July 1996.

On the ten-meter-wide road, the crowd of people carrying large bags and small bags of woven bags, helping the old and the young to run, on both sides of the road, are the submerged houses under the embankment, and the muddy floodwater.

It was overcast and there was a light rain in the sky.

Yang Jun stood on the side of the road, looking at the fleeing crowd, frowning and undecided. This is a thin teenager with a split head like Aaron Kwok, big eyes, thin lips, some prominent cheekbones, and two mustaches on the side of his mouth that make this somewhat handsome face look old-fashioned and funny.

The water level was still rising rapidly, and Yang Jun saw the local "Luo Xiangu", a middle-aged short and fat woman who claimed to be able to predict the future of curing all diseases, also running through the crowd with a burden, her face full of horror.

The fairy girl also had to run away, which made Yang Jun even more uneasy.

Several women selling vegetables with vegetable baskets hurriedly ran past Yang Jun and were stopped by him.

"How do you sell this pumpkin?"

Yang Jun understands that in floods, vegetables are very valuable, and pumpkins are large and have a long shelf life, which is undoubtedly the first choice. He secretly admired his ability to keep a clear head in the chaos.

"Seven pieces!" It's a sky-high price.

Yang Jun took out 10 yuan and handed it to the woman, saying, "No need to look for it!"

Time is life, Yang Jun was a little panicked, and he didn't want to delay time to bargain and find money. The woman took the money and ran away.

This flood is ferocious, and it is said that it occurs once in a century, which means that the vast majority of people living have never seen it, so everyone underestimates the strength of the flood.

A lot of people left the house half an hour ago and now can't get home. Yang Jun is one of them.

At this time, a few sturdy young men used a small wooden boat to start a ferry business on the side of the road, and Yang Jun hurriedly stepped forward and asked, "How much?" ”

"Five." The young man looked up, and it turned out to be a senior brother in high school and a football player.

It's hard to make money? The image of the senior brother plummeted in Yang Jun's heart, he handed over the money, the senior brother's expression was a little embarrassed, took the money, and used a bamboo pole to prop the boat away from the shore.

Murky floodwaters poured out from the streets and between the houses, rushing to the low-lying areas, forming torrents and whirlpools.

The boat, carrying five passengers and two crew members, swayed through the turbulent currents and finally reached the top of the opposite shore.

"That's all it takes." The passengers got off the boat and dispersed in a hurry, and the senior brother hurriedly rowed the boat away, according to this situation, I am afraid that the business will not be done.

Yang Jun was frustrated, there was still 200 meters to go from home, and the road was already several meters deep. And now, on the high ground where he stood, the water was knee-water.

Suddenly, Yang Jun was pleasantly surprised to find that a junior high school classmate was holding a bamboo raft and paddling across the road.

Yang Jun shouted, "Hey, Deng Yu, send me home!" ”

"The way to your house is too fast to go! Figure it out for yourself. Deng Yu didn't even look back and drew the bamboo row in the direction of his home.

Yang Jun greeted the female elders of his classmates more than a dozen times in his heart, and at this time, it was almost dusk and the rain was still falling.

Yang Jun's heart was horizontal, and he climbed onto the roof of the roadside through the windows and brick cracks. He decided to climb over a piece of roof and go home, taking the nearest straight line, which was only 50 meters.

In a small flood-ravaged town, under a gloomy sky, an eighteen-year-old boy, holding a pumpkin, walked on a tiled house two or three stories high, jumping from roof to roof.

On the roof, a flower cat on the verge of mental collapse was so frightened by Yang Jun that he jumped high. It had been frightened by the flood, but it saw a man running on the rooftop.

The cat gave him a look of incredulity, turned over a piece of roof, and fled without a trace.

Finally, Yang Jun was only one wall away from the small courtyard of the Xinyun Company in Liyang County, but between the roof and the wall where he was standing was a 5-meter-wide water.

The water was black and yellow, and there was a public toilet and a garbage dump not far away, both of which were submerged and the water was obviously extremely dirty.

Yang Jun jumped down without hesitation and swam to the wall with the pumpkin. He clasped the wall with one hand, but found that he couldn't throw the 6 or 7 pound pumpkin to the other side of the wall with his other hand, his arm was too thin.

Yang Jun reluctantly glanced at the pumpkin for the last time, clasped his hands on the wall, jumped over, and climbed onto the wall.

"I'm back." Lao Yang asked with concern.

"Well, I bought a pumpkin on the way, but I couldn't get it back."

"Oh? How big is a pumpkin? His mother looked sorry for him, making Yang Jun feel that he should do everything he could to get the pumpkin home.

Lao Yang said lightly, "It's okay, just come back." ”

Yang Jun's home is on the third floor of a six-story red-brick family building. The next morning, he walked up to the balcony and looked at the country, where assault boats, diesel fishing boats, wooden paddle boats, bamboo rafts, and all kinds of water vehicles were running on the roads and in the small lake, and a helicopter that had never been seen before flew from the sky.

The county seat of Liyang County has been completely submerged.

Suddenly, there was a torrential rain in the sky, thunder and lightning. A thunderbolt struck a paint shop on the embankment a few hundred meters away, igniting a raging fire.

In the heavy rain, a thick smoke drifting obliquely was very eye-catching, and Yang Jun smelled a thick smell of burning.

