The next morning, Pei Cijing surprisingly didn’t linger in bed.
Shen Ninghuan came in carrying a washbasin to find him already in his official robe, standing before the bronze mirror fussing with his hat. He adjusted the black gauze cap this way and that, tilting it left, then right, before finally settling on an angle that pleased him.
Watching her husband, Shen Ninghuan couldn’t help but curl her lips into a smile.
They had talked late into the night.
Her husband had finally come around. When he woke that morning, the confusion and hesitation in his eyes had largely faded, replaced by a clarity she had never seen before.
“You’re in a good mood today, husband?” she asked, handing him a wrung-out cloth.
Pei Cijing took the cloth, wiped his face, and grinned. “All thanks to your wise words, my wife. My mind is clear now, so naturally, I feel cheerful.”
Good moods were contagious.
Since Pei Cijing was happy, Shen Ninghuan was happy too. But she said nothing more, just took back the cloth, straightened his collar, and murmured softly, “That’s good.”
After breakfast, Pei Cijing picked up his official document case and left.
The carriage rumbled along the long street. Leaning against the carriage wall, he hummed a nameless little tune.
The melody was light and cheerful, spilling from his lips before he even realized it. Halfway through, he remembered it was a song from his past life—he couldn’t recall its name, only that its rhythm was lively, like a spring brook babbling cheerfully downhill.
Yuanbao, hearing the humming from inside the carriage, couldn’t help but glance back.
The young master was in an excellent mood today.
When the carriage stopped at the gates of the Hanlin Academy, Pei Cijing jumped down, straightened his robes and cap, and strode inside. He passed through the corridor and walked along the blue-stone path, his steps lighter than usual, the smile at the corners of his mouth impossible to hide.
In the duty office, Liu Zhixing and Chen Wangbei were already there.
Liu Zhixing had a case file spread open before him and was writing with a brush. Hearing footsteps, he looked up, and his gaze lingered on Pei Cijing’s face for a moment.
Chen Wangbei also raised his head.
The two exchanged a glance, both seeing the same confusion in each other’s eyes—what was wrong with Brother Pei today?
On regular days, Pei Cijing came to work without much gloom, but he always wore a lazy expression, like a cat that hadn’t woken up, his whole demeanor screaming, “I don’t want to be here.”
But today.
His face was bright with a smile, his eyes gleaming, his steps as light as if treading on clouds. He hummed a tune as he entered, passed by the bookshelf, passed by the windowsill, and finally sat down behind his desk.
This state.
It was like he had become a different person.
Liu Zhixing set down his brush and couldn’t help asking, “Brother Pei, you seem in high spirits today! Did something good happen?”
Chen Wangbei leaned in, his square face full of curiosity, his voice deep and hearty. “That’s right, that’s right! If there’s good news, you should share it with us. You said it yourself, joy is meant to be shared.”
Pei Cijing chuckled twice.
He didn’t rush to sit. Instead, he walked to his desk, took out his set of purple clay tea utensils from his official document case, and pinched a bit of fresh tea leaves from a drawer. Slowly, he began to brew tea.
Hot water poured into the teapot, steam rose, and the fragrance of tea spread through the duty office.
As he brewed tea, he began, "Not quite good news, but after returning yesterday, I spent some time thinking alone and worked through a few crucial points."
He paused, picked up the teapot, and poured himself a cup. Gazing at the clear amber liquid, the curve of his lips deepened. "With a clear mind and an unburdened heart, joy naturally follows."
Liu Zhixing and Chen Wangbei exchanged glances and let out a synchronized "Oh."
That "Oh" was drawn out, its tone rising slightly at the end—plainly expecting him to elaborate. What points? What crucial matters? Spit it out, already.
But Pei Cijing didn't continue.
He raised his teacup, blew lightly on the floating froth, took a satisfied sip, then set it down. Rolling up his sleeves, he picked up a dossier from the desk—one he had been working on yesterday—opened it, dipped his brush in ink, and began to work as if nothing had happened.
Liu Zhixing: "..."
Chen Wangbei: "..."
They exchanged another look, both reading the same thought in each other's eyes—this man, leaving his words half-finished, was truly a master of suspense.
But since he didn't want to say more, they couldn't very well press him.
Liu Zhixing glanced at him once, then again, confirming that he truly had no intention of continuing. He withdrew his gaze and picked up his brush again.
Chen Wangbei scratched his head, returned to his seat, and buried himself in organizing the pile of dossiers he still hadn't finished.
The office fell silent.
The rustle of turning pages, the soft scratch of brush on paper, and the gentle sway of a few bamboo stalks outside the window, stirred by the wind—all these sounds wove together into a quiet, focused atmosphere.
Pei Cijing wrote quickly.
His brush glided across the paper, light and nimble, perfectly reflecting his state of mind—not wild or flamboyant, but calm and assured, as if he already had everything figured out.
He knew what he wanted to do.
He also knew how to do it.
This clarity, this certainty, felt like a ship sailing through fog for a long time and suddenly spotting the light of a lighthouse. It wasn't bright yet, but it was enough to guide the way.
