Day thirteen.
The disaster relief convoy pushed on as fast as it could and finally reached its destination—Yunyang Commandery.
Days of forced marching had left exhaustion written on every face in the group. The soldiers of the Third Thousand Camp had mud splattered across their armor, their horses' manes clumped into tangled strands, and the accompanying civil officials were a grimy sight, the hems of their official robes spattered with mud, a far cry from the polished figures they'd been when they set out.
Pei Cijing jumped down from the carriage and stretched his stiff knees.
Thirteen days cooped up in a carriage.
His backside was nearly jarred into eight pieces.
Shen Ninghuan leaned out from inside the carriage, her complexion surprisingly well-preserved. Her gaze passed over her husband's shoulder and fixed on the flood-ravaged land ahead, her expression gradually sobering.
Pei Cijing helped his wife down from the carriage.
The two stood side by side.
As far as the eye could see lay devastation.
Using the hill where they'd made camp as a boundary, behind them stretched the rolling hills untouched by the flood, lush and green, still hinting at the vitality of early summer.
Before them, however, was a watery wasteland—turbid yellow water covering the fields, covering the roads, covering the rooftops of houses in the low-lying areas, leaving only half-exposed ridgepoles and clusters of tree crowns struggling in the water.
The air was thick with a damp, rotting stench, mingled with the musty odor of earth soaked through, hitting them in the face and making one instinctively wrinkle one's nose.
Pei Cijing narrowed his eyes slightly.
He looked further into the distance.
There, beyond the city walls of Yunyang, lay the outlying villages.
The villages had all but vanished from existence, with only a few stubborn remnants of wall still poking above the water, like skeletons macerated and rotting. Several roof beams knocked loose by the flood lay strewn at odd angles on the mudflats, draped with waterweed and tatters of cloth carried from who-knows-where, swaying gently in the wind.
This was where the levee breach had struck hardest.
When the main river dike had given way, the water that came thundering down had hit these outlying villages first—no buffer, no warning. The flood, carrying mud and gravel, rolled over everything with the force of a crushing tide.
The villages were gone.
The people were gone, too.
Pei Cijing withdrew his gaze and turned it to the walled city of Yunyang, surrounded by water.
The city walls, at least, had held firm.
Yunyang Commandery had been built at the founding of the Great Qian Dynasty. Its foundation was laid with bluestone, sunk deep into the earth, and the bricks were specially fired—thick and heavy, still solid after more than a hundred years of wind and rain. Combined with the wide moat outside the walls that absorbed the flood's momentum and reduced its impact, the walls had managed not to collapse.
But although the city had been saved.
The people inside were still trapped in water.
The flood had surged in from all directions, turning the entire city of Yunyang into an island.
The streets within the city walls had turned into channels, with water depth in the low-lying areas reaching past the chest of a grown man. Only the higher ground near the city walls and a few raised platforms remained dry. The people were crammed onto the walls, huddled on rooftops, or gathered in the high parts of city temples and government offices—a dense, dark mass of humanity.
Pei Cijing's gaze swept over the trapped citizens, then settled on the muddy yellow water outside the city.
The floodwater was still flowing.
Though the rain had stopped, upstream water continued to pour through the gap in the dike, and the water level showed no significant sign of falling. Yunyang Commandery remained an island, and its people still faced the dire straits of hunger, cold, and deprivation.
This battle.
Was far from over.
Li Chengyu stood at the highest point of the hill, overlooking the entire disaster zone.
His dark brocade robe flapped noisily in the wind, his gaze calm yet sharp, scanning inch by inch from the besieged city in the distance to the relief workers bustling in the near ground.
This hill north of Yunyang Commandery was high, with a broad view, facing the city across the water. After Li Chengyu's party arrived, he chose this spot to make camp—convenient for observing the city's situation and for commanding a view of the full disaster relief effort.
The camp was already taking shape.
Soldiers of the Third Thousand Camp were pitching tents, grain carts were gathered in the center of camp under the guard of a dozen armed soldiers, and the accompanying officials were each busying themselves—some tallying supplies, some liaising with locally dispatched personnel, some sketching maps of the disaster area.
The relief personnel sent by the Northern River Provincial Administration Commission had arrived ahead of them and had already launched a series of operations.