"With such a big amount of water, I'm going to soak in the soup during the summer vacation." Yang Jun regretted very much that 10 days ago, he had just finished taking the 1996 college entrance examination, and was thinking about having fun with his classmates, but the flood came. And his younger brother Yang Yong has just finished the high school entrance examination.

The days were spent in boredom for 5 days, and it was raining for days, and the water level was still rising, breaking the historical record.

The middle-aged couple on the second floor were in a panic, but the water finally stopped ten centimeters away from the second floor.

Yang Jun was bored standing on the balcony, but found that his high school classmate Liu Feng was driving an assault boat and rushed past in front of his building.

"Hey, Liu Feng, it's cool, where did the boat come from?" Yang Jun shouted while jumping and waving his arms, attracting Liu Feng's attention.

Liu Feng turned off the engine and shouted at Yang Jun, "My dad's unit, be careful not to climb up the tree, there are snakes!" Liu Feng re-turned on the engine and broke the waves.

"Why are you kid going, let me go too!" Yang Jun was envious.

At this time, Yang's mother called Yang Jun to the window of the kitchen, and he was surprised to find that outside the window, the outside stood on the bow of a fishing boat, like the chief officer of a warship.

Driven by diesel engines, the fishing boat made its way through the county and headed for the countryside, which had been buried in water.

The water was a mess, with wooden basins, plastic bags and other daily necessities wafting around, as well as a few watermelons.

Two hours later, there was a line of defense made of sacks as far as the eye could see, and under the sacks was another flood control levee, and the water was still pouring through the sacks.

The fishing boat searched along the levee and finally found a breach in the levee and rushed out of it.

Outside, there is the vast 800-mile Chuyang Lake, with high winds and waves.

The heavy rain was almost blown sideways by the strong wind, and the murky water of the lake rolled and roared, giving the illusion that this was the Yellow River.

The boat is like a leaf tossed forward in the wind and waves, and it may be overturned by the big waves at any time. Yang Jun looked nervously outside the cabin, while Yang Yong held his arm tightly.

A pile of black things tumbled up and down with the waves on the water more than ten meters away, and it was the body of a man.

My grandfather sighed, "In the flood more than 30 years ago, hundreds of thousands of people died in Wuhan, and all the dead people floated on the river." ”

Human beings are so small in front of nature.

The area of Chuyang Lake was drastically reduced by the reclamation of the lake, but this time, Chuyang Lake was furious, and she broke through the defense lines built by the people to claim her territory from the humans, and thousands of people died as a result.

In the wind and rain, a black spot in the distance slowly grew larger, and the outline gradually became clear. It was a small island of lush greenery. The fishing boat headed straight for the island.

In the evening, the fishing boat finally arrived safely on an island on Chuyang Lake.

Yang Jun is very familiar with this place, he takes turns to eat and live at his grandfather, uncles and aunts' houses, and his life is easy.

The island is full of refugees fleeing, and the farmer's treasure, the ploughing ox, is tethered to a tree on the side of the road, everywhere.

On the embankment, Yang Jun met his classmate Jiang Wenjun, who was also part of the fleeing crowd.

Jiang Wenjun has a short stature, a big head and big, round eyes, like a big-headed doll.

Jiang Wenjun said that he suddenly heard a gunshot in the middle of the night, and the whole family quickly got up and ran, and it was not long before the family's belongings were completely washed away by the flood. Luckily, everyone is there.

He, his parents, and his sister, were sent to the island by **'s boat and placed in tents on the embankment.

Yang Jun wanted him to live at his uncle's house, but Jiang Wenjun wanted to be with his family.

"Don't you have nothing in your family, how about the tuition for school?" Jiang Wenjun's grades are good, and he applied for Beihang University, so there should be hope.

"Who knows? The family is gone, and the things planted in the field will definitely be lost. It's time for relatives to get together, let's talk about it. ”

Yang Jun couldn't help but faintly worry about Jiang Wenjun, and his relatives were afraid that they would not be able to protect themselves.

At this time, a person who looked like a village cadre on the side of the road drove a thin middle-aged man forward with a tree branch, and after inquiry, he learned that the flood had washed away the man's wife, children, and house, and he had gone crazy.

At his uncle's house and grandfather's house, Yang Jun heard from time to time that someone stepped on the air on the way to escape, and he couldn't even see the corpse, who was electrocuted by the flooded wires, and the water-based offspring was dragged into the bottom by the whirlpool and never came back.

In this situation, the dead seem to be nothing new.

It was only in mid-August that the floodwaters receded and the streets gradually surfaced. Yang Jun returned to the county seat and came to the temporary office of the county education bureau in the high place.

After paying the 30 yuan fee, Yang Jun received the admission letter.

Here, he met Zhang Hong, a female classmate from the countryside - the only person in Liyang County who scored higher than Yang Jun.

Zhang Hong took an envelope from the staff, glanced at it, handed it back, and turned to leave.

In the lower right corner of the envelope is written "Peking University".

Zhang Hong's family was already destitute after the flood, and Yang Jun felt that she might not be able to pay the 30 yuan.

After a moment of embarrassment, Yang Jun picked up his own envelope, on which was written crookedly "Beijing University of Social Sciences" and his name.