It was dark and dusk, and more than a dozen bonfires were lit on the banks of the river in Heigoutai. Mu Qiaoling was standing in a clearing on the riverbank, beckoning a dozen young children back to their rooms to sleep. Most of these children are only five or six years old, and they are full of energy, playing and jumping around.

Because it would take two or three days to evacuate by water, Heigoutai was selected as one of the stopover points for Zhou Qingfeng's team to go to Yingkou. Before the large-scale transportation began, it was built into a patch of simple houses, providing rest and various emergency treatment services for the transport personnel.

Mu Qiaoling is only 14, and she received two days of first-aid training before the start of water transportation, and stayed in Heigoutai as a medical worker, becoming a seemingly insignificant but very useful screw in the whole operation.

In the past half a month, a large number of convoys from the Hunhe River have entered the Liaohe River, and more and more people and materials have flowed into the river. At the beginning, more than 100 rafts were passed a day, and this number made Mu Qiaoling, who grew up in the countryside, very smack-staggering, but then every hour and every quarter of an hour, there were rafts flowing downstream, and the number of rafts that passed quickly became hundreds or even thousands.

It is said that more than a dozen wharves were opened in Fushun and Shenyang just to build these rafts, and thousands of people worked non-stop. Behind this, thousands of people are providing food, transportation and other services. Mu Qiaoling remembered the few lectures he had listened to, and Xu Bing had lectured on organization and management. Although it is all superficial, it can confirm that the current smooth logistics system is really shocking.

Accidents will inevitably occur during transportation, such as the raft capsizing, such as personnel falling ill, such as children getting lost. In addition to taking care of many patients with the first-aid knowledge she learned in her short training, Mu Qiaoling is responsible for taking care of a group of children. Speaking of which, she is a child herself.

"Alright, alright, go back to sleep, go back to sleep." Mu Qiaoling shouted loudly, but a bunch of children were very naughty. Their origins are complicated, some of them were sheltered on the streets, some were bought and sold, and some were rescued. Most of these children were in extremely poor health, and they had to go ashore to rest halfway through the water, and they were left to her care.

In the traverser's system, the children's meals are not bad. Having eaten and drunk, they quickly forgot their sorrows, and they all seemed extremely happy, and they did not have to worry about the next meal at all. When Mu Qiaoling was fine, he taught them to read, write, sing, and sing, and played all day until dark.

"Sister-in-law Mu, that man came again yesterday." The guards at the Heigoutai rest point came over and said.

Mu Qiaoling is the wife of Gao Daniu, as long as everyone in the guards knows it. The chief of this rest camp is someone else. But if there is anything, the guards will still choose to inform her.

Driving a group of children to sleep, Mu Qiaoling looked out at the night through the campfire. In the light of the fire, a lone figure stood. All she knew was that it was a man from a nearby village who had come to the camp every day during this time. The camp men occasionally gave him something to eat, but forbade him to get too close.

"We drove him away, but he refused to go, just a strong kowtow." The guard said.

"I'll take a look." Mu Qiaoling felt that the man was also strange, but there should be no danger. She asked the guards to lead the way, and when she walked to the camp's firelight, she saw a man in rags.

It was dark, and I couldn't see the man's face clearly. But his skinny appearance was very prominent in the firelight. When he saw Mu Qiaoling, he hurriedly stepped forward. But the guard snorted coldly, and lowered the spearhead to prevent it from approaching. The man knelt on the ground with two sounds, bowed his head, and held a burden in both hands.

Only then did Mu Qiaoling see that there was a woman behind the man, who was also unkempt. She was dirty and thin, and she was already on her knees. And from the burden held by the man's hands came a few extremely faint baby cries. It was a very small, very small swaddling baby, and the child was as big as a kitten, and it was extremely weak.

"Please, ma'am." The man knelt on the ground and finally spoke, "You can take care of so many children, you must be a kind rich wife." Please take this child of mine with you, we can't feed it. ”

The baby was probably less than a month old, hungry and crying all the time. But the child is too weak to cry and can't cry, and the faint and weak one is worrying. The man kneeling on the ground kept pleading, and the woman behind kept kowtowing.

Mu Qiaoling couldn't bear it, and took a few steps forward to hug the child. She looked through the light of the bonfire, and the swaddling cloth was a rag, and the child's wrinkled face had not yet opened, and it was not a few taels in her arms. She immediately had a realization in her heart - this child was too weak, and she was afraid that she would not be able to feed her. This is a common occurrence in the countryside.

Mu Qiaoling looked up again to find the man and woman who had sent the child, but there was no one in the night. She hurriedly asked the guard, and the guard said, "They must not be able to support this child, so they have to entrust it to their sister-in-law." ”

"But I ......." Mu Qiaoling thought to herself: I have just gotten married and have never given birth to children. I can't afford a child the size of a cat? We have to send this kid back, and we'll get some food at the most.

In a hurry, the sound of rushing water sounded in the upper reaches of the river. A fleet of rafts lit with lanterns emerge from the darkness. The fleet was huge, with more than 100 rafts connected to it. As the flotilla approached the camp at the stoppoint, a shout came from the raft: "All the men of Heigoutai are assembled, this is the last flotilla." Everyone got on board and evacuated, taking all supplies and tools with them. ”

The raft approached the trestle on the shore, and the shouters jumped ashore and strode to the middle of the camp. Mu Qiaoling saw clearly that the person who came turned out to be Zhou Qingfeng. The steward of the camp hurriedly came out to greet him, and at the same time quickly arranged for everyone in the camp to board the raft and leave.

