Shen Jue and the others worked alongside the Northern Garrison Army and the villagers from dawn until the afternoon, finally sorting the fish into several piles.
“Leave some for the villagers. We’ll take the rest back to Wuling City,” Pei Du said.
Feng Chunya and Shen Jue naturally had no objections.
After making arrangements for the fishermen, the sun began to sink in the west.
The group pushed carts loaded with fish along the official road they had just cleared, heading toward Wuling City.
The setting sun stretched their shadows long across the ground.
Along the way, they encountered quite a few soldiers from the Northern Garrison Army and civilians from Wuling City, all carrying shovels and filling in the potholes in the road.
When they saw the group, they waved from a distance and called out, “General Shen, General Feng, Strategist Pei, you’re back!”
“We’re back! We’re having fish for dinner tonight!” Feng Chunya shouted in reply, prompting a burst of cheers from the others.
Some people dropped their shovels and ran over to help push the carts. With everyone pitching in, the whole procession became rather chaotic instead.
“Careful! Don’t damage the fish!”
“Exactly!”
“Don’t get in the way. I can push it myself!”
Seeing this, Shen Jue said sternly, “What are you making such a fuss for? Hurry up and get these fish to Wuling City.”
No one dared cause any more trouble.
By the time they reached Wuling City’s gates, night had fallen.
Torches had been lit throughout the city, planted in clusters along both sides of the streets that had just been cleared. Their flames illuminated the half-collapsed walls and piles of rubble on the ground, making them flicker between light and shadow.
The cooks had set up several large pots in an open space. The fires beneath them burned brightly, and the water bubbled away.
As soon as the fish arrived, the cooks swiftly scraped off the scales, gutted them, cut them into large chunks, and tossed them into the pots. Then they sprinkled in a handful of salt that had been painstakingly salvaged from the ruins.
There wasn’t much salt—only enough to bring out a little flavor.
But the fragrance of fish soup had already begun to spread through the city on the night breeze, making everyone’s mouths water.
“Dinner’s ready! Dinner’s ready!” Feng Chunya stood beside the pot with a large wooden ladle, spooning soup into bowls one serving at a time.
The bowls had been dug out of the ruins by the various households. Some were chipped, others cracked, but no one complained.
Everyone lined up and collected a bowl of fish soup before squatting nearby to eat.
The sounds of slurping rose and fell, punctuated by praises such as, “So fresh!” “It’s delicious!” and “It tastes even better than New Year’s food!”
Feng Chunya’s deputy general approached her with a bowl in his hands and held it out to her. “General Feng, you’ve been busy all day. Go have a bowl of fish soup first. I can take care of things here.”
“All right.” Feng Chunya did not refuse.
That night.
The torches of Wuling City burned until well past midnight. The fish soup in the pots was consumed, then water was added and the soup boiled again.
In the end, even the fish bones had been cooked until they dissolved.
*
The next day, before dawn, Wuling City was already filled with the clanging sounds of labor, beginning even earlier than the birdsong.
Working together, everyone moved the broken bricks off the roads one by one, stacking them along the roadside to form low walls.
Several carpenters gathered in one place. They pieced together door panels that had come apart after being soaked in the floodwaters, carved new joints, and fitted them back into place. The wood was still damp, but it would do for now.
The gap in the eastern city wall was repaired the fastest. Feng Chunya sent all the strongest soldiers in the Northern Garrison Army there. By the time the sun had climbed overhead, that section of wall was already chest-high.
The fishermen of Great Bend Village were no less busy.
Using timber salvaged from the ruins, they built makeshift shelters on the spot to protect themselves from the wind and rain.
The children and elderly were unable to do heavy labor, so they could only search around for anything useful.
When a boy saw his grandmother insisting on taking a tattered fishing net home, he said helplessly, “Grandma, this net is torn to pieces. Can it still catch fish?”
“Why not? We can mend it and use it again.” The old woman reached out her aged hand and stroked the boy’s head.
Everything was improving, full of new life.
However, their only provisions were the fish sent by the blue whale. There were tens of thousands of civilians in Wuling City and soldiers in the Northern Garrison Army combined. No matter how much they had, the day would come when their supplies ran out.
“Zirang, how long can our food last?” Shen Jue and Feng Chunya lifted the tent flap and strode inside.
Pei Du had barely slept in recent days.
With the help of several literate young people, he not only had to keep records of the survivors in Wuling City and the Northern Garrison soldiers who had died or been injured while rescuing people during the flood, but also had to find a way to ensure everyone could eat a hot meal while preventing their provisions from being consumed too quickly.
“General Shen, General Feng.” His voice was hoarse. “Although we have plenty of fish, there are simply too many people. Aid from the north is too far away to solve our immediate needs. We must find a way to make up this shortfall from somewhere else as soon as possible.”
Feng Chunya sighed. “All the fishing boats in the village were destroyed in the flood. Even if we could spare people to go fishing, we have no boats.”
“And building new ones would take too long.”
They fell silent for a long while.
“There’s a forest thirty li north of here.” Pei Du paused before looking at Shen Jue and Feng Chunya. “The wild animals that the Divine Lady saved have all fled there. We only need to take a squad of archers and crossbowmen into the forest to hunt some of them. That would be enough to feed the Northern Garrison Army and the civilians for several days.”
At this, both of them were shocked and angered.
Feng Chunya had always respected scholars, but at that moment she could not suppress the anger rising in her heart. “Strategist Pei, the Divine Lady saved those wild animals. If we hunt them down and eat them, how are we supposed to face the Divine Lady in the future?!”
Pei Du clenched both hands into fists. “Then tell me—if we don’t hunt the animals in the forest, what will the soldiers of the Northern Garrison Army and the disaster victims eat tomorrow?”
His eyes reddened. “I’m a believer in the Divine Lady too. If there were any other way, do you think I would want to play the villain? Do you think I want the Divine Lady to abandon me?”
At the end, he let out a bitter laugh.
Feng Chunya realized that she had misunderstood Pei Du and hurriedly cupped her hands in an apologetic salute. “Strategist Pei, I’m sorry. I spoke too harshly just now. Please forgive me.”
Pei Du gently shook his head. “It’s all right.”
Shen Jue looked at Pei Du, then at Feng Chunya, and said hoarsely, “Tomorrow, I’ll lead people into the mountains…”
Before he could finish, a burst of hurried, disorderly footsteps suddenly sounded outside the tent.
A moment later, a messenger lifted the flap and rushed in. “General Shen, several large ships have arrived at the dock!”
The three of them froze at the same time.
Pei Du was the first to recover. He grabbed the messenger by the shoulder. “What ships? Whose flags are they flying?”
“The flags of our Northern Garrison Army!”
The messenger replied, “I saw them clearly!”
Shen Jue’s face immediately brightened. “Zirang, could it be that Fu Yan and the others have delivered the grain to Wuling City?”
Pei Du had been excited at first as well, but once he calmed down, he noticed something amiss. “It’s impossible for grain prepared in Liaodong Province to reach Wuling City so quickly.”
“Could it be a trap?” Feng Chunya asked, her brows tightly knitted.
Pei Du said in a low voice, “Let’s go and see.”