Liu Zhixing paused mid-stroke.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Pei Cijing hunched over his work, writing with focused intensity, and felt a subtle stir in his heart.
This Brother Pei was usually the most laid-back of the three—brewing tea, reading, leaving right on time, never lingering. He practically looked like he had come to work just to retire.
But today, that most leisurely person was working harder than anyone else.
Liu Zhixing withdrew his gaze and looked down at his own dossier, which had only the opening lines written. He glanced at the stack of documents beside him, yet untouched. Suddenly, he felt a quiet urge to pick up the pace himself.
Not the frantic need to compete, but a natural unwillingness to fall behind.
He took a deep breath.
He picked up his brush and continued writing.
His strokes were now neater, faster than before.
Chen Wangbei's reaction was more straightforward.
As a straightforward man, seeing Pei Cijing working with such drive, he simply followed suit. He flipped through his pile of dossiers with a loud rustle, the sound of his brush scratching across the page quick and intense, as if he were competing with someone.
Pei Cijing, of course, didn't notice any of this.
He was completely absorbed in the documents before him, not even lifting his head. But even so, he could sense the subtle shift in the office's atmosphere.
Taking the chance to refill his tea, he stole a glance at Liu Zhixing and Chen Wangbei.
The two of them were both buried in their work at their desks, their expressions focused, their pens moving continuously. The earnestness they displayed was even greater than when they had first taken on the task yesterday.
Pei Cijing, carrying a teapot, stood by the desk and watched this scene. A thought suddenly surfaced in his mind—after all, they were fresh oxen and horses just entering the workplace, full of spirit.
As soon as this thought popped up.
He laughed to himself.
But laugh as he might, he wasn't infected by their driving energy, nor did he speed up his own pace. He just leisurely returned to his own desk and continued working at his own rhythm.
Neither hurried nor slow.
Steady and sure.
First, I have my own pace in doing things. I won't panic just because others work faster, nor will I slack off just because others work slower.
Second, as for the whole rat race, Pei Cijing had thought it through clearly from the very beginning—there is no end to it.
If you work an extra hour today, others will dare to work two extra hours tomorrow. If you submit your work three days early today, your superiors will dare to compress three days' worth of work into one day tomorrow.
In the end, who suffers from all this grinding? Everyone. The ecosystem of the working masses gets worse bit by bit, exactly like this.
He doesn't need to compete, nor does he want to.
As long as he can complete his fair share of work with quality and quantity, live up to the salary the court pays him, live up to the trust of his superiors, and live up to the cooperation of his colleagues, that is enough.
Quietly do his own work.
No comparisons, no anxiety, no mental exhaustion, and not imposing his own pace on others.
His rhythm.
That's his rhythm!
The hourglass in the office slowly trickled down, and the sunlight shifted from one side of the window lattice to the other.
Pei Cijing reviewed the files one by one, from Jiangnan to Jiangbei, from Huainan to Huaibei, from the two lakes to the two Guangs—each and every one, reading word by word.
At first, he was just mechanically recording data.
Which year, which place, how long a dike was repaired; which year, which place, how long a river channel was dredged; which year, which place, a flood occurred; how severe the disaster was; how much silver was used for relief.
But as he read more.
Those dry files gradually connected into a line, merged into a picture—a panoramic view of the Great Qian's water conservancy situation.
The more Pei Cijing looked, the more he felt that the management of the Great Qian's water veins was indeed well done.
From the time the "Classic of Water" was written to the present, over a hundred years had passed. Throughout the Great Qian's successive dynasties, water governance had never been neglected. Dikes that needed repairs were repaired; river channels that needed dredging were dredged; floods that needed prevention were prevented.
Over the past hundred years, while it couldn't be said that there had been no flood disasters at all, the kind of catastrophes that destroyed cities and towns, or submerged everything like a flood from the heavens, had never occurred even once.
To have achieved this level was already quite impressive.
This showed that the "master blueprint" left by Master Shuijing had stood the test of time, and it also showed that the Great Qian's successive emperors' emphasis on water governance was no empty talk. The silver allocated, the corvée laborers conscripted, the dikes built—all had truly landed on the ground and worked.
As long as this water conservancy system was maintained, ordinary rainy seasons could basically be safely endured.
Pei Cijing finished compiling a file from Huaibei, set down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and let his gaze rest on the green bamboo outside the window.
Basically be safely endured.
Basically.
These two words were exactly what truly made one uneasy.
The face of the heavens can never be predicted.
Pei Cijing thought back to his previous life, that technologically advanced world where the scale and sophistication of water conservancy projects surpassed this era by a hundredfold, even a thousandfold.
Dikes were built tall and thick, river channels were dredged wide and deep, hydrological monitoring instruments were placed on every river, weather satellites watched from the sky twenty-four hours a day, and computer models could predict the height and arrival time of flood crests several days in advance.
But even so, when faced with a truly torrential downpour, there was still no recourse.
Once-in-fifty-year floods: they held.
Once-in-a-century floods: they barely held.
But what if, within two or three years, once-in-a-century and even once-in-two-hundred-year floods struck in succession?