Mu Qiaoling was embarrassed holding the swaddling clothes, she walked to Zhou Qingfeng's side and told the story, and said with a bitter face: "Probably premature, this child is too small, I definitely can't support it." ”

Mu Qiaoling hoped that Zhou Qingfeng would find someone else to take care of the cat-sized child, or go and find the men and women who had just left and return the child to them. Anyway, she didn't want to take on the responsibility.

But Zhou Qingfeng only glanced at the wrinkled little face in the swaddling clothes, and said unreasonably: "Since the man and woman entrusted their children to you, it is a trust in you, so you can raise him as your own child." ”

"No, no." Mu Qiaoling immediately shook her head again and again, and anxious tears were about to come out. She doesn't have any children of her own, so how can she raise someone else's child? But Zhou Qingfeng didn't have time to care about this matter, and directly ordered: "This kid is in your hands, you can't abandon him, do your best." ”

"But I really don't know how to raise it." Mu Qiaoling thought to herself that this child was about to starve to death, what would she raise?

Zhou Qingfeng waved his hand, "Get on the raft, everyone on the raft." We have to get out of here as soon as possible and overnight. ”

There were about 100 people in this rest camp, and the steward of the camp had already received the news, and in about a quarter of an hour all the personnel and all the supplies were put on the raft. With a few exertions, the raft crew hit the road again and disappeared into the dark waterways.

In the rest camp, more than a dozen bonfires are still burning. In the darkness, the lonely men and women who sent their children were revealed. The woman was sobbing quietly, and the man patted the woman's shoulder and comforted: "Don't cry, don't cry, we have no food to eat, maybe we will die that day." That child was born in our family to suffer, and it is a blessing to follow the old man away. ”

The woman cried louder, but helplessly followed the man into the darkness again and never came out again.

On the raft fleet that had just left, Mu Qiaoling was sweating profusely while holding a small swaddling baby. The cry of the child in her arms was getting weaker and weaker, to the point that it was impossible to detect, and in a few moments it might actually be dead. She asked around on the raft, hoping to find someone to help and get the child something to eat. And when she walked to the stern of the raft queue, .......

"Give." Zhou Qingfeng came out of the darkness, and a glass bottle and two cans of milk powder appeared in his hand.

Mu Qiaoling smelled a smell of milk, reached out and took the bottle and found that it was full of milk, and the bottle was even warm. She looked at the nipple on the bottle and immediately understood the usefulness of this thing, and hurriedly stuffed it into the mouth of the swaddling child. The child was so hungry that he sucked desperately when he had milk to eat. After drinking all the 200 milliliters of kung fu for a while, I fell asleep and stopped crying.

"These two cans of milk powder are given to you, with spoons in them, and you can give your child milk four or five times a day, two or three spoonfuls each time, and brew them with boiling warm water. After drinking the milk powder, give him rice cereal. I don't have any more milk powder here. Zhou Qingfeng said.

Mu Qiaoling didn't know what milk powder was, but he probably knew that it was for children. But she was still embarrassed and said, "This child is too weak, thin and small. Besides, is it okay to eat rice cereal after drinking this milk powder? What if you can't save yourself with so much effort? She asked a lot in one breath and listed all kinds of difficulties.

"If you can't save it, you can be saved, and it should be your own responsibility." Zhou Qingfeng said in a deep voice: "When I killed bandits outside your village, I never thought about what I would do if I couldn't kill the bandits? I didn't even think about what should I do if I can't save the bandits after killing them? I pulled so many people out of Fushun, and I didn't think about what I would do if I couldn't feed them?

We now have more than 100,000 stone of grain, but the population we have to feed will soon be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions. Even if you are fed this year, where will you go to find food next year? If you want to say that there is more trouble, you must not have as much as me, what should I do? I don't even know it myself.

Now that you've joined my team, there are some things you can that you must do. Don't think too much about it, this is you and the tall cow's child. Saving him is saving yourself. If you still don't understand, just take it as if I gave the order and carry it out. ”

Mu Qiaoling was dizzy when she heard this, but she knew that the child seemed to be settled. Although she was apprehensive, she still took the child in her arms and found a leeward place to sit down, looking blankly at the night sky. When the sky was full of gold, she woke up to a burst of cheers and laughter. As far as the eye can see, there is an endless sea in front of you. And a large number of trestles and piers were built along the coast.

The people on the raft flotilla shouted, and the people on the shore shouted. Both sides were celebrating this moment excitedly and happily, celebrating their escape from the flames of war in Fushun and under the soldiers of Jiannu. When docking, Zhou Qingfeng jumped on the dock and laughed, at this moment he was heroic, strong, full of optimism and hope.

Mu Qiaoling carried her swaddling clothes ashore, and a string of older children followed her to join this strange family. A few sturdy women on the dock came up to meet them and accepted the older children. One person walked up to Mu Qiaoling, looked at the cat-sized child, frowned, and said, "This child is too young, I'm afraid he can't support it." Give it to me first, and try it for a few days. ”

The strong woman in charge of child-rearing stretched out her hand to carry the child, obviously not optimistic about the child's fate. There are too many children who have died in this year, and no one cares about the death of one or two. Mu Qiaoling had already stretched out the swaddling clothes, but she heard the perfunctory meaning of the strong woman, her heart softened and she retracted her hand again, and said, "Forget it, I'll raise it myself." ”

The strong woman obviously knew Mu Qiaoling and knew that she actually had no children, and her expression was full of surprise. Mu Qiaoling smiled bitterly: "There are some things that everyone avoids, but there must always be fools to do." If no one is a fool, the wise will die. ”