Pei Cijing stood with Shen Ninghuan at the camp's edge, watching those relief workers bustling about, and inwardly nodded in approval.
Twenty-odd small boats shuttled back and forth across the water, boatmen poling through the turbid floodwaters with difficulty, each boat piled with grain and medicinal herbs, plus a few rolls of straw matting and a few quilts.
As the boats neared the city wall, the men aboard would cupped their hands and shout, telling the people on the walls to lower ropes to haul the supplies up. Other boats went straight alongside rooftops, picking up people stranded there and carrying them back to the opposite shore.
The evacuation was slow.
There simply weren't enough boats. Each boat could carry at best a dozen or so people per trip, and a round trip took close to an hour. The city walls were packed solid with people; at this rate, ferrying everyone out would take forever.
But there was nothing else to be done.
That was all there was. The boats were limited, the personnel few—do what could be done, save who could be saved.
Li Chengyu withdrew his gaze and turned to the officials accompanying him, asking: "Where is the official in charge here?"
Not long after, a middle-aged civil official in a blue robe hurried over, the hem of his robe hiked up above the knees, his boots caked in mud, clearly having just scrambled up from the water's edge.
Breathing hard, he stopped before Li Chengyu, clasped his hands in salute, and bowed deeply: "Zhou Mingyuan, Vice Surveillance Commissioner under the Northern River Administration Commission, at your service, Your Highness. Acting on orders from the Provincial Commissioner, I arrived ahead with my men to organize the relief effort."
Li Chengyu gave a slight nod, fixing his gaze on the official's face, and asked: "How goes the relief? Are the grain supplies sufficient? Where did the boats come from?"
Zhou Mingyuan wiped the sweat from his brow and answered respectfully: "In reply, Your Highness, the grain was transferred from two neighboring counties. The stock is not abundant, but if we ration carefully, it will last a few more days. The boats were requisitioned from fishing villages upstream along the river—thirty-odd in total, divided between two locations. Twenty-odd here, the other dozen or so with the neighboring county."
He paused, then added: "By the time we arrived, the commandery city had already become an island, with nearly ten thousand people crowded on the city walls. I first sent a batch of supplies in by boat, then began ferrying people out in groups. For now, the situation inside the city is stabilized—no chaos has broken out."
Li Chengyu listened, then swept his gaze once more over the throng of heads on the city wall.
Though the people had been trapped for days, their faces haggard, their clothes tattered, they were indeed orderly. There was no jostling or fighting to board the boats, no frenzy over the grain. The elderly and children were given priority, while the able-bodied young men stepped aside on their own.
This indicated the local relief efforts had been managed with reasonable competence—no panic, no disorder.
"Good." Li Chengyu nodded, his tone carrying a note of satisfaction. "You've worked hard."
Zhou Mingyuan hurriedly bowed: "Your Highness flatters me. This is this official's duty."
Li Chengyu waved a hand, saying nothing more.
He turned, his gaze falling on the county city besieged by floodwaters, but his expression had grown somewhat heavier than before.
Along the way, he and Li Chengyan had already divided up their respective disaster-relief zones. He was responsible for Yunyang Commandery and an adjacent county, while Li Chengyan took charge of the other three affected counties.
Yunyang Commandery was the hardest-hit area.
The river dike had collapsed, floodwaters raged, and victims were trapped within—he could not avoid coming to personally oversee the situation.
Before arriving, he had prepared for the worst: food shortages, medicine shortfalls, helpless officials, panicked civilians looting, even people seizing the chaos to start trouble.
But after he arrived—
The situation was far better than he had imagined.
The local disaster-relief efforts were not exactly flawless, but they were orderly enough, and the people remained relatively calm, with no major disturbances.
For someone who had just taken over disaster-relief duties, this was good news.
Yet there was little joy in Li Chengyu's expression.
His gaze traveled past the murky yellow floodwaters beyond the city walls, settling on the battlements, on the haggard-faced people who had been trapped for days.
These people were still alive.
That was a blessing within misfortune.
But what of their parents, brothers, wives, and children? What of the people who lived on the outskirts of the city? What of those who had not been fast enough to reach high ground, who had not made it onto rooftops in time?
