their legs to see Teacher Tan’s actions clearly.
"Teacher Tan saved several students."
"Teacher Tan, what a noble act!"
"My kid was in his first-year class, ah, such a good teacher and yet he didn’t make it out!"
A man in his thirties or forties was in tears as he loudly argued:
"Teacher Tan was among the first batch of college students after the restoration of the college entrance examination! How precious were college students back then? What good jobs couldn’t he find? He came to our place to teach, and for over twenty years, not to mention these kids, we all were his students, we know how much he loved his students! He would even pick up stones in the path to prevent students from tripping over them, fearing they might get hurt. How could he run in the face of such difficulties?"
The people around him were all sharing stories about him.
And the soldiers, what they saw was merely this one scene. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
Just this scene alone was enough to be profound.
The lieutenant colonel approached that figure, his tears now impossible to hide.
He turned his head, glanced at the soldiers nearby, and then turned back and bellowed:
"Salute!!"
Over two hundred right hands rose in unison, over two hundred military salutes firmly captured at this rescue site.
The nearby residents also bowed in tribute.
Such a teacher,
A crew member nearby wanted to photograph the remains of Tan Qianqiu, but was stopped by a reporter.
"Don’t take pictures of the hero’s body."
The crew member let out a long sigh, nodded, and changed his angle to capture the surrounding soldiers saluting.
That moment needed no photograph to be eternally etched in everyone’s hearts.
Several hours later, they dug out a fragment of the blackboard not far from Tan Qianqiu.
Put together, the writing was barely legible – in white chalk, boldly written was the title of yesterday’s lesson.
"The Value of Life".
What is the value of life? How much is it worth?
He, clearly, had found it – up to the very last moment of his life, he was still teaching that lesson to the children.
...
The forty-second hour.
May 14th, a.m., 7:45.
Everyone’s struggle had carried on into the dawn.
This morning’s slogan had already changed from "Golden 48 Hours" in a timely manner to "Golden 72 Hours".
Next, it might become "Golden Seven Days", "Extreme 168 Hours", or "Extreme 240 Hours".
People under the debris might be able to move, might come into contact with water sources. As long as there is a chance to take in energy, it’s possible to survive for ten days or more.
As long as there’s a glimmer of hope, it is the golden time.
Cao Yi, carrying two bags of freshly-fried dough sticks and a hot milk pouch, entered the Hanwang Middle School site.
Some soldiers persisted in digging, while others were sleeping around a tent they had set up.
Scanning around, he spotted Fang Huai, who had just emerged from a pit in the rubble, bending his body, and immediately shouted:
"Fang Huai, why haven’t you slept yet? Go take a break!"
Yesterday, firefighters were rescuing in all areas, with most people keeping up until four or five o’clock in the morning.
But this was high-intensity work, exhausting not only physically but mentally as well, so even Cao Yi, who had been shouting that there was no time to sleep on arrival, couldn’t hold up and dozed off around six in the morning with his brothers until the Command called them for breakfast. Then he woke up suddenly, like a fighting cock, remembering Fang Huai who hadn’t slept or eaten dinner at school the previous night.
Seeing Cao Yi, an excited Fang Huai wiped his hands and said:
"Instructor Cao, over here, we rescued three last night! Yesterday, we got ten living children out! How many milk pouches are there? This kid is about to be rescued! He’s in good spirits!
And I just heard some voices from below! There’s someone on the floor underneath! When the earthquake hit, the ground cracked, and the first and second floors must have dropped below!
They have oxygen down there. One person’s hand is trapped, and there’s even a girl cheering him on!
The space below is very sturdy, unaffected by the four aftershocks last night; they will definitely be rescued!
Three more kids! Three more!"
As he spoke, Fang Huai took the dough sticks and milk, biting into a dough stick, but he didn’t touch the milk, holding it in his hand to warm it, preparing to send it to the child trapped by the steel pipe in the pit.
The child’s face was crushed, but fortunately, Fang Huai was certain he could drink a bit of the milk.
Several times yesterday, they had encouraged each other, showing remarkable strength.
The child’s soft words still echoed in his ears.
"Uncle, take your time, I can hold on."
"Uncle, I’d like to drink some of that sweet water from earlier, with that I can last a long time."
"Uncle, I heard someone outside got out, I’m fine, you go first, save the others."
In bolstering the child’s spirits, that child was also bolstering his own.
"Finish eating first, then go rest and conserve your strength!" Cao Yi couldn’t help but raise his voice with a reminder, not knowing what had inspired Fang Huai as he watched the latter buzz with excitement.
Fang Huai, however, waved him off, leaving Cao Yi with his retreating figure.
"Get me three tubes of glucose!"
(End of Chapter Three, 12 o’clock)
