The morning wind carried the chill of the Yin Mountains.
Lin Siniang stood on a raised mound of earth, her gaze following the ancient canal half-buried in the yellow sand as it stretched eastward.
The soil beneath her feet was hard and compacted, its surface covered with a layer of stark white salt frost.
Lin Siniang looked up at the sky, then lowered her head to assess the layout of the ancient canal, pinpointing the lowest-lying depression.
"Start digging from here. Follow the path of the old canal and break through this hard crust for me!"
Lin Siniang shouted loudly. Gathering strength in her arms, she swung her iron shovel down toward the ground with a whistling gust of wind.
With a dull clang, sparks actually flew. A white mark was chipped into the saline-alkali crust, and several broken clods of earth cracked apart.
The excavation of the salt drainage ditch had begun.
Leaning on his smooth wooden crutch, Sun Qi limped over to Lin Siniang's side. Steadying his stance on one leg, he swung his iron pickaxe with both hands and smashed it down, cursing and muttering to pump himself up.
"Brothers, the Imperial Envoy's meat soup wasn't for nothing! Put every ounce of strength you have into it!" Sun Qi yelled with his raspy voice, his pickaxe striking the hard earth again and again.
Five hundred old, weak, and disabled soldiers were scattered along both sides of the ancient canal, their maimed bodies casting long shadows in the morning light.
Soldiers who had lost their legs knelt on the ground, digging the earth with their hands, while blind men nearby relied on ropes held by others to feel their way and strike with their hoes.
The sounds of iron striking hard earth rose and fell, echoing across the wasteland.
The sun gradually rose higher, its rays scorching the earth.
Sweat dripped down the wrinkled cheeks of these old veterans, splashing onto the parched soil and seeping in almost instantly.
Under everyone's labor, the salt drainage ditch slowly and arduously extended toward the east.
By the time the sun was high in the sky, the initially hard yellow earth had gradually changed color.
The bottom layer of soil began to take on a dark brown hue, and every shovelful dug up carried a heavy moisture.
Blind Old Zhao was lying at the bottom of the ditch, his hands pawing at the gravel in the mud.
Old Zhao suddenly stopped his movements, pressed his ear tightly against the damp soil, held his breath, and listened intently.
"There's movement... there's movement underneath!" Old Zhao waved his mud-covered hands wildly, his voice trembling. "Water! I hear water! Right under this layer of mud crust!"
The surrounding sounds of labor abruptly ceased, and everyone's gaze converged on the depression where Old Zhao was lying.
Sun Qi threw down his pickaxe and scrambled into the bottom of the ditch, using both hands to forcefully dig at the soft, wet mud.
Following Sun Qi's actions, the mud layer finally broke. With a gurgling sound, a stream of murky water surged up from underground, quickly forming a small puddle at the bottom of the pit.
"Water is out! We really dug up a spring!" A massive cheer erupted from the crowd. Several women wiped away tears, kneeling on the ground and kowtowing repeatedly.
In this arid land, water was the hope for survival.
Sun Qi swallowed hard. Ignoring the murkiness of the water, he cupped a handful of the yellow, muddy liquid and tilted his head back to chug it, his Adam's apple bobbing rapidly.
As soon as the water entered his throat, Sun Qi's expression changed drastically, his brows furrowing tightly.
Sun Qi turned his head and spat out all the water in his mouth with a gag, nearly vomiting up the meat soup he had drunk last night along with it.
"Pah! Pah!" Sun Qi coughed violently, his face covered in tears and snot, pointing at the puddle of water and cursing loudly.
"How is this water ten times more bitter than the medicinal herbs in an apothecary? It's so astringent it scrapes the throat!"
The originally noisy crowd instantly quieted down, the cheers coming to an abrupt halt, leaving the surroundings in dead silence.
A few skeptical veterans stepped forward, dipped their fingers in the water, and touched it to the tips of their tongues. They immediately frowned and repeatedly spat.
"It's bitter... it really is bitter. This water can't be swallowed at all."
"It's over. The water under this ground is all poisonous. How can crops possibly survive?"
Waves of sighs spread through the crowd.
Seeing this, a child started crying and shouting, "I told you this is the King of Hell's vegetable garden! This land is cursed, even the water that comes up is poisonous! We're all going to die here!"
Lin Siniang stood on the edge of the ditch, looking at this group of defeated, disabled soldiers who were about to fall into chaos. She was expressionless and showed not the slightest bit of panic.
She had long anticipated this scene. In treating alkali and improving the soil, the hardest part was steadying people's hearts.
Carrying her large salt-draining shovel, Lin Siniang strode down into the ditch. The soldiers along the way were intimidated by her presence and involuntarily cleared a path for her.
Lin Siniang walked straight to the puddle of bitter water, crouched down, picked up a dead branch from the ground, and dipped it into the murky water, stirring slowly.
At the same time, she carefully observed the color of the water and the white salt frost rapidly forming around the edges of the puddle, secretly calculating the concentration of this underground brine.
"Shut your mouths, all of you!" Lin Siniang stood up, threw the dead branch onto the ground, and swept her gaze over everyone present. "Crying and wailing like someone just died!"
A young man wiped the bitter water from the corner of his mouth and argued with a face full of indignation, "Lord Lin, it's not that we brothers are afraid of death, but this water is so bitter that even livestock wouldn't drink it. How can we water the fields with it? This land is beyond saving!"
"Beyond saving?" Lin Siniang sneered, pointing at the puddle of bitter water. "You don't know a damn thing! The more bitter this water is, the more it proves we dug this ditch right!"
The crowd was stunned by her scolding. They looked at each other in dismay, not understanding what she meant.
Lin Siniang pointed at the yellow earth beneath her feet and explained clearly and logically:
"Why can't crops grow in the land of this Hetao region? It's because poisonous salt is hidden underground! When the sun beats down, the salt rises with the earth's moisture and crystallizes on the surface, burning the roots of the crops to death."
Lin Siniang took a step forward, glaring intensely at Sun Qi.
"We aren't digging this deep ditch to find sweet water to drink. We're doing it to force out the poisonous salt from underground!"
"This bitter water is called brine. It contains all the dissolved salt and alkali from the soil. As long as we dig this ditch all the way through and guide this bitter water to drain into the Yellow River, half the poison in this land will be cured!"
Lin Siniang snatched the iron pickaxe from the child's hands and slammed it heavily into the mud. "You don't even understand this basic common sense, yet you dare say the land is cursed?"
"I think your brains are stuffed with yellow sand! This bitter water overflowing is exactly the poisonous salt draining out of the soil. It is the first step in bringing this dead land back to life!"
These words were delivered with resounding force. The initially restless crowd gradually quieted down. The men who had thrown away their shovels blushed and silently picked their tools back up.
Sun Qi stood stunned for a long while. Looking at the bitter water continuously seeping out of the pit, he seemed to realize something and slapped his thigh.
"So that's how it works! Drain the poisonous water dry, and the land becomes clean! Lord Lin, you should have said so earlier. You made me drink a huge mouthful of bitterness for nothing!"
"Cut the nonsense!" Lin Siniang turned and pointed to the east. "Keep digging, all of you! If this ditch isn't dug through, no one is getting any meat soup tonight!"
