Jing Shu didn't bother counting how many bald heads there were. All she saw was a dense sea of them, bobbing like pale buoys on the dark water that lapped at the supermarket rooftop's edge. She ran calculations in her head, her gaze sweeping over the crowd, estimating rows and clusters. Years of practicing with the Rubik's Cube Space had honed her mind, compressing complex spatial problems into solvable equations. Her mental math now scaled up like a geometric curve, cold and efficient.
Shi Jiuyou kept filming, the phone gripped tight in her wet hand. "My god," her voice murmured close to the microphone, "this girl says she's going to transfer us. How is she going to evacuate over a thousand people? Look at this."
Jing Lai was startled, her hand flying to her chest. "Jing Shu, don't talk nonsense. How can you move this many? Call Officer Li and ask him to send a few people instead. It's safer."
"Y-yes, exactly." A man near the front nodded vigorously, water dripping from his chin. "Thank you, but there are too many of us…"
Jing Shu shouted, the sound cutting through the drumming rain and anxious mutters. "Enough talk." She pointed a finger toward the drowned city skyline, visible only as darker smudges in the grey downpour. "Only half the oil-base community has been evacuated. It will take at least two hours before anyone can come. Downtown is flooding too, and everyone is rushing for higher ground. Who would have the manpower to reach a supermarket this far off?" She scanned their faces, her expression unyielding. "If you don't want to die, do exactly as I say."
She turned and waded back to the strange vehicle, its shark-fin silhouette stark against the roiling water. She pulled ten climbing ropes from the back seat of the shark submarine. They were top quality, thick and braided, impossible to cut and rated for very high loads. Jing Shu had originally prepared them for climbing snowy mountains during migration, but she hadn't expected to use them today, coiled neat and dry in their storage bag.
She told Jing Lai to gather every floating plank and board they had. Thankfully, during earlier drills, Jing Lai had organized a sweep and collected a pile of them, stacked now against a vent shaft like a raft builder's stash.
Then she began, wading into the crowd with an armful of rope. She threaded the ropes through the crowd, stringing people together the way ancient prisoners were linked, lashing each line of bald heads in series. Her hands moved quickly, tying secure knots that bit into the rough hemp. She tied a plank or a big plastic basin to every segment so each person had enough buoyancy not to sink, the odd collection of debris turning into a chain of life preservers.
Soon, five long chains of people were secured to the shark submarine's tail, each person clutching a plank or basin, the ropes connecting them pulling taut in the current.
The first to go would be the riskiest, the lead positions in the chains where the drag would be strongest, but everyone understood the longer they waited, the greater the danger for those behind. Plenty of people who could swim volunteered at once, pushing forward to take the front knots.
"Can that little shark really tow so many of us?" a woman whispered, eyeing the vehicle with deep skepticism.
"Look at this flood." A man gestured at the water rushing past the building. "It's strong enough to wash people away. What if the rope snaps?"
Jing Shu tossed the remaining ropes to Jing Lai. The coils landed with a wet slap in her aunt's arms. "Auntie, you organize the next group. Tie them in properly. I'll be back fast for the next run."
Jing Lai still couldn't quite believe it, looking from the ropes to the chains of people to her niece's determined face. She nodded in a daze. "O-okay!"
Shi Jiuyou narrated breathlessly, her phone panning across the makeshift human trains. "Unbelievable. The girl actually came up with a way. She even had this many ropes with her. But can she tow sixty or seventy people at once? The physics seems…"
She had barely finished when the motor screamed, the kind of sharp roar you get when someone floors the throttle, a raw mechanical snarl that overpowered the storm's noise.
"Hold on tight, everyone." Jing Shu's voice carried back from the driver's seat, calm and clear. "It might get a little intense, but grit your teeth and we'll be there soon. We're moving out."
Vroom!
The shark submarine threw up a sheet of water four meters high, a crashing wave that drenched the line behind it. Then it shot forward like an arrow released, dragging the chain of people with it as screams and shouts pitched across the water, a chorus of surprise and fear swallowed by the wind.
In a blink, the shark submarine and its human tail vanished from sight, swallowed by the grey curtain of rain and distance.
A 280-horsepower tractor can haul sixty tons of cargo, so imagine what a 280-horsepower shark submarine can do. On open water it can hit speeds of eighty kilometers per hour. Its signature is raw power. It can even launch, skim four meters above the surface, and glide.
And right now, Jing Shu was running with the current, feeling the flood's immense push against the hull.
Heaven must have been watching. Good thing she had been reborn and had experience with this year's flood. That was the only reason she dared to brag. She would ride the current at an angle, steering a diagonal course across its flow. It meant a slight detour, but it was faster, using the water's force instead of fighting it head-on.
Going straight with the current would sweep them into the city center, into the tangled wreckage and deeper, more dangerous flows.
The supermarket sat like an island in mid-river, shrinking in her rearview mirror. Her job was to drag people to the bank. There happened to be a temporary shelter there, a muddy rise of land with tents visible as specks. Officer Li Yuetian had said someone was stationed on site.
