The sun had not yet climbed half a pole high before the tributary on the north side of Yanmen Wasteland (a fictional region corresponding to the Hetao area in the Daqian Dynasty, not Yanmen Pass) changed its color.
The river surface, which had been clear the day before, had turned into a muddy yellow soup overnight.
Turbid muddy water, wrapped with dead branches and rotten grass, swirled and rushed downstream, crashing against the rocks on the shore and splashing water half a person high.
Sun Qi leaned on his crutch and stood on the embankment, cursing continuously.
"Only quiet for a few days, and the Dragon King is causing trouble again."
Behind him, several old soldiers squatted on the ground, gnawing on millet cakes, none of them taking up his conversation.
This group of people had been digging in the saline-alkali land of Yanmen Wasteland for several days. The blood blisters on their hands broke and scabbed over, and the scabs were worn and broken again. They had long lost the energy to pay attention to Sun Qi's complaints.
In the depression two hundred paces away from the embankment, Old Zhao, the blind man, lay alone on the muddy ground.
No one knew when this old blind man had groped his way over. His whole body was pressed against the ground, half of his face buried in the wet mud, with one ear pressed against the dirt.
He was muttering to himself, and others couldn't hear clearly what he was whispering.
A passing old soldier kicked him.
"Old Zhao, what are you doing lying here? Go back to the shack to sleep."
Old Zhao ignored him.
The ear pressed against the ground slightly tilted its angle, and his brows twisted together.
There was a sound under the dirt.
Not the chirping of insects, not the burrowing of gophers.
It was water.
Large volumes of water were surging southwards underground, pushing the mud layer with a muffled sound.
This sound was different from the brine encountered when digging the salt drainage ditch a while ago. The brine seeped finely, with a sizzling sound.
This water was rushing horizontally.
Old Zhao climbed up from the ground, patted the mud off his face, grabbed his stick, and groped his way towards the camp.
"Siniang! Where is Lin Siniang?"
"The Farming Commissioner Lin went to the east to check the canal. What do you want with her?"
Old Zhao's voice cracked.
"Something big has happened! The water underground is not right! River water is pouring underground! The salt drainage ditch can't hold it!"
Before the old soldier who shouted could react, the northern embankment exploded first.
Sun Qi was the first to see it.
He patrolled to the bend of the embankment with his crutch, looked down, and jumped up on the spot. If it weren't for the crutch supporting him, he would have almost fallen into the water.
The earthwork of the embankment had cracked open in the middle, a gap two feet wide.
The muddy yellow river water poured into the wasteland along the crack, the mud soup swirling at the gap, the rushing water hissing.
"It's over, it's over, it's over—"
Sun Qi roared back.
"The embankment has collapsed! Someone come quickly! Carry sandbags! Carry sandbags!"
The old soldiers who were working in the salt drainage ditch threw down their shovels and hoes, scrambling and running towards the embankment.
Running at the very front was a man missing three fingers. He cursed as he ran, slipping on the white dregs of the saline-alkali land, falling twice and getting up again.
The sandbags were prepared in advance, piled up behind the embankment.
But those bags were loosely packed, more than half filled with broken dirt clods, leaking dregs as soon as they were carried.
Sun Qi directed the crowd to block the gap.
The old soldiers tossed about in the mud with their crippled legs and broken arms. Some used their bodies to press against the sandbags, while others lay by the gap and stuffed mud in with their hands.
The river water rushed over, and the mud clods were washed away as soon as they were stuffed in. All in vain.
An old soldier missing his left ear was washed down by the water, choking on a bellyful of yellow soup. The people next to him pulled him up, and he spat out two mouthfuls of muddy water and threw himself back to block it.
"Hold on! Don't let go!"
Sun Qi knelt on one leg in the mud, his crutch planted on the embankment as a stake, pressing the sandbags desperately with both hands.
But the gap was still expanding. The water flow hollowed out the dirt at the bottom of the sandbags, and the whole row of sandbags collapsed downwards.
"We can't hold it! The water is too fast!"
"Bring more sandbags! Hurry!"
The embankment suddenly became a chaotic mess.
At this very moment, on the high slope south of the embankment, two people were sitting on a large rock with their legs crossed.
These two were wearing half-old official uniforms, with copper plaques of the Farming Bureau hanging from their waists.