No one knew.
No one dared to think of it.
Li Chengyu withdrew his gaze and looked at Zhou Mingyuan, about to ask a few more questions about supply logistics.
But before the words left his mouth, his gaze suddenly stopped.
Not far off, several figures were making their way up the mountain path.
Leading them was a man in his forties, wearing a somewhat wrinkled blue official robe, with an embroidered egret pattern on his rank badge—the same rank as Zhou Mingyuan. Behind him followed several others, some in official robes, some in plain clothes, all walking hurriedly, as if afraid of arriving late.
Li Chengyu scanned these people, his brow twitching almost imperceptibly. He turned to Zhou Mingyuan. "And these are?"
Zhou Mingyuan quickly stepped aside, making room and gesturing for those behind him to step forward.
The lead official in his forties quickened his pace, stopped before Li Chengyu, clasped his hands in salute, and bowed with a posture both reverent and precise, his voice carrying a barely suppressed excitement: "Sun Qian, Prefect of Yunyang, along with the officials of Yunyang, pay respects to His Sixth Highness."
Sun Qian.
That name, Li Chengyu had already reviewed on the road.
The current Prefect of Yunyang Commandery, appointed only last year. A graduate of the second rank of the imperial examination, he had spent many years in local postings, climbing step by step from the magistrate of a remote county to this position.
Not a man of exceptional talent.
Nor a man of mediocrity.
Unremarkable.
That was Li Chengyu's assessment of him on the road.
But at this moment, looking at the slightly flushed face before him, at the eyes bright with excitement, the "unremarkable" verdict in his heart suddenly lost some of its weight.
His gaze swept over Sun Qian's face, then to the people behind him—the Yunyang Prefect, Acting Deputy Prefect, Commandery Commandant… Every principal official of Yunyang Commandery had not been drowned by the flood, all of them standing neatly on the opposite bank.
The county city is besieged, and you all fled to the opposite bank?
And who is left in charge of the city?
Who manages the victims?
If chaos erupts, who's there to keep order?
Li Chengyu withdrew his gaze, resting it once more on Sun Qian, but he did not speak immediately.
Instead, he glanced once more toward the county city.
On the city walls, the victims were still queuing to board the boats. The lines, though orderly enough, stretched endlessly along the inner side of the battlements.
How long had these people been trapped since the flood engulfed the city?
Seventeen, eighteen days?
They had no food, no clean water, no tents to shelter from wind and rain. They slept on the cold brick of the walls, staring at the murky yellow water below, not knowing when someone might come to rescue them, not knowing whether they would ever walk out alive.
And their parent-officials—the Prefect of Yunyang, Acting Deputy Prefect, Commandant, Registrar—all stood safely on the opposite bank, on this relatively secure hillside.
Li Chengyu felt his temples begin to throb.
He took a deep breath.
He pressed the surging emotion back down into his chest.
Then, he looked at Sun Qian, a faint smile playing at his lips.
The smile was neither too warm nor too cool, exactly right, like a gentle breeze in early spring brushing past one's cheeks—neither cold nor hot.
"Oh? You're the current Prefect of Yunyang?" he began, his voice neither high nor low, flat and casual, as though confirming a mundane matter.
Upon hearing these words, Sun Qian's heart quickened.
He slightly raised his head, met the Sixth Prince's gaze, then quickly lowered it again, maintaining his reverent posture, and bowed. "Indeed."
His Sixth Highness asked after him.
His Sixth Highness addressed him by name.
Sun Qian felt the anxious stone in his heart suddenly drop to the ground.
The flood had come suddenly—the dike collapsed without warning, the waters struck without provocation. He had been an official for so many years yet had never encountered anything like this.
The county city was besieged, its people trapped. There was only so much a parent-official could do.
But he had done everything in his power.
Boat dispatch, resource allocation, soothing the people—he had arranged it all piece by piece, mobilizing every resource available, saving as many as could be saved.
The people in the city remained calm. No major riots had broken out.
Was that not his accomplishment?
If His Sixth Highness was calling out his name now, could it be... he admired his capabilities?
Inside Sun Qian, excitement bubbled like a pot of water set over charcoal, sending bubbles fizzing up from the bottom.