Jing Shu opened the throttle wider. With the flow on her side, she held sixty kilometers per hour, the boat planing steadily. She covered four kilometers in four minutes and delivered the first train of survivors to the shallows, slowing just enough to swing the chain into the slower, knee-deep water. The water was deep now, and this area was remote with no high buildings or utility poles left standing, just an endless sheet of water, so the run went smoothly, unhindered. She spun the boat in a tight, foaming arc and raced back, the empty ropes trailing behind like tentacles.
At the drop-off, people staggered up coughing, spitting out river water, some outright fainted onto the muddy bank, and many had purple welts where the ropes had dug into their skin, angry lines against soaked clothing. Compared to life and death, those marks meant nothing.
"Thank you, miss!" a gasped voice called out.
"Thank you so much. I didn't think it would work, but it did." Another survivor, already working at the knot around his waist with trembling fingers. "Let's get these ropes off fast so she can go back for the next group. Hurry!"
The return trip took three minutes, since it was against the current, the engine laboring harder as it carved a path back upstream.
Back at the rooftop, the shark submarine's speed, its startlingly fast return, gave everyone hope. Never mind how people were being dragged off like beads on a string. At this pace, they could really evacuate the entire rooftop before the water claimed it.
The second group lined up with even more urgency, hands reaching for the ropes Jing Lai distributed.
Shi Jiuyou held up her waterproof phone, her face lit by the screen. "Look, I'm in the second group. We're all roped up and ready. Just waiting for the shark submarine. Oh, there it is." The vehicle nosed out of the gloom, water streaming from its sides. "My god, only a few minutes. That speed is insane."
As soon as the shark submarine nosed in, bumping gently against the rooftop ledge, Jing Lai swapped out the ropes with quick hands, unfastening the wet ones and passing the dry ends of the new set. Jing Shu herself leaned out, clipped the new chain of bald heads to the boat's tail with heavy-duty carabiners. Once everyone had a grip on their planks, their knuckles white, she said nothing more and sliced away through the water like a gust, the acceleration immediate and brutal.
Shi Jiuyou lashed her phone to her wrist with a strip of plastic. "Oh man, glug, glug, so thrilling, it's like, ptooey, glug, glug," Her narration dissolved into wet sputters.
For the first time, Shi Jiuyou realized how much it hurt to be hit by water at speed. The spray slapped her face like the hard smacks her mother had given her as a kid, only sharper, colder, with red nematodes stuck in it, tiny worms peppering his skin and clothes.
The speed taught him another lesson. Keeping your mouth shut can be hard work. The second you opened up, wind and rain blasted in, forcing water down your throat. Her throat played along, gulping by reflex. In just a few minutes she had swallowed a few jin of water (about 1 to 1.5 kg), and her stomach bulged, sloshing and sick.
Worse, momentum kept slamming him into the auntie next to her, their padded jackets squelching together with each bump. The auntie even looked like she was enjoying the ride, a wild grin on her face as she shrieked half in terror, half in exhilaration.
A perfect spin at the bank, a controlled skid that sent a wall of brown water ashore, flung the line of people into the shallows. Everyone pitched and reeled, collapsing into the muck. Vomit splashed everywhere, bitter and watery.
Shi Jiuyou smacked the boat's tail with a wet hand as it pulled away, already turning for its next run. "Cough, cough. Big Sis says little and does more. Her skills are unreal. She's already turned back to save more. At this rate, all thousand of us can make it out. If I ever get the chance, I want to thank her to her face. That's it for now. Someone's coming to receive us." Figures in bright vests were splashing toward them from the tents. "I'll film again after they settle us in."
…
Jing Shu kept pushing, run after run, each circuit a blur of grey water, straining ropes, and the constant roar of the engine. At last, just as the flood rose past the roofline, swallowing the last few centimeters of concrete, she lashed the final big group to the shark submarine's tail. Over a hundred people, all trembling, the water now licking at their ankles on what was no longer a rooftop but just another part of the river. Thank goodness they had made it in time.
Inside the shark submarine, Jing Lai felt a stab of worry, watching the overloaded vessel sit lower in the water. It looked like a sled dog hauling a dozen bodies through floodwater, the engine's drone thinning under strain, a higher, stressed whine threading through its usual growl.
She secretly topped off the diesel from a concealed container, the fuel slick and iridescent in the dim light. Luckily, she always carried supplies on her person, a lesson hard-learned.
Officer Li Yuetian stood in the downpour in his fatigues, the fabric plastered to his skin, nerves fraying as he peered into the distance. "It's been ten minutes. Why isn't she here yet? Didn't she say five minutes?" He chewed on his lower lip, the walkie-talkie in his hand silent.
As he spoke, a shark fin appeared in the distance, a dark grey triangle moving slow and laborious through wind and rain, fighting the full weight of the current and its massive, living cargo. It inched forward, a determined crawl against the churning brown water.