Defense lines were breached one after another; dikes collapsed section by section. All those water conservancy facilities built with immense human and material resources—when the heavens truly raged—were nothing more than paper walls.
This was not a failure of hydraulic engineering.
It was the intensity of the natural disaster.
It had already exceeded the limits of what humanity could defend against.
Pei Cijing withdrew his gaze and looked down at the stack of documents before him. The water management system of the Great Qian dynasty, considered within the context of this era, was impressive. But it was only impressive “within this era.”
If such a once-in-fifty-year or once-in-a-century catastrophe truly occurred, could this existing system hold?
He thought for a moment and concluded that most likely it could not.
Not because the Great Qian’s water management was poor, but because the era’s engineering techniques, materials, manpower allocation, and information transmission all had their upper limits.
That upper limit was fixed. It was not something that could be broken through by "attention" and "diligence" alone.
So what was to be done?
Could he simply sit and wait for disaster to strike, watching helplessly as the people became homeless and famine filled the roads?
Since it was impossible to completely prevent disasters from occurring, the best course was to give the people a better chance at survival when disaster did come.
Water conservancy projects were the fundamental safeguard; this could not be relaxed. Dikes still needed to be repaired, rivers still needed dredging—this was the root solution.
But beyond addressing the root cause, perhaps other measures should also be considered.
Early warning.
Before a disaster struck, how could the people be informed in advance?
How could they be given time to evacuate and prepare?
The Great Qian’s relay station network covered the entire realm. If this system could be used to establish an effective hydrological early-warning mechanism, the message could be transmitted to downstream prefectures and counties before the floodwaters arrived.
Even if it was only one or two days in advance, countless lives could be saved.
Post-disaster coordination and resettlement.
After a flood, the people were displaced. Without timely relief, the result would be at best widespread famine, and at worst, popular uprisings.
Where would the grain be dispatched from? Where would the silver funds be allocated? Where would the refugees be settled? How could outbreaks of disease be prevented? How could production be restored as quickly as possible?
These matters could not be handled on an emergency basis after the disaster had already struck.
Plans must be made in advance: responsibilities assigned to specific individuals, procedures clarified, and supplies stockpiled. Only then could response be orderly and systematic when the disaster actually arrived, rather than a frantic effort to put out fires.
Early warning, coordination, and resettlement.
None of these three could be omitted.
Early warning allowed the people to survive; coordination ensured that refugees had food; resettlement kept the public’s hearts from falling into chaos.
It seemed that the Great Qian dynasty did not yet possess a systemized, effective approach to these three matters. It was not that nothing was done at all—rather, efforts were scattered and ad hoc, with each prefecture and county acting independently, lacking unified standards and procedures.
If he could compile and summarize these scattered practices, combining them with the lessons learned from the Water Classic and past years' water policy archives, to write a complete and actionable strategy...
Hmm...
The lingering excitement of the imperial examinations had barely worn off, and here he was setting himself another policy essay topic.
But if he could pull this off, at the very least he’d be providing the court with a reference plan for disaster prevention and mitigation. At best—when a natural calamity struck—this could actually save thousands of lives.
Pei Cijing’s fingers tapped lightly on the desk, his eyes glimmering with interest.
He stroked his chin, his gaze shifting thoughtfully.
And besides—
If this strategy was implemented on a wider scale, it would be a genuine, solid achievement. Not some flashy, hollow piece of work with no practical use, but a real, tangible, visible political accomplishment.
On the cement front, his wife was already working on it. He didn’t yet know how far along she was, but knowing her capabilities, it shouldn’t take too long.
If the cement trial succeeded, and if he could also produce this disaster prevention strategy, the two achievements together would carry considerable weight.
Overseeing the strategy’s development himself was possible, but perhaps it would be better to report it higher up.
As a lowly seventh-rank editor, he had little influence—anything he wrote might not gain much attention from the higher-ups.
If he submitted the idea to Administrator Wang instead, with the Hanlin Academy taking the lead, pooling ideas and working collectively, the final product would be more comprehensive and carry more official authority.
Besides, given his background, no one would dare steal his contribution.
As the son-in-law of the Minister of Personnel and the young master of the Weiyuan Marquis Estate—with these two identities hanging over him—even if he shared the credit, no one would be bold enough to claim all the glory for themselves.
He already had the credit from the cement project. What harm was there in sharing some of the credit for this strategy?
With that in mind, why not do others a favor?
He understood well enough that hoarding all the rewards invites resentment.
In the official circles, the worst thing is to “want it all.” If you take every bit of credit for yourself, what are others supposed to do? Stand by and watch you feast while they can’t even get a sip of broth? Once or twice, they might tolerate it, but over time, envy festers, and it’s hard to say when it might turn into trouble.
But someone who shares willingly…
Even if a few people feel grudging inside, at least outwardly they’ll force a smile.
You hand out the credit, others benefit, and naturally they’ll remember your kindness. Later, if you need help, they’ll be willing to lend a hand. That’s how goodwill—and connections—are built, one small moment at a time.
The more Pei Cijing thought about it, the more he felt this path was viable.
He lifted his teacup, took a slow, leisurely sip, and a faint smile curled at the corners of his mouth...