He had toiled in the provinces all these years, starting as a county magistrate, step by step, enduring hardships and grievances, finally reaching the rank of Prefect.
But what of it?
In the bureaucracy of the Great Qian, a Prefect was barely a mid-tier local official, with a long road still stretching upward.
If he could catch the Sixth Prince's eye...
If the Sixth Prince deemed him useful...
Could the road upward be shortened?
Sun Qian wondered, unconsciously straightening his back. His demeanor remained reverent, but a faint curve of his lips lifted at the corner—a smile he himself hadn't noticed.
He was about to offer a few more words of loyal service.
"Your Yunyang officials certainly ran fast."
Li Chengyu's voice suddenly turned heavy.
The volume was low, the tone mild, but every word felt as though it had been fished out of ice water, cold and piercing as they stabbed into Sun Qian's ears.
Sun Qian's smile, still-born before it could bloom, froze.
Li Chengyu fixed his eyes on him. Not a trace of the earlier faint smile remained in his gaze—replaced by a weighty, crushing pressure.
"The county city is surrounded, the people are trapped." He spoke, each word deliberate and heavy. "And you, the parent-officials of this land—not one of you stayed behind to maintain order. You've all fled to the other bank?"
"What do you mean?"
"Afraid the flood will swallow you whole?"
He paused, his gaze shifting from Sun Qian's face, sweeping past the men standing behind him, then returning to Sun Qian. His tone grew heavier still. "If chaos erupts inside the city, who will take charge? Who will steady the people's hearts?"
"Just those few clueless constables?"
Sun Qian opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but found his throat clogged as if stuffed with cotton. Not a single word would come out.
He wanted to say that he had come to meet the imperial disaster-relief team, to better coordinate supplies, to—
The words circled in his throat once, twice, then were swallowed back down.
He couldn't say them.
Because deep down, he knew the Sixth Prince was right.
No matter how many reasons or excuses he had, as the prefect of Yunyang, he had abandoned his seat of office and his people when the floodwaters surrounded the city.
That was the fact.
An undeniable fact.
Sun Qian felt his heart plummet from a great height, crashing to the ground and shattering into eight pieces. The excitement from moments ago, the anticipation, the fantasy of "maybe His Highness the Sixth Prince admires me"—all of it shattered in that instant.
What did the Sixth Prince mean? If Sun Qian couldn't understand, he wouldn't have survived this long in officialdom.
As the parent-official of this land, you abandoned the people under your charge. That alone was enough to sever your path to promotion.
Not "possibly severed."
Severed.
Sun Qian's face turned ashen. His lips trembled slightly, and his bowed body sank even lower, as if something were pressing down on his spine.
Li Chengyu didn't look at him again.
He withdrew his gaze and turned toward the distant county city besieged by water. His tone softened somewhat compared to before, yet still carried a trace of coldness. "There's no visible unrest within the city, so someone must be steadying the people. Tell me—who is it?"
The question was directed at Sun Qian.
Sun Qian snapped back to attention, his Adam's apple bobbing. His voice came out hoarse, but he answered honestly: "Your Highness, the former deputy prefect of Yunyang, Zhao Wenhuan, is still in the city."
Zhao Wenhuan.
The name landed on Li Chengyu's ears, and his brow twitched almost imperceptibly.
Pei Cijing stood a short distance from Li Chengyu, having listened quietly the whole time without interjecting. He merely watched Sun Qian's ashen face and silently lit a memorial candle for him in his heart.
This was the classic case of "trying to show your face but ending up exposing your backside."
But when Sun Qian uttered the name "Zhao Wenhuan," Pei Cijing's brow also rose slightly.
"Him, of all people?"
He murmured the words again, his voice low. But Shen Ninghuan, standing beside him, heard him clearly.
She turned her head and glanced at her husband.
Pei Cijing was squinting toward the distant flood-besieged county city, a complicated look in his eyes—as if he were pondering something, or as if he were sighing over something.
The people in the city could remain calm and orderly because of a suspended deputy prefect under investigation—a man with a major suspicion of embezzlement hanging over his head.
And those who should have been in the city maintaining order—every single one of them had fled to the other bank.
When you put it that way.
It really was quite the irony.
