During duty on the dike, most of the time there was nothing to do.
So some people gathered together to smoke and chat; some sat together sewing shoe soles or knitting sweaters while talking; and some secretly hid in corners playing cards to pass the time.
Perhaps because news of what Xu Tongdao had done in the village earlier that day had spread to the dike, not long after Xu Tongdao and Xu Tonglin sat down, several women and elderly people gathered over, curiously asking questions.
Nothing more than whether it was true that he had beaten Xu Hengbing, or other similar things.
All of it revolved around what Xu Tongdao had done that morning.
Xu Tongdao wasn't in much of a mood to talk. He answered perfunctorily, one sentence here, one sentence there. The people asking didn't mind anyway—after all, they were bored and just looking for something to chat about.
That was how rural life was back then: people loved nothing more than idle gossip.
Time passed bit by bit, until someone inside the house shouted, "Food's ready—!"
As soon as the call rang out, everyone outside stood up and headed inside, some even breaking into a jog.
Before leaving home that afternoon, Xu Tongdao had eaten a bowl of old duck soup soaked with scorched rice, so he wasn't really hungry.
But when Xu Tonglin stood up, he called out to him, "Let's go, Xiaodao! Your mom already paid the rice. Hurry up! If you're late, the food will all be gone!"
Around here, people said "add rice" instead of "serve food."
Xu Tongdao hesitated briefly, then stood up and followed.
He was worried that if he didn't eat now, he'd end up starving in the middle of the night.
He remembered that when he was a teenager, although he was thin, his appetite was huge—and he got hungry fast. He was still growing, after all.
He recognized the lunch container his mother had brought.
Among the pile of lunch boxes and enamel containers in the kitchen, he spotted it at a glance.
But when he opened it and saw the dishes inside, his heart sank slightly.
The food in the container had been prepared by his mother in advance.
During dike duty, everyone contributed rice together, and one woman would be assigned to cook a large communal pot using the homeowner's stove.
As for side dishes, everyone had to bring their own from home.
Xu Tongdao glanced around at the contents of other people's lunch boxes. Almost all of them were better than what his mother had packed.
His mother's container held only a bit of pickled vegetables and a small portion of stir-fried green peppers.
This was what she had prepared for herself—now it was being eaten by him, her son.
It wasn't that he couldn't swallow this kind of food.
But when he thought about how his mother had been on dike duty every day recently, eating this kind of food daily while her fever still hadn't fully subsided, his chest felt tight.
And with that came an even stronger resentment toward that worthless father of his.
He followed the crowd and scooped half a lunch box of rice.
When he set the ladle down, Xu Tonglin said in surprise, "Xiaodao, you're only eating that little? Don't tell me you don't like the dishes your mom packed. It's fine! Add more rice—eat my food with me! Seriously! My mom cooked two crucian carp today and even steamed some cured pork. There's plenty for both of us!"
Xu Tongdao glanced at him and smiled faintly. Turning away from the stove, he said casually, "No, it's fine. I ate before coming this afternoon. I'm not really hungry. You eat yours."
He said that, but when he went around to the back of the house and squatted under the eaves to eat, Xu Tonglin still followed him over and enthusiastically placed a braised crucian carp and several slices of cured pork from his own lunch box onto Xu Tongdao's rice.
Xu Tongdao couldn't refuse anymore. He felt a little moved.
This childhood friend of his was genuinely a good person—at least, he treated Xu Tongdao well.
If Xu Tonglin were really allowed to drown in the river like he had in the original timeline, it would be such a waste.
The two of them had barely eaten a few bites when heavy rain began pouring down again.
This year's plum-rain season seemed to bring torrential rain almost every night.
Once it started raining, Xu Tongdao and the others had no choice but to move inside to eat.
No sooner had they entered than a man said, "Damn weather—this is trying to wipe us out. The river level's already that high, and it's still raining like this… Captain, are they going to make us go up on the dike again tonight to carry dirt and raise the embankment?"
Another man chimed in, "I think we'll definitely be hauling dirt tonight."
Others echoed similar sentiments.
Xu Tongdao recognized their production team leader.
Although farmland had long since been contracted to individual households and production teams had little presence in daily life, flood control duty like this was still organized by production teams.
At that moment, Xu Tongdao heard the team leader shake his head and say, "Hard to say. But I'm afraid we'll have to raise the crest—the river level is too high."
Raising the crest was an emergency flood-control measure.
When the river level rose so high that it was about to overtop the dike, manpower was needed to carry dirt and build an additional half-meter-wide ridge on top of the dike to block the water.
This kind of work was exhausting, because it was usually done during critical flood conditions—wind, rain, and urgency pressing everyone to haul dirt from afar as fast as possible.
Xu Tongdao silently prayed that they wouldn't have to do this tonight.
Because with his current seventeen-year-old body, his shoulders weren't used to carrying loads yet. If he really had to shoulder baskets of dirt tonight, his shoulders wouldn't last.
It had nothing to do with strength—people who weren't accustomed to carrying loads simply couldn't endure it.
Unfortunately…
His prayer clearly went unanswered.
Only a few minutes after they finished eating, a man wearing a raincoat arrived outside. Without entering, he stood in the pouring rain and shouted, "Third team! Up on the dike! Grab your carrying poles and get moving—we need to raise the crest!"
Inside, the third production team leader responded, and the man outside quickly moved on, presumably to notify the other teams.
"You all heard that, right? What are you dawdling for? Grab your poles and follow me up the dike! Anyone who's late is asking for trouble!"
The team leader urged loudly.
Xu Tongdao saw everyone grabbing their raincoats, shoulder poles, and tools, and he also heard the low muttering and complaints.
Including the one beside him from Xu Tonglin: "Damn it! I came here just to slack off, and now I get stuck hauling dirt. Screw this!"
Xu Tonglin's complaint echoed exactly how Xu Tongdao felt.
But what choice did they have?
Orders had come down from above. If he dared not go and ended up being made an example of, the consequences would be serious.
With no other option, Xu Tongdao asked the team leader where his family's raincoat and shoulder pole were. After being told, he put on the raincoat, grabbed the pole and baskets, and followed everyone up onto the dike.
The moment he stepped onto the dike, he was startled.
The river surface, hundreds of meters wide, was less than a meter below the top of the dike.
The muddy river water surged violently downstream. Such a high water level—he truly had never seen anything like it in either of his two lifetimes.
He had heard that if rain like this lasted all night, the river level could rise more than a meter.
Was the dike about to fail?
Although he knew that in the original timeline their township hadn't suffered a breach, seeing the river this high still made Xu Tongdao uneasy.
At that moment, not far beside him, Xu Tonglin seemed to be suddenly frightened by something and let out a terrified scream.
Startled, Xu Tongdao immediately turned to look.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
Xu Tonglin had gone mad, sprinting forward. Amid the crowd's shocked shouts and attempts to stop him, before Xu Tongdao could even react, Xu Tonglin had already rushed off the dike.
With a splash, he plunged headlong into the violently churning river.
In that instant, every hair on Xu Tongdao's body stood on end, and his mind went completely blank.
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