One had a fat face, the other a thin face. The fat one was cracking melon seeds he had found from who knows where, and the thin one was picking his teeth with a grass stalk.
The fat official cracked open a melon seed, threw it into his mouth, and jutted his chin towards the embankment.
"Look, these mud-legged folks are tossing about quite happily."
The thin official spat out the grass stalk and sneered.
"Tossing about my ass. That embankment they patched up with yellow mud, without using stone blocks or tamping it down, is destined to collapse as soon as the water rises."
"I can tell, in less than half an hour, this gap will tear to a zhang wide."
"Then what are we still standing here for?"
The thin official took out another grass stalk and held it in his mouth.
"What's the rush? Wait until the water floods the land and these useless folks are either dead or fled. Then we'll go back to the city and report to Lord Zhang, saying that this place is constantly plagued by natural disasters and cannot be cultivated. Saline-alkali land is inherently dead land, beyond human effort."
The fat official patted the mud off his buttocks.
"Then this errand is considered finished?"
"Finished. Lord Zhang is waiting for exactly this result."
"Think about it, if that widow really manages to grow grain on the saline-alkali land, where will the Farming Bureau put its face? Wouldn't all those memorials submitted year after year saying saline-alkali land cannot be cured become nonsense?"
The fat official smacked his lips and cracked another melon seed.
"True, then let's just wait."
The two talked and laughed, completely ignoring the disabled soldiers on the embankment who were desperately fighting to plug the leak.
The water on the embankment was getting fiercer and fiercer.
The gap had already torn to four feet wide. The river water poured into the wasteland, rushing south along the salt drainage ditch.
The ditches that the old soldiers had dug with half their lives had now all become channels for diverting water, the muddy yellow slurry filling the bottom of the ditches.
Sun Qi's voice was hoarse from shouting.
"I don't believe it! Another row of sandbags! Press them on!"
"Brother Sun Qi, there are no more sandbags!"
"None left?"
"We only prepared that many, and they've all been thrown in!"
Sun Qi looked back. The sandbag pile behind the embankment was empty, leaving only a few torn empty bags on the ground.
Just when everyone didn't know what to do next, a voice came from the south side of the embankment.
"Everyone stop!"
Lin Siniang had arrived.
She had rushed back from the canal mouth in the east. Most of her clothes were wet, and her trouser legs were covered in yellow mud.
The old soldiers were stunned.
Lin Siniang swept her eyes over the scene on the embankment and, without a word, kicked over a stack of sandbags in front of her.
"Stop blocking it!"
Sun Qi knelt in the mud, his mouth open, and it took him a long time to utter a sentence.
"Not blocking... then what do we do? Let the water flood in?"
Lin Siniang didn't answer him.
She crouched down, pressed her palm against the dirt on the edge of the gap, dug her fingers into the crevice, crushed the dirt and rubbed it, then looked up at the water color and flow speed of the river surface.
Then she stood up, grabbed an iron pickaxe, and strode towards the high slope.
The two officials on the high slope were cracking melon seeds and watching the spectacle. Suddenly seeing a woman covered in mud rushing straight over with an iron pickaxe, the fat official dropped his melon seeds all over the ground.
Lin Siniang walked up to the two of them, planted the iron pickaxe on the ground, the pickhead smashing into the mud, penetrating three inches.
"People from the Farming Bureau?"
The fat official shrank back, while the thin official looked arrogant and spoke tough.
"We are here on the orders of Lord Zhang to inspect."
"Inspect?"
Lin Siniang pulled out the iron pickaxe, and the mud clods on the pickhead splattered the thin official's face.
"The dam has collapsed and you are all just cracking sunflower seeds. Five hundred men are down there putting their lives on the line to hold back the floodwaters, while you sit here watching the show. Is this what your Bureau of Agriculture calls an inspection?"
The skinny runner wiped a smear of mud from his face. He wanted to say something more, but Lin Siniang had already turned away.
She stood atop the high slope, facing the veteran soldiers down by the dam, and hoisted an iron pickaxe onto her shoulder.
"We do not have enough sandbags, and you will not be able to stop the water no matter how hard you try. Who told you to force a blockade?"
Sun Qi looked completely bewildered.
"If we do not block it, what else can we do?"
Lin Siniang pointed toward the southeast.
"We do not block it. We divert it."
